My new Blog is now live

Hi,

Just to let you know I've relaunched my blog with a new design, new content, and new awful pun so to keep up with my musings please redirect to www.ibegyourparton.com

Thanks

James

New survey on mobile operator developer communities

New survey on mobile operator developer communities . Let us know what you think http://bit.ly/Lw2gR

Changes to the O2 Litmus App Showdown

Last week, we launched the O2 Litmus App Showdown, with a prize of £10,000. Whilst we had a very positive response from the community, there was also some constructive feedback on how to make the competition better.

When we were planning the competition, we were keen to ensure we could involve as many O2 customers in the judging process as possible. This caused a problem for developers though, as they would have to give up 95 of their slots required to test apps – slots that as any iPhone app developer knows are extremely valuable.

We listened to the community for guidance on the optimum number of slots reserved for the developer and have subsequently had a chat about structuring things to make sure it works for the developer community.

These are the slight changes we're proposing:

· The panel of judges will be made up of 20 app-loving iPhone users
· Developers will now only need to keep 20 of their 100 slots free for the Showdown

We put this to the O2 Litmus community and received positive feedback on the forums. Hopefully this amendment to the rules means that there is now no reason for you not to enter the App Showdown.

That £10,000 is one step closer!

O2 App Showdown

It's been a while since I have had a chance to post here, although I'm doing better with the old Twitter updates!

It may have looked quiet from the outside for a few weeks, but believe me its been 100mph behind the scenes.

This morning the O2 App Showdown went live - a two month competition to find a great iPhone App for O2, with a £10,000 prize and great publicity for the winning developer. You can find out more here: www.o2litmus.co.uk/appshowdown

Along with the competition, I'm pleased to announce that O2 Litmus now supports the promotion of iPhone App's hosted within the iTunes App Store. This means developers can now promote their apps via O2 Litmus, helping address a common complaint amongst developers - "With the thousands of apps inside the App Store, just how do I get visibility?"

Today's announcement is just the first of few we have lined up, so stay tuned ;-)

New O2 Litmus Software Release Live, 11th June 09

The team has been busy beavering away behind the scenes to bring you the latest O2 Litmus release which went live today.

Firstly O2 Litmus is now connected into O2 UK’s shiny new infrastructure. This should be invisible to you, but it means that we are now super cool and future proofed! We can also start exposing more functionality from inside O2, enabling Developers to make better and more intelligent apps, meaning O2 Litmus members get more functional and personalised services.

If you have heard me speaking at a recent conference or have attended one of our developer days you will know this area is of particular interest.

This new release contains updates of our previous API’s, plus no less than four new API’s providing a rich set of functionality, allowing you to query everything from the users location, through to what type of device a customer is using, down to they have an all you can eat mobile data bolt on provisioned on their account.

Note we have updated the Developer & Member terms and conditions to take into account this new functionality - please review and ensure you understand them, here.

Finally have also updated the O2 Litmus FAQ’s, where you can find out more information on the new API set

I hope you enjoy these new features, and as every please tell us what you think, or would like to see next via the forums.

Have fun!

Plug for Being Digital 2009 including free ticket!

With only 4 days to go until Being-Digital '09 at The CBI Centre, Centre Point.
London. Who will be there?

• Mike Bracken from the Guardian will be announcing the Guardian's
  platform strategy building on their recently launched OpenPlatform product strategy
• Mike Nicholls who built and launched (yesterday) Bing.com (Microsofts
  new search product) will be on the Platforms panel talking about the future of search and platforms at Microsoft.
• Doug Richard (ex-dragon from Dragons Den) will be speaking with Julie
  Meyer (Ariadne Capital) & Charles Cohen (Probability) about how to grow a profitable digital business.
• Ed Parsons (Google) and Gary Gales (Yahoo) and others will be
  discussing location technologies and their future.
• Rory Sutherland (Vice President, Ogilvy One), Nicholas Wheeler
  (Managing Director, ITN On) and others will be speaking about the future of social media.

What is unique about Being-Digital is that there is no PowerPoint.

• The debate will be lead by chosen authorities in their fields who are all accomplished speakers
• They will be sharing personal insights into hottest digital topics
• You will be able to set the questions and guide the discussion via SMS and Twitter
• You'll discover innovative new start-ups
• You'll be able to present your business to active angel investors
• You'll be able to absorb critical opinion shaping your digital strategy

The guys provide a specific demo area where companies can raise their visibility with potential customers, partners and investors. They are expecting around 40 Demo Companies and 200+ digital executives, entrepreneurs & investors making for some excellent networking opportunities along with 2 Angels Den pitch events where startups will be pitching to active angel investors.

If you want to demo email Emma on team@mashupevent.com

UKTI is offering a free booth at Technology World '09 in COVENTRY http://www.technologyworld09.com/ To be in with a chance to win this you have to be a demo company at the event.

Find out more here
http://www.being-digital.com/demo/ There is an opportunity to win £5,000 of
virtual office service from eOffice. http://www.eoffice.net/


To register and pay the standard rate of £245+VAT or Entrepreneur rate of £125+VAT please go to www.being-digital.com/register/ However, there are some discounted tickets available from our Partners including SUN, Natwest, eOffice, UKTI and Angels Den. If you want to know more about these please email team@mashupevent.com

If you want to win the only FREE TICKET in the house you have to submit a 30 second video on "what does Being-Digital mean?" http://seesmic.com/mashupevent/

Being-Digital '09 has also partnered with B'tween http://www.btween.com/ who are running a complementary digital event in Liverpool on 11th and 12th June (the same week). There is an inclusive ticket for Being-Digital '09 and the coach up here along with the speakers.
http://www.mashupevent.com/event/btween-09-being-digital-09


Being-Digital '09 is brought to you in by mashup* event - sponsored by: Intel, SUN, NetBenefit, Doughty Hanson, Speechly, BCS, UKTI, WIN and in partnership with NatWest, Microsoft, G2i, DrinkTank, Smarta, Chinwag, Techfluff.tv, Winston&Strawn Bootlaw and The Next Women.

See you there on Tuesday!

Win the chance to go to the Mobile Web 2.0 Summit!

Win the chance to go to the Mobile Web 2.0 Summit!

We’re giving five developers the chance to go to the Mobile Web 2.0 Summit, which takes place on Wednesday 3rd June 2009 to Thursday 4th June 2009 at the Jumeirah Carlton Tower in Knightsbridge, London

I’ll be speaking on the Wednesday on ‘Mobile Operator 2.0’ and the changing the business model and strategy of operators. That’s followed by a roundtable and panel discussion on the development of operator strategies in relation to increasing mobile user engagement and new approaches to working. The two days brings together some fantastic speakers and panellists, so it should be a great event.

To be in with a chance of winning one of the five passes to Mobile Web 2.0 Summit, just complete the following steps:

1. Register on O2 Litmus at www.o2litmus.co.uk
2. Send an email to james@o2litmus.info with the subject line ‘Contest‘ and the following:

• Your O2 Litmus username
• A 140 character twitter-style sentence explaining why you should be one of the developers to go to the Mobile 2.0 Summit with O2 Litmus.

The competition ends at midnight on Thursday 28th May 2009. Winners will be announced on Friday 29th May 2009 on the O2 Litmus site, with the five winning developers being contacted by email after the competition closes with further details on how to get their passes.

Best of luck and don’t forget – our latest marketing campaign is due to go out to hundreds of thousands of O2 customers, so get uploading your applications to O2 Litmus now!

James
www.twitter.com/jamesparton