The site features an up-to-date schedule and stage information, artist biographies, ringtones,  local information such as direct “click-to-call” taxi firms and shuttle bus booking, and driving directions from your current location.

To complement the mobile site, an SMS alert service is also available free to he customer, getting immediate notification to schedule changes, contests, promotions and general information.

The service can be accessed via a Rogers or Fido phone by texting ALERTS (sign up for the alerts service) or PEM (WAP Push to the mobile site) to 4849.

For iPhone users (and other non WAP Push capable devices), the site can be accessed via the URL www.pemfest.mobi 

This is a great initiative to help make the festival go green and reduce the amount of paper needed for schedules and updates.

The service is even zero data rated so is FREE to browse!

Here are some screen shots for users who do not have a Rogers or Fido phone.

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Fido has been known to be slacking in the ability to roll out decent handsets, so its good to see times are changing for the Canadian companies.

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UBIK

Tagged “Get Mobile Now”, it allows users to create full mobile web sites using their interactive interface. With lots of templates styles to choose from, all the user has to do is add pages, insert text, and upload images, in order to have a mobile presence.

Two interesting features that have been included, are the ability to make donations and payments through PayPal, and also the ability to upload photos directly from your mobile phone using MMS

Although the service offers a very Web 2.0 look and feel, the actual functionality of the site could be improved vastly to appeal to the likes of Bloggers and Content Owners. Enabling a simple RSS feed option to read in existing content from blogs and other content sources such as Flickr. Other functionality, that although simple, should be incorportated, to make more use of the properties of accessing the site on a mobile. For example, send a SMS/MMS using the smsto and mms to functionality (if device supported).

Compared to the likes of site.mobi (powered by mobisitegalore) this offers the user a more visually attractive user experience, with a greater variety of templates. The WYSIWYG interface for UBIK is clean and fast, and makes the most out of AJAX capabilities. Whereas, the templates on site.mobi looks very Microsoft Publisher 97.

This round goes to UBIK, but I hope that the additional functionality will make it into the final product. At the moment, UBIK are aiming at people who want simple static sites, and by the looks of it from the templates, at individuals who wish to have a mobile presence (is this the right market to be targeting?)

Visit my landing page at m.ubik.net

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Last week at MoMo, the topic was LBS, and an excellent presentation was given by Alcatel Lucent, showcasing their latest service called GeoPepper. The service, which is very similar to FireEagle by Yahoo which was demonstrated at ICE08, however it is out of closed and is available to developers and application service providers to start exploring. The services all offer an API through which developers can connect to get location information on users.

From this, there is plenty of potential, however, there currently exists a few limitations to LBS.

• A small percentage of mobile devices have built in GPS recievers, of which, a smaller percentage have the facility turned on in order to save battery
• GPS does not work indoors effectively
• Triangulation provides a rough location, for example, Google Maps often locates me to the nearest 1600m, or is unable to find my location
• Third Party applications often needed to communicate with servers

So how can this be issue be solved?
Well, currently there is no definitive answer, it all depends on the scale of the project that the service will be used for. An article over at MoCoNews entitled Shopping malls are tracking the habits of visitors using location based services provides an insight as to how one company is now offering services to track users on a local scale to find out their habits using mobile triangulation.

There is a much simpler solution for shopping malls to track users. Through bluetooth. All users broadcast their MAC Address when their bluetooth is turned on to discoverable. So if in each shop there is a bluetooth discovery module, which doesn’t actually ask to connect to the device, but just discovers bluetooth devices, they can be linked up to a central database to track exactly (more precisely than triangulation) where users have visited.
As the data of which types of stores are visited, and how frequently, carefully targeted proximity marketing can be implemented to offer loyally discounts to frequent users, or offers to entice potential customers through an opt in scheme.

Obviously the concerns about privacy of the users is still in question, but correct marketing techniques should be used to explain to the targeted users what is happening, how to receive  promotional campaigns through opt in procedures that are not overly complex.

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Animoto allows users to upload photos in order to have automatically created a movie. They choose the order, request emphasis on certain images, and then upload an audio track for which the movie will be based around. The algorithms behind the software analyse the audio track, and manipulate the images in time to the beats. Even if you make the video twice, the result will be different. Animoto is entirely web based, using drag and drop AJAX, with a Web2.0 look and feel.

Once the video has been created, it can be shared on which ever social platform you choose.

After the presentation, I had a chance to speak with the founder, and asked him about the possibilities of going mobile. It has been considered in their business plan, however at this time, they are concentrating finalizing the product and increasing the audience.

Overlay.TV is an advertising strategy. It moves away from the idea that commercials are played pre-reel, post-real, or mid-reel. Overlay.TV applies an overlay to the video which contains contextual and targeted advertisements. This approach is designed so that content producers can monetize from their videos. The solution also alows for hotspots for sections of the video to have hot links to product information for example.

Emphasis on the users ability to turn off the overlay was of primary concern. The user should be able to make the choice on if they wish to receive a video untouched, or to receive video that becomes interactive and allows the user to discover content and products they are interested in.

Overlay.TV does not give the content producers any limitations, it is up to them to work out what works for their consumers and experiment with different strategies.

The business model behind Overlay.TV works on an affiliate program, with revenue shared between the content producer and Overlay.TV.

I managed to catch up with Rob Lane, co-founder of Overlay.TV before his presentation, and asked what his strategy for approaching mobile was. In his eyes, he can see enormous potential with touch screen devices and technology, especially the iPhone. With music video, user can discover alternative content, such as ringtones, and other videos, and also have direct access to their MySpace page for example.

I would love to have seen some more developments in the mobile sector with mobile, but perhaps we have to see how successful the web counterparts can be before innovation to mobile in Canada will occur.

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I had to disagree with Michaels opinion here, as time has shown, all industries have failures and sucessus. Opening up the doors to a flood of content producers will increase the chances (simple probability) that more great content is produced and gets to see the light of day. I am not saying, give cash subsidies to all who want it, but to have a greater acceptance that great content is available, and to reward those who produce it, more effectively. As ultimately, content is king.

Later during the discussion, TELUS stated that “we are not in the content business” and understands that they need to open up and allow content producers to do their thing.

Correct me if I am wrong, but this seems like a contradiction to the previous statement that was shunning new and aspiring content producers. But maybe, the case he was making is simple. TELUS cannot subsidize the costs for content producers, but do realize their value of keeping them on board. Maybe they can see that markets around the world are taking this stance, and it is about time that Canada (TELUS in this case) follow their lead as to ensure, that their users get Canadian content.

In five years, TELUS expects that the following changes have occured:

• OnDemand TV will be standard. People do not want to watch programes when the schedule states, they want it whenever they want to watch it
• Faster wireless services
• Revenue will come from Access Fees, Data Fees and Revenue share with content producers

Lets hope that all this talk of being “Open” actually does ring true.

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Last week saw the launch of Wireless Box Office on the Rogers portal in Canada in collaboration with Live Nation. The service is available to all Rogers Subscribers. If you purchase your tickets through your mobile, you will also be given VIP treatment and own entrance to skip the line ups.

Users can now purchase tickets to major gigs and concerts across Canada through the Mobile Web. The service makes use of 2D barcodes which will get delivered via MMS. These then get scanned at the event.

With Wireless Box Office™ you can now browse and purchase concert tickets directly from your Rogers wireless phone! Anytime… anywhere.

Rogers Wireless Box Office allows you instant access to the best Live Nation concerts across Canada through Live Nation Member Ticketing (Live Nation Tickets).

You’ll always be upfront for all the action with the Roger’s exclusive group of preferred Live Nation Tickets, only available from the Wireless Box Office and only from Rogers!

To purchase tickets…

This campaign is aiming big, and Rogers are really trying to make an impact on the mobile industry in Canada. I have seen full page newspaper ad to generate interest.

However, I did note one vitally missing element to the newspaper article. Most newspapers are thumbed through on the daily commute, and cafes. The “call to action” on the newspaper is directing the user to the website: http://rogers.com/URTicket and not making use of the readers current situation, where they do not have computer access, but have their mobile phone, which is the main emphasis of the project, sitting in their pocket, idle.

Anyways, this has been seen as a ground breaking product in the Canadian industry,its a first for full ticket purchase using the Mobile Web. Lets hope Rogers keep up their innovative mind set, and allow future products of similar innovation to come to Canada.

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Listening to some of the speakers and the panel sessions, some of the questions that were answered didn’t seem to make sense in terms of the conferences objectives. One of the questions posed to the panel of “Moving Experience: Innovation in Wireless” was asking if the carriers are to blame for the stifled innovation that Canada is seeing in the wireless sector. The panel responded with the fact that Canadian content businesses should not let the limiting factors by the carrier effect their business, and to take the business overseas. In my opinion, where does this leave the consumers, they want to be able to access the innovative products that “should” be available to them. This also is taking away the potential custom inside the country that the conference was attempting to promote.

To pinpoint the exact issue that wireless developers face, was also a matter of opinion from the panelists and delegates. But the majority came down the fact that data rates are either extortionately priced or have anti competitive and anti innovational terms associated with them.

One point to note,we (in Canada) have not yet seen transcoding solutions in place at carrier level. I am hoping that they will hold off until a solution has been developed that handles the mobile industry fully.

More to come on ICE08

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I will be attending ICE08 in Toronto for the next few days. I expect to be blogging on the latest developments in mobile and new media in Canada. So watch this space…

About the conference
The conference component of ICE is the exchange of ideas in interactive media. Participants will share and acquire knowledge and insights into innovations, hot trends and cool possibilities. Panel discussions and presentations are key parts of the Conference component.

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http://www.piclens.com

It even works on Flock!

Now, lets see if it will make it in Firefox for mobile plugins.

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