The room was dark and the heat got to both the presenting startups as well as the audience. The setting was the Vodafone Mobile Clicks finals at the Picnic festival in Amsterdam. Up for grabs was 150.000 Euro’s. A big amount in anyone’s book, but for bootstrapping startups the three prices would mean a lot more. IT would mean a new window of opportunity and the possibility to take their company a step further. Finalists Audioboo, Layar, Woobius, My Name is E, Rummble and Mobypicture battled in front of a very critical jury, but never lost that comradery that comes from being a startups together. The emotions ran high with tears for both victorious startups and startups that missed the top three positions. To Audioboo, My Name is E and Rummble all I can say is, guys you’re all on my phone and I loved your presentations.
A great addition to the pack of startups was Woobius, the third place winner. As the only one aimed at an enterprise market, Woobius aims for an audience that is rarely represented at this kind of event. It was awesome to see the surprise of the group, who saw themselves as underdogs, when they heard they could come up to pick up their third price. Congratulations guys and lets stay in touch, I will have some leads for you.
Mobypicture hardly needs any introduction. Mathys has been a friend ever since I met him and I just love his service. During the finale Mobypicture launched no less than 6 new features. An awesome step and something to be proud of. Your second place was well deserved Mathys and I love your passion for shoot and share.
One of Layar’s demonstrations for their new 3D technology is a rocket taking off. It could not have been chosen more appropriately. Since its launch, Layar has swept the world of its feet with its augmented reality browser. The world has been at their feet ever since. Maarten did a presentation which harnessed so much passion that it was impossible to beat. And the rollercoaster continues. Taking first price, the Layar team has seen a great reward for following its dreams. And for Maarten, the last year has been the ride of his life.
Congratulations to you all and I will be seeing more of all of you, I am sure.
Travel made easy
Lately I have been using public transport more and more. To help the experience, and to save some money, I bought myself an NS discount card. To my surprise the discount card is now loaded on an OV chipcard. A card which helps you pay for public transport around the Netherlands. Or that is the plan. Right now it just works in Amsterdam and Rotterdam on metro’s, trams and busses. Catching a bus today I decided to try the card as I did not have anything else on me. To my surprise it worked and paid my trip without me charging it beforehand.
Back home I decided to dig into what seemed to be a very customer friendly solution. I almost expected the NS (Dutch railroads) to have delivered a card with an automatic charging solution which would enable me to travel without having to think about recharging the card. Alas, upon further investigation it turns out that the NS has the possibility to charge the card, but they choose not to do it. So I dug into the NS site to find where I could switch on automatic recharging. But to no avail. Apparently the only way to do it is to register on the official OV chipcard site and to set the options for charging there. A missed chance for NS customer service if you ask me.
Lately I have been using public transport more and more. To help the experience, and to save some money, I bought myself an NS discount card. To my surprise the discount card is now loaded on an OV chipcard. A card which helps you pay for public transport around the Netherlands. Or that is the plan. Right now it just works in Amsterdam and Rotterdam on metro’s, trams and busses. Catching a bus today I decided to try the card as I did not have anything else on me. To my surprise it worked and paid my trip without me charging it beforehand.
Back home I decided to dig into what seemed to be a very customer friendly solution. I almost expected the NS (Dutch railroads) to have delivered a card with an automatic charging solution which would enable me to travel without having to think about recharging the card. Alas, upon further investigation it turns out that the NS has the possibility to charge the card, but they choose not to do it. So I dug into the NS site to find where I could switch on automatic recharging. But to no avail. Apparently the only way to do it is to register on the official OV chipcard site and to set the options for charging there. A missed chance for NS customer service if you ask me.
This week Vodafone found out that they have customers who care. Not about their brand, not about their services, but about the package. Vodafone was offering the highest speed mobile internet available on the Dutch market and they were offering it at only a tenner. Starting it was easy and so was using it. And then it all went wrong. Vodafone announced that they would be following the market on the speed of mobile internet. And this meant they would reduce the speed to less than a tenth of the current speed, without giving another option or reducing the price. What happened next is something Vodafone could have expected from the beginning. Their customers spoke up. They talked on forums, they talked on blogs, they talked on twitter and everywhere else. The whole deal even hit the Dutch government. And slowly it sank in with Vodafone that this might not be the way to do it. That this might just hurt their client base. And they listened. Yesterday afternoon Vodafone announced that their plans were off the table and that all changed would be reverted. Great. Except that they did go all the way in implementing them. And this will have earned them a lot of sceptisism from the people that would promote them otherwise. And that will consider other providers if they offer the same speed at the same cost. vodafone has just found out that if you have a tribe, and you go against it, it will go against you. And that hurts you even if you revert your decision within four days. It would have been better to consider all the possible options before launching the plan. To talk with their customers about options and to listen to them. It would have made all the difference.
I have to admit to something. I have to admit to believing that mobile media was better than it is. I have to admit I believed in live streaming great quality video from anywhere. I have to admit to thinking we could pull it off by using applications that are readily available.
And then reality kicked in.
Mobile technology is great and we are able to do much more than we would have a year ago. The phones I am carrying, the Nokia N82, the N95 8Gb and the new N96 are all able to do great quality video. However, the network is not up to it yet. The capacity to process data is probably there, but realtime streaming still is a very different story. Let alone streaming live from a car doing incredible speeds on the German autobahn.
But we are not stopped by this. We are now using the N96 for in-car videos and uploading them through youtube. You can find them all here and on Dutchcowboys.nl
