The Big Day

29 Apr 2011 - Tom Limongello

We've been waiting for this moment at Crisp for a long time. Mobile advertising has long been recognized as having the greatest global potential for delivering reach and scale for brands. It was not, however, until recently that we at Crisp started noticing something great. Big, full-screen Crisp ads that had always been in English started showing up in Chinese on our test iPads here in our Midtown HQ in NYC.

Yesterday's post in TechCrunch about Crisp’s new round of funding, led by a new investor, EDBI of Singapore, was a great reminder to us all that Crisp is ready to help its publishers bring great brand experiences to a lot more iPhone, iPad and Android devices around the world, starting right now.

Crisp, together with the other ORMMA.org pioneers, is working together closely with IAB and MMA working groups on bringing the necessary standardization initiatives and best practices to the attention of agencies, ad tech companies and publishers.

That means that as more publisher and ad network ad servers become compliant with some key standards (like IAB’s MRAID), brands will be able to run ads like they do in desktop advertising, without friction and with an even wider geographic distribution than ever before -- especially since the iOS and Android platforms are growing globally much faster than any other platforms ever have. Starting now, the model of competition in mobile advertising is about what it should be, creating the most dynamic advertising possible.

Stay tuned for news about Crisp Engage next week. Crisp Engage is launching its Charter Program, and we are calling on creative agencies who’d like to show off their HTML5 skills, or play with some of the templates we’ve been building over the past two years to create brand experiences for mobile apps and browsers.

And BTW, for those of you making the trip to Singapore next week, meet Boris Fridman and Xavier Facon in Singapore at the Mobile Marketing Association’s MMF Forum on the 3rd through 5th of May!

A mobile guide to 2011 SXSW Interactive

7 Mar 2011 - Tom Limongello

SXSW 2011 is upon us and in no particular order I have lumped together what I think are the apps that will fight for my thumbs from Thursday 3/10 to Tuesday 3/15.

 
I have left out the photosharing apps here like facebook, instagram, picplz, tumblr, and I have also left out the best reference, the Sched.org mobile website where I have picked out a panel and party agenda (official parties only) and plancast but these posterity pic-ers and schedule gatherers are not the focus of SXSWi for me. For me, the fun is in the hunt. The hunt that I'm talking about is the hunt for the best of everything in Austin, and these apps are most likely how I will find them. More accurately these apps will help me cheat off of those SXSW A-listers who have arrived before I have.
 
The 2011 SXSWi apps:
bump, hashable, yobongo, foodspotting, beluga, groupme, ditto!, LoKast, rdio, foursquare, twitter and HeyTell are going to be my signals. Will I be as excited about them on 3/15 as I am now? Definitely not, hence the precarious 'x's. Why have I chosen these above all others? If you are wondering why constrain myself at all, you're right Fred Wilson had a great post about mobile notifications on 3/1 which shows Android's superior notifications architecture for letting you have more and more engagement apps on without relying on them all to be on your home screen. But with 144 apps on my phone post cleanup this week (I had 6.6 gb of apps, was getting close to my limit on 16gb iPhone 4), I felt it was time to focus on what could fit in a folder (12), and since on top of that there's a tremendous amount of overlap in this group, here is my reasoning for why each of them gets a spot in the SXSWi folder. (for the record I hate iOS folders :) )
 
bump, intros, sharing contacts, sharing apps, sharing music, chat with contacts
hashable, intros
yobongo, meeting new people when chatting about panels / parties, deciding on things
foodspotting, figuring out the best bbq!
beluga, chatting with housemates, prepping with panel participants
groupme, finding friends, chatting, sharing links / photos to make people laugh
ditto!, deciding on things, crowdsourcing plans for the day / evening, pushing serrendipity
LoKast, sharing songs, photos with people nearby
rdio, searching for and downloading music, checking out what friends at SXSW are listening to
foursquare, finding out what's next, being findable, posting photos, finding addresses
twitter commenting on everything, seeing what's trending, sharing with people back home
HeyTell chatting with housemates like I'm on a Sprint Nextell / Boost phone or walkie talkie!
 

Those 12 Angry Apps are not the whole story. There are a class of apps that are invisible, they are API services that are plugging into one of those above apps, most likely Foursquare or Twitter.
These aftermarket, app-boosting services are going to be providing more than their share of the fun at SXSWi. These are clearly extra credit apps, but if you have time to set these up you might be surprised at how funny make your social experience:
 
Tweetgrabber, a friend, Matt Newberg who I met at SXSWi last year just launched this ingenious service which helps you follow specifically someone's Favorites on Twitter and lets you store them in your unread Instapaper. This is a wormhole into the psyche of those you'd like to follow on twitter, so much more revealing than reading what they choose to tell you on Twitter.
 
Assisted Serendipity, another brilliantly devised and simple service that hooks into Foursquare and emails you based on the 10 venues that you think will most likely have desirables of the opposite sex in attendance. The way to set up this service is you put the number of the Foursquare number (which comes after the 'venue/' in the 4sq URL) and set the female : male ratio (or vice versa) to your liking and wait for assisted serendity to send you an email with those profiles so you can decide whether or not to go.
 
Don't Eat.at This service as the picture shows can be hilarious if mixed with other food apps like foodspotting. Basically, if you are going to use this app, make sure that you check-in before you foodspot! However, I mentioned this only because it was funny, in truth, this is currently a NYC only app, so I guess donteat.at won't spoil your fun in Austin!
 
For those of you who have not been to SXSW interactive before, then here's my advice for gearing up.

 
This is a picture of my pre-SXSW stockup. I'm going to be staying up by UT Austin at a house that we've named HxSW II, casa chalupa, so I have rented a bike, and am bringing the New York Lock by Kryptonite with a deterrent that goes to '11'. I'm also bringing a Mophie Juice Pack: Boost which is the largest charger available that plugs into the bottom of an iPhone. It gives ~1 full charge but is still pretty discreet even when attached to the phone in your front pocket and has a carabiner for carrying on a belt loop / back pocket when you're not using it.
 
Also, on my trip to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress I bought a Monster Power Outlets to Go 3 with USB. For times when you have plugs near you (like near the stage at Stubbs!) this small outlet strip will come in handy to power up more than 1 device at a time. Actually, I had even grander power plans but waited too long to get one of these solar panels from Voltaic for my backpack.
 
I agree with Fashism's post that bringing regular running sneakers are not necessary at SXSW, but, I would disagree about bringing sneakers in general. There's a ton of walking going on at SXSWi and the daily fashion show that I've seen for the past 3 years has been about cool t-shirts and kicks, so remember to bring yours! Also, although it's pretty dry in Texas, many of the best events day or night have an outdoor component to them, like an outdoor courtyard (remember the rainy 4sq party last year?) or roofdeck so there's a very good chance you'll get caught in the rain at some point. Try to stash a rain jacket somewhere on you when rain threatens.
 
Remember to come and see Check-in 2 Check-out: Mobile Audience Engagement in 2011 on Tuesday 3/15 at 9:30 at the Hyatt! Let us... @jakemintz, @foolazy, @ladylexy, @BB_iojbegun and @toms ...know when you've checked in on Sitby.us
 
and now for the uberlink with all the links from this post and beyond that might be useful to you in Austin.

Flash on the iPhone Doesn't Work -- Deal with it!

27 May 2009 - Xavier Facon

I’ve had it up to here with listening to everyone complaining about how the iPhone doesn’t support Adobe’s Flash.  People are either hyping the future of Flash or proposing outlandish solutions that don’t really work.  The fact is, there are substantial reasons why Adobe Flash doesn't get embedded into many phones. Instead of demanding that Adobe puts Flash on iPhones, people should wonder why it has been so difficult. I followed the saga of Flash on mobile since 2003, often experimented with it, and would like to share some findings. The Problems with Flash on Mobile

  • It is high in CPU use, which is a problem on many levels for a mobile phone.  It is likely to deliver a sub-standard experience on a phone since vector graphics are complex calculations
  • With Flash (a veritable resource hog) on board, the phone or app will crash more frequently
  • Flash on mobile in the US has a tarnished reputation.  Not that this can’t be overcome but Verizon’s deal with Adobe FlashCast was a famous failure.  Crisp has first hand experience working on a FlashCast app with Verizon in 2007 and it was a nightmare.
  • Flash Lite (v1 to v3) had many developers with high expectations fooled.  In truth, Flash Lite technology for phones is rather simple and useless.
  • Embedding Flash as a plug-in in a browser creates all sorts of complications. QuickTime isn’t even running within a web page on iPhone Safari. QuickTime launches as a separate app.

The Future for Flash on Mobile

  • Adobe is hard at work creating enough improvements to the technology to make it work better for phones. Only then will manufacturers and operators find it worthwhile to license it.  It would be logical to expect to see some results early 2010 as announced this year at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
  • I’m convinced that it is not due to lack of will that Adobe requires time to do this.  Optimization of this complex graphical application often depends on use of low-level system API’s which might not be accessible.  These interdependencies take time to resolve.
  • While Adobe will provide several popular mobile software platforms with embedded Flash capabilities in the future, expect that iPhone and Blackberry will be the last ones.  Apple has QuickTime and they are expected to drag their feet on working with Adobe to support Flash. Blackberry being a Java device for the enterprise would probably have problems providing the low-level OS access.  The first movers will be Android, Palm Pre, Windows Phone or Symbian.
  • But Flash for the web and Flash on mobile will still be two different things entirely. Don't expect a regular Flash animation for web to be fully compatible with mobile Flash.  Which means, don’t expect your Flash-based ads or web pages to render on mobile devices seamlessly.  You will still need to optimize for mobile.

What to Do About it Today There are companies out there today who have announced ways to “fake Flash” or provide technology work-arounds for a Flash-like experience.  It surprises me that there are so few mobile sites taking advantage of the viable alternative that is SVG, a scalable vector based graphics library that is embedded in a remarkable number of browsers.  SVG is expected to be more broadly available in mobile browsers soon. Just like HTML 5 and SMIL, it is part of the list of technologies that within few years will be all the rage here at Crisp since it will be more broadly supported by phones and support the needs of mobile advertisers. I have well founded hopes for flashy and cool animations on the mobile web and SVG is the first to provide a technically workable solution, but let's put our web embedded Flash hopes to bed for a little while.  Until Adobe puts better solutions on the market, ad networks and agencies may look to repurpose regular Flash ads in mobile as an interim solution.  Serving Flash-like ads within an iPhone application has potential but then you are limiting your audience. In the interim, here at Crisp we have found a few work arounds of our own.  First, while agencies and brands may say they want Flash, what they really want is an engaging consumer experience.  We can accomplish this with a variety of rich media ad units including IAB standard 300x250 ad units used as full screen takeovers or interstitials, Javascript-enabled rotating banners, banner expansion units with tap-to-video within the ad itself.  As mobile experts, we continue to innovate rich media mobile ad solutions that capture the audience’s attention and provide multiple avenues of response to drive interaction and brand engagement and recall.