Business and Technology - Outside In View

The Long Tail or Not?

2008-07-18T14:56:00.002-04:00

Great read on why one size never fits all - the one nugget of wisdom I got out of this is - make sure you have a "tail" in your strategy & execution!

GyPSii Supports Multiple Mobile Platforms

2008-07-18T14:52:00.004-04:00

GyPSii now supports Symbian S60, Windows Mobile, Blackberry (new native version soon), iPhone and more mobile devices in Q3. Click to mobile install page for full list above.

GyPSii going multi-screen

2008-07-18T14:49:00.003-04:00

GyPSii announces deal with Garmin - bringing mobile location based social networking to more users on navigation based solutions.

Marketing 2.0

2008-07-18T14:37:00.001-04:00

View my page on Marketing 2.0

See how GyPSii is being used

2008-05-07T11:58:00.002-04:00

Thanks to the students at URI for creating some great YouTube videos on GyPSii and how it is used.

GyPSii Kicks it off with a Bang

2008-05-02T16:56:00.003-04:00

It has been a while since I posted - we have been a little busy here at GyPSii over the last 6 months as you can see below:

CNN's Adrian Finighan:
“So, what did I enjoy most? Well, meeting and interviewing Robert Redford, urbane and articulate as always, was a high point. And chatting with industry big-wigs and CEOs like Sunil Mittal of Bharti, Jim Balsillie of RIM, Samsung’s Geesung Choi. And with Dan Harple of GyPSii, a mobile social networking platform which, I’m willing to bet, will soon be as big a phenomenon as Facebook. Bigger, perhaps.”
Watch CNN’s coverage of GyPSii, “Social Networking Goes Mobile,” by clicking here

GyPSii in China & at the Olympics

GyPSii partners Shanghai Rannuo and China Unicom - for new mobile-location services at Olympics
GyPSii goes live on Dopod Club

News & Blogs

International Herald Tribune - "Hitting a wall in Berlin over GPS"
Wall Street Journal - GyPSii
Can you find me
Phones will soon tell where you are
SMP/Social Media Portal
SmallBizPod #66 - Dan Harple, entrepreneurship and the mobile web

GyPSii wins prize at Navteq LBS Challenge

Upcoming: Navigation and Location Europe 2008 Amsterdam, June 4-5
Upcoming: Mobile Web 2.0 Summit 2008, London, June 11-12
CNN - NAVTEQ Announces European Winners of Global LBS Challenge

GyPSii Place News

"We Are Ready" - the official Beijing Olympics song on GyPSii. Think "We Are the World" populated by a panoply of Chinese stars

GyPSii goes into Public Beta

2007-09-19T18:42:00.000-04:00

The team at GyPSii invites you to participate in the public beta access of GyPSii, a geo-location social networking, search & location based services application, one seamless experience across mobile & the web, all information in one place.

The first public open beta of GyPSii runs on Windows Mobile for Pocket Net Phones. Simply go to http://gypsii.com/m/ and download it directly to your phone.

Or alternatively go to the web at www.gypsii.com and sign in to our Webtop and download to your Windows Mobile device from there. To get a feel for GyPSii without mobile access please feel free to sign up at www.gypsii.com

GyPSii extends the social networking experience onto the mobile phone and combines it with next-generation GPS enabled location services for an entirely new mobile experience. Using GyPSii on your mobile device and PC, you and other users can share content with a geo-location, with capabilities such as:

User Generated Content

Capture, create & geo-tag your photos, video, audio & text to create Places with location context, recorded for future easy access & sharing with you, your family and your friends
A Personal e Diary - stored centrally for easy access with both mobile phones & on the web. Use the web & mobile device to further enhance, edit, rate and comment on yours & others' Places
Social Networking - configure GyPSii to automatically communicate with web sites like FaceBook, Digg, Del.icio.us etc; send & share Places from your mobile device & the web to your social network groups

Real Time Friend Finder

Find your family, friends, social networks & business associates
View them on a map, immediately contact them via email, SMS, IM or phone

Mobile Search

Proximity based area search, similar to a local directory search
Find user generated content, Places and other points of interest
Ideal for the leisurely or business user, simple & easy to use, find a point of interest or Place, and get a map to it, all within one user experience
Share with your group or friends by simply sending the destination details

Following the Windows for Mobile roll out, we shall shortly be releasing beta access to GyPSii running on Java, Blackberry and Symbian enabled phones in the next quarter. For the best results, use a phone with built in GPS, or a GPS Receiver and a built in camera. Lot's of new features added automatically to GyPSii all the time.

We look forward to you becoming part of the GyPSii community and thank you for signing up.

The year rich mobile apps go mass market

2007-03-15T21:33:00.000-04:00

2007 is looking like the year for rich mobile apps to go mass market - especially the US which lags Europe & Asia 3 to 5 years when it comes to wireless access, data usage, mobile marketing & useful applications, beyond basic text message (still far behind in usage if you are over 25). A convergence of some new enablers on a content, services, client access & platform level, along with better devices, & while Apple's iPhone may or may not be a mass seller it is going to raise the bar several levels on what users will expect on a mobile device, and the availability on a mass market of some key technologies that will drive location based applications and user communities. More to be revealed in the coming months - what's the bet the next MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Tabblo, 2nd Life etc ,,, will be born from the mobile sector? Not necessarily with it's core user base in the US ...

Davos Panel web 2.0 - Gates, Hurley, Fake etc ...

2007-02-17T11:17:00.000-05:00

Google Video of the panel at Davos with Bill Gates (MS & Gates Foundation), Chad Hurley (youtube), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Mike Parker (nike), Vivane Reding (eu commissioner), Dennis Kneale (forbes) and moderated by Peter Schwartz and the discussion of the future, Web 2.0 and how there are big changes in how the internet is going to be used - when you get passed some of the blatant self massaging of egos and commericals, Bill! A must see for marketing folk and anyone who plans to do business in the next few years - how the power is more and more in the customer's hand - creating a challenge for effective marketing to customers to purchase your product or service. For those who disagree, well it might be time to plan that retirement condo in Florida or Arizona!

Emerging Archiving vendor Archivas to be Acquired by Hitachi

2007-02-16T20:57:00.000-05:00

After my recent posting on the emergence of a new set of archiving products - one Archivas is to be acquired by Hitachi Data Systems, congrats to Andres and his team over at Archivas - what is the likelhood that other pure plays like Kazeon, Permabit etc will be pursued by other storage, ILM and tier 1 players?

This is going to be the future trend in technology markets - the lessons learned by many of the larger vendors on the mid/late 90s of buy over build, is that time to market requires you to buy strategic or disruptive emerging technologies, nobody wants another BEA to happen, billion dollar player, IBM, MS, Oracle & Sun spend millions trying to catch up and get back market share at strategic parts in the techbology stack - from now on within 18 or 36 months of an emerging strategic piece of functionality the pure plays will be acquired by the larger vendors or those looking to take ownership in certain parts of the solution stack.

On another topic, watch for some disruptive vertical and point applications who have adopted the SaaS approach with more innovative pricing models, and the acceptance of the outsourced ASP model led by salesforce.com with several more to step up to the plate, this is really the hosted version of SaaS model.

Got to run - looks like my 4 year old IBM laptop is going to give up, the screen is fuzzy - excuse any typos - time to migrate to a MAC!

Another web site makes a hit - FaceBook & Obama

2007-01-31T20:15:00.000-05:00

Just watching Chris Matthews - front and center is the story on Facebook and how a group of users are rallying up to 1M supporters for Barack Obama, and the best part is, it is claimed that the campaign strategists did not even know and it evolved from grass routes effort - the power of the individual to make an impact still exists even as some try to police us. Another lesson for marketers - think out of the box or simply what is right in front of your eyes!

Not a killer app but a bloody good technology that does the job

2007-01-30T20:36:00.000-05:00

It is not often you come across a use of technologies that just does a great job and is easy to get up and running at a reasonable price, especially in the enterprise. I have just got back from LegalTech East in NYC (I call it the high school reunion event for the legal space) - it has changed over the 2 years I have attended from inward looking delivery of solutions to law firms and groupware like applications for the Legal Department at public companies to emerging enterprise solutions for public companies around regulatory, compliance and litigation needs. Now the likes of Interwoven, OpenText, EMC, NetApp, BlueArc & other enterprise solution providers attend - one group that is emerging is the pure play "archiving" companies that have arrived on the scene - they solve the needs of many organisations to be better prepared (not totally prepared) for litigation, have a technology solution that addresses much of the needs of many regulatory bodies scrutinising an organisation and offers a way for senior management to monitor and to better pin point where to internally investigate for potential problems that could create serious risk to a public company - a few companies have really got the value proposition articulated, are delivering quality solutions and can be implemented seamlessly into a organisation's infrastructure, not causing pain to the CIO or users - they are rising stars, the ones I have been impressed by are: Archivas, Kazeon & Permabit, I am sure there are a few more and I guess the storage guys, the data management powerhouses and BI vendors will soon be watching them in their back mirror, and so they should - as it is not often a client pays for a technology that delivers to spec.

Second Life - an example of Why Not! for marketers

2007-01-27T16:03:00.000-05:00

It is great to see how fast the good internet ideas get to mass market even in an offline world - take SecondLife (the virtual world avatar site) - it has been growing steadly over the last year or so among the geek, youth & core onliners, I suppose you would call us "addicts" - all of sudden it has started to get main stream attention in online & offline media - then this week there it is right in the middle of the World Economic Forum - Davos. It must frustrate traditional marketers to see all the old theories of big brand marketing, print & TV placement etc be outperformed ... to see a company and it's brand grow so fast and not only that but actually build "trust" into it's brand equity, and not have to spend $10s of millions. I wonder how long before Google, Yahoo or even one of those traditional media companies tries to acquire Second Life for a YouTube like price. Another great success story and another case study for Harvard etc ... to teach marketers to think out of the box, don't be afraid of change and embrace the new or at least test it - it seems easier for many marketers to say No, when Yes is risky. This lack of risk taking among many marketers - reminds me of an old story when growing up in Dublin, of the student who had an essay in his finals which was titled "Why?" and he wrote a 2 word response, and got an A+, the response was "Why Not!"

Finally Gave In

2006-09-14T10:40:00.000-04:00

I succumbed at last to creating a blog - I remember in early 1995 finding the web and staying up to past midnight every night browsing - the addictive nature of internet technologies is powerful. I had this curiosity to acquire more information and knowledge from the sublime, to the weird, to even informative content and watching crazy business ideas being created like buying an email address from something called America online to send message to others but sure we have phones, paper & pens?, searching a directory of websites why?, reading news online for free we have TV and newspapers we pay for that!, buying a book online? or the craziest people auctioning their "stuff" online, never last! Well well, how things have changed. Now internet technologies are embedded in our lives and we no longer question them or in some cases notice them. My kid now tells me I can find his latest Star Wars gadget on that web thing on your computer Daddy!