Mobile 1 Summit 2014

I attended the Mobile 1 Summit in San Francisco as a speaker.  

 Some pictures from the summit are here including photos of some of the slides.  The videos are available on the conference web site : http://m1summitsf.splashthat.com/  This was quite the break from the usual types of technical conferences I attend. It contained a lot of high level information and discussion panels about future technologies. Here is some interesting press coverage.

• Google's Spero on Mobile Commerce: 'The Consumer Has All The Power' 
• Facebook ad exec says mobile marketing is (and must be) highly personal 
• Accel’s Wong may pick Android over Apple in health platforms 
• Retargeting is ‘where the puck is going’ in mobile advertising 
• Health sensors will soon ‘disappear into the background,’ say developers 
• Pandora says its 'like' data keeps it relevant against Spotify, Apple 
• Google mobile ad chief to app makers: Stop concentrating so much on installs 

Here are some notes I jotted down from the sessions.

iBeacon - Alex Bell, Jeremy Osen, Aurelie Guerrieri

• Apple released iBecons 2 years ago.  Alex has been looking at them for 4 years.  But, why are they not everywhere?
• There have been no marketing materials saying that beacons have changed anything.
• Alex feels it's difficult for big companies to track how much the beacons are being used.
• Jeremy - Has not yet seen a fully scaled program, but they are working
• One of the guys (name not listed) said that he implemented iBeacon in Paris and was able to drive new subscriptions to a club.
• Alex worked with a sports company that was able to increase ticket upgrades by using iBeacons.  They would send a message up in the "nosebleed" seats to let people know they could get a better seat.
• Another customer was selling chicken. If folks stood by a display for more than 45 seconds, they sent them a message with a link to a coupon.  They used to do this with flyers "proximity marketing".
• Apparently WiFi was put into trash cans in London and folks were upset about privacy.  There is some fear about iBeacon as well.
• There was a buzzfeed article about Titan in New York that was written to scare consumers.
• If there is no app to pick up the beacon, it doesn't pick it up.
• Question : An iOS engineer who worked on core location asked about delay.  It can take up to 15 minutes to know the phone is in a region.  A: You can use core location to get a rough location and scan more when you get close.
• Question : Do any beacons have WiFi in addition to Bluetooth.  A: This adds complexity and cost instead of making them cheaper and easier.  The beacon just sends a number, not information that you push to it over the internet. 7 ]

Oskar Serrander - The Next Era Of Search is Mobile

• Quixey is a mobile search company.  The "other" search company based in Mountain View Ca.
• He mentioned the problem where you get an invite from Linked In and you click on it but instead of taking you to the Linked In App, it takes you to a mobile web browser where you have to log in, and probably forgot your password.
• Some folks have a folder on their phone just for travel apps. Some have downloaded it multiple times since they don't use it very often.
• "The mobile experience is broken"
• In the beginning, there was limited web usage and apps.  The original phone was about accessing the web.  Later, a whole host of apps came out such as snapchat, instagram, camera, maps,. etc.  The apps came to rule our phone and they were nothing like the web.
• Within 2020, it is expected that mobile internet will reach half the world.
• You can't talk about the internet without talking about apps.  We access the internet through apps.
• The average user has 29 apps on their phone. 90% come from the top 25 list.
• 58% of apps are zombies.  They have never been reviewed. No one has downloaded them.
• 65% of users don't download anything.
• 4 companies own apps that generate 70% of the unique visitors to the top 25 mobile apps.  Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Apple.
• It's important to these companies to maintain their share of our attention.
• Google is now a  travel agent, a car seller, etc. They are competing with others.
• The cost for marketing apps is increasing all the time.  Installs are a value metric.  You are "buying installs".
• Search was left behind as a solution for this new era.
• Search is still matching keywords to static content.  It hasn't really changed.
• Blue links were never really meant for our fingers.  The mobile world is about buttons.
• By Mobile search, they mean device search, but also apps that are out there, and also mobile web.
• Quixey started as an app search company.
• They search through multiple apps and give you a summary from different applications.
• They are the sole search provider for Alibaba in China.

Matt Bar - Group Head, Emerging Payments Mastercard

• The US is both the Best and the worst of global payments.
• Their goal is to create platforms that partners can develop on top of.

Panel - The Wearable Revolution

• Kurk Workman - Owlet : They monitor infants
• DJ Jayalath - Athos - Clothing that monitors your heart
• Ari Roismann - CEO Glide - "Dick Tracy Watch"
• Aza Raskin - VP Of Innovation At Jawbone
• Moderator - Farthan Tawar from Pivotal Labs
• What do you do with the data? Can you make suggestions?
• Owlet - You can let parents know that the oxygen levels are persistently low, but they can not diagnose a problem without FDA Clearance.
• Athos - You can do things that a personal trainer does, but not something a Doctor does.  You can show BPM, but not full heart monitor waveform.
• Gilde - Product development is data driven.
• The goal for the Owlet guy is for every baby leaving the hospital to have a wearable.
• Ari - Text based information isn't very human. Much of our communication requires intonation. 
• The latest phones have 17 sensors.  Will all of this become software within the phone? 
• Owlet - THey have a smart sock.  You can't put a phone on a baby's foot.
• There will always be a premium for a vertically integrated experience.
• 10 Years in the future there will be sensors in every shoe you buy.

Building The Mobile Workspace - Moderated by Raina Kumra. CEO Juggernaut

• What are the trends you have seen in the mobile workspace.
• Tom WIlliams, CEO BetterCompany - Folks have smartphones now.
• Mohawk Shroff, Head of Engineering Linked In - We are seeing a shift in the way people work. Data at linked in shows an evening out of work. Folks work in morning while commuting, then do things at their desk, then i the evening folks doing things from Tablets.
• The workplace is no longer 9-6, there is usage all day.
• If someone is really good at what they do, you will be lucky to hold on to them for 3 years.
• There is a war on talent where talent is winning.
• Jobber is "Tinder For Jobs".  They enable real time chat for recruiters and candidates.
• Values about work have changed.  There's no longer a source of sufferage saying that you have to stay there.
• The moderator has held 7 jobs in the last 6 years.
• Data Scientists are always getting pinged.
• Mobile has allowed folks to bring their own solution into the workplace.  This means there is a ton of noise. You have to deploy to a large number of users and get a critical mass of users in an enterprise.
• The enterprise has a kill switch on your app.  It's good to reach out to them so that if they get a storm of traffic they know that it's OK.
• There is fear with bringing new things into the work space.
• Recruiting is a social activity.  Ladders, Linked In, Jobr. will not replace the human element.  The #1 source of hires is referrals. 32% of hires come from employees suggesting their friends.  This is still an offline process.  Personal connections will not replace this. (Alexandre Douzet)
• The reason slack worked, was because most apps that used that model, didn't work for the individual. You have to work for the single player first.
• The viral loops makes Apps like Slack and Hipchat work really well.

Matt Schnittker's Talk -

My talk was about the mobile tools we have at the studio and how they evolved from the ideas of Feeds, Forums, and Chat.