GigaOM » blink

YPlan brings last-minute mobile event bookings to London

David Meyer — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:00:10 +0000

The mobile phone is an ideal tool for booking something at the last minute, as you always have it with you. This concept has already become entrenched in the hotel-booking space through the likes of Hotel Tonight and Blink and in taxi-booking through Hailo et al, and WillCall is employing it for gigs and theater in a couple of U.S. cities. Now YPlan, a London-based outfit, is trying the same idea for more general events.

YPlan’s Passbook-integrated iOS app only works for the British capital at launch, but it offers an interesting range of events, from gigs (Hot Chip and Chemical Brothers co-manager Robert Linney is a backer) to shows, whiskey tasting, rooftop cinema and, er, chessboxing (a thing, apparently).

“For bands, live concerts and events present the biggest revenue drivers. But many of these live events aren’t sold to capacity, with millions of seats staying empty every year,” Linney said. “YPlan is aiming to change that for the better. Not only does it give YPlan’s customers immediate access to some of the coolest live performances in London, but it also helps the artists by allowing more fans to discover and see their shows.”

Compared with social event discovery services such as Vamos, this is a much more curated affair, with an element of learning the user’s tastes.

“We learn everything from what the user does,” YPlan founder Rytis Vitkauskas told me. “We track the clicking and booking patterns and we become smarter over time. This only works once you have lots and lots of events. That is ultimately the objective, to always have a shortlist, but a pretty well-tailored list.”

Now, about that ‘lots and lots of events’ point. YPlan isn’t really starting out with that many, largely because it sources its events directly. The sales team is led by an ex-Time Out digital director, though, so there’s clearly experience on that front.

YPlan quietly took in a round earlier this year and, according to Vitkauskas, it won’t need any more cash until next year, when it expands out of London. “Then we do the States, starting from the East Coast, then back to Europe — Berlin and Spanish cities,” he said.

Given the highly curated nature of the service, I would imagine that YPlan will have to be very deliberate about its growth strategy. But it will be interesting to see how it pans out, particularly as a more tightly-controlled counterpoint to the social tack taken by the likes of Vamos.

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EV charging networks: Let’s not make this more complicated

Adam Lesser — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:00:44 +0000

Despite tepid sales of EVs, NRG Energy’s electric vehicle charging network project eVgo is rolling out chargers in public places like malls in Houston and Dallas. The company is getting in early, snapping up agreements to place its chargers at key points of visibility, good security and high traffic. NRG is betting that if it [...]

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Electric Cars Meet the Cellular Network

Katie Fehrenbacher — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 02:00:45 +0000

The new wave of electric cars that are hitting the market will be connected cars, both via a power cord, but also through the increased use of communication networks. And increasingly that connection is looking like a cellular network. The latest example of this comes from Sprint, which is providing the connection for Ecotality’s Blink electric car charging stations.

In the telco world, this type of connectivity is called machine-to-machine networks, because there are no cell phone-toting consumers in the equation, but just pipes linking machines to the computers of service operators. Cellular companies are increasingly turning to machine-to-machine networks for a variety of reasons including that machine-to-machine services often have lower data needs (the SMS pill service in this instance), compared to, say, bandwidth crunching iPhone users.

Machine-to-machine connectivity is also a needed area of expansion in a saturated wireless market like the U.S. As Stacey on GigaOM reported, the nation’s two largest carriers added more connected devices in the second quarter of 2010 than postpaid subscriptions, according to data from wireless analyst Chetan Sharma. Cell phone penetration in the U.S. has surpassed 100 percent, if you discount children younger than five.

Along with smart meters and the smart grid, electric vehicles and EV charging stations will be a hot area for telcos in the coming years. Already, as we reported last Summer, Nissan has turned to AT&T to connect the digital services for the all-electric Nissan LEAF, one of the first mainstream EVs on sale in the U.S.

AT&T’s LEAF connection supports services like battery charge monitoring and being able to find the nearest charging station (to help with range anxiety). AT&T’s connection transmits information from the LEAF up to a satellite and then to Nissan’s data centers.

Ecotality will be using the Sprint network for billing, device and service management, and to manage information over the distributed Blink Network that Ecotality will be building across the U.S. Ecotality plans to install 15,000 Level 2 chargers and over 300 fast charging ports this year.

According to a report by Pike Research analyst John Gartner which we published on GigaOM Pro (subscription required), utilities and EV-service providers will steadily increase their investments in IT related to electric car management over the next five years. Gartner predicts that electric vehicle supply equipment — including wall-mounted charge points for homes as well as commercial charging stations — will grow to a nearly $400 million industry by 2015.

New internal combustion cars will also be getting increased connections. Vehicles are now “packed with up to 100 million lines of computer code,” and have “at least 30 microprocessor-controlled devices,” pointed out the New York Times last year. Many automakers already offer services based on network connections, like location-based navigation (enabled by a GPS system) or GM’s OnStar System which is based on a cellular connection.

The phone companies and the car makers will also have a battle on their hands when it comes to the in-car connection — or how the driver accesses connected infotainment services (from directions to news to music). Car companies want to attract drivers to an added vehicle-embedded services, like GM’s OnStar, while phone companies will want to center of the connected service to come from the phone itself, while the car is just the dock for the phone. Expect this relationship to get interesting in 2011.

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ABB Backs ECOtality as U.S. EV Charging Partner

Jeff St. John — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:37:22 +0000

Looks like ABB is picking its preferred winner for a future network of U.S. plug-in car charging systems. The Swiss power grid giant announced Monday a $10 million investment into ECOtality, and also said ABB will be the preferred supplier of the car charging startup’s equipment in North America.

The deal is the most recent in a series of partnerships on the plug-in vehicle charging front between large power companies and smaller players. General Electric, for example, has tapped smart charging software startup Juice Technologies for its WattStation charging system, and has more recently formed a multi-faceted relationship with battery-swapping startup Better Place. German engineering giant Siemens has a co-marketing deal with Coulomb Technologies to sell Siemens’ smart grid IT along with Coulomb’s charging station technology.

ECOtality will use the $10 million to support its work supplying chargers for The EV Project, an effort supported by the Department of Energy, Nissan and General Motors to install charging networks in six U.S. states. While the San Francisco-based company has installed about 6,000 chargers for forklifts, airport trucks and other private vehicles, ECOtality’s Blink charging stations are meant for consumer plug-in vehicles, with lots of communications options and units designed for both home and commercial use.

ABB also has a deal with General Motors to study using partly-depleted Chevy Volt lithium-ion batteries for grid energy storage applications.

ABB’s investment and strategic partnership delivers ECOtality a deep-pocketed partner with an enormous footprint in the electricity sector — important for vehicle charging networks that will need close cooperation and communication with utilities. ECOtality also plans to install its Blink fast-chargers at a dozen Best Buy stores on the West Coast this spring, which will open up the challenges of high-voltage, direct current, fast charging for plug-in vehicles — an area where ABB’s power grid expertise will no doubt be helpful.

ABB, in turn, will gain access to ECOtality’s Web portal and charging management network and its “Micro-Climate” system to design charging networks based on regional factors like traffic patterns, population density and zoning rules.

Maybe ECOtality and ABB will move toward an even closer partnership in the future? ABB has been one of the most acquisitive companies in the smart grid space over the past year, spending more than $1 billion for smart grid software vendor Ventyx in May and picking up electric motor maker Baldor and software maker Insert Key Solutions since then. ABB will gain two seats on ECOtality’s board of directors with Monday’s deal, making a future acquisition a definite possibility.

Whether ABB will form other charging partnerships in markets outside North America wasn’t mentioned in Monday’s press release, but given the potential technical differences that may emerge in those markets, other geographies could likely be on the table (for more on that subject, see my GigaOM Pro article from last week, subscription required).

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Image courtesy of Robfruth via Creative Commons license.

Desperately Seeking Dream Tools

Aliza Sherman — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:00:29 +0000

As I search high and low for tools to make my work easier, more efficient and more productive, I start having dreams about the Perfect Web App. I become obsessed, thinking through the details of the features, functionality and even toying with names.

Unfortunately, I’m not a programmer, so the ideas for these apps simply take up valuable space in my brain. So I thought I’d do a brain dump of a few of them to make some space. When someone actually comes up with a Web App that gives you more brain capacity, let me know. I’ll sign up for the beta. But until then, here are two of the apps I wish existed (and if they do, please point me to them).

Ticklr

This is a writer’s tickler file system – not the more formalized tickler filing protocol of forty-three files (31+12 = 43) that represent files for 31 days in a month and 12 months, although that would be an interesting way to present a reminder system. The way I’m using the tickler file system term is as a writer.

In the “old days,” I labeled manila folders with broad categories that corresponded with my regular writing assignments: Female entrepreneurs, Miscarriage news, Dog products, Entrepreneurship. Then as I came across related articles in newspapers, magazines and newsletters, I’d drop them into the folders. When I was having trouble coming up with a topic for a regular column or article, I’d sift through the fie and see if something sparked an idea.

I’ve been thinking that bookmarking tools like del.icio.us could be slightly helpful with this task because almost all my ticklers are now on the Web, however, the “filing” system of bookmarks doesn’t work for me. I want to be able to:

click a bookmarklet on my browser when I find a relevant article or blog post;
give it a title that specifies exactly what about the content interested me in the first place;
tag it with a few keywords;
file it into a digital manila file folder that I’ve created and labeled with the name of a publication or blog client. I want it to LOOK like a folder. I need that visual.

Then when I open a particular file folder, it presents me with screen grabs of each article. Mousing over each one brings up a pop-up window that lists the title I gave it, the actual title and source, the keywords I gave it, and a link directly to the article or blog post. That allows me to scan across the digital pages to see if something tickles my brain, and link into the piece to get more information.

Someone please create Ticklr, and I’ll use it every day!

Blink

I have far too many social networking pages these days to manage them all. I’m just looking for a social networking management tool – really just way to create a home page of all of my social networks. So many of the aggregating tools include some, but not all, of the social networking sites out there.

I want to be able to add every single one of my social networking pages into a Web app and then have an easy-to-use layout tool – like the Blogger drag & drop layout tool – where I can arrange them in a way that is logical to me such as:

1. Most Frequently Used

such as Twitter, Facebook, Upcoming…

2. Professional

such as LinkedIn, Ryze, Xing, Soflow, DOPPLR, Plaxo…

3. Personal

such as MySpace, Gather, Bebo, Maya’s Mom, Friendster, hi5, WorkItMom…

4. Marketing

such as MyBlogLog, Scribd, Pownce, Jaiku…

5. Second Life-Related (for my avatar Cybergrrl Oh or SL events)

such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Eventful, Plaxo…

6. Entertainment

such as Dogster, Flixster, Virb…

In addition to a nice drag/drop layout to create my own “dashboard” of all my social media sites, it would also include a panel for my RSS feeds – the most recent from the ones I want to see at a glance without having to go to my feed reader.

Of course, in the perfect world, it would operate like HelloTxt by allowing me to check the ones I’d like to broadcast a post to, although this could unwittingly facilitate spam so I’d have to use this feature thoughtfully.

More than anything, it would put all my social networks at my fingertips, and when I’d click on each respective link, it would open up an elegant new window where I could accept friend requests, post my mood, clear out my inbox, and then move on to the next tool with ease.

So…anyone out there want to create these apps? Or do they exist, and I just haven’t found them yet?

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SPB Mobile Shell 2.0: most impressive!

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:03:48 +0000

I caught this combination video & written review of SPB Mobile Shell 2.0 over at Windows Mobile Louisville and was extremely impressed by this software. It’s another shell interface that sits atop WinMo and looks to be one of the most usable I’ve seen yet. Much of the shell is easily controlled by swipe gestures and large, touch-friendly icons so you may not need your stylus after you install Mobile Shell.It’s clear how much thought went into the UI as you have access to the most used features right on the main screen. From there, you can view the time, weather, battery charge, wireless signal, profile controls and the number of e-mails and messages waiting in your Inbox. The menu transitions look fluid and you can configure the animations to your liking as well. There’s a custom program launcher screen and a photo-based speed dial feature to round out the functions. One new feature is the Taskbar gesture: you can drag your finger down from the Windows Mobile taskbar and choose any of the SPB Mobile Shell screens for instant access. The app costs $29.95 and works with Windows Mobile 5 & 6 touchscreen devices. Check the video and see if the software impressed you as much as it did me.

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Video Showdown: Crazy Cats

Craig Rubens — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 07:00:16 +0000

Cats and bloggers are a lot alike. Both keep strange hours, play with mice, and — given the right stimulant (catnip, caffeine…) — can stay active for hours on end. It’s no small wonder, then, that feline antics are a mainstay in the blogosphere. From the acrobatics of Annie, to cheezburgers, to kitten vomit, Felis silvestris catus has served the Internet procrastinator well. Now I’m not sure if I should be comforted or scared that we live in a world where a video of a cat pawing a piano gets over five million views, but the fact remains that I don’t even have a cat and I am blogging about other bloggers’ blogs about their cats. Woah, meta.

Enough marveling. Check out these two kitty clips and vote for your favorite.

The Mean Kitty Song

Somewhere in the unwritten rules of blogging it is stipulated that you must, at some point, tell the interwebs about your cat. Ze Frank’s cats make numerous appearances. Kevin Rose’s cat guest stars on Diggnation to maul Alex Albrecht. J Smooth’s cat appears in thumbnails. Here Cory Williams vlogs about his little Sparta’s teething problem.

This is Charley

Meet Charley, the poster kitty for feline cerebellar hypoplasia. Made with travel documentarians from Double Dog Films, Charley’s little biopic plays like a cute PSA.

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YouTube Comes to My Apple TV

Louis Gray — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:42:49 +0000

This morning, Apple released a software update for Apple TV owners which added the ability to access YouTube videos, in addition to content already present in iTunes. Not one to wait around, I installed it immediately, and it works well, but I can already see limitations to the service that surprised me.

Upgrading the Software

Accessing the software update was simple. Navigating to the Apple TV’s Settings menu with the Apple Remote, I clicked Software Update and was notified an update was available. I opted to install, and it immediately began downloading, with the familiar “download in progress” spinning indicator being displayed. When complete, I was asked to reboot the Apple TV.

During the reboot process, my TV screen temporarily lost input, and was then replaced with an Apple logo and progress bar. When the progress bar was completed, the Apple TV rebooted again, and I was treated to Apple TV’s startup video, oddly reminiscent of TiVo’s famous boot-up sequence. And when that was complete, I was back at my home menu with a new option: YouTube.

Adding YouTube to the Menu

YouTube becomes just another menu item for Apple TV, in parallel with Movies, TV Shows, Music, Podcasts and Photos. Selecting the YouTube option presented me with a variety of still images, as album covers are shown in Music or TV Shows. And underneath the YouTube header, I had a few options, including Featured, Most Viewed, Most Recent, Top Rated, History and Search. Featured, Most Viewed, Most Recent and Top Rated mirror their same options you would find at YouTube.com.

Personal Viewing History and Search

The History folder tracks those videos you watch, and displays them in a descending column, with most recently viewed on top, as we’ve grown accustomed in Safari. Apple offers the ability to “Clear History”, but not to individually select clips to delete from that history, so if you’re watching items you don’t want someone else with access to the Apple TV to see, then you have to wipe the whole thing.

When it came to the Search function, I at first thought I might be yearning for a wireless keyboard, a la the ill-fated WebTV, but Apple, mirroring TiVo, makes it easy, with a navigable alphabet, selectable by remote. As I typed one letter at a time, the search results, on the right, would change immediately, without waiting for me to hit an enter or return button.

Quality and Questions

While it worked very well, finding videos of “beagles” or “fennec fox”, for example, I was surprised to find that instead of seeing the full array of results there, I only would be presented with one option, which match the first result from the YouTube site. It seems that the full library of YouTube is not yet fully available or searchable on day one, or the functionality is being limited to conserve bandwidth?

Watching a YouTube video was surprisingly clear on the 42-inch screen. While I expected more blurriness or grainy video, the quality was the same on the TV as it is on my laptop, thanks to a near-equivalent pixel count. Of course, given YouTube’s amateur video archives, the quality of the content and shaky camera work is not improved, no matter how big the screen is.

Conclusions

For a first pass at integrating the services, the YouTube/Apple TV relationship is off to a strong start. I believe with time we will see fuller search results, and maybe even an Apple channel on YouTube? Doesn’t it make sense to have all of Steve’s keynotes on YouTube as well as through QuickTime? Just a thought. While we’re still waiting for rented movies to make their way to my Apple TV via iTunes, YouTube is a great addition. Anybody who has an Apple TV today should make the time to update.

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Sonus: Good news, ahem!

Om Malik — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 10:03:43 +0000

Sonus Networks’ despite being kicked off Nasdaq, largely because of some problems with SEC (which is like saying slightly pregnant) is having a good year when it comes to selling its products. Revenues for the second quarter of fiscal 2004 were $42.4 million up from $36.5 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2004 and $15.4 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2003. Net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2004 was $4.9 million or $0.02 per share compared with a net income of $3.0 million or $0.01 per share for the first quarter of fiscal 2004 and a net loss of $7.3 million or $0.03 per share for the second quarter of fiscal 2003. A clear sign, that the VoIP remains a hot market, admittedly not a large one. With AT&T gettings its VoIP groove on and Level 3 getting aggressive, the upside doesn’t come as a surprise. Those are two big customers. I am sure the conference call would have more information.

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