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Foursquare, a mobile social networking game that gets users to “check in” at places they visit in the real world, has experienced explosive growth. While people are acquiring mayorships in droves in the US and the UK, bold users in other countries are marking their territory as well.

While we’re all in search of those elusive badges or fighting to retain those mayorships, the real value of Foursquare may be much, much more.  For people traveling abroad, it’s been a brilliant source of current advice and tips.

Having travelled a good amount, I’m always cautious of my research before getting into the country. Some sites and listings haven’t been updated for years, and its not when you get there that a) the place no longer exists, b) the venue isn’t what it was like in 2008, c) the crowd is vastly different.

I always check my check-out list with locals just to make sure.

With Foursquare, I have easy access to local tour guides. The desire to recommend and be “in the know” knows no boundaries.  Each mayor is potential guide. Here are a few new mayors in Montevideo, where I’m currently traveling.

Surfing through their postings, I can quickly find where I need to be on Thursday Nights. Looks like Francisco V thinks I should head to Lou Bizzarro Bar on Thursday night.

The following is my latest post on my blog, bayjinger.com

There’s been a couple of interesting posts on implementing Flash on mobile devices in the last few days. First, An Adobe Flash developer on why the iPad can’t use flash looks at the issue from a UI perspective – namely how some of the UI design elements we take for granted on desktops / laptops, such as mouse hover-over, are not native to the touch paradigm, so that even if Flash can run on the iPad / iPhone, a lot of Flash usages still would not function properly. Instead, either the mobile OSes come up with ways to emulate a mouse interface (or introduce a lot more complicated input methods), or existing Flash apps have to be redesigned with the mobile audience in mind. The first route goes against the touch paradigm, while the second route means a lot of work for developers (so it can almost be argued they might as well forego Flash altogether).

The second post shows a fairly slick youtube video of Flash on Android, through a Farmville demo:

If you look closely enough, you can see that 1) there is an issue with mouse hover-overs; 2) for a intensely interactive Flash app, there is “money left on the table” in the sense that it is not customized for touch and the controls feel clumsy (or maybe it’s just the demo person…).

Which leads me to the provocative title of this post. The whole demand for Flash on the iPhone and other mobile platforms is based on how it gives consumers the “real web.” However, if you think about the main uses of Flash, which is 1) video 2) games 3) ads, I would say that consumers don’t care about whether ads can be displayed, and as the above example illustrates, games (and other forms of highly interactive Flash usages) probably need to be redesigned anyway (which calls for custom apps). Which leaves video – and this is where the competitive landscape plays an interesting role. The biggest video site, Youtube, is owned by Google, and Google is definitely going for HTML5 + H.264 and moving away from Flash. (Tangent: Google is also getting some criticism for not truly supporting the open web, as H.264 is a licensed technology.)

So the bottom line is, while Flash has dominance on the web now, it definitely faces the danger of becoming completely irrelevant in the mobile space. This may not be a terrible thing – moving to a unified standard such as HTML5 and away from proprietary codecs – except of course for Adobe.

by DMEC Careers Della Huff and Chris Finegold

Internet and Social Networks

Content and Distribution

Mobile

Hardware

The following is my latest post on my blog, bayjinger.com

QQ.com reports (link in Chinese) that Chinese Shanzhai mobile phone manufacturers — Shanzhai denotes low price knockoffs of trendy products — are considering building factories in India to regain access to the massive and rapidly growing mobile market. Last December India banned phones without International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) codes — the unique identification number per mobile device globally; unfortunately,many Shanzhai manufacturers aggressively manage costs by sharing IMEI codes or not having them at all. These manufacturers, primarily based in Shenzhen, hope that by establishing local manufacturing in India, they would gain some goodwill with Indian authorities and perhaps regain access to the market.

According to the article, the Shenzhen Mobile Communications Association (SMCA), a trade group, plans to organize a business trip to India this month for 12 of its members. The group will negotiate an agreement with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) to grant Shanzhai products legitimate access to the Indian market so it can regain its substantial market share:

“…the goal is to set up several production lines, with annual capacity of 10 million units… Chinese brands achieved 40% market share in India last year, but we are now blocked out of this market. We must leverage Shenzhen’s manufacturing strengths, to build the image of producing Indian phones.”
– Tang Ruijin, Chairman, SMCA

Some interesting mobile phone statistics from 2009 include:

• Global handset production volume was 1.13 billion last year, with an estimated 20% to beChinese Shanzhai phones,
• In 2009 Shanzhai manufacturers produced 235 million units, of which 140 million units were for export (sweeping across emerging markets globally, especially in Southeast Asia and South Asia). (Source: BDA, a telecommunications, media and technology consultancy based in Beijing), and
• Exports could grow as much as 50% this year to 211 million units, with India being the largest foreign market.

I think this could be a very interesting development, with implications beyond just the return of Chinese Shanzhai brands to India. Essentially, these export facing manufacturers are forced to tackle global marketing issues, and could be pioneers for how Chinese brands expand internationally; most Chinese brands these days have the luxury of being able to only focus on the domestic market. To a large extent, these low price manufacturers have enjoyed success so far; now their ambition is to make their business sustainable – to do so they will need to shift to real innovation, either in product, market distribution or customer segmentation.

By Nan Duan.

Following is my latest post on my blog, bayjinger.com

Last Friday, a group of 50 Haas MBA students visited the Googleplex. During the 3-hour afternoon visit, we had an enjoyable tour of the campus, and engaged a panel of Googlers (many of them Haas alums!) from various products and functions in a lively round of discussions. A big shout-out for my classmate and former Googler Lauren Gellman for organizing this spectacular trip!

Haas MBA Google Trek 2010

Besides having a great time talking with the Googlers, I was also lucky enough to win one of the 5 Droids handed out in a surprise lottery (you can see the winners showing off their gear in the photo). The phone, targeted for developers, comes with a one-month free trial from Verizon, as well as a nice discount for a 1 year or 2 year contract.

This is the first Android handset I have used, having been a loyal iPhone user since January 2009. There are things I immediately like about the phone, and it really is almost a completely different experience from the iPhone. I know there are plenty of Droid reviews out there (since this device has been out for a quarter now), but here are some of my first impressions:

• Great support for Google products – really, no surprises here. The turn-by-turn navigation, a coveted app by many, could well be one of the killer apps for this device. (I am curious how well that works on the road, especially in areas with patchy reception – this was a key differentiation point Nokia was trying to emphasize for its Ovi Maps, where the maps are stored locally and require less data transmission – and therefore less dependence on reception – on the go.) And of course the Google Voice app is great, but it does make you wonder how Verizon feels about it.
• Background apps – Pandora while surfing? No problem. However, it’s not apparent what apps are running in the background, which could both be a drain on your battery and also a potential nuisance – I realized I was always on Google Chat, even though that wasn’t my intention.
• Poor support for business users. This is not a phone ready for corporate America. It supports Microsoft Exchange, but apparently the “corporate email” app doesn’t support search. That’s right. No inbox searching. That alone is enough for me to hold on to my iPhone. (I could, in theory, forward all my emails to Gmail, but I’m sure there are plenty of users like me out there who prefer to keep their work-email and gmail separate)
• Very slow charging on USB? I have a habit of carrying only the USB cord, and not the adapter, for my iPhone. For some reason, the Droid charges at a very slow pace via USB – something like 15% an hour, which is not satisfactory.
• The physical keyboard is redundant. Yes. I’ve gotten used to typing on virtual keyboards. Having to actually push down feels painful, and there is no auto-correct. In this regard I’d probably like the Nexus One a lot better.
• App market. Good number of apps already, most of the web2.0 services are present, but much less presence of old-school stuff – e.g. WSJ, FT, NYTimes etc.

Reading through the points above, it’s interesting to note how many of them are talking about consumers’ habits. For example the point about the keyboard – if I came from the blackberry world I probably would love the physical keyboard (remember all those people who hated the virtual keyboard on the iPhone when it first launched?), but I’ve grown accustomed to virtual keyboards. Same for the email search – my work-around would solve the problem, but it is asking me to change my behavior, so I have a strong distaste for it.

One final point – I want to comment on how fundamentally different the Droid is from the iPhone. I felt it was a phone for geeks and engineers. The UI was less polished, but there was much more that the user could customize (menus, widgets etc…) You need to spend time to play around with it. The iPhone, on the other hand, is a device ready for mass adoption. It’s frustrating for geeks who want to do all kinds of things (but can’t), but perfect for everyday users who can just use it intuitively. Very different philosophies, and therefore potentially a sharp divergence in consumer segments going forward.