David Harper’s Different Things

I’ve never made a big deal out of things Winksite has done “first” but after one too many statements put out by companies claiming to be the “first,” I’ve decided to call one of them on it as it impacts Winksite’s history. I’m simply calling it as I see it and if anyone thinks I have any of this wrong please feel free to respond in my comments otherwise. I suspect this will be the first in a series.

1. Intercasting/Rabble

“In 2005, we shipped the first carrier-grade social networking product in North America and have leveraged our experience to build the absolute best consumer application available.” — Intercasting Web Site

I politely called these guys on this type of thing once before in 2005 when they claimed to be “the first mobile blogging community ever.” Various Japanese and European services had them beat by several years at the time. I playfully suggested they were actually, “the first commercial, BREW-based, fully mobile-only, self-contained community of mobile content creators and consumers, incorporating LBS, launched on the Verizon Network in the US in 2005″ - but we agreed that would sound a bit silly and settled on that what they did was “cool.”

Well now several years later the Intercasting guys have rewritten history circa 2005 again and claim to have been “the first carrier-grade social networking product in North America.” Sorry guys - I’m going to have to call you on this one also.

You were not the first. Not then and not now either. Winksite beat you by four years. In 2001, Winksite was using RSS feeds to mobilize blogs and otherwise publish content to mobile communities (a true first). These mobile spaces came bundled with mobile-tuned social services like chat, forums, events, and polls making these syndicated content spaces social and interactive in nature (also a true first). As far as carrier-grade, I’m confident our open “internet-grade” platform is serving more regular users (250K mobile uniques per month), on more carrier networks worldwide (150 plus), than Rabble is. I also suspect that we have spent a fraction of the money to get there (bootstrapping it with a few hundred $K over 5 years — yes we got in perhaps a bit early) than Intercasting’s investors have laid out to date for Rabble (approx 6 million). … And if the definition of “carrier-grade” means having been “approved” to run on a carrier portal - talk to Helio.

I’m sure the guys from Intercasting will respond with brilliant repartee and disagree with me on their blog (or in private) but when we sat down for breakfast in NYC in 2004 or so they already knew Winksite was a web services and social network mash-up — long before the term even existed. No amount of PR spin, event panel rhetoric, or VC money can change that.

Lance Weiler who has been terrifying people for years with films such as the creepy-crawly 1998 DIY cult hit “The Last Broadcast” and more recently “Head Trauma” is now looking to bring people together (rather then scare them away) with Fest Mob.

FEST MOB A NEW SOCIAL MOBILE EXPERIMENT TARGETS THE SLOPES OF PARK CITY TO CAPTURE THE FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE IN REAL-TIME.

The “fest mob” http://workbookproject.com/mob is a social mobile experiment that makes use of a “mashup” of freely available websites and web 2.0 services. The goal of the experiment is to capture the festival environment from various perspectives in real time. Participants will be using mobile phones to text, photograph, and record their daily activities.

“Since I won’t be able to make the annual pilgrimage to Park City this year, I started thinking about how I might be able to experience it first hand. The fest mob is a way for people who can not make it to the festival, to interact with those who can, in a sense creating a social network around the experience.” Says founder Lance Weiler

Festival goers use mobile phones to document what they are watching, attending, eating, drinking and seeing. Those who cannot attend the festival are able to contribute questions, comments and news that they are reading about the festival online.

The results can be viewed in real-time at http://workbookproject.com/mob via a mobile site http://winksite.com/workbook/mob or on a mobile phone by texting FOLLOW FESTMOB to 40404.

Joining the “fest mob” is a simple process for more information visit http://workbookproject.com/mob

The “fest mob” is an experiment by the Workbook Project, a “social open source project” for content creators that attempts to bridge the gap between technology and filmmaking. The Workbook Project was founded by digital pioneer Lance Weiler who is the writer / director of THE LAST BROADCAST and HEAD TRAUMA.

The “fest mob” mashup was made with the following sites and services:

Twitter
Winksite
Flickr
Ning
Musicplayer at sourceforge.net
WordPress

Previously I’ve written about the need for connections between the physical world and the mobile Internet, “Mainstream America is Ready for Bar Codes - Converging “Realspace” and “Mobilespace“‘. I’ve also expressed my opinions on various aspects of how that should work in the comments area over at Tommi’s S60 Applications Blog. Along the way Dennis the founder of ShotCode) and I got to talking (original intro courtesy of Oliver Starr) and convinced each other that we should team up and see where it would lead. As such, I’m pleased to announce that Winksite now supports ShotCode.

ShotCode is the flagship product of OP3, a Swedish / Dutch organization in the proximity marketing space and enjoys the strongest customer portfolio in the mobile barcode scanning market outside of Japan & Korea.

Details follow:

Did you know that creating a mobile webpage can be as simple as creating a webpage for ‘the regular Internet’? Did you know that instead of typing a lengthy Internet address on your mobile phone, you can access each mobile webpage in three clicks? Did you know that mobile Internet usage is on the rise as people look to access content that is important to them while away from their desktop? These are the exact areas of operation for Winksite and ShotCode which is why these highly compatible companies have decided to join forces to provide connections between the physical world and the mobile Internet.

Winksite is the world’s largest, standard’s based mobile publishing platform and community portal. Individuals, companies, and brands use Winksite to publish mobile Internet sites bundled with mobile-tuned community features like chat, forums and surveys. By providing easy-to-use tools, Winksite has successfully created a friendly platform where anyone can claim their own piece of the mobile Internet.

ShotCodes are circular sequences of black and white blocks that represent an internet address. By installing the free ShotCode software on your mobile phone you extend your camera’s functionality into that of a ShotCode reader. The ShotCode works much in the same way as the reading of barcodes in supermarkets, you point your phone’s camera at a printed ShotCode, click, and your phone’s browser is automatically connected to the corresponding internet address.

From today every Winksite has its own ShotCode, simply click the ShotCode icon for the listed Winksite and you’ll be able to scan & connect using your ShotCode Reader. For Winksite publishers ShotCodes are available in various formats for ease of printing and distribution.

Currently ShotCode and Winksite are in talks with several large international brands to offer the combined service bundled with promotional products such as personalized t-shirts, Winksite/ShotCode business cards, personalized ShotCode stamps, stickers and more.

Dennis Hettema, founder of ShotCode, “Winksite’s community proves to the world that mobile isn’t a thing of the future, with over 25 million page views per month it’s pretty clear that people use mobile web pages today.”

David Harper, founder of Winksite, “ShotCode’s unique shape makes for an attractive and recognizable symbol that is easily branded or used in more personalized outings. With customers such as Coca Cola, Heineken and Xbox, ShotCode has proven to be the frontrunner in this exciting market. We’re enthusiastic about offering these real world hyperlinks to the Winksite mobile community for free.”