Luke Janssen

Jumping off stuff

Archive for November, 2008

Death to patents!

Apple is being sued for patent infringement over the way its iPhone surfs the internet by EMG Technology, who alledged that the company infringes on a patent it holds for navigating the internet on mobile devices. The patent was issued little more than a month ago, but relies on 76 claims that were originally filed in 1999. The patent covers how online content is displayed on mobile devices after being reformatted from HTML to XML.

Wake up call to all the old way of doing things: Gen Y don’t give a shit about copyright, and China doesn’t give a shit about Patents (ergo: they will be worthless within 50 years, and a good thing too!).

In my opinon if someone comes up with an innovative new product, they should get off their ass and commercialise it and make money from it, then by the time everyone has copied them and they therefore make less (which is good for the consumer) they should be continually innovating to commercialise their next product. 

People like the Tetra pak moguls don’t deserve their millions. I can’t see any arguement that can be used to say that they do. Sure, make a few million, but end it there; let patents last a maximum of 3 years. These guys are essentially sitting on their arses making money without hard work or continual innovation. And that is wrong.

To all the Pharmaceutical companies who whine about “the cost of R&D needs to be protected” get over yourselves you make way too much money and you know it.

With regard to the Apple case, it seems like EMG renewed a bunch of patents with the specific purpose of suing. Why don’t they stop being babies and make money from it themselves, not wait for Apple to and then try to bring Apple down for succeeding where they failed!. By the way I am not an Apple-phile; they took us to court in Sydney when we trademarked “mPod”, (which we did before the iPod came out, but they took all “pods” to court) to be honest it was just their Lawyers using up their retainers and justifying their own existence and producing nothing. 

ok so I am sounding a little socialist (my grandad was in the Communist party when he was at Oxford!). And I am not saying lets redistribute the wealth, becoming rich is fine if you do it by working hard or innovating, or both. Not inventing one thing once, and then build a giant lazy-boy (reclining comfy chair) out of Patent protection lawyers.

Global MMA awards

We spent a few days in San Diego and LA for the global mobile marketing awards. Had a good time chatting to a load of people including heads of two of our compeition: Steen from 5th Finger and two of the Hyperfactory brothers. We all ended up on the same table with Adam – win all the awards – Dunn and a nice Spanish guy from Mobile Dreams Factory.

In the end The Hyper Factory and Mobile Dreams Factory took off with most of the awards (I am thinking of changing our company name to “TigerSpike Factory” – that must be it). We do win our fair share of awards but didn’t at this event (we were nominated for two).

What was pretty cool is that for all our competition with eachother we are all good guys and all seem to get along well, share information to help eachother and have fun competing… like a big game of monopoly!! (Except with real money and not involving property or little shoes or a mini dog, and also Monopoly usually ended up with someone throwing a tantrum and throwing the board in the air… so not really like monopoly at all actually).

And I have to tip my hat to the two factories and Aura for bringing home the spoils! :)  We got some plaques for being nominated, which I think Matt has left in the rental car!… haha..  reminds me of the MMA Awards in Sydney where we always used to break ours. Why can’t they make them stronger! (or serve less alcohol)

Obama election victory

New York was apprently like New Year’s eve in Times square. McCain’s speech was excellent, marred only by the boo-ing of some of his idiot supporters. Barack Obama’s speech was even better. Really inspiring.

Many are saying that digital played a large part in Obama’s campaign. The results show that more and more usually apathetic young people voted, and they are far more digitally minded than their parents generation. 

So the good news is 1) that America has a real reason to be inspired, excited, and pull together under great new leadership to get through recession and financial chris, and 2) digital is clearly becoming more important and prominent.

Contextual advertising on Facebook

I am not one to click on ads and buy things, but I did buy a Maori fish hook for ’safe passage over water’; I know it is kind of touristy, but I did like the design and I lived next door to NZ for 7 years so I am allowed!

I got it from wanderer imports. Then I got chating to Sean West there about how successful he has found Facebook advertising. He was very impressed with the amount of targeting that is possible, and pays on a CPC basis which is great as it is direct sales not branding.

From my experience the advertising was relevant to me, and non intrusive (unlike those twats promoting “boatbook.com”, who I mean to complain about but never get round to it). The price was fine and the website it went through to was simple and effective, and paypal is easy to I went and paid my $20 for it. Yes I could probably have got it cheaper when I go back to Australia, but I can’t be assed and bought it on a whim.

So all in all a pretty good solution for Wanderer imports (unless it arrives and is crap in which case I’ll amend this…. but you can’t really go wrong with a bone fish hook can you?)