Skål – RFID controlled interaction

November 30th, 2009

skal

A couple of days ago we bumped into Skål, the result of a research project on RFID carried out at AHO (Oslo School of Architecture and Design). Basically, Skål is an interface that lets you interact with (online) digital media using physical objects. The idea is that you place RFID tagged objects in a wooden bowl (a Skål) in order to play back certain media on a digital screen.
Technically, the bowl consists of a wireless sensor that detects an RFID tagged object once you place it within the bowl. In this way you can easily place an RFID tag on whatever object you want, such as toys, dolls and action figures. Furthermore, you can let the RFID tag trigger any kind of programmed action, such as initializing movie clips, Youtube channels, Flickr photo streams, online radio etc.

I can imagine this kind of Meta Product especially appeals to young children, giving them control over what they see on the screen in a playful way. It strongly reminds me of Violet’s Mir:ror, which basically does the same. And I’m sure there are many other examples out there that work this way. The idea of controlling (online) digital media with physical objects is not new, but technologies such as RFID enable totally different ways of interaction.

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Meta economics

November 23rd, 2009

Besides studying Meta Products from a techical point of view, it might also be illuminating to have a look at the business side and see what opportunities Meta Products offer in terms of business models.

As explained earlier, Meta Products consist of both a physical part and a web part. Together they make up the total product experience. Therefore we can learn from the applied business models of both 20th century consumer products and 21st century web services.

First, let’s state the most common business models around physical products:

1. Selling the actual atoms
For most products, consumers simply pay for the atoms themselves. They pay for the materials, the production and assembly processes, the distribution, and the extra margins put above production prices depending on the kind of brand they’re buying from.

2. Selling products on loan
In some cases, businesses are selling products on basis of loans. Especially in case of large purchases, like buying a car, businesses tend to offer loans to consumers. In this way consumers are given the opportunity to pay back their purchase over time, instead of buying at once (of course with a certain amount of interest).

3. Selling subscriptions
Some markets, like the magazine and newspaper market, are mostly subscription based. People can subscribe to a certain amount of items or a timespan in which they can make use of a product.

4. Giving away products for free
Businesses are giving away their products for free more than we might think. In most of these cases advertising is covering the costs to produce and distribute these products. Think of many free magazines where advertisers indirectly pay for all the costs. This is called the 3-party market (producer, advertiser and consumer).

Now, let’s see which business models are often applied for web services:

1. Selling licences
Most software is being sold licence based. Consumers pay for a certain version which they can download after purchase or get delivered on DVD by mail.

2. Selling subscriptions
Like physical products, web services are often sold via subscriptions. Think of your hosting service: you probably pay an annual fee to get your website hosted.

3. Giving away web services for free
There is an extremely large group of web services offering their service completely for free, and this group is increasing everyday. There are several models to keep these businesses alive:
- Advertising: let advertisers pay for access to an audience who in return pay nothing for the service itself.
- Merchandising: offer merchandising around the involved free web service.
- Freemium: offer a free basic version of the web service, and sell a premium one that has more features. Many iPhone apps work this way.
- Donations: give consumers the choice whether they would like to give a donation for the service they use.
- Offer the complete service for sale: launch and grow a web service until it’s big enough to sell to a web mammoth such as Google or Yahoo. In the meantime consumers have been using the service for free. YouTube did it, amongst many others.

Well now, for Meta Products, consisting of both a web and physical part, you can play and mix with the above stated business models. Most likely you will be selling the physical product and giving away the web service. This is because people are used to buying real stuff, while they are expecting web services to be free. Nabaztag, Nike+ and Poken are all examples of selling the atoms and giving away free bits on the web. However, it gets even more interesting when you sell the physical product, give away a basic web service that makes the product work, and then offer a premium web service on top of that, which expands the total product experience.

What’s for sure, is that the web forces businesses to create great new (consumer friendly) business models everyday, and Meta Products can benefit from that!

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QR codes – portals to the online world

November 16th, 2009

qrCodes

A nice linking technology for a Class 5 Meta Product is the QR code. This two-dimensional barcode found its birth already back in 1994 and stands for Quick Response code. Formerly, its main purpose was to quickly identify goods, such as car parts during the manufacturing process.

With the coming of web connected mobile phones having an integrated camera, the idea was born to link QR codes to URLs. Just take a photo of a QR code with your mobile phone and automatically surf to the linked website without having to type in difficult URLs. An easy way to connect the online world with the offline world. But how come it took so long for QR codes to break through? This is probably due to the fact that broadband internet and flat fee telecom subscriptions have only been introduced a few years ago. I remember a client of ours who owned a technology comparable to QR codes, called the Shotcode. They were having a hard time selling it to a wide public. While this was only a few years ago, the timing was just off. That QR codes are now alive and kicking can be seen in a dedicated Flickr group pool. Everything from QR code art to merchandise can be found there.

It’s fairly easy to integrate QR codes into your own business. There are a multitude of QR code generators throughout the web. All you have to do is enter your URL and get it coded into a QR code, after which you can place it on whatever print item you like. In order to decode QR codes with your mobile phone, you probably have to install additional software. For the iPhone, there are several apps available in the iTunes App store.

Concluding, when there is no dynamic information flow from your product to the web needed, but you do want your audience to experience both the online and offline parts of your product, QR codes are a nice and efficient way to go!

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The Daily Meta Paper

November 9th, 2009

nieuwsbeleving

I hardly read my newspaper anymore. Sometimes I wonder why I’m still subscribed. But then I remember the comfortable experience that comes with it. Grabbing the paper from the doormat, noticing it’s totally soaked from the rain outside (I live in The Netherlands, one soaky country). And then, the experience gets completed by dropping myself on the couch, browsing the enormous sheets, while wetting my fingers to optimally turn the pages. Some relaxation!

But how come I (and many others with me) don’t get to do this ritual anymore? Finding the time of course is part of the problem, but there’s a bigger part, which deals with the fact that it’s just static information you’re reading. It’s already outdated from the moment it is being printed. Furthermore, I can’t interact with the information, I can’t click on keywords I want to know more about, I can’t filter on subjects, it is still just ink on paper.

During the day I receive RSS feeds from the web on the kind of news I’m interested in. It’s instant and often free. Next to that, I follow some people I’m interested in on Twitter. They get me the news I want. But often, this results in an overload of information of relatively poor quality. Besides, reading big articles from the screen just doesn’t do the job. It’s nothing like the real thing, it is still just pixels on a screen.

I’d like to have the best of both worlds: dynamic, interactive and filtered news on real paper for that special moment in the evening. I will subscribe myself to The Daily Meta Paper.

In this context, we will kick off a student project, called Nieuwsbeleving, which is about innovation in the newspaper business. The project starts on november 23rd. We’re organizing this project with the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. Students from Innovation Management will look at the subject from a technological point of view and hopefully will come up with innovative solutions on both product and service level. If you like, you can also follow Niewsbeleving on Twitter.

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Meta architecture

November 3rd, 2009

While discussing Meta Products, now might be a good time for an attempt to classify the products we’ve found so far. Let’s have a look at their information architecture.

Class 1

metaArchitectureOffOn1

With many Meta Products the information flows from a physical, web connected product to an online interface (pictured above). This is the case with Nike+, where the combination of sensor and iPod/iPhone counts as the physical part, and the Nike+ website counts as the online interface. With these types of products the physical part often functions as a sensorial input, whereas the online interface plots the results of this sensorial input. Besides Nike+, a Meta Product like SmartUs follows the same principle.

Class 2

metaArchitectureOffOn2

Some Meta Products of the kind as described in Class 1, need some intermediate hardware device to serve as a hub between the physical product and the online interface (pictured above). The reason for this lies in the fact that the initial product cannot establish an internet connection on its own and so it cannot upload information to the online interface. Most of these products connect to a computer through USB, after which the computer uploads the information. Examples of this information flow are Fiat eco:Drive, Poken and our own project Social Mutator.

Class 3

metaArchitectureOnOff

Then there is a different group where the information flows in the exact opposite direction, from online interface to physical product (pictured above). Take the Olinda radio for example, which sends the musical taste of your online social network to a physical radio as streamed music. Now suddenly the online part serves as the input, whereas the product functions as an actuator (playing songs). Besides Olinda, Nabaztag is a good example of this information flow.

Class 4

metaArchitectureOffOnOff

Classes 1 and 3 can also be combined, resulting in an information stream that flows from a physical product via an online server all the way to another physical product (pictured above). Many devices work this way, in which the online server merely functions as a forwarding system. One of the oldest examples is the telephone, where a voice signal is being forwarded by a telephone company to the other end of the line. Devices using the web as their communication medium can have a far richer information stream than just voice signals. Nabaztag and Olinda can also operate this way, when friends interact with each other through these Meta Products.

Class 5

metaArchitectureNoOffOn

Finally, at the borders of Meta there is a group of products that have no direct information flow between physical product and online interface (pictured above). However, some sort of connection is made between these parts. An example is Webkinz, where a consumer gets a secret code with every pet he or she buys, enabling him or her to unlock a digital pet in the online part. You could question whether this is really Meta, since there is no information flow whatsoever. What’s for sure though is that the online part adds to the total product experience, which makes you reconsider what the boundaries of a consumer product are.

Which classes are the most fruitful for future markets is still unclear. Trends however seem to go in the direction where web connected products communicate with each other directly through an online server (Class 4). Let’s see how it evolves!

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