UK vs. US Test Match at March’s Mobile Monday Boston

March’s Mobile Monday Boston (#momobo) featured nine startups from both the Boston area and the UK, as UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) promoted its Mobile Technologies Mission to Boston campaign. A number of UK firms presented their wares along with a number of Boston-area mobile firms, and there really was a sense of collaboration and complimentary feeling in the air.

First up was Fluent Mobile, recently celebrating its series A round, focusing on app store optimization or ASO, yet another acronym to get familiar with. Fluent’s pitch was around marketing mobile apps to ensure that they are discovered within the app store, and providing an interaction between the app store, search and discovery, and mobile advertising.  They’ve developed a technology for mobile content aggregation that locally optimizes web pages, organizes and delivers them over a mobile device. The company also developed its own app, Fluent News, to aggregate news feeds. Fluent News filters stories so you don’t see the same story among multiple feeds (nice!) and allows subscribers to customize their own news sections (example- give me a Red Sox channel and a Demand Question Time channel!).

The second presentation of the evening was Textaurant, a Boston-based application that reduces the wait time at upscale casual restaurants and hopefully gets rid of the annoying flashing pager that restaurants deploy to their customers. Restaurants typically invest $2,000 to $6,000 on average in upfront costs to deploy paging-based systems, and each lost pager is a $50 hit on books. Textaurant’s waiting list management solution increases customer tolerance for waiting for a table and can extend table occupancy rates, especially if they can divert customers to nearby establishments (like Barnes and Noble) during the wait time. Textaurant hopes to tap into the more than 140,000 upscale casual restaurants in the US such as Chili’s, Olive Garden, and British Beer Company focusing on national chains as well as regional ones.

The next demo of the evening was from i-Migo, a UK startup showing a unique security solution for mobile devices. Utilizing the Bluetooth 2.0 stack with EDR, i-Migo basically creates an audible alarm if you become separated from your mobile device within a 10 meter distance (distance can be customized).  The iPhone-based demo sounded an audible alarm sounded when the subject was separated from their mobile device. I-Go is a USB-based clip-on device that you can wear that also backs up your contact list, user information (password, profile, personal information) over the air (OTA) keeping it secure. The mobile device, if actually stolen, goes into lock down mode and no information can be accessed from it. An immediate OTA signal is also sent to the service provider to identify that the device has been stolen. I-Migo has patents in the US, UK, China, and Japan and patents pending in the EU, India, and Hong Kong. Costs range between US$30 and US $50 for the solution.

The fourth startup on stage was Apollo Mobile, a UK company presenting its Re4ctor mobile application platform focused on unlocking the potential of the 4.5 billion mobile phones around the world, 65% of which are not smartphones, but just basic feature phones with web browsers. Apollo Mobile offers a variety of services across its platform including data analytics, mobile commerce and payments, social media, video and audio synchronization, and targeted advertising.  It has relationships with new participation TV entities such as YLE, SVT, and Mediaset; live entertainment, mobile services, and m commerce brands such as EMI, Consolidated Entertainment, and Telia Sonera; and market research brands such as YouGov, OTX, Kantar Group, and the Media Behavior Institute.

Next up was hello vino, a Boston-area based mobile wine recommendation application for both consumers and wine industry establishments. HelloVino is available on iPhone and other smartphones, and as a text-based app for feature phones. It includes 4 million brand recommendations for wine pairings and on the winery side, its cost per click program ranges between 25 cents and $2.00, allowing wineries to set their budgets, schedule email notifications, and gather ad impressions across their wine portfolios, helping consumers discover their varietals.

Apple’s Steve Jobs has been quoted as saying “mobile ads suck!” and Celtra’s focus is on improving the mobile advertising experience going forward. Most mobile advertising today simply sends subscribers to a landing page, a line of text, or a simple link. Celtra wants to make that experience immersive, interactive, and fun! Developing a mobile marketing platform behind the ad itself is their focus. They then can provide standards-based, cross-play, media-rich, native-capable, preloaded, easy to create and reliable cross-platform mobile advertising. Based on HTML and Java Script, which offer good presentation qualities, Celtra then adds a device run time element to support specific phone features from iPhone, Android, and soon BlackBerry platforms. By implementing specific audio, video, camera, microphone, and accelerometer features with their web-based tool kit, they can provide a rich application platform that can bolt on social media and RSS modules under the banner ad framework.

Tattu is a UK-based provider of mobile hardware solutions. Over the last five years they’ve produced products for mobile operators and major brands such as Disney in Latin America and Europe. They have a line of mobile phones that provide solar charging capabilities for emerging markets in Africa and the Caribbean, are creating an Android application for clients, have spun out a mobile health practice, and have introduced Android-based tablets for a variety of solutions. Genesis is their ultra-low-cost handset solution with affordable solar powered features, focused on remote areas in Africa that may have cellular service but no electricity grid. The company’s Valencia 7” Android-based tablet is geared towards teens as well as the medical segment for patient monitoring. The company’s working with the UK’s National Health Service on a variety of solutions. Currently, 70% of all elective surgery cases are pushed back home on the same day of service, meaning that patient vitals must be monitored in real time. Tatuu Mobile has developed a touch-based tablet solution that connects to a back-end call center that integrates into a video conference-equipped professional should a situation require medical attention.

Fluid Pixel Studios is a UK-based startup focused on mobile games and application development. Coming from a history focused on gaming consoles, the company is developing iPhone games and working with brands that don’t have an in-house iPhone development team. Fluid Pixel’s also done work with Adobe on the technology publishing vendor’s Flash-based Animentals viral pets game that is cross-platform (web, mobile, desktop), and with IGT to develop its Cleopatra Million 21 game.

USTWO, the final presenter of the evening, is a London and Malmo, Sweden-based user interface design agency taking the user experience from concept to design to implementation. The company works across a wide definition of mobility including mobile phones, digital cameras, satellite navigation, digital photo frames, in-car entertainment, laptops, mobile TV, and M-health applications. Among its most notable assignments is work for Sony Ericsson in mobile phones, Rebok on an iPhone application, and Ford for in-car navigation solutions. The company’s focused on iPhone applications because it believes that Apple brings the most brand cache. The Cuppertino-based firm has access to a four month development window from USTWO to plan for new applications on the horizon. USTWO has not found Nokia’s Ovi store nor Google’s Android Market worth their development efforts at the present time.

Mobile Monday Boston had a very rich set of companies this month, to compare and contrast some of the development work being done on both shores, and to highlight the work of UK Trade and Investment that not only grants UK-based technology providers access to the US marketplace but also helps US-based mobile technology providers a way to establish themselves in the UK.

-Randy Giusto

@randygiusto

@newdigitalcafe

randygiusto@newdigitalcafe.com