Just two weeks ago Stephan Karpischek and I did another trip to Brussels in order to present My2Cents at the GS1 Global Forum. Among all the supply-chain applications GS1 has initially started it was really refreshing to see the several mobile applications coming up that enable also small retailers to retrieve information about the issuing authority of barcodes, e.g. using Mobile GEPIR. With My2Cents we even went a step further showing how actually consumers themselves can add comments about products and can retrieve the impressions and opinions of others. Obviously, the herb bouilons (only available in Switzerland) we've chosen as sample product for commenting have raised so much interest that some of them have disappeared after our demonstration...
Just two weeks ago in my last blog entry I reported about Andrea's first release of AppAware. We already got a thousand users after the first day, it was just incredible. The week after it got even better when different blogs started talking about AppAware. Currently we have about 5000 active users creating more than 10.000 events (i.e. install/remove/update) per day!!! That means if you have the app running on your phone almost every second you receive update.
This massive adoption actually motivated Andrea to take the next step: to allow to filter for local events only. Accordingly, you can find out which applications are being used and installed around you. So if you arrive in a new city you can find out which apps are being used there...try your self it's really exciting!
Our group has again released a new mobile phone application. AppAware allows to share online your Android application installs, updates, and removals. Out of these events, AppAware calculates a popularity measure. As such, users can learn from each other which apps are hot and which are not. Additionally, the install/update/removal events can also be shared via twitter.
If you want to try it out install AppAwarefrom the Android Market (search for 'AppAware') or scan this barcode. You can also browse the recorded apps from your desktop computer: http://appaware.org
As we have been developing several services in the past (e.g. my2cents, APriori) putting more information about products at the consumers' fingertips, I also stumbled over some critics. Tim O'Reilly has put out "buy where you shop" in a recent blog entry. As consumers could abuse and ruin the small shops providing the nice physical experience of the product but don't get a share if you decide to still buy the product online. However, other approaches [1] propose to combine both worlds and to provide benefit both instead of cannibalizing each other: physical stores become showrooms for online stores and receive a share of the online purchase as a reward. To that point GS1's MobileCommerce group has yet released another whitepaper [2] outline the various opportunities for retailers to attract customers using mobile technologies. Focussing on hybrid shopping, i.e. the combination of both online and physical stores [3], is probably more promissing, as consumers probably will never realize the long-term implications (i.e. small shops have to close due to competion from e-tailers).
Some time ago I mentioned the release of our first iphone app SwissPeaks/WorldPeaks which provides you with the names of the mountain your iphone camera is currently capturing. Just yesterday the swiss newspaper TagesAnzeiger picked it up and called it "one of the best iphone apps for skiing" (read the entire article here).
A Ph.D. student of us, Andrea Girardello, has developed TwiPhone which logs calls, text messages and their position by constantly monitoring the mobile phone device (just have a look at Twitter for current logs). This allows users to share their personal communications on the Twitter online social network.
If you are interested, please feel free to download/install TwiPhone through the Google MarketPlace and try it for some days. In any case, your comments are very welcome, also if you decide not to tweet anything or just send your a feedback on this project. We am looking forward to your comments. Thanks a lot for giving it a try.
The anytime anywhere notion of ubiquitious computing provides us with continuous access to services (almost) all around the globe anytime.
Simultaneously, however, continuous attention to virtual services in addition to our real-world impressions is also getting demanded by our remote partners, using email, instant messaging or social networks. I wonder how we keep up coping with this emerging information overload.
Perhaps, a right for being off-line has to be established, as being absent from somewhere only has a physical meaning, as one will be always only a click away. Great to have some lonely valleys left in Switzerland without radio coverage (yet)....
els in order to present My2Cents at the GS1 Global Forum. Among all the supply-chain applications GS1 has initially started it was really refreshing to see the several mobile applications coming up that enable also small retailers to retrieve information about the issuing authority of barcodes, e.g. using Mobile GEPIR. With My2Cents we even went a step further showing how actually consumers themselves can add comments about products and can retrieve the impressions and opinions of others. Obviously, the herb bouilons (only available in Switzerland) we've chosen as sample product for commenting have raised so much interest that some of them have disappeared after our demonstration... 
