To succeed with one product on Kickstarter is a challenge but to do it twice is pretty rare - especially if it is two different products. What about 4 times? We've seen many companies bring a second or third version of a successfully crowdsourced project back for a second iteration but our guest today built 4 separate mobile products through Kickstarter within a year. Cameron Gibbs is the co-founder of FUZdesigns, makers of the EverDock, the beautiful Kickstarter-funded iPhone dock, and the Noke...
Dec 03, 2014
How much do you spend through your smartphone? Well, according to a recent eMarketer study that number is set to double by the end of next year. Chuck highlights the numbers that will see us breaking all kinds of mobile payments records this - and next - year. The biggest thing that will break, though, is your bank according to these numbers.
Dec 02, 2014
Welcome to episode #210. On the show: Europe is just next door; Hire a plumber from Amazon; Hexoskin's Arctic Smart Shirt; Google takes over Times Square; Drones in TGI Fridays; Shazam goes in-store with Meed Media; Decorate the Crystal Tree from an app; Hike with me + ShowUp make the solo outing a thing of the past; Audi's new car sharing platform; Fujitsu turns light into image recognition. Our resource of the week is 3D printed maps for the blind. Our special guest is Retail prophet Doug Step...
Dec 01, 2014
Canadians are everywhere. It's true. We've run the International Space Station, we've won gold medals, play on most NHL hockey teams, have a strong contingent of all-star baseball players, are revered around the globe and, one actually controls the purse strings for the largest and most innovative Internet startup on the planet - Google. Patrick Pichette is from Montreal and now makes his living as the Chief Financial Officer for Google. I was able to spend a few minutes with him to talk about h...
Nov 28, 2014
Greg is back and bringing with him his top 5 essential mobile marketing stats. The numbers for this episode: 99%, 66%, 43% and 10X.
Nov 27, 2014
Privacy is an overused, under implemented strategy for mobile apps these days. There is a lot of talk but very little action. Companies that violate the privacy rights of their users will, at best, feel the wrath of their users and at worst suffer catastrophic (and perhaps business-threatening) outcomes. Think about the fury that UBER has met with recently. There is a drastic difference between having a privacy policy and living it for your users. Real brands understand the need to live by priva...
Nov 26, 2014
Chuck had the opportunity to visit the new Paydiant offices - they are the company behind MCX and Subway's mobile payments app. While there, Chuck was given a tour of their Customer Experience Lab to see the things they are working on when it comes to the future of mobile payments and what he saw was very exciting. This is the summary of his visit and includes Paydiant CEO Chris Gardner's view on the one real battle that merchants should be focused on - and it isn't payments....
Nov 25, 2014
Welcome to episode #209. On the show: LINKNYC replaces payphone with WiFi in NYC; Radio Shack goes back to its roots with Little Bits; LivingSocial lets merchants in on the deal; Groupon acquires in-store analytics company Swarm; Snapchat partners with Square; Spotify partners with Uber; Target Partners with PointInside; Shazam partners with Adspace Networks; WholeFoods creates deeper local engagement with in-store kiosks in Atlanta; United Airlines adds to Miles menu. Our guest is Ryan Craver t...
Nov 24, 2014
Personalization has been the holy grail for marketers. Remember those early days of the commercial web when it was talked about as a done deal? Well, here we are 20 years later and this craft is really just now emerging as plausible. Why is this? First off, think of the industries that needed to be invented that we really had no idea about when the web had that promise: Mobile, big data, cloud computing - all things that have needed to fall into place in order for real personalization to occur. ...
Nov 21, 2014
American Thanksgiving is almost upon us so we turn our product hunt focus to tools that will make your life easier to feed the hungry masses that will assemble in your dining room. Ian brings us two incredibly innovative products that will make life better and healthier for Thanksgiving and beyond.
Nov 20, 2014
Christmas is upon us and app developers have to move quickly in order to ensure they have a successful download season. Peggy is here to highlight a brand new ebook from Fiksu on techniques to implement right now so that the busiest app season of the year does not pass you by.
Nov 19, 2014
Is it possible that we are entering the post-beacon era already? On one end we are still learning the impact that beacons can have on purchase decisions inside of stores but one enterprising company is looking at how beacons fit in the long game. Beinto has recently partnered with Gimbal to use beacons to capture consumer behavioural data in real-time and use it later to serve up more relevant ads and product offerings. Chuck calls this post-beaconing and he goes into detail about that here....
Nov 18, 2014
Welcome to episode #208. On the show: Facebook challenges Yelp and Foursquare; Connected Glass by Rebecca Minkoff; The world's smallest GPS chip; Pay with your face; Coupons.com on your Samsung phone; Arki teaches us how to walk; Place Scout for startup people; Aerial Bold; Samsung's Proximity beacons; SocialRadar acquired by Gridskippr. Our special guest is Rob Cameron, Chief Product and Marketing Office at Moneris. Full show notes can be found here ....
Nov 17, 2014
This is a very interesting episode about the state of the wearable world we are entering in. The product that Alex Danco is building is called Backtrack and it is meant to help you understand progress as you recover from back pain. You affix it to your back, connect (via bluetooth) to their smartphone app and catalog your recovery. This is cool in itself but, as you'll see through this entire episode, the underlying conversation is really about the progression of what a "wearable" is. Today's po...
Nov 14, 2014
SMS is a misunderstood piece of the mobile marketing mix. Some say it is dead, some say its impact has yet to be felt. Still others look at its simplicity and dismiss it altogether. We are here to let you in on a secret: SMS, when done properly, is one of the most effective tools mobile has to offer. In this episode, Greg walks us through his top 5 tips to use an SMS call to action. If you are a podcaster, broadcaster or anyone who pushes anything through media, this episode will set you up for ...
Nov 13, 2014
What is the difference between an app that has moderate downloads versus one that has incredible downloads? A large portion of that is the function of the app but, let's face it, there really hasn't been an app that has stood alone in its category so that is only a part of the reason. What about your icon? What about your advertising? How do those impact the number of downloads of the app? After watching this episode you will understand the impact it has - which is quite considerable if done rig...
Nov 12, 2014
Are mobile payments a thing looking for a market or do they signal a real and necessary shift in our paying habits? This question has been haunting the industry since the earliest days of this incredibly young industry. It seems there hasn't been a really compelling reason for the masses to migrate to this, nor has there been a catalyst to help do it. To make this shift, a majority of consumers need to start to experience paying from a mobile device. Could that first experience be through our fa...
Nov 11, 2014
Welcome to episode #207. On the show: Bionym pioneers wearable payments; Factual teams with EQ Works; Digital Element partners with Skyhook; Adsquare raises $4.3M; The NHL is testing virtual Dasherboards; Tip.ly makes tipping a visual thing; Clear Channel offering free content in Singapore; Copresence brings peace to Android and iOS sharing; Boxpark does the pop-up mall; Cloth tells you what to wear; Netflix gets creative with GIFs. Our resource of the week looks at the impact of Apple Pay on Wh...
Nov 10, 2014
If you ask a room full of people what the definition of "Internet of Things" is you will most likely get a room full of different answers. Not variations of the same answer but completely different answers. So says Sam Dunn, co-founder and CEO of Robin, a company focused on making offices smarter. Sam and his twin brother Zach have been thinking about the Internet of Things problem for a while and decided to focus on something that we all do far too often: Have meetings. Rather than spread thems...
Nov 07, 2014
If you've watched any major sporting event in the last year you will have noticed the incredible attention to technology and how that has impacted the watching experience. Ultra high-def slow motion, real-time overlays, stats and multiple camera angles are bringing an immersive experience unlike any before. Now, we aren't all pro sports atheletes but there is mobile technology out there that can make us feel like we are and that's our focus of the show. From a drone that follows you to a Google ...
Nov 06, 2014
Success of an app relies on a number of factors including its purpose, the audience, the need and awareness. Each are important and each have been covered over our 20 episodes thus far. The focus today is on one key aspect of awareness - getting your app in front of the right media at the right time. For this, we turn to a new service called PressFriendly. Peggy explains the need for PR and how PressFriendly fills a gap that so needed filling for small and independent app developers around the w...
Nov 05, 2014
There is no way to hide from beacons these days - they are everywhere. Emerging from the early days of the beaconing, Chuck has made it easy to categorize the two broad types of companies that we are seeing today. Are you ready for Beacon Majors and Beacon Minors?
Nov 04, 2014
Welcome to episode #206. On the show: Neiman Marcus wants you to snap, find and shop; Cellfind helps the Tears Foundation help victims; Appy Pie's new API; Nomi acquired; Mogl funded; Facebook relaunches Atlas; Swirl rolls out their ad exchange; iHeartRadio vending machine with Instagram; Wall-m(Art) project; Hermes gives us La Maison des Carres; TouchTunes partners with Kinetic Active Exchange. Our resource of the week plots dead famous people thanks to ESRI. Full show notes can be found here ....
Nov 03, 2014
I know what you are thinking, what does the heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) industry have to do with the Internet of Things? I had my trepidations heading into this episode as well. Because, really, what can a bunch of guys who balance temperature teach me about mobile and IoT. Right? Turns out, they aren't as far back in the dark ages as I thought...In fact, they have been waiting for the technology to emerge and become affordable for quite some time. Meet Nick Lea, Global Prod...
Oct 31, 2014
We are tired of mobile idiocy so we've put together 5 things that you should do right now to make sure your customer doesn't quit on your mobile initiatives. They are simple but it is quite often the simple things that make the most impact. Don't ignore these things, please.
Oct 30, 2014
So you've listened to your customers and built the greatest app that does exactly what they want. Kudos. You've also spent money marketing it, partnering properly and generated enough buzz to start the downloads and usage rolling. It seems that all is golden from this point forward, what could go wrong right? Have you considered performance yet? What happens when your app crashes on launch or is slow to respond to data calls or doesn't take into consideration carrier load or wifi issues? It may ...
Oct 29, 2014
We've all been focusing on beacons as a way to help retailers reach and sell to the customers that are floating around inside their stores. We've thought of beacons as a way to draw trafic from window displays to the cash register. We've thought of beacons as primarily a push game to help retailers increase basket size. Perhaps we've been thinking of beacons the wrong way. Swirl, the beacon company that Lord & Taylor and HBC have hitched with is thinking of beacons in a whole different way a...
Oct 29, 2014
Welcome to episode #205. On the show: Our wrap from RetailLoco in Chicago includes 3 great interviews with Matthew Kulig of Aisle411, Charlie Larkin of GameStop and Elise Neel of Mapquest. Top stories of the week include Vistar Media's cross-screen ad platform; John Lewis testing the Oculus Rift; The Bluesmart suitcase; AboutPlace going into beta; Whirlpool partnering with Gigwalk; Prizm's contextual music device. Full show notes can be found here....
Oct 27, 2014
If there is one thing that the H1N1 and Ebola outbreaks have shown us it is that prevention and early detection are key to helping stop their spread. In this, our second episode examining the use of mobile in our lives, we explore the mobile technology that is helping us understand our own health - and those around us - to help us stop worrying or start treating as soon as possible. Full show notes can be found here:...
Oct 25, 2014
We’ve heard so much about virtual reality lately - brought on by the massive exit that Oculus had at the hands of Facebook. All signs point to an industry on the verge of something but we aren’t quite sure what that something will be or even look like. It could be a massive gaming platform, it could be an adjunct to entertainment (think movies and concerts), it could even be the future of education but we aren’t at all sure yet. It could be all or none of those. To help clear this up are IRISVR ...
Oct 24, 2014
