Blog

Hi. My name is Dave and I’m one of LinkMe Mobile’s software engineers. I work on the server-side parts of the system hidden from view – where all the magic happens – wearing different hats from tracking requirements and documenting architecture to coding and test automation.

I recently gave a talk at BarCamp San Diego entitled “Superpowers and Science Fiction: How Mobile Devices Can Change the World”. There was a ton of material packed into my presentation, which I’ll be unpacking in a series of blog posts about mobile technology.

BarCamp is an “unconference“ – an event that crowdsources the sharing of interesting ideas and information. Just like wikis and blogs provide a decentralized way for voices to be heard on the internet, an unconference provides an unfiltered forum for sharing ideas in person. A small core group of people (for Barcamp, this is mainly techies & developers) arranges a venue, gets donations from sponsors, and promotes the event — however, there isn’t a submission process and specific speakers aren’t scheduled in advance.

Attendees are encouraged to come prepared to talk and give demonstrations. This is an interactive conference at its best and we love hearing all the pioneering ideas our peers bring to the table. On the first day there’s an empty board on the wall where people can sign up for a time slot in one of the available rooms. There’s no filtering, but the feedback of the crowd provides its own kind of direction. It’s not unusual for presentations and informal discussions to influence the content of sessions later in the weekend and at subsequent BarCamp events.

The unconference phenomenon started in the technology community, but it has spread into real estate, government, and crisis response. Unconferences share the core values of decentralization and democratization that have been critical to the social success of the internet. I believe these same values will be at heart of future mobile & technology innovations – harnessing the power of communities and groups of individuals.

You might have noticed that I use the term “mobile device” rather than mobile phone, cell phone, smartphone, or superphone. That’s because I find the ability to make and receive phone calls one of the least interesting features. Instead, your phone can help you save lives, topple governments, and get free beer — the possibilities are truly endless.

There’s a huge selection of apps and accessories available for mobile devices. That’s in addition to the growing list of features embedded into them: email clients, web browsers, GPS receivers, compasses, and even the humble clock. Take a second to think about the implications of everybody carrying around a timepiece that is continuously kept accurate. Future generations will hear the phrase “synchronize your watches” in an old movie and wonder what that means.

The camera and microphone are two especially interesting components of mobile devices. They are the eyes and ears of mobile apps. The camera allows applications to recognize book & cd covers, logos, landmarks, and other images – even without barcodes. Check out our Barnes & Noble bookstore app for Apple’s iPhone and ipod Touch to see one of the best examples of a mobile phone’s camera in action.  Of the 1.8 million people who have already downloaded the app, the thing we hear the most is: “Wow, the coolest part is that I can just snap a photo and get back great content. It’s so easy.” The B&N app uses our patented image recognition technology to recognize user images and send back info on where to find their fav cds or dvds — even instant purchasing right from your phone!  Our patented technologies are what I help to craft & hone each day as we constantly strive to make our tech work smarter & faster.

A mobile phone’s microphone allows people to interact naturally with applications through spoken words.  We also have patents on our voice recognition technologies with our technology partner, MeMeMe. Upcoming apps we’re building will allow you to not only take a photo of something, but also to speak the name of a product, or use words to describe it, to find even more great promotions and information.

We’ve only begun to tap into the potential for using mobile devices to augment our senses and abilities in everyday life.  Keep your eye on LinkMe Mobile for all the newest cutting-edge technologies in mobile.

- Dave
Super Engineer

Image Credits:  (1) Jennifer Reiswig (2) Erik Eldridge (3) www.CapedWonder.com & (4) Barnes & Noble (in order)

In his article “Despite Small Numbers, Magazines are Big on Barcodes” in today’s Advertising Age “The Digital Issue” (on newsstands and online), writer Nat Ives posits the question we ask everyday: “You could be forgiven for wondering why magazines keep adding interactive bar codes and icons, those symbols that let camera phones fetch extra content or special offers, once you realize how few readers use the things.”

Mr. Ives’s article clearly highlights the issue our business partners all know very well – our image recognition software has the ability to recognize barcodes, tags, QR codes or any other symbol – but there is absolutely no need to use them.

As Mr. Ives cites, our barcode-based competitors see only a few thousand (in some cases only a few hundred) consumer responses with their campaigns, whereas in one campaign alone our partner saw over 600,000 consumer responses. Frankly, there is no comparison, nor can there be.

We look at something like this:

and we scratch our heads and ask, “Why would someone do this?” As a CEO, if my marketing department presented this to me, knowing (1) how much money is spent on ad creative and placement, (2) the importance of conveying the optimal message to consumers and (3) how crucial brand image is in the attempt to positively influence consumer behavior, I would seriously question whether I had the right people in my marketing department.

What exactly is the message this advertisement is attempting to convey to potential consumers?

What is that thing which occupies 50% of the page and what does it have to do with the image of the brand or the content of the ad?

Barcodes play a critical role in the supply chain of every product, but have no need to do so in areas which are consumer-facing. No matter how colorful or clever one tries to make them, barcodes of any kind are, simply-put, unattractive. They do not enhance an image in any way whatsoever:

They are also completely unnecessary. We have spent years building proprietary patented technology which works by recognizing the entire image and returning whatever kind of information or experience the advertiser, broadcaster or retailer wants their consumers and users to receive – from special promotions to coupons to videos, augmented reality, games and more.  An enormous amount of time, resources and money is spent on every piece of marketing collateral. Our technology works with it as it was intended to be seen, with no changes to the creative.

Please click HERE to view a recent Case Study about our wildly successful partnership with Woman’s Day referenced in Mr.Ives’ AdAge article.

This is what an advertisement looks like which employs our technology:

Note the absence of any kind of intrusive symbols. Users simply take a picture of the ad with their phone and we allow the advertisers (in this case our partners Coty and Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku Lovers fragrance line) to return any kind of information they would like.

Our technology works on any phone with a camera, requires no downloads and works across all carriers. Of course, we also build highly sophisticated and successful apps for smartphones, as an app can provide a much richer user experience, and apps do need to be downloaded. Our Barnes & Noble app, for example, currently has over 1.5 million users and remains a top ten application in Apple’s iTunes App Store, 8 months after launch. However, our technology does not require an app to work – it only requires a phone with a camera.

Mr Ives’ AdAge article addresses the point a rapidly growing number of our new customers have come to realize: barcodes are garnering a lot of attention, but they are really not the best solution. Our technology works because it disrupts neither the creative nor the workflow itself – all that’s needed is the original ad.

Advertisers and retailers continue to experiment with the various alternatives, and we see some customers moving amongst the different competitors in response to artificial pricing or corporate pressures. Our results speak for themselves –Recognition accuracy in excess of 96% – Conversion rates of 25% – and more than 600,000 users interacting with a single campaign.  These are the kind of results we want to help you achieve.

To find out how, please contact us! We want to ensure your ads don’t turn out like this:

Image Credits: (1) STA Travel/JagTag (2) Esquire Magazine (3) Coty/Harajuku Lovers & (4) Mad Magazine (in order)

Like most of the world, we watched this morning’s launch of Apple’s iPad with great interest. Not surprisingly, Apple has once again delivered a stunning piece of technology, and, in keeping with Google’s new approach, have taken another step towards resetting the relationship with the carriers. Launching on AT&T — who are already struggling to keep up with network demand for the iPhone — may prove problematic, but offering two pre-paid data plans at dramatically reduced rates is a great move.

The iPad appears to make the most of the best features of the iPhone and iPod touch, but seems to have neglected some lessons we all thought they had learned. Perhaps this is simply a way of keeping options open to deliver new features with subsequent versions, but I think everyone was disappointed to see the absence of multi-tasking. For a device which is clearly targeted at the heart of Netbooks — complete with a 10 inch display — not providing the ability to seamlessly multi-task is likely to prove a serious short-coming.

The other missing feature — which most interested us here at LinkMe Mobile — was a camera. Notwithstanding the impracticalities of using a device of this size to take pictures, given its obvious video and image superiority, the lack of a camera was a surprise. We would love to see Apple add a camera feature, and would especially love to build our technology into the device. Given the aggressive thrust into the print world, having the ability to interface directly between printed medium and the virtual iBook store and Newspaper partners would be an obvious — and significantly value-adding — feature.

We’re going to try to convince Apple of the merits of this idea and demonstrate how it could enhance the user experience (and their sales!). We’re also going to keep working with our partners at Barnes & Noble to do exactly the same thing.  If you haven’t seen our Barnes & Noble bookstore app for Apple’s iPod, iPhone and iPod touch, download it now.  In the first 6 months since its release, it has already passed the 1 million download mark.  Rave reviews from customers on Apple’s iTunes website continue … “So easy!” … “Fun to use!” …”Recognizes every cd cover I’ve tried!” … “This is so cool. Why don’t all apps have image recognition?”  We strongly agree with this last satisfied customer.

So what’s a dramatic way that Apple’s iPad and Barnes & Noble’s Nook can enhance sales?  Why not add a camera?  Allow users a way to directly interface with — and ultimately purchase and download information — simply by taking a picture of their favorite book, CD or DVD cover — or any product they see in their world.  With higher than a 96% accuracy rate, our image recognition technology is the best on the market — and as holders of the patents in this space, we have the solution.  We’d be happy to discuss adding image and voice recognition to any Apple or Barnes & Noble device.

Well done to Apple for the iPad – they’ve added a beautiful new device into the fascinating — and growing — world “in the middle” between PCs and mobile phones. We look forward to watching their next step.

Image Credit: Apple

Why are patents important?  The Cambridge Dictionary defines a patent as “The official legal right (given by the government) to make or sell an invention for a particular number of years.”  Through its parent company Evryx Technologies, LinkMe Mobile (LMM) has a total of 5 issued patents in the area of mobile search – with one more on the way in March 2010 – and 28 more patents pending in the U.S. and around the world.  Each of these patents relates to snapping a picture with the camera on your mobile phone and getting back pertinent information about the picture you’ve taken.

This info is particularly useful for mobile shopping, and can include everything you’ve ever wanted to know about a product: from photos to price comparisons, mobile coupons, special deals, store locations, amazing campaigns and more — you can even make a purchase right from your phone!  Right now, the best example of LMM’s mobile search technology in action in the United States is Barnes & Noble’s bookstore app for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. Get it here.  More than one million people have downloaded the app since its release just a few months ago!  Due to the patents on our technology and our unprecedented 96% image matching rate, it is the most successful bookstore app ever created — check out the rave reviews on Apple’s iTunes website.  We have other amazing apps and campaigns across the globe in Japan, China, Canada and the UK — each of these uses our patented technology.  No other company in mobile search has been around longer — or has the patent portfolio we do — and we’re very proud of it.

To learn more about our patents and exactly how they work, please click here.

If you have any questions about our patents or our technology, please connect with us. We love to hear from partners, users and fans!

Image Credit: U.S. Patent & Trademark Office