Mobile Portland

UPDATE: Jer (@nyquildotorg) filmed the presentation and posted it to YouTube. Embedded video after the jump.

Thanks to Di-Ann and Jason for a fascinating presentation on mobile, maps and location. It's amazing how despite all of our technology, that you "still can’t find good organic tacos, nearby, on-demand." The presentation really helped illuminate how difficult it is to answer questions like that.

For those who missed it or those who wanted to review what they saw, here are the slides:

Thanks again to Di-Ann and Jason for presenting.

What happens when everyone has devices in their pockets that know where they are and can display engaging maps? That's exactly what innovative company Platial has been exploring since 2005.

Platial CEO Di-Ann Eisnor and VP of Product Jason WIlson will talk about mobile mapping at Mobile Portland's June Meeting. Di-Ann's description of their topic was so good that we're quoting it verbatim:

My daughter's school has an activity called "junkbox", where you make stuff based on whatever scraps you find in a box of reused components and objects.

Because both maps and mobile are in rapid iterative development, mobile maps developers have been in a constant state of junkbox; we've gleaned scraps of location data, bits of APIs, and grasped at revenue models but there haven't been enough of the right elements to make something truly wonderful.

This helps explain why a few services like Loopt, Platial Nearby and Whhrl have seen some success but nothing on the scale of Twitter or Facebook.

On Friday, our box was endowed with a shiny new item; location-aware web browsing at least for iPhone, and with it, Map Kit and new payment models.

Now, web developers will be able to create location-based apps for iPhone, drastically increasing the number of services which can integrate location.

This, in addition to recent releases of geodata APIs and location APIs bring the vision of mobile mapping to reality almost surely leading to augmented reality, truly social maps serving a global purpose, better filtered & analyzed content.

Platial Nearby is directing all of this toward specific contextual location filters. We'll talk about this and show some examples of what we're making now.

About Di-Ann & Jason

Di-Ann Eisnor is CEO and Co-founder of Platial, The People's Atlas, a widely used social mapping platform for the web and iPhone. Di-Ann is working toward using social mapping for cultural diplomacy across the globe through community engagement.

Jason WIlson is VP Product and Co-founder of Platial. He focuses on the UI and product direction across all of the Platial properties with an emphasis on web services and iPhone.

About Platial

Platial, The People's Guide to Who and What's Nearby, is a free resource where people around the world share and discover all kinds of Places. Platial was founded to connect people globally by making everywhere more accessible.

Social mapping can illustrate a post geo-political picture of the world that allows people with shared interests to leap geographic boundaries. The network of Platial maps, including Frappr, which we acquired in 2007 is distributed on over 500,000 sites a month and on the iPhone to over 350,000 users.

Platial has contributed over 300 Million geographically referenced pieces of media including photo, video, stories, people to the Geospatial web at large. Platial is funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Sherpalo Ventures and KeyNote Ventures and Omidyar Network among others.

Maps and Mobile: A Rapidly Changing Landscape

Monday, June 22nd, 6 pm
AboutUs offices
107 SE Washington St., Suite 520
Portland, Oregon 97214
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Isaac Potoczny-Jones posted his slides from last month's discussion about the Android market. You can find them at his web site.. They are also posted on slideshare and embedded below along with Isaac's Ignite Portland presentation.

NOTE: Moved to Tuesday because of Memorial Day

Everyone has heard the stories about the iPhone's App Store and the success some developers are finding selling iPhone applications. What people know less about is Google's Android Market which started allowing people to sell applications in February.

Learn about the similarities and difference between the Android Market and the iPhone App Store. Take a look at what's selling and the opportunities that will come as more Android-based handsets reach the market.

Isaac Potoczny-Jones will share his experience trying to sell applications on the Marketplace, the challenges involved, and where the opportunities lie.

About Isaac

Isaac is a Haskell hacker, cyclist, Android hacker, and employee of Galois, Inc in Portland, OR. He has a few apps on the Android Market and is involved in the OpenIntents project.

The Android Market -- Google's App Store Alternative

Tuesday, May 26th, 6 pm
AboutUs offices
107 SE Washington St., Suite 520
Portland, Oregon 97214
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Here are the slides and video from last month's Mobile Portland presentation by Elia Freedman. The video is actually from Elia's repeat performance of his presentation the following week at the OTBC. Thanks again to Elia for a great presentation.

With 12 years in mobile and smartphone development, four rounds of funding and modestly successful products, Elia Freedman brings a unique perspective to the rise of iPhone's AppStore and growing a business.

In this presentation he lays out what he's learned and how that has impacted current business decisions as he attempts to re-build Infinity Softworks.

Read more about Elia Freedman and Infinity Softworks at his blog on mobile and business and the Infinity Softworks site.

Building an iPhone Business: A Look Back to Look Ahead

Monday, April 27th, 6 pm
AboutUs offices
107 SE Washington St., Suite 520
Portland, Oregon 97214
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Thanks to Gail for an informative presentation tonight. Lots of information in these slides. I can't recommend her class more highly. It is a tremendous bargain. Course information is available at http://learnthemobileweb.com

Slides are available below.

Best practices for the desktop web simply do not apply to mobile web development. Mobile is a totally new medium. A standards-based approach to mobile web development produces a usable, adaptive and discoverable mobile web experience for featurephones and smartphones. Gail will lead a discussion about the importance of standards-based mobile web development a this month's Mobile Portland. She will cover markup fundamentals, design principles, content adaptation, usability and interoperability. We will explore and critique mobile standards and best practices authored by the W3C, dotMobi and similar organizations.

About Gail

Gail Rahn Frederick is a mobile software architect at Medio Systems in Seattle. She leads a software team that delivers mobile search and discovery products to operators and publishers. Her work spans mobile web sites and native applications on most mobile platforms. Her products target 500+ device models and have been deployed to 10+ mobile operators in 6+ countries in North America and Europe. Gail is a mobile web enthusiast who teaches standards-based mobile web development at Portland Community College. Her classes teach mobile markup languages, mobile design and usability, content adaptation, best practices and defensive programming for the mobile ecosystem. Students build content-adapted mobile web sites as the class project. Course information is available at http://learnthemobileweb.com

Meeting Details

A Standards-Based Approach to Mobile Web Development Monday, March 23rd, 6 pm AboutUs offices 107 SE Washington St., Suite 520 Portland, Oregon 97214 RSVP | Map | Add to your Calendar.

Thanks to Paul Dockter for presenting last week at Mobile Portland. It was a great presentation and discussion. Here are Paul's slides:

Mobile Tagging creates a bridge between traditional media and mobile lifestyles by using 2D barcodes which can be read from a mobile phone camera. The potential applications of this are wide-spread and have been successfully used in Japan for years, but there are barriers to adoption in the US. Despite these barriers, both Microsoft and Google have recently announced plans to utilize 2D barcodes. Businesses are warming to the idea of using these codes to help people get to mobile content quickly. The question is how quickly consumers will warm to the idea. Asia has traditionally led the way when it comes to mobile technology, and if this continues to hold true, it won't be long before we see mobile tagging spread in the U.S. Paul Docktor will lead us in a discussion about mobile tagging, how to use them, their potential and the barriers to adoption at this month's Mobile Portland.

About Paul Docktor

Paul is an Enterprise Architect in Intel IT's Strategy, Architecture and Innovation group and is focused on Intel's Online Presence.

Meeting Details

Mobile Tagging — Paul Docktor Monday, February 23rd, 6 pm AboutUs offices 107 SE Washington St., Suite 520 Portland, Oregon 97214 RSVP | Map | Add to your Calendar