Future Technologies May - New Business Models

To carry on with my monthly post about something new and exciting, i've decided to choose new business models - no really it is exciting!

I recently saw a great presentation from Mervyn Levin, Levering Ltd Consultancy (his background is impressive as you can see from this PDF i've found covering a bit of his biography http://www.southeastmedianetwork.co.uk/knowledge/asia.pdf) on the subject area 'The Digital Economy in East Asia'. He talked about the different business models in the games industry in China, instead of relying on consoles and packaged (physcal) software which can be easily pirated a new industry has developed whereby online gaming has taken over. The online gaming industry tried charging a subscription (in the same way we're all talking about with SaaS, Software as a Service) but this proved unsuccessful so instead they have monetised features in the games and utilise microtransactions. To put it in layman terms if i'm totally into a game I might pay 50p for a better sword, 50p is not exactly a lot to me but if enough people do it (and a new sword would eventually need an accompanying shield etc) it can soon add up - especially when you have a population size like China.

This has all started me thinking about other new business models that are starting to slowly enter our lives. As i've already mentioned everyone is talking about SaaS and i've been hearing about various new ideas with organisations looking into providing all kinds of software on a monthly subscription or one-off fee type basis (made much easier with cloud computing but i'm not going to go into that right now!). At an event recently I heard about a new company that is looking at allowing people to pay for software on a one-off basis i.e. you get an email with a photoshop attachment and could click to pay for a day's use of photoshop in order to view and if necessary edit the attachment - fab idea. Sites like http://www.myhrtoolkit.com/ (check out the 2 minute demo) are totally getting the idea of the scope of SaaS and how it could be used for almost everything (also a Yorkshire company btw!).

So what else can I predict will move to a new business model? Well I don't want to be contraversial by talking about the Post Office and I am absolutely supportive of the Royal Mail but I do also see a future where individuals won't have to buy a stamp to attach to a letter and then pop it into a postbox, after all this is a classic microtransaction scenrio that could be made easier with technology (and I don't believe this would mean you don't need a post office, they're about much more than buying stamps after all!).

I used to be able to pay for the bus in York by using a 2D barcode on my mobile phone - it was great! They've stopped using it and I don't know why because it was so easy, all I had to do was send a text to get more bus tickets on my phone and my bank account was immediately debited - i'm really hoping they can bring this back to buses and that some bright spark makes sure you can use the tickets on any bus in the UK - how great would that be! So what else can we pay for with our mobile phones? Games, tickets, hotel reservations, parking spaces and where could this take us? Into supermarkets, airports (negating the need to have a different currency to buy a bottle of water)?

Also, as we're all wanting to be *the* knowledge based economy isn't it time we monetised knowledge better? We already pay for advice, could we do this in a microtransaction type way? Are people prepared to make a one-off payment for a single recipe for example instead of a cookery book? (okay that's a bad example due to wikibooks cookbook http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook but you get the idea).

Could you sell a book chapter by chapter? How much would you pay for a 30 minute online chat session with a solicitor? Why has no one thought to have a 24/7 online IT support company where you allow access to your PC / MAC and pay by the hour? What about an online magazine that allows you to click on anything in the photo to be taken to buy it (i.e. clothes, furniture, games, whatever the magazine specializes in).

There has already been talk of charging for single TV episodes. Could it work, I think maybe. People download individual episodes from torrents so would they pay a small amount if it was made easier and more reliable?

I think it will be really exciting to see the next round of new ideas with this new kind of business model.

LSx 09 - the 2nd Leeds Web Festival

Just to spread the news regarding LSx 09 which began on the 5th May (I'm too late to tell you about the Digital Britain unconference i'm afraid but I believe there are still more to be held in other locations) and continues until the 3rd June.

There are even more things going on than last year and include:

12th may innovation north 2009 showcase
Leeds Met's undergraduate expo, showcasing the work of this year's graduating class in music technology, sound, games design, animation, special effects, creative media and computing.

19th may hackspace
Hackspace is an alternative term for Hackerspaces, a physical place where anybody with an interest in technology can meet up, socialize and collaborate on project within a vast range of technologies and languages.

20th may geekup
An evening social of internet industry workers, including a trio of brief 20:20 talks - Clare Lindley on Creating iPhone apps with PhoneGap, Phil Helliwell on What your BIG-IP can do for you & Jonathan "Squigfried" Powell on Hack Spaces, and why having one in Leeds will be awesome.

27th may girl geek dinner
An evening buffet accompanied by keynote speakers representing the best femalte talents in the technology sector. Seedcamp CEO, Reshma Sohoni, and Democracy PR's founder, Jennifer O'Grady will be one of the featured speakers, with around 70 guests drawn from the city's most talented and respected female professionals in creative and digital.

28th may future of web apps tour
Ryan Carson's renowned conference comes to Leeds for the first time, at the city's newly opened Rose Bowl. The theme is Cloud Computing - with speakers from Microsoft, Amazon and Salesforce.

(I'm assuming this is the same lineup that I saw in Manchester a couple of weeks ago and in which case I can really recommend the event. I thought all the speakers were really interesting - and I was tired that day so it really says something :-))

29th may physical computing 101tinker.it
an innovative consultancy that's bringing together the physical and digital worlds through creative technologies will be leading a day long Beginner's Guide to Arduino, to help novices and experts alike learn how to build small electronic widgets!

(I know i've blogged about Arduino before and i'm afraid i'm still yet to do anything with mine - but I have big plans, honest!)

30-31st may barcamp leeds {2009}
BarCamp Leeds is the city's third 'unconference', an event where the folks that attend create the programme of sessions themselves. BarCamps are open, participatory, democratic, 'workshop' events; the organisers and sponsors simply provide wireless broadband, a venue, beverages and food!

(I blogged about Leeds and Sheffields last Barcamps so will try not to bore you again with how great I think they are! I will hopefully be attending this on the Saturday so will blog again then.)

3rd june exposure leeds
The city's photographic community is supporting LSx by running 60-90 minute workshops photography workshops with a technological bias - some topics might include Flickr, Photoshop, HDR, PhotoSynth and Lightroom.

UKNOF (UK Network Operators Forum) 13 to be held in Sheffield

Just a quick blog about UKNOF 13, which is to be held at the Electric Works in Sheffield on Thursday 28th May. It's a free event so if you're around I recommend going along.

To give you an idea about the kind of speakers they have, the last event's agenda included:

* Fighting Spam at the Source (Thomas Mangin, Exa Network)
* 21CN Operational Experiences (Adrian Kennard, Andrews and Arnold)
* JANET STM-256 Upgrade (Rob Evans, JANET UK)
* Passive WDM Experiences (Mike Hughes, LINX)
* New Undersea Cables Around the UK (Martin Hannigan, Verne Global)
* IETF Update (Kurtis Lindqvist, Netnod)
* OpenSIPs (Bogdan-Andrei Iancu)
* RIPE-2007-01 and -08 Charging Changes (Nigel Titley, RIPE NCC)
* 32-bit AS Numbers (Will Hargrave, Andy Davidson)
* DNSSEC Signing of .ORG (Dave Knight, Afilias)
* UK ENUM Update (Ian Meikle, Nominet)
* Perspectives on IPv4 runout and the transition to IPv6 (Mat Ford, Internet Society)
* VoIP 999 Regulatory Update (Steve Kennedy, NetTek)
* IRRToolset Update (Shane Kerr, Afilias)
* Website Accessibility (Steve Kennedy, Textic Ltd)

So if any of the above topics are of interest come along. Yorkshire Forward are sponsoring the event and we're also organising someone to come along to talk about Digtal Region (http://www.digitalregion.co.uk/), the broadband project in South Yorkshire so this will also be an opportunity to hear about the plans for Digital Region and ask questions.

You can regsiter online at:

http://www.uknof.org.uk/

New Websites - Game Republic and OS4B

Two new sites have been launched this week, well I guess Game Republic is kind of a re-launch but anyway i'm counting it!

So first up is Game Republic a network for the Games Industry in Yorkshire and Humber. The new site is looking great and has loads of info on it including news, events, business support and also Jamie's blog. They also have a list of all the games companies in the region, which is very useful and includes titles produced by the companies so makes an interesting read. If you're a games company in the region and you're not on the list get in touch to get yourself added. Finally, they also have a Vodcasts page with a video of Team 17's Martyn Brown talking about Yorkshire's fab games industry.

The second new site this week is OS4B, Open Source for Business. Run by the nti this project is all about bringing Open Source to more businesses in the region and supplying the skills needed for various different Open Source applications. There are various training courses currently on offer including Google's Android, Apache, Linux and an Introduction to Gimp (an image editor I used to use all the time and I definitely recommend an intro course rather than trying to figure it all out on your own!), keep an eye on the site for new courses.

They also have a news / events page, a jobs page and a communities page which lists a few of the different communities in the region. It also lists OS4B's own community - the employers forum. If you're a business working with open source or interested in developing open source you can join the employers forum and input ideas on the types of training that should be supplied and get some information / advice from other members.

Creative Networks April event

Just to spread the word about the next Creative Networks event. I've probably blogged about Creative Networks before, they're excellent events held at Leeds College of Art & Design and always get great speakers. This time it's going to be Ajaz Ahmed, founder of Freeserve (and coincidentally a Yorkshire Forward board member!) and his subject area is 'Lessons Learnt', which i'm sure is going to be of great interest to many. The events are free to attend and more info can be found at:

http://www.yorkshire-forward.com/news-events/events/creative-networks-april

You can also find information about their recent events (and check out the great previous speakers) at:

http://www.creativenetworkswestyorkshire.com/

I think potentially meeting Jimmy Choo at my first Creative Networks event (and getting his business card no less) is one of my most treasured moments :-)

Future Technologies April - Printed Electronics

I've decided to make life more difficult for myself and add a monthly feature to my blog that will be vaguely related to future technology / predictions / cool technology of the month - type thing.

This month I thought i'd focus on Printed Electronics... (Photo courtesy of Thin Film Electronics listed below)

It seems everyone is predicting massive increases in printed electronics and the potential affect on various everyday products are huge. Being able to print electronics will eventually change almost everything but current research seems to be focusing on:


Displays / screens
Think mobile phones, laptops and TVs. The latest idea I just came across being wallpaper TVs (for when flatscreen just isn't flat enough)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/4786367/Japanese-develop-television-wallpaper.html

Lighting
Leading on from that you can obviously see the connection with lighting. I have already heard of examples of lights without bulbs, i.e. the lighting electronics are printed into the lampshade, apparently they're not very bright yet but that's just a matter of time.
The first OLED lamp has been prototyped already:
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1523/

Batteries
Everyone's looking into batteries but i've come across quite a few articles about reserch MIT is doing around this area - it doesn't take a genius to realise the commercial opportunities are huge and that as devices get smaller and better batteries need to too.

MIT's most recent press release regarding battery research:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/virus-battery-0402.html

Note: "The prototype is packaged as a typical coin cell battery, but the technology allows for the assembly of very lightweight, flexible and conformable batteries that can take the shape of their container."

Memory / storage (rfid)
An example here could be printed security tags that contain information in the memory contained within the label and can be printed onto any surface, as described by Thin Film Electronics based in Sweden:
http://www.thinfilm.se/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52&Itemid=54


Another example would be interactive scratchcards that have several goes (the card can be wiped so several 'scratches' are included on one card).


So then I decided to brainstorm it myself and came up with the following product ideas:


Leaflet laptops taking netbooks to the extreme!
Bathroom cabinet organisers (online diary on half the mirror so you can see what you've got that day while brushing your teeth!)
Instant messaging business cards (message a person instantly through their business card)
Re-ordering through labels (i.e. you need a new hoover bag so you press an area on the label on the bag and you've automatically ordered a new bag, just like that)
Menus in fast food outlets that submit your order electronically
Printed runway lighting at airports, maybe even lighting that's contained within paint in the distance future!


Some of these, maybe all of these, have probably already been thought of but I thought it demonstrates the many, many applications that this will bring into our lives.


If anyone out there is seriously interested in printed electronics in Yorkshire just drop me a line as it's something we're working on through the Northern Way partnership.

Get Connected to Investors

An opportunity for businesses that are classed as high growth and technology based to get in front of some investors / venture capatalists is being held by Connect Yorkshire:

http://www.connectyorkshire.org/?page=presenting%20companies

You have to fill in an application form which can also be found at the above link. It's not as scary as it might sound because Connect Yorkshire will help you prepare your pitch in advance of the actual event - so even if you don't get any cash out of it the advice is worth having. It's good to know how to pitch your business for funding and get some feedback.