London Implements “Smar...

I’m not sure how I feel about this. The object you’re looking at right now is what the city of London calls a “smart bin.” Built by Renew, the smart bins are being installed on the streets of London and have two massive LCD screens slapped on the sides. According to the Daily Mail , the screens will display news from the Economist and stock quotes. That is, until passersby get violent and either destroy them or hack them. Currently, only 25 units are deployed across the metropolis, but the city plans on adding another 75 between now and when the 2012 Olympics kick off. I know you’re wondering, so I’ll just cut to the chase. 25 of these “smart bins” cost approximately $47,000. The idea has already started to gain traction in other cities including New York and Tokyo (though I can tell you right now that a LCD-equipped recycling bin in NYC will last all of two minutes before being destroyed or peed on). One benefit of these smart bins is that they are WiFi-equipped and can eventually become hotspots. They can also be used to notify passersby of emergencies immediately. [Image credit: Getty]

RIM’s New CEO Backtrack...

On Monday of this week, RIM’s new CEO made a statement that set off a bomb on the blogosphere, and I’m not sure he understood its repercussions at the time. “I don’t think any drastic change is needed.” If you’ve been paying attention to RIM and its numbers, you know that what the company desperately needs is change. Sales are declining, platform market share is dwindling, and the BlackBerry brand, to a large extent, has lost the power it once had behind it. So in a recent interview with CrackBerry , Heins made sure to clarify exactly what he meant by “no drastic change is needed.” I think this got into a little bit of the black and white zone. I was talking about drastic or seismic changes. What I was trying to address was that there was some suggestion that RIM should be split up or should even be sold. My true belief is that RIM has the strength and the assets that we can really succeed in this market . There is a LOT of change. There is a lot of structure change, there has been already a lot of change in terms of our software, our software platform, bringing QNX in. There is no standstill at any moment here at RIM. What I wanted to make clear to the market is that we believe in our own strength, we are BlackBerry, we are an integrated solution, hardware, software, services, and network. Perhaps, Mr. Heins makes a point. RIM is clearly trying to change. We just haven’t seen it yet. A QNX-based BlackBerry 10 operating system is a huge step in the right direction, but it was announced in April 2010 and won’t be ready until the second half of this year. Quite the wait, if I may be so bold. Then there’s the PlayBook 2.0 OS that’s supposed to make its way to us next month, and refreshed hardware to go along with it which hasn’t been given a clear release date. Again, these are solid changes. PlayBook 2.0 brings everything that the first tablet OS was lacking and does it in a seamless, elegant manner. But … the original PlayBook should’ve launched with this version of the OS, even if it meant the launch would be a bit later. Another case of attempted change, but poor execution. Another change we’ll soon see from RIM has to do with their launch strategy. RIM usually puts out two or three new phones all on the same day. It’s like a BlackBerry explosion. But according to a leaked roadmap , the company seems to finally realize that a staggered approach is the only way to give each device a moment in the sun. It’s a smart move, we just need to experience it. Finally, the BlackBerry London . Despite the fact that RIM’s bread and butter lies with its full QWERTY keyboard, the company is expected to debut BlackBerry 10 on an all-touch device, codenamed London. I have to say I applaud RIM for this choice, for now. RIM’s core audience enjoys the full QWERTY, no doubt, and the company will likely continue to be the de facto when it comes to communication and QWERTY handsets. But (yep, another but)… the world is moving to all-touch whether RIM likes it or not. This is the company’s chance to tap into a different, younger segment of the market. Of course, the London will need to be just about perfect in terms of hardware to get the ball rolling again, especially since RIM’s found itself in an uphill battle. Long story short, RIM certainly is in the midst of a change. Whether it’s big enough or coming soon enough is an entirely different story.

Shoply Aims To Socializ...

Exclusive - On a mission to democratize e-commerce and help take the concept of social shopping from fad to reality, Shoply is making its formal debut today after a year of bootstrapping. The bootstrapping days are over, as Shoply has raised an undisclosed amount of seed financing from former Facebook VP Chamath Palihapitiya and serial entrepreneur and scarily prolific angel investor Fabrice Grinda for its “Fab.com and Pinterest love child” (among other backers). In essence, Shoply is a marketplace where any small brand or local business can sell wares online. Since quietly launching last year, 10,000 sellers have already found their way to the platform, generating “thousands” of monthly transactions according to founder and CEO Liad Shababo . Shoply aims to give anyone who wants to sell – from individuals to SMBs – virtually anything online a way to do so quickly and easily, but also actively bring them a steady stream of customers by leveraging social media and technologies, and help them promote their businesses on the Web. Obviously, that’s easier said than done, but Shoply appears to have nailed what businesses need to successfully establish and promote an online store. Shoply stores are free to get up and running, with no setup or listing fees, and the startup charges either a 10 percent commission fee on sales, or a premium flat rate of $29.99 per month. The downside of not charging listing fees is that Shoply will need to a better job monitoring what sellers are putting up on the site (I noticed some – expensive – spam products on the marketplace). They also don’t currently police shipping fees charged by sellers, so that means you’re bound to raise your eyebrows at total prices sometimes when you shop (e.g. sellers charging a $85 shipping fee for a $45 item is just ridiculous and downgrades the overall experience). Shababo tells me that they’ve built the site with only 3 people so far, and that those kinks will be gradually removed as they grow the team and take the site to the next level. He also points out that a lot of what gets showcased on the site is there based on user activity, so lousy offers should get organically pushed down anyway. Indeed, for consumers, Shoply provides a social shopping experience where they can discover and buy unique products from a trove of independent sellers on a single platform. Users can curate products they love and share them with others, but there’s more to it than that. By following other users, Shoply members can remain updated on all the happenings on the site, such as new products listed by their favourite sellers, or new collections of items created by the users they follow. Shoply uses the available data to provide consumers with suggested lists of products, shops they should be following and other members with similar tastes. I like it. Shoply is based in London, UK, with offices in San Francisco opening soon.

Net-A-Porter: Augmented...

NET-A-PORTER are rolling out Augmented Reality Shopping Windows, around the world including Paris, New York, London, Munich and Sydney. The video demo above is from late last year for Fashion’s Night Out celebrations in London and New York, but as of today, it’s been rolled out globally for the new Karl by Karl Lagerfeld collection, Related Digital Buzz Posts: WWF: Augmented Reality Tiger Shirt Ford C-Max Augmented Reality Billboards Lynx: Augmented Reality Angel Ambush

1-Month Old BuzzDoes Sc...

BuzzDoes , a newly launched word-of-mouth marketing tool for mobile app developers, has secured $750,000 in seed funding from angel investors and Proxima Ventures. The tool, which operates as a drop-in SDK (software development kit), allows developers to add a viral recommendation feature to their application using a single line of code. Once installed, app users are “incentivized” (meaning rewarded), for recommending the app in question to their friends. Getting a mobile app noticed in the increasingly crowded mobile app market is more difficult than ever, with some 600,000 iOS applications filling up the iTunes App Store’s shelves, and around 400,000 apps on Android. Although many companies have been experimenting with different means to get their app noticed, word-of-mouth recommendations from trusted sources (e.g. friends, trusted sites, etc.) is one of the only consistently proven methods that can help boost an app’s ranking. Essentially, BuzzDoes is trying to kickstart the typically organic viral recommendation process where users tell friends about great apps they should try. To do so, app developers using BuzzDoes can choose to reward users who share an app with friends. The rewards come in the form of BuzzDoes points that users can redeem for cash (via PayPal), or users can donate the points to a charity instead. The secret sauce for this startup, however, is not just the sharing feature – it’s that BuzzDoes is also able to detect when a new user downloads and app because of the recommendation. At first glance, the idea for a “recommendations-for-rewards” type mechanism feels like it could get a little spammy, but the way it’s implemented sounds rather smart.  When a user enters the section of the app where they can make the recommendation, they’re also able to see which apps their friends are downloading, something that adds a social element to the app discovery process. If they’re interested in downloading one of the other apps here, they just tap the app in question and their friend gets the points. For developers, it’s a win because they get new users, but for the app customers involved, this sort of in-app discovery feature feels far less intrusive than mobile ads. In fact, it doesn’t really feel like an ad at all – it feels like a feature. Developers are offered the BuzzDoes SDK for free, and don’t have to pay unless they actually gain new users through the word-of-mouth recommendation network. That’s a different take than what traditional “incentivized” install companies (e.g. TapJoy, W3i, etc.) provide. In most cases, developers pay upfront for a set amount of downloads which are acquired through “marketing actions,” like offers or through downloading other 3rd-party mobile apps. According to BuzzDoes CEO Assaf Kolirin, the cost to acquire is as low as $0.20 per user, versus today’s averages of $1.50-$3.00 per user. BuzzDoes launched a month ago at the AppsWorld conference in London, and went live just two weeks ago. It now has over 100 developers on the platform – something that speaks to today’s enormous and still unsolved challenge of user acquisition and app discovery. The $750,000 in seed funding was raised from a few leading angels in Israel and South America, including  Avraham Gilat, as well as Proxima Ventures.