Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Jan 26, 2012, 5:28 pm
Here are the last 5 steps for building a great mobile marketing app, following up from yesterday's post: 6. UsabilityMobile is not online. Keep in mind mobile’s innate characteristics like a smaller screen and longer loading times. The interaction between windows is more complicated than on a PC.T...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Jan 25, 2012, 10:08 am
Here are the first 5 Steps for creating a great mobile marketing app: 1. What do you want to achieve Mobile phones are used everywhere and all the time in your customers daily lives and can therefore support almost any aspects of a holistic marketing strategy. To develop truly successful mobile ma...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Jan 6, 2012, 1:44 pm
In-Car Mobile Apps: the future of Telematics on show in Munich MUNICH -Carmanufacturers have had a rough ride since 2008, with a drop inconsumer demand leading to government bailouts and corporaterestructuring.  But, the good news is that sales since last year havebegun to pick up and car manufact...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Dec 10, 2011, 2:29 pm
Today, HP concluded months of deliberation, u-turns and negotiations with the announcement that it will open source WebOS instead of keeping it in-house or selling it off to suitors like Amazon. This is good news because it ends months of uncertainty which have severely tested the patience of develo...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Dec 6, 2011, 12:21 pm
BARCELONA- With Christmas less than three weeks away, it can be easy to forget that the Mobile World Congress, the world´s largest trade event for the mobile sector, is also round the corner. For the joy of mobile app developers everywhere, WIP is organizing the WIP Jam event for developers within...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Dec 1, 2011, 10:15 am
In this guest post by Magnus Jern, he sums up the current opportunities and challenges of implementing NFC mobile solutions.NFC has been around since 2003 but it´s not until now that technology and adoption are ready for commercial deployment. It is embedded in the latest Android handsets, includin...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Oct 13, 2011, 12:42 pm
There has been talk of NFC as a big driver of the mobile wallet since at least 2008, and the idea of using NFC has been toyed with by operators for some time. Anything that adds value to what a mobile phone can do is clearly going to be appealing to mobile operators (especially if it locks subscribe...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Sep 8, 2011, 12:06 pm
Interest in HTML5 is definitely hotting up-and not only from within geekland. Leading corporates are keen to "something different" that hasn´t been before, and HTML5 is definitely flavour of the month. There still are several issues with HTML5 that mean that its adoption has been limited or, at bes...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Aug 5, 2011, 6:17 am
I am a keen follower of Mobiforge.com (formerly known as dev.mobi) since they provide a great set of practical guidelines for mobile development. In a recent post, Mike McQuillan provides one of the clearest set of guidelines I have seen recently on how to use mobile emulators for testing mobile web...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Jul 19, 2011, 6:11 am
LONDON -If you are passing by London at the start of October, make sure you don't miss out on DroidCon 2011, taking place at the Islington Design Centre on the 6th and 7th of October. This is the UK's largest Android-only development event taking place this year and will include some big names in th...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Jun 10, 2011, 6:34 am
App works olso location everywhere 05.2011 rf slideshare View more presentations from Ric Ferraro OSLO- Appworks is one of the leading mobile conferences in Scandinavia (organized by Mobilen.no, famous for their Telecruise conference that takes place on a cruise ship) and it was a real pleasure t...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - May 20, 2011, 10:23 am
OSLO -I will be speaking about 'Location, Location, Location' at the AppWorks Conference at Latter at Aker Brygge in Oslo on the 24th May and will join John Valentine from Scvngr, Christophe Joyau from Nokia and Mette Lykke from Endomondo in the first conference session on "Location Based Services"....
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Apr 21, 2011, 1:00 pm
I was inspired by a CNN report on Ethical Shopping apps to take a look at what could be an increasingly popular segment of mobile apps. Ethical apps have an element of community involvement, shopping, sharing with friends and continuous updates that make them a compelling proposition not just for th...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Apr 4, 2011, 7:25 am
Indoor Positioning Systems (occasionally referred to as IPS) are hotting up...Navteq recently announced the launch of their Destination Maps service enabling "orientation, guidance and routing for interior spaces"According to Navteq, Destination Maps "moves the industry beyond the interactive floor...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Mar 3, 2011, 2:35 pm
BARCELONA - Business at this year's MWC was brisk. So brisk, in fact, that I hardly got round to attending any mobile seminars. Pity. However, the good folks at the GSMA have now released some of the presentations given at these seminars for all attendees to read. M-Health is one of a number of appl...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Feb 28, 2011, 12:09 pm
LG wasn't the only manufacturer with a 3D phone at the Mobile World Congress 2011: NTT Docomo also showcased the Lynx 3D model produced by Sharp. Italian blogger Flavio, has the details and the hands-on photos in this guest post (see link above to click through to Flavio's tech news site). LG Optimu...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Feb 17, 2011, 3:52 pm
BARCELONA- As usual, it has been a hectic 4 days at the MWC this year, with many exhibitors, new trends and, of course, plenty of gadgets on display. Overall, the impression is that there were more visitors compared to 2010 and renewed optimism for the sector as a whole, following the gloomy economi...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Jan 31, 2011, 3:38 pm
BARCELONA- Due to popular demand, I am sharing an excellent summary of the main Mobile World Congress 2011 events happening within and without the Fira grounds during the four days of 'mobile madness' from 14-17th of February in Barcelona. I normally aim to keep my blog posts nice and short to help ...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Jan 18, 2011, 12:12 pm
I have been having several conversations, interviews and online debates around LBS, the opportunities for LBS services and the degree of hype of LBS (for example, compared to Augmented Reality). This has made me come to two conclusions: 1. There is confusion over the difference between LBS and Loca...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Jan 5, 2011, 5:06 am
In a refreshing departure from tradition, I am not providing any predictions for 2011 (or any other future year) as a final/first post of the year. Instead, I wanted to share some information about the upcoming WIPJam taking place at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) on the 17th of February 2011 start...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Dec 10, 2010, 4:51 pm
I was due to present at Mobile Monday Oslo last week, when a Spanish air traffic controllers strike prevented me from catching my flight. I was going to present ideas from my book on Location Aware Apps (with co-author Murat Aktihanoglu, published by Manning-USA) as well as take a look at the curren...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Nov 29, 2010, 9:59 am
It may seem early for some, but the Mobile World Congress 2011 edition is round the corner. As preparations build up, you can expect attention-grabbing initiatives to pop up around the place.  First off the block seems to have been SF-based Augmented Reality (AR) developer Junaio, who recently anno...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Nov 24, 2010, 12:03 pm
Apart from deciding whether to charge on a one-off or a subscription basis, mobile app developers need also to consider whether their application has mass market appeal as well as perceived value. This can help determine which strategy to follow when deciding how to price the application (free or no...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Nov 10, 2010, 12:14 pm
I frequently get asked about mobile commerce, mobile money, mobile payments and mobile banking and often find there is some confusion over this new development in mobile. I first posted an entry on this blog on mobile money in January 2008, when things were beginning to take shape, at least on paper...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Oct 28, 2010, 10:27 am
I had the real pleasure of being invited by Rene' at MomoMalta to give a presentation on Location Awareness Apps and share the ideas from my recently published book on the subject (see link on right side bar). Malta is set to see growth in its mobile sector, with increasing competition amongst opera...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Oct 22, 2010, 12:55 pm
I first wrote about the battle between the dot mobi (mTLD) standard and the m.dot standard back in January 2008, suggesting that: "dot.mobi is struggling to communicate its added value, namely that it has defined (and offers as a framework) a set of development standards to improve the user experi...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Oct 21, 2010, 7:55 am
LeWeb is the #1 European Internet event, where 2500 entrepreneurs, leaders, investors, bloggers, journalists gather together for 2 days in Paris. LeWeb brings together the most influential audience in the Internet ecosystem. Top industry entrepreneurs, executives, investors, senior press & blogger...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Oct 14, 2010, 11:53 am
I recently gave a video-interview to Rene' of Mobile Monday Malta ahead of my talk there in early October on the ideas from my book on Location Aware Applications. The vidcast covers the areas of Location, monetization of the mobile channel, entrepreneurship and the specific opportunities and challe...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Oct 13, 2010, 5:19 am
I have been presenting my ideas on Location-Aware services for some time now, and a key idea I originally presented is that of a 'Contextual Holy Grail'. This is the idea that location on its own is useful but that 'location+context' is the future for these services. If I am travelling to a ski reso...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Oct 8, 2010, 7:24 am
MHealth, or Mobile Health, is not a new area of mobile development but, since it first gained prominence five years ago, is making some significant strides in being adopted to improve health monitoring around the world. Today, the New Scientist, reported how Dutch research company IMEC demonstrated ...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Sep 29, 2010, 11:58 am
QPC - Articulated Naturality Web from Justin Montgomery on Vimeo. Special thanks to the great team at The Where Business who alerted me to this video about the fresh new notion of Articulated Naturality or AN.  AN is set to take Augmented Reality (AR) to a whole new level. With an AN app, you could...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Sep 28, 2010, 11:27 am
Getting your app to be discovered amongst a galaxy of options out there in the mobile 'appspace' is rapidly becoming the key to success or failure for new services (as well as for existing brands). One of the key decisions developers, entrepreneurs and companies alike need to make is whether their a...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Sep 27, 2010, 12:23 pm
I will be presenting some ideas from my book, Location Aware Applications, next week in Malta, which made me think about an issue that keeps popping up time and again in mobile development: how to get a great app downloaded by thousands of users. With an 'app universe' of over 300,000 applications, ...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Sep 21, 2010, 5:10 am
These days, it is very difficult to filter real news from the substantial amount of 'digital media noise' created on the web. This is even more the case, when it comes to new gadgets and technology. And no gadget caused  more noise and expectation than the iPad, when it was launched to a global fan...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Aug 31, 2010, 10:52 am
CHANGE IS COMING TO BUSINESS SEARCH: That we are about to witness a sea of change in the traditionally tranquil waters of business directories was made patently clear at a recent meeting of key Yellow Page businesses at the EADP Conference in Mallorca. In mature European markets like the UK, printed...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Aug 24, 2010, 11:21 am
Here is an extract from Golden Gekko's view of the mobile platform landscape today with an insight into likely losers and gainers going forwards: The mobile ecosystem keeps on evolving faster than ever and it's often difficult to see the macro trends with all the day to day announcements and comment...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Aug 5, 2010, 12:23 pm
Element - Claim it! from Morten Halvorsen on Vimeo. A friend and former colleague in the US shared this mobile marketing campaign with me several months ago and it provided such a perfect (and rare) example of how to bridge the gap between the real and virtual world, that I have been using it contin...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Jul 19, 2010, 6:30 am
PHNOM PEHN-Leading mobile application developer Golden Gekko has been at the forefront of mobile marketing since 2005 and, building on its success, is now planning further expansion. Golden Gekko is currently expanding operations in Cambodia, Spain, Sweden and UK with an announcement on entry in ne...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Jun 20, 2010, 4:50 pm
San Francisco/Atlanta -The following is the press release from Metaio relating to their e-commerce Augmented Reality product that helps consumers see products in their own space (akin to the IKEA AR application in a previous blog post). It represents one more step towards AR becoming a mainstream te...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - May 28, 2010, 5:42 am
Privacy has been, is and will remain one of the most hotly debated issues within both the web and mobile domains for time to come. Only last week, a probe by German, French, Spanish and Italian authorities gathered steam as fears of Google's Streetview data-gathering exercise appeared to have breach...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - May 11, 2010, 11:39 am
The following is a short extract from chapter 11 on 'Distributing your Application' within Part III 'Creating Winning LBS Businesses' in my forthcoming book, Location Based Services (written with co-author Murat Atkihanoglu), available for pre-order here. “There is a certain shroud of mystery sur...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Apr 22, 2010, 5:00 am
Faced with a prevailing culture where consumers expect web services and digital content to be free, mobile app and mobile web developers need to adopt the right strategy in order to monetize their efforts. The Freemium model is a classic marketing tool available to mobile app developers to maintain ...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Apr 20, 2010, 6:02 am
As a follow on to the previous post on 'V is for Vulture Capital', here is a short article I submitted to a local business magazine about funding start-ups in times of crisis, based on personal experience in Europe. "Whether in a boom or bust part of the economic cycle, obtaining funding carries a h...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Apr 8, 2010, 6:10 am
AUSTIN- SXSW has come and gone, but it has left an important mark on the social networking scene by making location-aware apps core to the participants' experience of the event. It also raised the profile of the location 'check-in' feature, as popular Location Based Social Networks like Gowalla and ...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Apr 6, 2010, 6:59 am
Making iPhone Web Apps continue to run after they went offline used to be an uphill struggle. However, with the specification of up-and-coming HTML5, you can now load a web app just once and then let it run offline. All this, without a need for a continuous internet connection, giving it the feel of...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Apr 1, 2010, 5:36 am
It was only a question of time till Apple decided to venture into new segments by extending its powerful branding franchise. Swiss-watch maker Swatch was the first to foray into the car sector with its successful Smart car model joint venture with Mercedes. Now Apple is looking to replicate this suc...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Mar 24, 2010, 2:36 pm
As a business owner or entrepreneur, one of your main objectives will be to make money. So, relating to Venture Capitalists should be easy. Except, that what they are after is 'big money' and this means saying 'no' a great deal more times than 'yes'. If you plan to pitch a VC firm, a useful starting...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Mar 11, 2010, 6:21 am
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Mar 11, 2010, 6:21 am
Time precludes me from going into more detail about my Mobile World Congress experience, but as a second part of my earlier post, here are some observations about the past event: NOTABLE ABSENCES It was widely announced prior to the Congress that Nokia (and later LG) would be absent as exhibitors at...
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Ric F. posted an article on Ric Ferraro's Blog - Mar 3, 2010, 5:58 am
BARCELONA -I met Eli Katz, XConnect CEO, during the Mobile World Congress two weeks ago, for a priviliged insight into the VOIP star that is looking to shine bright in the new universe of digital voice and IP communications. Eli discussed some of the XConnect's innovative products and enthused over ...
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