We are delighted to announce we are seeking a permanent member of our team for our London office to work on an innovative and respected mobile project for one of our most high-profile clients.

We are looking for a Senior Project Manager to oversee the cross-platform work we have in store for our client, which is done in-house in our Notting Hill offices.

Senior Technical Project Manager

Role Overview:

We are looking for a Senior Project Manager with proven agile experience to head up an exciting and high-profile mobile project for the UK’s leading pizza brand, Domino’s. We are looking for someone who is a pro with clients and adept at managing a variety of projects on various mobile platforms. You will be the delivery lead on digital m-Commerce focused programme of work, which incorporates iOS, Android, WP7 and beyond!

You will determine how to approach each sprint to deliver innovative solutions, minimise risk and motivationally inspire our mobile team to do their best work. You’ll work closely with the Managing Director on new opportunities and ensuring we provide excellence in client service.

Skills and Experience:

• Proven understanding of agile production processes and development systems
• Knowledge of mobile development advantageous
• Brand or digital agency background

Responsibilities

• Client facing responsibilities – daily, weekly communication with meeting with senior level clients – to gather requirements and ensure the expectations are understood
• Ensuring projects are well specified and initiated
• Scrum Master all streams of work and all project
• Creating Statements Of Work documents to kick off the production process
• Managing of projects using Jira – ensuring all tasks are entered into jira for project management
• Facilitate and chair regular client and internal meetings
• Responsibility for capturing change and updates as well as getting sign off on all designs assets, functional specification docs and SOW docs
• Responsible for creating a build brief and briefing a project into a team correctly
• Responsible for removing any blockers or issues that impact on the project work beginning
• Ensure the projects are delivered on time and to budget
• Assign and agree sprint commitment with team and technical lead

What’s in it for you?

We’re a small agency with a relaxed, community spirit and with plenty of opportunity to enhance your skillset in challenging and exciting work. Seize this chance to make your mark and enrich your portfolio with a well-known leader in food and beverage m-commerce and digital innovation.

This evening’s Mobile Monday London witnessed the once-a-year battle between native and Html5 – a topic that comes up whenever mobile is discussed and that deserves enough time to play out the arguments.

This year, in a significant swing from last year’s equivalent debate, native came out on top. Why is that?

First, let’s summarise the key arguments:

- Native is better because it gives you access to a massive audience, especially if you are an unknown brand. I don’t really buy this argument because discovery within app stores is a challenge more than an advantage – the days of app stores acting as your key marketing channel are long gone
- Through app stores, native gives you access to easy payment mechanics. I think this true for many sectors (e.g. game publishing, subscription services), but not universal (retailers and established brands can happily cope without it)
- Html5 is better because it is open, not locked into any walled garden and at the mercy of the app store key holder. This is a complex point that would deserve its own essay. In summary, I would argue that even in industries like betting, that risk may be worth taking if the reward is a significant market share over the next couple of years
- Html5’s promise of build-once, deploy everywhere is a myth because users of different operating systems expect different experiences. I only buy this argument if businesses are launching Html5 apps that are pretending to be native apps; an Html5 app should look and behave like a smarter mobile site and needn’t comply with the platform UI
- Native apps will always give you finer control over the experience, deeper access to device APIs and better performance. I don’t think anyone would argue against that, but the question is always going to be whether they are worth the additional investment of building and managing multiple applications.

In summary, none of the points above would sway me one way or the other, unless my business relied on app store billing or the app required native performance and APIs.

What made me come off the fence and lean towards native can be summarised with one word that was mentioned today: fragmentation.

The strongest argument for Html5 – the one that fueled the hype – is the idea that you can build your app and get it running across all mobile devices. While there wasn’t enough time to play out the argument this evening, I think that our industry has realized that browser and operating system implementations create their own fragmentation, making Html5 more brittle than one would expect.

On the other hand, Apple and Google put a lot of work into helping native apps cope with different OS versions and screen resolutions. What’s more, developers who have been working across multiple platforms have evolved techniques to share more code between app versions, reducing the duplication of effort when supporting multiple platforms.

The result is that a well designed native iOS app, followed quickly by an Android version, deliver the best value for money across most segments.

by Sergio Falletti

The Travel Technology Initiative hosted the Future of Travel Distribution summit in the Strand Palace Hotel in London last week where several emerging and leading travel sector companies gathered to discuss where the distribution of travel via technology could be heading, and hear presentations from major travel distribution brands, including Expedia, Monarch, Travel Republic, Living Social.

Also among the speakers was entrepreneur Alfredo Ouro who presented his company Hall St, and its innovative model for community hotel room booking. Based on the premise that a lot of hotel rooms are left empty when plans change Hall St aims for people to book hotel rooms through their service instead, with the opportunity to re-sell the room on a peer-to-peer online community if they need to. It made us think of some similarities with @Twickets (which uses Twitter to facilitate peer-to-peer ticket reselling in the UK).

John McQuillan, President of Open Jaw –a travel distribution technology company – discussed the power of a viral share using social media, and shared a viral thought-provoking online video on the power of social media today. Point to take away? “the ROI of social media is that your business will exist in 5 years time”.

Laurie Diffey from Monarch discussed their business infrastructure; “We are effectively dealing with the end-user, predominantly consumer rather than business customers. (mainly B2B, or B2B2C!)”. Diffey shared that Monarch’s business objectives going forward are to increase touch points, self-service and increase revenue via innovation technologically.

Early in the day our very own Sergio Falletti presented on mobile apps; and namely how to make them commercially successful in today’s market. His take-away tips?

Before embarking on creating an app for your business, consider:
• your own infrastructure
• the cost of ownership (rather than just the cost of getting the app to launch

and, most importantly:
• don’t forget the user!

Prioritizing user experience is close to our hearts as we believe if the user loves using your app, its highly likely it will be a success!

Elsewhere we heard from Seamus MacCormaic from Expedia & Hotels.com who shared that 10M users had downloaded their app so far, which compliments a 138 mobile sites worldwide for the company. Peter Matthews, Nucleus shared that luxury sites are on track for >30% mobile traffic by end-2012 and that mobile browsing of travel websites more than doubled in the past 12 months to an average 20.5% of all traffic surveyed.

Overall a common theme amongst the speaker’s presentations were on the fragmentation of travel distribution – and the opportunities and challenges that this disruption poses, with mobile technology high on the agenda for travel company’s who are banking on a bright future.

We are delighted that Domino’s Pizza, together with Vexed Digital and Future Platforms, has won the best Food and Drink e-commerce site at the Online Retail Awards 2012.

The Online Retail Awards are international, impartial, independent business awards that celebrate retailers’ websites that offer great online shopping experiences for customers.

Here is what ORA had to say about the win:

This extract from the entry submission summarises the success of the Domino’s Pizza website: ‘e-commerce sales accounted for 44.3% of UK delivered sales. In the 13 weeks to December 25, they climbed by 39.6% to reach £53.1m, up from £38.1m at the same time in 2010. Online sales for the full year to December 25 were £183.1m, up by 43.0% from the previous year’s £128.0m.’

Judges’ Comments:

“There’s more to this success than the numbers. Customers love using the site. And that’s because Domino’s Pizza has worked consistently with Future Platforms to develop e-commerce sales by creating a simple, informative, appealing website for pizza lovers.”

Congratulations to the Domino’s Pizza team on the win!

Our friend, Chris Book, (he of Open Mic and Telefonica) has his new audio-literature streaming app featured in PSFK Picks this month. Bardowl offers unlimited audio book listening on your iphone for a monthly fee, causing PSFK to liken it to ‘Spotify for Audiobooks’ and predicting it could give Amazon’s own audio-digital brand Audible a run for their money. What sets Bardowl apart is the fact that you’re streaming rather than downloading, meaning the casual reader can trial books without committing to own and store them.

Bardowl’s range is due to expand massively in the next few months, until then you can try out the service via a free trial, which you can download from the Apple iTunes store and give it a go yourself.

This morning Poke Presents put on a day of Creative inspiration and talk at Hackney House, celebrating the cutting edge innovation that is bridging the burgeoning digital world of start up and real life products.

First up we had Matt Jones from Berg talking about how they create new products with a view to innovate on how online and offline interact. Including the interesting projects he spoke about that whetted our appetite was Little Printer, the cute printing device that connects cloud-based data and physical, charmingly ‘old school’ portable printing, for at home use.

Next Up was Jo Roach from MakieLab, a new-school startup bridging the gap between gaming and toys with their distinctive range of personalised dolls created using 3D printing technology. Interesting points were how the technology had made their business possible, creating small runs of highly individualized products that respond to orders rather than mass-producing.

The GeekDad hack product of choice ‘Sugru’ was next to be showcased, by founder Jane who won us over with her tales of crowd-sourced product development, passionate hackers and products that go against the grain. Sugru is a wonder material that aims to ‘fix the future’ rather than encourage the all too prevalent disposable culture of current commerce. Check out the (seemingly utterly endless) uses of Sugru here and its legions of hack-happy Gurus.

Lastly to the podium was the new Creative Director at Moo.com, Matthew Grey, who spoke about how they are inverting the real-life to digital model with business cards that encourage the physical while embracing the boundless creative opportunities of being a purely e-commerce innovative brand.

When Tim Berners-Lee was honoured at the opening ceremony for London 2012 we were delighted.  Acknowledgement of how much the digital industry has contributed to the British culture and economy is, we think, never a bad thing.  So in celebration of London 2012 and all things digital we decided to give our our own gold, silver and bronze to Olympic apps that deserve their moment in the spotlight.

Bronze

London 2012 Game

iOS, Android, Blackberry

Free

As its summer holidays and its the UK some parents might feel it an Olympian effort to just keep the children quiet and happy, even if you have coveted tickets to one of the games.  That’s why we’ve awarded Bronze to the official London 2012 Game app.   The official site says the game includes “Archery, Double Trap Shooting, 110m Hurdles and Swimming, in authentic London 2012 venues. Easy to play but difficult to master!”  Its not the most excitingly designed app in the world but is fun to play and gets one into the spirit of things, even if the only exercise it offers is for the thumbs and index.

Silver

London 2012: Join In

Android, iOS, Blackberry

Free

For those of us who’s interest in sports tends towards the mild-to-snooze levels the official London 2012 app ‘Join-In’ offers a welcome array of ways to feel a part of the games and events going on around them even if the most athletic thing you’ll watch this summer is your other half reaching for the remote.  Your faithfull Vexed blogger is one of these said sports event-phobes while at the same time keen to capitalise on the wealth of free events around town and this app is as good as it gets.  The app boasts “all the cultural, city and community celebrations happening across the UK” all in a nice, handy pin drop map and timetable, hence its our Silver winner.

Gold

BBC Sport Olympic App

Free

iOS, Android and Blackberry

Excellent app for iOS and Android that offers live text commentary, news, stories, full guide and more.  Already at half a million downloads the app is a one-stop-shop for keeping up to date on results and making sure you don’t miss any must-see games.  iOS users get the added feature of personalization of the app, so as to tailor the app to show only what interests you which is clever.  All in the familiar, and now familiarly well laid out, digital content the BBC are getting so good at delivering.  Well Done Beeb.

Disqualification

OK, OK, its not actually an app but we couldn’t resist mentioning official burger ‘n’ heart attack-purveyor of London 2012, McDonalds, who have invited the scorn of many with news that Happy Meals will be giving out pedometers with every kid-friendly meal.  Arguable not a bad idea on first glance, however some feel that the chain – known for its highly fattening and problematic array of foodstuffs aimed at young people – shouldn’t be an official sponsor of an event all about health and fitness.   They feel the inclusion of a pedometer in a Happy Meal smarts of a manipulative marketing message that implies it doesn’t matter to your health how much junk food you consume as long as you’re mildly active.  What are you thoughts?

Let us know @futureplatforms where we’ll be asking for feedback on all London 2012 news throughout the games.

Is it a bird… is it a plane?

What exactly is Twitter?

This article examines whether Twitter can be classified as a Technology Platform, Social Network or Media Company…or all of the above.

Twitter has, so far, skirted the boundaries between these identities, whilst is most often refereed to as a social network.   There are, however, some conflicting elements to this multifaceted profile.  Technologists see Twitter as a platform from which to build on, with innovation and development central goals.  However Twitter has announced tighter controls over what apps are allowed to be built onto it in a move to be able to sell advertising space with more control, like a traditional media company;

“What appears to be Twitter’s increasingly ad-driven approach is upsetting third-party developers, many of whom helped the service gain popularity in its early days by providing features that Twitter itself did not, from slick desktop clients like Tweetdeck to photo-uploading tools like Twitpic.”

For Twitter’s continued success as a technology platform it should consider keeping its third party developer community happy, they are often integral in taking technology platforms to the next level – just look at the success Farmville garnered for Facebook.  Cohn adds; “The relationship between a developer and a platform is a very delicate one. Twitter’s growing pains, he added, are “nothing too different from what any platform goes through as they mature.”

However Dick Costolo has said earlier this year: “We’re not a media company.  We’re in the media business. We distribute traffic.”

Although Twitter has legally confirmed that it doesn’t consider itself to have property rights over its user’s tweets it is increasingly a service people turn to for up-to-the-minute news and gossip,  former Yahoo executive Greg Cohn summed it up nicely with the question; “is Twitter the dial tone or is Twitter the content? [...] I think increasingly the indications are showing that Twitter is the content.”

With this ability to take on different identities when it suits best Twitter is already well on its way to surpassing its original identity as a social network and, like Facebook, entering other sectors such as commerce and entertainment.  Will third party developers be able to go along for the ride with them?