In message ads next? #WhatsApp

 

A WhatsApp acquisition was always going to be on the cards and Facebook was always going to be in contention to buy it. The real question is going to be “what next”. Though everyone is saying it’s business as usual and WhatsApp will be run autonomously from Facebook, these are all utopian plans and rarely happen.

I’m not saying it’s “Facebook will take over the world” thing as in the tale of Instagram, nothing will change well apart from the rights grab on your photos and the resulting backlash of user rights and terms.

Remember, you are the product not the customer.

Anyway, putting my Nostradamous hat on for a second the obvious choice is in message ads being served up between two chatting friends. With some basic machine learning it’s easy to figure out over time what sort of things they are in to, where they are via location based services and the facilities nearby.

All it needs is some Facebook savvy retailer to put the ads on and let the WhatsApp/Facebook combo do all the heavy lifting.

 

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@digitalcircle listed events going on in #NI #digitalcircle

Just so you know, if you’re not listed on Digital Circle and are based in Northern Ireland then it’s definitely worth checking the site and signing up.

EVENTS

GAME DEV WORKSHOPS

• Sat, 15 February 09:00 to Tue, 18 February 17:00 at Blick Shared Studios, Belfast
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/game-dev-workshops

Women Who Code – Belfast – Create your own website in a session.

• Wed, 19 February from 17:30 to 20:15 at Kainos Software, Belfast
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/women-who-code-belfast-create-your-own-website-in-a-session

Double Negative talk at UU

• Thu, 20 February from 18:30 to 19:30 at Conor Lecture Theatre, University of Ulster, Belfast
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/double-negative-talk-at-uu

Health Hack Ni

• Sat, 22 February 09:00 to Sun, 23 February 15:00 at Northern Ireland Science Park , Belfast
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/health-hack-ni–2

€32 Million R&I funding to support creative Industry SMes and Digital Games research

• Tue, 25 February from 13:00 to 17:00 at Rich Mix Venue 2, Shoreditch
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/32-million-ri-funding-to-support-creative-industry-smes-and-digital-games-research

Digital Marketing Masterclass from Motive Unknown

• Tue, 25 February from 17:00 to 18:30 at The MAC, Belfast
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/digital-marketing-masterclass-from-motive-unknown

PRONI: Showcase of Resources

• Thu, 27 February from 18:00 to 20:00 at PRONI, Belfast
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/proni-showcase-of-resources

CoderDojo Mentor/Co-Ordinator Training – Armagh

• Sat, 01 March from 10:00 to 13:00 at AmmA Centre, Armagh
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/coderdojo-mentorco-ordinator-training-armagh

Coder Dojo Mentor Training – what you need to know to get started! – Derry

• Sat, 01 March from 10:00 to 13:00 at Nerve centre, Derry
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/coder-dojo-mentor-training-what-you-need-to-know-to-get-started-derry

CoderDojo Mentor/Co-Ordinator Training – Belfast

• Sat, 01 March from 13:00 to 16:00 at Nerve Belfast, Belfast
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/coderdojo-mentorco-ordinator-training-belfast

Ideation Camp – Bright Ideas

• Tue, 04 March from 18:30 to 21:30 at The Hub Newry, Newry
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/ideation-camp-bright-ideas

Final NISPO 4-Day Investment Readiness Programme!

• Thu, 06 March 09:00 to Wed, 12 March 17:00 at Midtown Center, Belfast
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/final-nispo-4-day-investment-readiness-programme

Creative Connections

• Thu, 13 March from 17:00 to 19:30 at Grand Opera House, Belfast
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/creative-connections

PRONI: First World War Resources

• Thu, 20 March from 18:00 to 20:00 at PRONI, Belfast
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/proni-first-world-war-resources

DojoCon NI – demo and showcase, learn about new things!

• Sat, 22 March from 10:00 to 16:00 at Marketplace Theatre, Armagh
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/dojocon-ni-demo-and-showcase-learn-about-new-things

Belfast Technology Conference 2014

• Thu, 03 April 09:00 to Fri, 04 April 17:00 at Europa Hotel, Belfast
• http://digitalcircle.org/events/belfast-technology-conference-2014

Score Analytics on #flappybird with Python

I posted this as a hypothetical assignment for my Creative Technologies students at UU Magee for their Creative Coding modules but thought it can come here too.

What is the average #flappybird score? I can’t get past 3 points and gave up after a few attempts as I’m not your classic game player type. Players can share (brag) their scores to the rest of the world.

Fri Feb 07 10:17:09 +0000 2014|getting better ! :) I scored 32 pts in #flapflap!!! -> http://t.co/0JYC2DCEqV
Fri Feb 07 10:17:11 +0000 2014|OMG! I scored 44 pts in #flapflap!!! -> http://t.co/nveTSpT0Wf
Fri Feb 07 10:17:19 +0000 2014|OMG! I scored 28 pts in #flapflap!!! -> http://t.co/HB3CoKhXdK
Fri Feb 07 10:17:24 +0000 2014|OMG! I scored 5 pts in #flapflap!!! -> http://t.co/2Bdmtq1bMG
Fri Feb 07 10:17:26 +0000 2014|OMG! I scored 9 pts in #flapflap!!! -> http://t.co/9kN0NIam2A
Fri Feb 07 10:17:27 +0000 2014|OMG! I scored 16 pts in #flapflap!!! -> http://t.co/nQKvmvGWN9
Fri Feb 07 10:17:40 +0000 2014|OMG! I scored 10 pts in #flapflap!!! -> http://t.co/Kw7FpwCEi8
Fri Feb 07 10:17:53 +0000 2014|OMG! I scored 21 pts in #flapflap!!! -> http://t.co/mMCe1ZB4OI
Fri Feb 07 10:17:54 +0000 2014|OMG! I scored 27 pts in #flapflap!!! -> http://t.co/wyzD01eYl1
Fri Feb 07 10:17:58 +0000 2014|OMG! I scored 33 pts in #flapflap!!! -> http://t.co/DXgVmKcmd8
Fri Feb 07 10:18:01 +0000 2014|OMG! I scored 3 pts in #flapflap!!! -> http://t.co/ocQgVUIlsj
Fri Feb 07 10:18:03 +0000 2014|OMG! I scored 9 pts in #flapflap!!! -> http://t.co/peCDbJFPH1

As the output is pretty uniformed I set a SpringXD stream to pull the scores from Twitter as they happened.

With a quick hack around with Python (Java is my main language, Python is second for stuff around the edges) I came up with this:

#flappyanalytics.py
#import the regular expressions library
import re
# create the function to calculate the average score
# all we do is divide the sum of the array by the number of elements in it
def getmean(scorearray):
 return sum(scorearray) / float(len(scorearray))
# function to get the minimum score
def getmin(scorearray):
 return min(scorearray)
# function to get the maximum score
def getmax(scorearray):
 return max(scorearray)
# MAIN PROGRAM NOW STARTS.....
# create a regular expression to look for "123 pts" in the text
r = re.compile('([0-9]+) pts')
# open the file flappybird.out
file = open('flappybird.out')
# create an empty list array
scorearray = []
# open the file and iterate each line
for line in file:
 try:
 # extract the score from the line
 scorearray.append(int(r.findall(line)[0]))
 except:
 w = 0
 # if it borks on the line just ignore it
# create a new array from lowest to highest scores, we'll need this 
# for the interquartile mean.
sortedarray = sorted(scorearray)
# define a quartile count, total size of the array divided by 4
qcount = int(len(sortedarray)/4)
# print the min, max and mean scores 
print 'Min: ', getmin(scorearray)
print 'Max: ', getmax(scorearray)
print 'Avg: ', getmean(scorearray)
# print the interquartile range average (q2 + q3 scores)
# this eliminates the outliers and gives a more realistic mean
print 'IQM: ', getmean(sortedarray[qcount:qcount*3])

It’s not the most elegant thing in the world but it does work and for 20 minutes at lunchtime, well that’s all I really wanted…..

Min: 0
Max: 99999999999
Avg: 75570257.1496
IQM: 16.3323699422

 

[API Watch] Open Weather Data #apiwatch

[I’ll be posting useful and handy free API’s as I come across them. No point keeping it all to yourself is there. This stemmed from a conversation with @annapawlicka this morning about weather data…. I just happened to have information on one kicking about.]

The Weather

http://openweathermap.org/API

Outgoing request

http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?lat=55.0522210&lon=-6.9403905&units=imperial

Incoming response

{"coord":{"lon":-6.94,"lat":55.05},"sys":{"message":0.1957,"country":"GB","sunrise":1391846633,"sunset":1391879998},"weather":[{"id":500,"main":"Rain","description":"light rain","icon":"10d"}],"base":"cmc stations","main":{"temp":44.02,"temp_min":44.02,"temp_max":44.02,"pressure":958.18,"sea_level":965.25,"grnd_level":958.18,"humidity":100},"wind":{"speed":21.51,"deg":172},"rain":{"3h":0.5},"clouds":{"all":92},"dt":1391858732,"id":2644501,"name":"Limavady","cod":200}

There is no such thing as the “second screen”…..

 

….. only the screen you’ve got eyes focused on. No longer concentrate on one platform, you concentrate on them all.

The application, mobile app, website or otherwise only acts as a conduit the data you have available. So if you can push that data out to all platforms then you do it. We’ve placed far too much emphasis on mobile when we should be placing emphasis on where the eyeballs go. Because a platform is created doesn’t me that everyone will use it. The notion of “build it and they will come” is an online falsehood.

Ultimately your company value is your data. the target platforms boils down to where they eyeballs are.

 

You need an #API…. actually you don’t.

An interesting discussion, albeit one of the 140 character micro splurt variety, this morning about API’s the need for them and the security concerns behind them.

The messaging app Telegram on Android and iOS is similar to other messaging apps. All the usual stuff but with beefed up security, keys, distributed servers and it’s own dubious marketing cartoon character.

The main difference between Telegram and other messaging apps like Whatsapp is that Telegram has an API. The fashion is to have an API for everything whether it’s useful or not. Originally to have an API was to enable mashups of data to show a centralised view of one or more data feeds.

Now the API is the product to enable developers to create another product and it was the thing that really kicked Twitter into focus, timed with the new shiny iPhone apps could be created and we didn’t need the user base, we could pinch someone else’s, for free!

The cherry pick is well under way and over time API’s get tightened up so products can use them under certain conditions.

So my beef with Telegram having an API. Messaging is a core function, a one to one transaction and having a third party able to intercept is still wrong in my book (though we can assume there’s a government agency somewhere in the world looking anyway, if you want a balloon tour of Menwith Hill then I’m sure Mark Thomas may be still arranging them).

Even the iOS API will not let you read SMS messages but only send them. And the hearts and mind of users, not developers, may still not be comfortable with the notion that a third party could read/write messages through the Telegram API. I know the user has the option to say “no” but it’s the sole reason that a peer-to-peer message is still popular (as WhatsApp has proved). What advantage an API in Telegram gives is still unclear to me.

API’s are not a god given right, Paddy’s right in what he says and I respect his opinion completely. Data is money and if you’re the data owner you have a right to yourself and your users to respect privacy to a point. An API for messaging is only there if you are wanting a sharp growth of the user base, as Twitter proved works, but we are all not Twitter.

Seems to me that Telegram are playing catch up to WhatsApp and the others and trying to combine all the good bits from all the existing apps and come up with one good solution, problem is all the users are using the other apps.