Mobile Miscellany, 24 July 2013, Apply now to demo on 9th Sept, 25% off The Mobile Academy

In this Miscellany - apply now to demo at Demo Night, 9th Sept, The Mobile Academy announces its 3rd season - 25% off, if you hurry ...

It's been a great summer, hasn't it? What with the much discussed sporting successes and now the royal baby - but it would not have been complete without our series of three Mobile Monday London events on Mobile Marketing, Geolocation and Maps and our event last week on Mobile Operating Systems - many thanks to our wonderful supporters for these events, respectively Infobip, Ordnance Survey and Canonical.

Last Event, 15th July, Mobile Operating Systems

Our coverage of this event is now on the blog, many thanks to Adam Cohen-Rose, avid attender of Mobile Monday London and an assiduous blogger. Our friends over at Canonical brought loads of hardware and showed us Ubuntu on mobile devices, which I thought was really promising. We were also treated to a lightning tour of the report "Developer Economics 2013", a fascinating insight into the shifting world of developer mindshare.

Finally, but not by any means least we were treated to an amazing discussion of developments in the mobile platform arena and what that might mean to the mobile value chain. With many thanks for that to our top class panel lead by Geoff Blaber of CCS Insight, with Alex Sinclair of GSMA, David Wood of Delta Wisdom, Andreas Constaninou of Vision Mobile, Victor Palau of Canonical and Christian Heilmann of Mozilla.

For links, details of the discussion and more, check the blog.

Want to demo on 9th Sept?

Demo Night is always very popular with the community, and once again we're working with our event partners ICT KTN to bring you a Demo Night on 9th September.  If you're not familiar with the demo night format, well, it looks like this. Each of roughly 10 participants gets to speak about their idea, product or service for exactly three minutes and field questions from the audience for a couple more minutes. 

There are no special qualifications, you may have a ready to roll product, you may have an interesting idea, you may be a large company or small company... check out January's demo night write up for an idea of what it is all about. Past demoers have had all kinds of interesting journeys, so we'll ask a couple of them to talk about their experiences too.

Lots of past demoers have found the experience of having to put their message across in 3 mins very helpful, but even more helpful has been the feedback, encouragement and suggestions they get from members of the community. Apply now! We will be closing applications to demo no later than 2nd September. Registration to attend the event and not demo will open "later".

The Mobile Academy where mobile minds meet, think and grow 1st Oct – 3rd Dec

Are you are a company that needs to get deeper into mobile? Perhaps you are a hipster, hacker or hustler with ideas to pro­gress? Maybe you simply want to learn more about devel­oping new ideas in a world where more people have access to a mobile phone than a toothbrush…

Well you will be pleased to hear that we have opened registration for the third season of The Mobile Academy, a certified CPD evening programme from UCL & Mobile Monday London. With talks, workshops, demonstrations and surgeries delivered by industry experts - many from the Mobile Monday community - it is a collaborative learning environment to get a grounding in business, design and how to work with technology.

OK, so here's the rush, there's a 25% Early Bird discount which runs to 5th August, for start-ups that means that the cost is just £375 and from £750 for businesses. Book here: http://moblacad-2013-10-01-Momolo.eventbrite.com.

Please do get in touch with julia@themobileacademy.org.uk if you have any questions.
---

That's it for now, remember to apply to demo on Sept 9th! You'll get a great reception and wonderful feedback from the audience. That link again: http://j.mp/momolo-demo-2013-09

Jo

What happened at Operating Systems 15th July 2013

A packed event and a very interesting discussion - many thanks to event sponsors Canonical, who also bought along some devices so we all had a good play with Ubuntu phone and tablet editions!

Huge thanks to our chair and panel and of course volunteers, photographers and also Adam Cohen Rose, @adamcohenrose: this is an edited version of his blog post about what went on!

_____________________________________

Some really useful insights this week — with the panel providing a different perspective on the mobile industry than the usual. Although one question started on the HTML vs Native war, this was quickly knocked on the head and left for a future Mobile Monday.

There were three items on the agenda: An introduction by Victor Palau; Principal conclusions from Developer Economics 2013 (the full report at http://www.developereconomics.com/reports/q3-2013/), by Andreas Constantinou; and a panel discussion featuring:

• Geoff Blaber @geoffblaber - Chair - Director of Devices and Software Platforms at CCS Insight
• Alex Sinclair - CTO at GSMA
• David Wood @dw2 - Principal at Delta Wisdom and formerly the prime mover behind Symbian
• Andreas Constantinou @andreascon - Managing Director at Vision Mobile
• Victor Palau @victorpalau - VP of Phone and Hyperscale Delivery at Canonical
• Christian Heilmann @codepo8 - Principal Developer Evangelist (HTML5/Open Web) at Mozilla Corporation

Thanks to Geoff for being an excellent chair and keeping the discussion moving fluidly, and to all the panel members and organisers for a great evening.

Intro by Victor Palau

• hardware & os market has become monopolized in last few years
• standardization on Linux kernel (mainly from Android) makes it much quicker to set up a new operating system
• don’t have to worry about chipsets etc as much as in Symbian days
• but platforms have to have something

Developer Economics Q3 2013, Overview by Andreas Constantinou

• launching latest research today
• html5 is number 3 development platform in use
• Android leads, then iOS, everything else way behind
• 61% of html is direct to browser
• then phonegap at 27%
• Windows Phone going down in intent share (i.e. less developers interested…)
• iOS still leading monthly revenue at $5,200
• Android catching up at $4,700 (using in-app advertising as main booster)
• revenue models differ by platform
• seeing an increase in platforms used by individual developers
• main platform almost even between Android (34.4%) and iOS (32.7%)
• html5 behind at 17.5%
• report trying to quantify platform loyalty amongst devs
• also trying to show which platforms are best for different challenges
• and the different motivations for different developers
• more experienced developers are using more tools
• e.g. crash reporting, ad networks, push notifications

Geoff, Alex and David

Panel Session 

What do new platforms offer manufacturers?
GB: essentially just 2 OEMs (Apple, Samsung) making any profit
CH: not a problem of distribution but where it is going
-producing lots of phones in saturated market
-Mozilla’s job is to keep the web open
-the web is worldwide
-FirefoxOS is targeting markets that mostly have featurephones, aiming to be people’s first smartphone
-you can get old Androids but they’re 4 generations behind with old browsers that don’t show stuff right
-manufacturers actually quite interested in this proposition
-Foxconn hiring 3,000 people to make a FirefoxOS tablet
-Samsung & Apple neutering open web — you need expensive hardware and a credit card to be a part of it
-in Spain selling €79 phone with €30 pre-paid credit
GB: open initiatives have failed in the past: WAC, etc
VP: open initiatives can have trouble with leadership
-Canonical remain open but have strong leadership
-offering operators ability to showcase their content
DW: two good cases for disruption
-companies that have shown their staying power
-just an improvement in battery life would be welcomed…
-smartphones naturally get stretched as new environments come along — and leave space for niches

David, Andreas, Victor & Christian

What about the ecosystem?
AC: for any platform to be successful need buy in from:
-developers, operators, manufacturers, users, …
-devs have to learn new platform
-users don’t care what’s underneath
-operators have pre-allocated slots, often by OS
CH: Windows Phone is a great example
-not seen the depth of commitment required from the operators
-not willing to take the risk
AS: not all operators subsidise handsets
-when a new version of the iPhone comes out, AT&T’s share price drops as they have to subsidise it
-need an alternative
-different operators placing different bets
AS: operators want to get their content onto devices
-but are struggling to do so with iOS & Android. (Ed.: this is probably one reason why those two are doing so well!)
CH: app discovery as easy as searching
-search for a movie: get IMDB deep link
-go back to search and long-press to install app
-then get offline goodness etc
-drives me crazy that I have to wait 5 months for a game my friend is playing on his different device

What about the corporate sector or 3rd sector (training & education)?
VP: one of our main focuses at Ubuntu
-have a very secure platform, bringing to phone
-converged device — plug in your phone and get full desktop
-good for enterprise: single device, secure
CH: enterprise difficult to get into as wedded to Blackberry or other platform that’s integrated with email system
-difficult sell for open source
-3rd sector is an easier sell
-e.g. simplified phone for elderly: just photos of family — click to call
AC: changing the UI of the phone reminded me of SavaJe (way back in 2006, bought and swallowed by Sun)
-html5 is top platform for enterprise
-top driver is efficiency
CH: developer scarcity — don’t have to go out to an agency
-just use existing web team
DW: enterprise can drive home usage too
-LinkedIn most popular enterprise app?
-switched back to native on mobile as tools were not good enough
AC: html5 apps are like a car without a break
-once it starts leaking, you can’t stop it

Are you seeing apps migrating from mobile to desktop?
DW: more about device usage — consumer behaviour is leading
VP: end of Windows XP support is great: making people think about it
-at the moment can’t replace them with an html5 app
-but solutions available in Ubuntu
AC: crawled the Google store to find APIs used
-only 1 in 4 Android apps could be done on straight web
CH: that’s why Firefox provides access to device
-some memory leaks come from platforms they are using to generate code
-Chrome and Firefox dev tools making great strides

How many years are going to pass before clients say “don’t do native”?
VP: has to be lots more about what’s good for consumer
-depends on the situation and who you’re aiming it at
AC: it’s not an either or…

Privacy: number one for Mozilla / chinese walls between work & home
AS: virtualisation of phones available: multiple phones in one
-lots of companies don’t use Dropbox for security reasons
-don’t think about all the data that certain closed OSes are capturing about us
DW: trustworthy and transparency may be change reasons
CH: already seeing that for Firefox browser
-sometimes have to make the UX harder to make people think about what they are doing
VP: full Linux implementation
GB: isn’t there an argument that deep integration with Google is part of Android’s success?
AC: people don’t ask if Facebook & Google are spying on them: they give you something back which you perceive to be of value
CH: it’s actually more addiction than value…

What positive reasons for getting new platforms?
AS: it comes down to competition
-Is it a good idea for just a few companies to make the profits?
-I represent people who used to make the profits from the industry…
-was previously director of WAC, but by the time it was ready there was no need for it as only two platforms to develop for
-operators want to implement RCS/joyn (operator-based IP messaging, voice, video, etc) and new platforms give them the chance to get involved
DW: so many variations
-e.g. Nokia mega pixel camera: “average user only cares 16/23 about camera pixels” — but actually there’s a reasonable niche here

What about the important services that users expect?
-e.g. Skype, Google Maps
-AS: was in Korea last week: their search provider is being investigated for monopolistic practices
-also a messaging provider was worried about operators implementing RCS/joyn and taking away their revenue stream
-CH: service in China to add “written on an iPad” to the bottom of your email
-$5 a month, and they stole your email data!

What about individual permissions?
CH: permissions can be asked on a more granular basis
- no great list of permissions as for Android
AC: how much would you be willing to pay for a service that monitored and reported how your private data was being used?
- people want it but are not willing to pay for it

Who is likely to nudge sub-saharan Africa into smartphones
-full of featurephones
-OLPC not doing that well
CH: OLPC didn’t do so well as missing network connectivity
-Ushahidi is building a wireless BRCK to be a modem for Africa
-if someone asks “what if Google or Apple go after these markets after you”, answer is “then we’ve won!”

Visiting from Momolo Nigeria: what difference will a billion users in Africa have on design considerations?
-120million mobile phones, mainly featurephones
CH: sent UX designers to South America to come up with use cases
-build apps with Telefonica targeted at those markets
-need to meet somebody local who knows the area
-can’t assume that everybody wants the same thing
VP: community is very important
a lot of people in Africa want to contribute and make things better for their community
-have a whole set of local community councils
-e.g. large Catalonian community
AC: if you need to access the internet you need a data plan
-developing countries have very expensive access plans
-need to have smarter ways of micro-access to the internet
DW: designing meaningful UI for people who can’t read or write
AS: some operators already doing micro data plans
-e.g. facebook access not coming out of data plan (facebook zero)

Closing remarks
GB: often on West Coast of US, it’s Android, iOS or the highway
- been impressed that there’s a great strength in the alternatives
- barriers to entry getting lower
- html5 provides common access
- market driven by growing diversity
- fragmentation in OS space is likely to proliferate
AC: there is no black or white
- there’s always multiple alternatives
AS: there’s a definite need & opportunity
- don’t know who is going to win
DW: which David will survive?
- execution: can the company keep pushing out high quality?
- proposition: will people bit?
- community: can they start a virtuous cycle?
VP: can you get a consumer to buy something different?
CH: there’ll be a lot of opportunity for a lot of players
- we were the only cool thing in MWC twice in one day
- device should not spy on you: built the internet in a different idea and this should exist on mobile phones too

Announcements
The Mobile Academy starts again Oct 1st - Dec 3rd - early bird discount of 25% if book before August 5th
Tech meets Creative Unconference 26th July in Camden
Campus Party 2013, 2-7 Sept, at the O2

________________________________________________

Thanks again Adam. Simon Judge has also covered the event here: http://mobilephonedevelopment.com/archives/1644

Mobile Miscellany, 8 July 2013, Next Event 15th July, World’s Fattest Web Site and other Competitions and Prizes!

In this Miscellany: Vodafone offers EUR 200k in prizes for Good Apps, 51degrees.mobi competition for finding the world’s heaviest Web site, our next event and more … a bit of a bumper edition this time, lots going on and plenty to win!

Next Event, 15th July, Mobile Operating Systems, a new set of Davids take on the incumbent Goliaths

We draw our summer season to an end with this gala event: a chance to try for yourself the new Ubuntu Mobile and Tablet editions - courtesy of our lovely sponsors Canonical, together with the unveiling of the conclusions of Developer Economics 2013, the latest survey of sentiment about current platforms - plus a star-studded panel session on how the arrival of new mobile platforms affects the choices that face creators of apps and services.

Registration is open, places are going fast, register now! http://momolo-2013-07-15.eventbrite.co.uk/

So Much More than Where Am I?

Where were you on the 24th June? If you were not present in the packed house that evening, or if you were (and especially if you can’t remember) check out the blog for a write up of our last event on 24th June, Mobile, Maps and Geolocation - So much more than “where am I?” - plus links to the Podcasts created by Mark Bridge at The Fonecast. 

Read about it at http://www.mobilemonday.org.uk/2013/07/what-happened-at-mobile-maps.html

World’s Fattest Web Site

MoMoLo supporters 51degrees.mobi (winners of one of the spaces on UKTI stand at MWC this year) have announced a competition for the world’s most obese Web site. Well, they actually say the Web’s heaviest site - not necessarily the same thing, I know. Pedantry aside, you could win USD 1,000 merely by finding a heavy site and entering their competition, background here: http://j.mp/1b7VcxZ

Accelerating Multi Screen Business Innovation. This afternoon!

Should you happen to be free this afternoon, or this evening, and talking of 51degrees.mobi, not content with winning a space at MWC they are one of the 10 finallists at the competition for spaces at IBC Amsterdam (you remember I mentioned that in the last Miscellany? You don’t?) anyway, the final for that is the evening of Monday 8th July at the IET and is preceded by an afternoon event on Accellerating Multi-Screen Business Innovation. Details for both events at http://j.mp/16OVh6z

Tech meets Creative Unconference Friday 26th July - Win free office space!

An afternoon conference that promises ice cream. Oh and a great line-up of speakers and panels … plus … I should not forget to mention that there is the opportunity to win some free office space … we also have a limited number of free places - see us on Monday 15th for the promo code for free attendance http://startupsummerce.eventbrite.co.uk/

Campus Party 2013, 2-7 September, London

Our friends over at Telefonica, not content with opening WAYRA and WAYRA for Social Enterprise as mentioned in previous Miscellanies, are also in the business of running technology festivals. This is a week long festival of technology-n-stuff to be held at the O2. http://www.campus-party.eu/ - you will find a 20% discount code by following this link: http://www.campus-party.eu/2013/discount.html?cod=MMO

Vodafone’s Mobile for Good Europe Awards

This year’s version of the excellent Vodafone Smart Accessibility Awards is their Mobile for Good Europe Awards. Being pedantic, I’ll point out that you should read that as “Mobile for Good - Europe”. Orthography aside, we’ve been really delighted to help Vodafone with this for the past few years. This year’s competition has four categories for entries: Accessibility, Health, Education and Public Services. Three prizes in each category, totalling EUR 200k.

Details at http://www.mobileforgoodeuropeawards.com/. You have till 12:00 GMT on 15 October 2013 to enter, but do it sooner rather than later, or you may forget.

---

That is it for now, I do hope that I have not forgotten anything, though it’s likely given the tenuous theme of this Miscellany.

Do hope to catch you at the event on Monday 15th, and don’t forget to register - do it right away! http://momolo-2013-07-15.eventbrite.co.uk/

15 July - Operating Systems: A new set of Davids emerge to challenge the incumbent Goliaths

A panel session on how the arrival of new mobile platforms affects the choices that face creators of apps and services - plus a chance to get your hands on the new Ubuntu Mobile and Tablet editions, together with the unveiling of the conclusions of Developer Economics 2013, the latest survey of sentiment about current platforms.

Just when we thought the question "which platform shall I develop for" had narrowed to a two horse Android/iOS race, with Android's rise and rise over the course of the last year seeming to set the tone for the future, the ever-inventful mobile industry has changed things around on us again.

Following the turn of the year BlackBerry 10 has finally arrived, and it looks as though people like it.  Mozilla's Firefox OS looks interesting and Tizen brings together various earlier threads - both appear to be a kind of antidote to the Web vs Native debate. Very interestingly, to my mind, a further new player in the space is Canonical with their Ubuntu Mobile and Ubuntu Tablet editions.

Just when people thought it was down to a two horse race, why, all of a sudden, are we seeing a sudden blossoming of new offerings?  What are the motivations of those who are bringing them to market? The old mix looks like it is well and truly being shaken up. But how will the new players win over a public that may by now just about have got to grips with "It's Apple or Android". Crucial to the success of all of these players will be partnering with operators, who must constitute their major channel to market.

Most of us would agree that innovation is good, yet most of us would also agree that fragmentation is bad. New entrants to the market necessarily means more fragmentation, or does it? Is this just a spring flowering or are we witnessing a enduring change to the market? Will one or more of the Davids successfully take on the Goliaths, or is there in fact room  for them all to live together? If so, what are the consequences for product platform choices?

Supported by our lovely friends over at Canonical, which is of course the company behind Ubuntu (they actually know a thing or two about being disruptors in the cloud and computing industries) we'll be examining these issues and more in our event on July 15th. They'll be demonstrating Ubuntu on Tablets and Phones … so this is your chance to get your hands on this exciting innovative user experience … but if you can't wait for that check out the videos: phone and tablet.

Our panel for the evening will be chaired by Geoff Blaber, @geoffblaber, of CCS Insight, and he will be joined by:

Alex Sinclair - CTO at GSMA
David Wood @dw2 - Principal at Delta Wisdom and formerly the prime mover behind Symbian
Andreas Constantinou @andreascon - Managing Director at Vision Mobile
Victor Palau @victorpalau - VP of Phone and Hyperscale Delivery at Canonical
Christian Heilmann @codepo8 - Principal Developer Evangelist (HTML5/Open Web) at Mozilla Corporation

Agenda
6.00pm Doors Open
6.30pm Introductory remarks by Victor Palau
6.35pm Presentation of Developer Economics 2013 by Andreas Constantinou
6.45pm Panel Discussion led by Geoff Blaber
8.00pm Networking and Demonstrations of Ubuntu Phone and Tablet Editions
9.30pm Close

As usual the event is free to attend but registration is required - and as usual the event will take place at the CBI Conference Centre at Centre Point, right above Tottenham Court Road tube station. Entry via the doors under the bridge formed by the building itself.

Registration is now open at momolo-2013-07-15.eventbrite.co.uk

What happened at Mobile Maps & Geolocation Event on 24th June

Before we get to our guest post, many thanks to Ordnance Survey - our event partners, to Gary Gale for chairing, to all the panellists, to our volunteers and to Tom Evans @tomato_Evans, (one of our Mobile Academy alumni) for writing this post.

The wonderful Mark Bridge from The Fonecast made the following podcasts:
Part 1:  http://thefonecast.com/Podcasts/TabId/116/ArtMID/540/ArticleID/6976/Mobile-Monday-London-Mobile-Maps--Geolocation-part-1.aspx
Part 2: http://thefonecast.com/Podcasts/TabId/116/ArtMID/540/ArticleID/6977/Mobile-Monday-London-Mobile-Maps--Geolocation-part-2.aspx

So, over to Tom:

---

We were lucky enough in a pre-event workshop, to be offered a sneak preview of Ordnance Survey's new SDK for IOS called OpenSpace. Ian Holt, Head of Developer Outreach, explained how OS's spatial database, now over ten years old, has been open since 2010 and contains 460 million records. It is the most detailed data provider for geolocation.

There have been over half a million downloads of their data sets, and Ian showed examples of how people had integrated them into bespoke apps, such as one for anglers in a certain region, where the details of more commonly used map providers were not sufficient. He also showed an example of a facebook game Eo Geo National Treasures which uses OS data sets.

With the level of detail being the obvious point of differentiation from most existing mapping data sets, he crucially pointed out that apps can be developed which use OS in Great Britain and other mapping providers worldwide. Indeed they do have some relations with their counterpart organisations in Europe also.

(Left to Right) Gary, Chris, Jeni, Ian & Harry

Then we moved on on to the evening event, chaired by Gary Gale - @vicchi, Director of Global Community Programs for Nokia’s HERE, and a veteran of the mobile and mapping scene.

The panellists were:

Christopher Osborne - @osbornec, currently at AlertMe, and founder and organiser of GeoMob;
Ian Holt - @IanHolt, Head of Developer Outreach at Ordnance Survey;
Jeni Tennison - @JeniT, Technical Director at the Open Data Institute and member of the W3C TAG;
Harry Wood - @harry_wood, currently at placr.co.uk and OpenStreetMap volunteer

To set the scene, GPS launched in 1989 and was used exclusively by the military until they unlocked it for public use in 2000. At this point however,  all it meant was that a mobile would provide a longitude and latitude coordinate, which by itself doesn't mean much. It requires points of reference and an address to become relevant: it is hard work to go from coordinates to points of interest as this requires data.

The Panel covered a wide variety of relevant current topics - here are some of the most important points that were discussed:

1. As it is expensive to keep map data up to date, inclusive and relevant, open source becomes a vital asset in this area. The principal example of a platform doing this is Foursquare, which is powered through people adding information. Another is OpenStreetMap, where users can select and add points of reference relevant to themselves.

This does of course raise concern about how a provider ensures that relevant information is added, but on the other hand maps do get built out on a interest first basis, and the problem goes away over time as more detail is added.

2. A crucial topic is data quality, or, how much we trust what we see on our mobiles. There was the example of a lady suing a large company in the US, whose map wrongly sent her walking across a six lane freeway. This type of situation is unusual, however some of the large companies have made poor choices in terms of what they include and exclude, especially given that large companies branding goes a long way to instilling public confidence in data quality.

As this confidence has been shown on occasion to be misplaced, it has to be down to the individual to make rational choices. Companies clearly cannot provide for idiots - there are even reported cases of coast guards discovering consumer mapping apps being used to drive ships. Ultimately, the accuracy of what we see on our phones directly reflects our view of how good the product or service is and ergo our perception of a brand itself, so its in their interest to get it right.

3. Are we in the midst of a cultural shift that will result in people stopping looking at maps altogether in light of innovative developments in wearables? Every time there's been a paradigm shift in useful technology, there's an outcry about the possible eventual redundancy of what exists already. The purpose of a map is to convey information of where things are in relation to one another, and this will continue to be represented visually or in some other form.

Whilst it was gently pointed out that a large part of the population aren't necessarily hard wired to read a map, many people instinctively still orient themselves to one, and so the standard 'you are here' won't die. The relevant information could be conveyed in a different way once the purpose is decomposed; flashing shoelaces could inform the reader of the direction they need to take, a voice could navigate them for example, and some-one joked users could hear crime noises as they ventured into a dangerous neighbourhood. Despite this, some people would still be thinking of the visualisation of a map in their heads in any case. With 3-d street view only 5% of the data is presently visible and there will be innovations providing methods of usefully exposing more by new technologies interacting with what is currently underused.

4. It is difficult to keep up with trends and make predictions for the forthcoming years; this space moves very rapidly, but perhaps the main forthcoming development is the standardisation of indoor and outdoor GPS. At the moment there are mutually incompatible companies mapping, and that cannot exist in perpetuity, so they'll have to agree on a multi-model set of standards.

At the moment when you're looking at mapping data the minute you go inside it falls down, and this is an obstacle that would need to be overcome. Also there's likely to be a proliferation in the super-imposing of data from other sources onto mapping, to supplement geographical information. For example how could data about crime rates be added to a map or how can space be effectively integrated with a time variable within mapping? An example of this happening is in the US where the NOAA produced a low cost app to warn about tornadoes. Until now the raw vector geodata has been locked away but it is beginning to be opened and this is likely to encourage bedroom coders to bring on the information available to all.

5. Geo-mapping has yet to be usefully exploited in the education sector as it undoubtedly has the potential to be integrated into the educational curriculum, notably in geography class.

6. In terms of business potential, there's likely to be a proliferation in transactional apps such as Halo, which unlock the economic potential of being able to link a need on the one hand, with a provision for that need on the other, based on location. Such applications will have the potential to capture valuable data that large organisations would want to absorb into their ecosystems and prevent from going elsewhere.

7. In the long term, premium mapping services may have limitations as a result of user aggregated data accumulating on free platforms such as OpenStreetMap, but nonetheless data collection is expensive and has to be paid for somewhere, and the spirit of the OSM licence operates in such a way that open data, that has been contributed freely, cannot be taken and sold by a business.

8. Although the mobile operators now have increased accuracy in triangulating user whereabouts, in countries where there is greater privacy legislation, such as Germany the accuracy is more limited. It also is not as great in rural areas, furthermore these tools have not been in their hands rapidly enough for them to overtake the dominant players. They won't be able to accumulate enough data. That is not to say that they don't have a market opportunity and indeed they are starting to get traction within government.

9. Increased accuracy in geo-location has already begun opening a marketing channel opportunity that sooner or later will see consumers having to defend against geospam. What is happening already isn't efficient, as, by the time you get a special offer of some kind, the moment where you'd consider using it has passed. Therefore where you the consumer are is not interesting, where you have been is interesting, and where you are going is where the money will be made. The ability to accurately predict your next move and serve content and offers against it before the moment, is where the accumulation of data is vital.

10. The data that's already been collected, has generated  relevant applications, that could, for example, tell you the optimum route at a given time of day or where you should live in terms of having the easiest commute, but they are currently not generally as accurate as they could be, and there is undoubtedly potential for much more.

By the end of the discussion the panel were clearly getting thirsty. They finished on this note: Geo-location will finally put an end to the question: 'where's my beer?' (or at least where can I get my beer)... With that an insightful evening that drew a lot of rich information from this panel of experts came to a conclusion.

---

With many thanks to Tom for that comprehensive cover, you may also be interested to read Adam Cohen Rose's post about the evening: http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2013/06/mobile-maps-geolocation-so-much-more.html and also one from Simon Judge http://mobilephonedevelopment.com/archives/1633.