Archive for August, 2008
Riding the excitement of Barack Obama texting his Obama Mobile followers that Joe Biden is his official Vice Presidential pick, NBC is offering subscribers Democratic National Convention alerts. By texting ELEX to 622639 (NBCNEW), subscribers can receive news alerts from the convention, which will be happening in Denver, CO until August 28th. I would assume that this program would also be valid for next week’s Republican National Convention in Minneapolis as well. Don’t miss a minute of the action and sign up!
For more on the Conventions, check out their websites:
http://www.demconvention.com/
http://www.gopconvention2008.com/ (Also, see our Code.com entry on the GOP Online SMS Service)
August 26th, 2008
At about 3:00AM this morning, Barack Obama made good on his promise to text his Vice President choice to his Obama Mobile SMS subscribers. CNN reports here on Obama’s decision.
“Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee,” the text message said.
Congratulations to you Codespotters who were lucky enough to be a part of this interesting piece of American Presidential Campaign history!
August 23rd, 2008
Just in time for a serious fall fashion upgrade, Armani A/X stores are sponsoring a text-to-win shopping sweepstakes. Residents of the U.S. who are 18 years or older can text AX to 276264 between now and October 29, 2008 to be entered in this mobile contest. Entering is a three-message process. After the first text, you will get back a welcome message that asks you to opt into the Armani TEXT service to receive up to 3 text messages each month. Reply with your zip code to opt in and confirm you want to enter the sweepstakes. You will get another message asking you to reply one more time, texting the word WIN. That’s it! The winner of the A/X grand prize will be selected on October 30 and will get a $1,000 Armani gift certificate.
If you decide that monthly fashion tips from Armani are not for you, just text STOP to 276264 any time to opt out. You will still have a equal chance of winning the $1,000 shopping spree.
August 21st, 2008
Over the course of their careers, Vincent Van Gough, Henri Matisse, and Ernest Hemmingway popularly owed much to Moleskines: tiny, portable notebooks in which they would record ideas and thoughts in order to remember them for future use. The modern version of the Moleskine is here and it’s name is Kwiry.
As Kwiry’s CEO Ron Feldman explains, “Kwiry is a simple service to help you use your cellphone to send things to the internet. It’s a way to help you remember things you see and hear when you’re not near your computer. Our goal is to bridge the real world and the internet with your mobile phone.”
By text messaging a “kwiry” –a SMS note-to-self– to 59479, users can maintain an inbox-style organization of ideas, questions, and, you guessed it, queries. Kwiry users can also email kwiries from smart phones; MMS message photos; Twitter kwiries to the site; and, through an innovative integration with Jott, can speak their kwiries; which are then transcribed and messaged.
Although Kwiry’s motto continues to be “text it before you forget it”, the company is growing into being something more than a simple text-to-remember service. With the mid-August introduction of Kwiry Shortcuts, Kwiry has transcended its original function towards something that is excitingly bigger and better. Feldman explains the concept of Shortcuts, saying, “there is a bunch of tasks that we like to use the internet to do, but when we’re away from our computer, we don’t necessarily have access to do those things.” Feldman and his company first developed Kwiry Shortcuts for Netflix and Amazon. Kwiry users can both use the service to add movies to their Netflix queue by kwirying NETFLIX and movie’s name, and to add products to their Amazon wishlist which is done by kwirying AMAZON and the product name. As Feldman explains, “they create a shortcut of doing a task online instead of having to remember it and do it later.” With the inclusion of shortcuts into the Kwiry service, the company both achieves its goal and sets a precedent to further bridge the real world and the internet. Feldman says, “Whether it’s integrating with a third party company or building specific applications for phones like the iPhone for example, the goal is to make it as easy as possible and give people the options to do it in the simplest way possible.”
As Kwiry’s functionality evolves, Feldman maintains that his company is sticking to its original premise. He says, “We started our service as pretty basic but, fundamentally, our core vision and value proposition haven’t changed. Whenever you see or hear something that you want to remember to do, text it in to Kwiry. What we want to do is become more intelligent about processing the thoughts that you have while on the go. You can go back to your computer and find that Kwiry intelligently did something for you and made your life easier by taking some steps. An equivalent service is a travel organization company called TripIt, where you send them an email confirmation from a hotel, rental car, or a flight and they process that and add it into a custom itinerary for you on their website. That’s similar to our concept. We want to intelligently process things that you see and hear on the go, so that when you get back to your computer, your life becomes that much more efficient.”
While Kwiry’s strength lies in its ability to simplify the lives of users, it also has a budding social-networking facet. While most focus lies on the actual utility of queuing Netflix movies and Amazon purchases, some must be directed towards the fact that Kwiry itself also has the ability to bring users’ attention to new products and interests. As members submit kwiries, they can opt to have their kwiries displayed in a newsfeed of sorts on Kwiry or on Kwiry’s Facebook Application.
Feldman elaborates; saying, “We have a whole lot of social features that don’t get that much attention, and we think they’re quite interesting. The idea is that you might discover an interesting movie, book, product, or restaurant, and this way your friends get to hear about it passively without you having to remember to tell them about it.”
Ultimately, Kwiry is so convenient for it’s users because it is a great, universal service that is truly tailored for anyone interested in using it. In a mobile world that is increasingly dependant upon smart phones and mobile internet, the fact that Kwiry is SMS based makes it functional and very useful while staying comfortable and accessible. Feldman notes, “Text messaging is the only real service, other than voice, that is readily available to everybody that has a cellphone, and it is increasingly becoming the only service, other than voice, that people are comfortable using. It’s a behavior that most of us engage in daily. Simply adding Kwiry to an address book and sending Kwiry a text message is a very natural behavior, and we want to make it seamless and don’t want people to have to adopt something completely new. It’s just as if you made a new friend and their name was Kwiry.”
Kwiry is currently hosting two promotions for users of their service. Through their It’s On Us sweepstakes, Kwiry will pick one lucky Kwiry Shortcut user each week who will win either a free month’s subscription to Netflix or up to $25 worth of products added to their Amazon Wishlist. Also, by adding the Kwiry Facebook application or by inviting friends to join Kwiry, users will be eligible to win a Nintendo Wii. Winners will be announced August 31, 2008.
-JPK
August 20th, 2008
I love Skype for its free Internet calling services, complete with IM and SMS and conference calls that make it easy to keep up with friends and colleagues and new business contacts around the world. With a user base of over 300 million people, chances are good that I can make a Skype connection rather than pay for a phone call — as long as I’m on a computer connected to the Internet. But making mobile calls with Skype has been a challenge. So I took another look at iSkoot (www.iskoot.com) a San Francisco-based company that offers free software to run Skype on mobile phones.
“Everywhere in the world, we see a lot of room for growth based on the number of active Skype users.”
iSkoot does its best to make it easy for users to download and install the Skype software. Once you sign up with your name, phone number and Skype address on their web site, and select your phone model from a drop down menu, you can get the software delivered right to your mobile via SMS. The list of supported cell phones is growing fast, but Blackberry, Palm and other smart phones still dominate. The web site also makes it clear that while the Skype software and iSkoot features are free, you will still be using airtime minutes while you are talking on a mobile Skype call – the savings come mainly from turning expensive international mobile calls into local calls.
I spoke with Jake Martin, Senior Director of Marketing at iSkoot to find out more about how iSkoot is reaching users and what other mobile services are in the works. Here are some highlights from that discussion:
Q: About how many people are using iSkoot around the world and what are your plans for growth?
A: We have hundreds of thousands of users today, including individuals who download our software from the web site and consumers who buy a phone that has iSkoot already built in (like the Skypephone offered by 3 in the UK). Obviously getting phone manufactures and carriers to build iSkoot into the handset before it is sold makes it a lot easier for consumers to take advantage of the service, so increasing the number of phones that come with iSkoot is a big priority. We are definitely committed to making iSkoot downloads compatible with more and more handset models and spreading the word to individual users as well. Everywhere in the world, we see a lot of room for growth based on the number of active Skype users.
Q: Do you have plans to offer new services beyond what is available from Skype?
A: Absolutely. iSkoot software and our network technology platform lets mobile phones take advantage of some of the most popular features of social networking services like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, or Twitter. We expect to have a lot more services coming out soon.
-MJ
August 14th, 2008
According to this post on Fly The World, self service DVD rental provider Redbox is offering a promotion in August where new members can recieve free movie rentals on Mondays and Wednesdays. Redbox is already cheap (movies are $1 per day); easy (transactions are completed strictly through a debit or credit account); and convenient (Redbox machines are usually recommended for businesses that cater to 15,000 people or more weekly, so your local supermarket is a prime candidate.) By signing up for the service via email or SMS, new members are awarded a free movie rental. As if a free movie isn’t enough incentive to join, Redbox ups its own ante with this month’s promotion. For the month of August, SMS users are texted a new promotional Code weekly, good for one free movie. Sign up for Redbox today and feel free to let us know how your rentals work out.
August 12th, 2008
“No other campaign has done this before. You can be part of this important moment.”
I received an interesting mass email this morning from David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s campaign manager. It seems that Obama wants to make a further gesture of gratitude towards his technologically savvy supporters by alerting them to his choice for Vice Presidential candidate. Members of Obama Mobile will be emailed or texted the candidate’s official running mate before any other outlet receives the news (although realistically, it probably will all happen at the same blink-of-an-eye speed. It’s the thought that counts…)
By signing up for Obama Mobile on Obama’s website, members can opt in to recieve either a text message or email. By texting VP to 62262 (OBAMA), members can also register for a text message bearing the news. It is certainly the first time in history that a candidate has actively used SMS (see our article on Obama Mobile here). As crunch time begins for the election and the final months approach, I have a feeling that this will be the lead off to many exciting SMS alerts and updates about the campaign. Sign up today and be part of history!
-JPK
August 11th, 2008
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