Comments on the Open Data Cities Conference, Brighton 2012.

“Data is a precious thing and will last longer than the systems themselves.”
Tim Berners-Lee

Imagine a future where you, the citizen, had easy access to the information your government had about your community. But delivered in a way you can actually understand and even enjoy consuming. And, if you are so inclined, freely repurpose in new and novel ways.

The Open Data Cities Conference, held in Brighton on April 20 was a siren call for “open-data” cities. “Cities which self-consciously and collectively decide to make available unimaginable quantities of data, openly and freely.” The conference explored how such ‘civic’ data sets can then be used to innovate and improve the way cities work and how we live in them.

Conference organiser, Greg Hadfield cites examples such as a city where your car tells you the location of the nearest vacant parking space. Or where up-to-the-minute listings of every cultural event and venue are available – all the time, wherever you happen to be.

It’s happening now.

The UK government already makes data such sets available at http://data.gov.uk.

Anyone is free to integrate data from this site into applications of their own. Recent projects illustrate how access to this data can make our lives more livable. For example, if you enter your postcode into the fixmystreet.com website you are presented with a map of your area and an input box to report any problems to your local council. This application is a “mash-up” (tech speak for combining data sources), created by mySociety, a registered charity and project of UK Citizens Online Democracy.

Today, the public can create services like this for commercial, charitable and personal use. Anything from school results to petrol prices can be mashed up with geographical data from Ordnance Survey to provide useful and accessible applications.

The fact is, data is being collected, at the taxpayers’ expense, and by making it available to the public the community benefits. The government is essentially “crowdsourcing” solutions that they don’t have the resourcing, or imagination, to explore themselves, but some passionate developer, or savvy business person can run with.

It’s just the beginning

One of the key messages from the conference was that applications being created from open-data sources are still in their infancy. Much like the early days of the Internet, the real promise from such applications is still to come. Currently, you need to be or have access to a developer to make use of the data APIs available. In the future this will change. Tools will be available to allow virtually anyone to build open-data applications.

Privacy concerns

A topic of concern raised at the conference was personal privacy. Available data sets are anonymous and contain no identifiable personal data, so they comply with privacy legislation. However, data visualization and extensive mapping technologies, may see certain patterns emerge, disclosing information about individuals by proxy. The subject was not adequately explored due to time constraints and is a likely subject of future discussions.

Find out more

If open-data presses your buttons, links to the websites of all the speakers and references quoted in this post are listed below:

• Laura James - Open Knowledge Foundation
• Ian Holt - Ordnance Survey
• Emer Coleman - Government Digital Services
• Lean Doody - Arup
• Drew Hemment - FutureEverything
• Tom Steinberg - My Society
• Jonathan Carr-West - Local Government Information Unit
• Leigh Dodds - Kasabi
• Bill Thompson - BBC
• Another example: Where Does My Money Go

Thank you to Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce and Greg Hadfield, for arranging tickets for Nick and Natasha @8bitsmedia to attend the Open-cities Data Conference.

Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or would like further information.

I was given three questions to answer. the questions were:

1. Why should people invest in a mobile specific design for their website? (as opposed to just thinking that a site that renders on a mobile, is enough)
2. What benefits does a mobile website bring to a business?
3. What are the risks for business that choose to ignore the proliferation of mobile technologies?

Content of Talk

1. Why should people invest in a mobile specific design for their website? (as opposed to just thinking that a site that renders on a mobile, is enough)

A mobile specific design is a version of a website that has been made to be viewed on a small screen. Viewing a website designed for the desktop on a mobile device is a bit like looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope. In fact, expecting your desktop website to work on your clients mobile device is a bit like using a shovel to put sugar into your tea. It’ll work, but using a teaspoon would be a lot easier!

Have you tried to use a website designed for the desktop on a Smartphone? Because they’ve been designed for a much larger screen, most of the site will be very hard to read. To see the content clearly you need to ‘pinch and zoom’ and navigate your way around the site as if it was under a magnifying glass.

Apart from this getting tedious quickly, it hogs the phones resources, slowing it down, as it keeps sending http requests to the server. This takes chunks out of your monthly data allowance and drains the battery more quickly. If the website is image heavy it slows things down even more and gobbles up more data. In some cases it may even lock-up the browser.

Your Website

I guess most people here have company websites. How many of you have tried to use you’re website with a Smartphone? Assuming you don’t already have a mobile friendly website, how was it? I bet it could be a whole lot better.

If you haven’t checked your site, you really need to give a try. This way you can see why your site visitors may not be staying on your website for long.

If you have any Flash on your site, you want to avoid serving this to a mobile user. iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches don’t support Flash, so it’s possible your site will break completely if it relies on Flash too much. On devices that do support Flash, the rendering of Flash is very resource intensive and can be quite buggy. In fact, even Adobe are abandoning mobile Flash, so it’s days are numbered.

Lets quote a few statistics:

• Mobile traffic to websites grew 600% in 2010
• Mobile phone usage will outpace desktop by 2013
• PayPal is seeing up to $10 million in mobile payment volume per day - up from $25 million a year!
• eBay’s global mobile sales generated nearly $2 billion in 2010
• Google’s mobile searches grew 130% in the third quarter of 2010 (Google have over 3 billion searches a day)
• Global mobile data traffic will increase 26-fold between 2010 and 2015 (PDF)
• Mobile network connection speeds will increase 10-fold by 2015 - BT are currently trialling 4g, and Sweden has been using it for two years (PDF)
• The average smartphone will generate 1.3 GB of traffic per month in 2015, a 16-fold increase over the 2010 (PDF)
• Smartphones were predicted to out-ship the combined global market of laptop, desktop and notebook computers this year (2012). They did so in 2010. Two years earlier than predicted. This means more people will be using mobile devices to access the web than those getting online with desktops and laptops.

2. What benefits does a mobile website bring to a business?

It helps you sell more stuff. You can focus the important elements of your content and provide a concise and relevant user experience.

All you have to do is look around when your out anywhere. Chances are you’ll see someone fingering the screen of their Smartphone. If you look at the usage statistics for your website you’ll probably see a huge growth in the number of users that visit it with mobile devices. (If you don’t have access to your websites statistics, you should be having a stern word with your web provider).

Having a mobile website isn’t just a matter of replicating your desktop website into a mobile format. Because of the limited screen size, it’s not possible to replicate everything you may have on your website. Even if it was it would make it hard for a user to navigate through all the superfluous content. For mobile users the content needs to be sharp and to the point.

Web Statistics

Here’s some examples from three of our customers websites. These are increases in mobile traffic that have occurred over the last 12 months.:

• Education provider: 243% increase
• Legal company: 328% increase
• Energy company: 565% increase

Quick Case Study

Energy Company

Statistics show that the important information that is to the the energy companies customers is:

• The share price
• Investors news
• Project maps

This provides a really good starting point and has dictated what information needs to be presented to mobile users directly. Because the success of the company revolves around their share price and keeping investors happy, this is the focus for the mobile interface. They could invest in an App for this information, but this would add complexity and expense to the project. All this information can be provided far more easily in the mobile web browser.

How Can It Benefit You?

Understand where your visitors are currently going on your website. Prioritise the top content they are after and deliver it to them directly in their mobile browser.

This is all very well, but why should you get get a mobile friendly website? Well, have your competitors got one? If they have and you don’t, the chances are that mobile users will be buying from them instead of you. If your competitors don’t have one, well here’s an opportunity to give yourself a competitive advantage.

3. What are the risks for business that choose to ignore the proliferation of mobile technologies?

Quite simply, they’ll get left behind.

Looking at the statistics I quoted earlier it’s easy to see companies that choose to ignore the demand will lose business. It will cost them money. Not having a mobile friendly website will be like telling mobile users you don’t want their business.

I can’t think of any other technology that is growing as quickly as mobile web. The smartphones are getting smarter and tablet devices (such as the iPad) have opened up new levels of portability for web users.

The carriers networks are getting faster, cheaper and more reliable. The software is becoming more capable and so are mobile web browsers. When you add geo-location information, suddenly a mobile device becomes far more capable than an ordinary laptop or desktop computer.

Augmented Reality is a new mobile technology that uses all of these things and more. To quote Wikipedia:

“Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.”

To conclude, mobile technologies affect just about everyone. If you have a business and your website is important to you (if it isn’t, why do you have it?) then you can’t afford to ignore the proliferation of mobile technologies.

So, what are you waiting for?

Sources:

• designfestival.com
• bango.com
• mediapost.com
• paypal.com
• techcrunch.com
• techcrunch.com
• cisco.com
• smartonline.com
• wikipedia.org

The other thing about the email was the absence of a way for me to unsubscribe from their list. I had to reply to the sender directly and ask that they take me off this list and any others they have me on. Not surprisingly, I didn’t receive a reply. It’s illegal to send out mass emails without some way for people to unsubscribe. (See The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.)

I also pointed out the irony of them spamming me with an offer to buy a list so I could be a spammer too! No reply. Not even a “Oh yes, you’re right. Thanks for pointing it out. We’ll now review our business plan and get into something legitimate.” Some people are just plain ungrateful.

I share this story in case anyone reading has received a similar email. It’s tempting in these days of the GFC, bone crushing austerity and the Big Society to think “Yes, a great idea. I’ll buy a list of email addresses for people that have never heard of me or my business. That’s bound to increase sales.” If you did think that and bought the list, you’re in for a bit of a disappointment.

The Consequences

What will happen if you buy such a list and then send an email campaign to it?

1. You’re breaking the law. Although you can legally buy a list, you can’t send a campaign to it without first getting permission from the recipient. Bit of a catch 22 there… (See The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.)
2. Most people will mark your email as spam (what do you do when you get such an email?)
3. Once people start marking your email as spam, ISPs and spam filtering companies will black-list your domain. This means you will start getting agitated when people aren’t responding to normal emails you send them. They can’t. They won’t have received them. Your email will have been marked as spam and quarantined as junk-mail
4. You’ll get complaints and maybe even some threats. We had a customer that bought and sent an e-marketing flyer to such a list. As a result they were inundated with cranky emails and phone calls. People can get quite emotive about receiving spam
5. It won’t do your brand any favours. People relate scams to unsolicited email. Ever had a n email from Nigerian Prince that needs YOU to help him sort out his cash problems in return for a handsome payment?

Apart from it being poor business practice and illegal to send out mass unsolicited emails, it can end up being quite costly. The damage it can do your brand far outweighs any perceived benefit you may have thought you would get.

The way to build a list is to make it easy for your customers and prospects to subscribe. Here are a few ways you can build a legitimate list:

1. Make sure there is a sign-up form to your mailing list on your website
2. Whenever you make a sale (online or offline) provide an opt-in for people to join your mailing list. If they are buying something on line a simple check box will achieve this.
3. Use social media such as Twitter and Facebook to direct people to your sign-up form
4. Ask. If you talk to your customers and prospects ask them if they would like to subscribe to your mailing list
5. Give something away. Provide an e-book or something you can give away at little to no cost to you.

Legitimate E-marketing

If you would like help in setting up and sending out legitimate e-marketing campaigns, we can help. We’ve been doing it for a few years now and can provide you with everything you need to send out legal, good looking email campaigns that you can track.

For more information, go to our Email Marketing page

External Links

• The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 - Regulation 22
• The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 - Main Page

What ‘the cloud’ really is are lots of boring data centre’s all very much anchored to terra firma. It’s a good thing they are boring, because they need to be reliable (and we all know boring equals reliable. Ask any Volvo owner). After all, the promise of cloud computing is that it will eventually take over from our desk and laptop computers. All we’ll need to use it is a very basic device that can hook into ‘the cloud’ over a reliable and ever present Internet connection. If the stuff that your connection is connecting you to is a bit too exciting, it may be unreliable, and that just won’t do.

Amazon, Zoho and Microsoft, as well as many other large players are competing in the public cloud space. What I want to do here is to focus on just two of the newest big public cloud services competing to lock you in. Google’s Chrome OS and Apple iCloud.

Chrome OS

Google are a little bit exciting, but mostly reliable. They are also just about to release Chrome OS (not to be confused with Chrome the browser). Chrome OS is Google’s attempt to move us closer to the utopian dream of ‘the cloud’ doing all our computing for us. Of course, what Google want is for it to be their cloud that becomes the processor we all rely on. (Not unlike the way Microsoft Windows became the operating system we could all, erm, rely on.) Google want to become not only the operating system, but the computer. The access device will eventually be anything that can run their Linux based operating system. With Chrome OS you can only use the applications that Google provide. Admittedly, there are lots of third party applications that will be made available, but all controlled by Google.

As most of us know, Google made a vow not to be evil. I don’t think Microsoft ever made such a vow, so I’m sure we’re going to have a much better time of it with Google than we have with Microsoft. After all, Google have given us tons of great free stuff. For example, we’ve got Google Maps. These are fantastic, and we’d be lost without them. To enhance our mapping experience, we also have Google Streetview. This is where Google have photographed just about everything and everyone in the world and put the pictures on the Internet. Lucky we all agreed to that, otherwise there may have been some privacy issues.

Privacy (The erosion of)

That’s the real trade off with this free stuff. As great as it all is, we need to give up a bit of our privacy for it. Most of us don’t really care about that too much. All you have to do is look at the stuff people post on Facebook to realise that they are pretty damn comfortable with publicly announcing every intimate detail of their lives. Even the stuff that’s as exciting as the data centres it’s all being stored in.

As great as it all is, there is a line that needs to be drawn. I actually like Google (mostly) and think they provide some great services. The only real problem with Google’s cloud computing services (such as Google Docs) is privacy. Google make the vast bulk of their massive income from advertising. What they ask from us in return, for using these great gifts, is to just give up a bit of privacy. If you use Google Mail, you will notice that Google display adds (if you access it it via the Gmail interface in your browser). Google target these ads to you based on the content of your emails. Yup, that’s right, they’re reading your email. Well, their software is. This is the same for Google Docs. Whatever content you put on Google’s servers can be crawled by Google’s spiders so they can tailor ads, just for you. There is nothing inherently wrong with this as long as you are aware of it. If you know about it and are happy to use the service anyway, then happy days. Many people aren’t though. In fact, some people really don’t like it at all.

Apple iCloud

The main difference between iCloud and Chrome OS is that Apple already own the hardware and operating systems. In fact Apple’s latest OS, Lion, is designed specifically to integrate with iCloud and really hook Apple’s customer base.

Apple even have their own office suite; iWork. Interestingly, the name iCloud actually belonged to a different cloud computing company. But because Apple owns everything that starts with an ‘i’ they now have it. The other company now uses the snappy name ‘CloudMe’. (I bet that’s what they said when they got that first letter from Apple’s legal department.)

Where iCloud gets interesting is the way it really tries to lock Apple users into using the service. It does this by automatically synching data across all your Apple devices. This includes your iTunes library, photostream, ebooks and documents. They even exclude the disk space your music, photos, apps and books take up, and only count your own documents towards the 5Gig your free account comes with.

Apple already have MobileMe, which has been around for some time (and is no longer accepting new subscribers) and they recently launched a beta service called iwork.com. (iwork.com is a space where you can upload and share your iWork documents. The main problem with iwork.com is that it only works in Safari.)

Conclusion

What’s happening among the big players is a battle to lock-in their customer bases. People will need to choose which platform they want to use. Once you make a decision as to which camp you want to be in, it will be quite hard to move. This is because these services are dependent upon your OS and hardware.

At the moment it’s easy to try a few different cloud service because they mostly work with your web browser. What Google and Apple are doing is going much deeper than that by making the OS the defining element. It could be like going back to the VHS vs Beta days!

It is important that website providers understand the new regulations in order to create and foster compliant web content in the future.

How the rules apply

The new rules apply to adverts and any statement on a website intended to sell products or services. If a company makes claims about a product or service that it can’t substantiate, then it may lead to complaints.

For example, broadband providers recently received a lot of criticism for overstating throughput speeds. Some providers claimed broadband services can provide higher download speeds than they actually can. If such a statement is made on their websites, and they can’t substantiate it, then the ASA will make them change the content and may fine them.

Where do the new rules apply?

The new rules apply in the UK. They include any company registered in the UK, and any website with a .uk domain. Even if the person or company operating it resides outside the UK.

The new rules have been introduced because of the sheer volume of complaints the ASA receive about misleading websites. According to the BBC, 75% of the complaints received by the ASA are about misleading content.

Where the ASA will be checking:

• Advertisers’ marketing messages on their own websites
• Marketing communications in other non-paid-for space under the advertiser’s control, such as social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter
• Marketing communications on all UK websites, regardless of sector, type of businesses or size of organisation.

What about free speech?

According to the ASA misleading content is the target, not our ability to speak freely. The new regulations apply to online marketing and advertising, not opinions. For example, if a website claims to provide a free service and then tries to charge you for it, this would breach the ASA rules. However, if you have a blog that expresses your opinions about current affairs, this would be outside of the ASA’s remit, even if certain people found it offensive. It’s about making false claims about your products or services, not emulating China.

Making false claims on Twitter or Facebook will also get you into trouble. In fact any website content under your control is subject to the new rules. This is important for any business that may be responsible for a company’s social media engagement as well as their website copy. While it’s necessary to properly manage all these mediums to get a message to the target market, it’s equally important to maintain content integrity.

What you can do

1. Get your own house in order. Check over your current website copy and social media communications. If you’re breaching the regulations fix it quickly.
2. Be aware of the new regulations. Ultimately content it is your responsibility.
3. Check out the copy advice service provided by the Committee of Advertising Practice.

To conclude

Although the UK is incredibly over regulated in many areas of life, this is one issue that did need addressing. There seems to be no shortage of UK websites that make false claims. Websites are often built by someones uncle’s son who showed talent in a web development unit at school, or a home operator with other things on their mind than regulatory compliance.

How effectively the ASA will be able to police the new rules remains to be seen. It depends on how well resourced they are to follow up on all the complaints.

You’ve been bewitched by the moving pictures and strange sounds coming from a website. You descend into in a heightened state of excitement and want one just like it.

Maybe you didn’t notice that it took three minutes for the page to load. You didn’t notice the stylishly presented ‘23% loaded…’ indicator that seemed to crawl by as if time was standing still. You didn’t really pay attention to the missing navigation and the lack of any content whatsoever. All you saw was the bright moving pictures and cheesy ‘pinging’ sounds that sprang into life when the page finally loaded. Yes, you think you want a Flash site.

If you really want your website to help your business, then you really don’t want this. (If you’re a rock star or celebrity, then maybe. You probably already have a massive following so don’t need Google and can no doubt afford the accessibility lawsuits.)

What to do

Firstly, Flash sucks. It’s a proprietary system owned by Adobe. It needs a browser plugin to make it work. People with disabilities such as visual impairment can’t use it. (That’s discrimination.) It won’t work on iPhones, iPod Touchs or iPads. It chews through loads of bandwidth. Oh, and search engines can’t catalogue Flash. Flash is basically a movie, normally embedded in a webpage as a .swf (Shockwave) file. Search engines can’t see what’s inside a .swf file. Not much help to a business that needs good search engine results.

What’s the alternative?

Luckily, a lot of the bells and whistles that people look to Flash for, can be recreated with JavaScript, HTML and CSS. The great thing about using these methods is that they all use open standards. This means that your browser doesn’t need a proprietary plugin to make them work, they can be made accessible to disabled users, they work on iPhones, iPod Touchs and iPads, Adobe can’t wake up one day and decide to charge everyone to access these technologies.

If you really must use Flash, then it should be implemented as a progressive enhancement. What this means is that if the Flash plugin is not available, then the website will still work. In other words, Flash should never be used for essential functional parts of a website like navigation or form submissions. The same rules apply to any function that depends on a plugin or script that can be turned off in the browser (such as JavaScript).

Apple vs Flash

It’s worth noting that Apple made a deliberate decision not to support Flash on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. As mobile device’s are the fastest growing method being used to access the Internet, we’re not talking about insignificant numbers here. Any business that wants their website to work as a mass marketing tool, needs to make sure that it can be accessed by as many devices as possible. Throwing barriers in the way of users will just lose them business.

Steve Jobs made Apple’s position on Flash very clear. Some schools of thought even say that Flash is a dying technology as there is no room for propitiatory software on an open-standard based Internet.

Since that article, Apple have made a concession to appease Adobe and Flash developers. They now allow Apps to use Flash. This doesn’t effect websites, as there is still no Flash plugin for the mobile web browser on Apple devices.

So, next time you get a burning desire for one of those great Flash intros that were so popular in the 90’s, go and have a cold shower!