I attended the 2014 Get Mobile conference which was held in Dublin City University’s, Helix. The first guest speaker was Dr Theo Lynn of Dublin City University. Dr Theo Lynn is the head researcher at the university on social networks. The conference was a series of guest speakers who came in and gave a series of lectures about current issues in mobile technology and marketing.
The first guest speaker was Dr Theo Lynn of Dublin City University. Dr Theo Lynn is the head researcher at the university on social networks. Theo started off by giving us an account of his first phone and how at the time it was quite a novelty device seeing as very few had them and they were huge. Theo then compared this to today and ow things have changed completely presenting the audience with statistics such as 96% of people aged 18-35 have a smartphone and how 78% compare prices online through their smartphones before purchasing an item in store. He also threw in some more comical statistics such as 18% of people use their phones on dates and 87% use their smartphones on public transport. I myself found these statistics both informative and enjoyable.
By giving these few statistics it was quite clear how much of a market there is with smartphones and how this directly links in with marketing.Theo talked about how important it is in the world of marketing to include online advertisement as it is the way of the future and gives the company direct access to their user. He also talked about some things such as the Google glass which has the potential to catch on but more so the idea of digital watches which are more popular.I found this section quite intriguing because as part of my college course i get to study the technology of the future and it;s implications on the world. after listening to Theo i was quite intrigued by the idea of digital marketing and how in the future it will be of massive importance not only to the companies and their products but to the consumer too with advertisements being more suited for the consumer.
The second speaker of the conference was Dr. Marc Hughes the Chief Technical Officer at Digifeye. I was aware of Dr.Hughes beforehand having attended one of his guest talks as part of my college course so i was aware of his work already. He presented us with the fact that 25o million images are uploaded on the web every day and how if you were to manage all these images you could create a store front immediately aimed directly at the specific user.Well, this is part of Dr.Hughes’ work. He explained how this is already done with things such as face detection and even vehicle detection on motorways by use of an mathematical algorithm which identifies the object in question and isolates all other unnecessary information.
Dr.Hughes then began talking about the new exiting app of style eyes created by Digifeye. This is an app which is connected to over 400 high street shops. What you do is use your phone to take a picture of an outfit and the app searches through all these high street stores and finds the item that you’re looking for and if you’re not happy with this it suggest similar items to you at an affordable price..When i first heard of this idea i was extremely excited because in theory it has the potential to become one of the worlds biggest applications and most powerful marketing tools. Imagine being able to find any type of clothing with just a picture of it and it finds it for you and an affordable copy too !.
Of course Dr.Hughes went on to discuss some of the problems the app faces such as the gender of an item of clothing and how to identify the item of clothing specifically without a persons body part interfering. Regardless of this i believe this app has unlimited potential. I myself even downloaded the app to test it out and needless to say it’s worth a download. Having heard about this product i was instantly intrigued by the idea of the app and the technology behind it as i study these things in my college course. The thought of an application being able to understand hard data and process it coming up with a new trendy. outfit for myself is very exiting indeed.
The third speaker of the conference was Dr Cathal Gurrin who works in DCU as the director of the Human Media Archives research group and a Funded Investigator in the INSIGHT Centre for Data Analytics. He started off with the fact that over five billion people have smartphones and over a billion more will be coming online in the future..He showed the progression of technology and how it has advanced into the reality of wearable technology. Cathal then showed us the example of the Google glasses which were released in 2013 as a novelty but in 2014 it can be seen as a promising item. Cathal explained how mobiles are basically advanced sensors with devices such as Google glass being able to hear,see, is location aware and even understands the environment that it is in. This whole area of technology greatly interests me as i love keeping up to date with the latest gadgets and newest technology and the idea that your device learns as you do is fascinating.
For the second part of the talk he talked about lifelogging which is basically a device or a camera which records pictures every few seconds and records your whole movements. This has been done by numerous people and even some researchers at DCU. The issues associated with lifelogging is where do you store all this data that is recorded, how to analyze such large volumes of data and what the security risks of someone hacking these images are. However, he made the case for lifelogging by claiming that if one was able to manage all this data one could remember things that the brain might of forgotten, identify certain things with previous experiences and monitor your health by have access to all these images. I myself having heard numerous talks about lifelogging am somewhat apprehensive of the idea and believe until the issue of security is resolved then lifelogging won’t become commonplace in today’s world.
Next up was Eoin Cruise who works for Microsoft and is the head of Microsoft Mobile Devices in Ireland having worked from Nokia. He started off with a quote from Bill Gates “a computer in every desk and every home” and how this was the basis of Microsoft. The main issue he discussed was Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia and how they wanted to restore Nokia back on the smartphone market to a strong position and with the introduction of the Windows phone they managed to climb their way back into the smartphone market holding 11.6% of smartphones.
Eoin explained how Microsoft through innovative technology and marketing have brought Nokia back with the new Nokia Lumia types which penetrate both the low income and high income successfully. He explained how their success depended on this and by making the new Lumia’s equipped with new unique apps on its new software interface. Eoin went on to describe that Microsoft and Nokia have some very exiting projects in the works such as Windows 10 and universal apps. I was glad to see that Nokia are fighting back against brands like Apple and are working hard to work their way back in to the market because my first phone was a Nokia and id like tot think my next one will be a Nokia too. !
The fifth guest speaker was Paul Davey who works for IBM and is the mobile leader for IBM in Ireland, he started off giving us some basic information about the company such as it was founded by Thomas J.Watson with over 400,00 employees and is responsible for technologies used in airplanes. atm’s, credit cards and many more. He explained IBM’s newest technology “Watson” a cognitive computing system capable of reading 3500 books and 430 thousand pieces of information in just 17 seconds !. It is one of the closest things to artifical intelligence that we have and is capable of beating humans in a head to head competition!. Paul showed us Watson in use in the medical profession as it can analyze a patient’s problem and scan information rapidily fast and come up with the best treatment available and has a success rate of over 85%. This is a huge development in the world of technology with an almost human like computer capable of thinking and coming up with possible solutions!
Paul also went on about IBM’s work with companies and making apps to help companies promote their products and companies. He discussed how important it was for a company to know what they’re looking for before they hire someone to build them an app. He mentioned how this is important because there’s no point building an app if you have no idea what its for..Overall i enjoyed Paul’s talk more so the technology and applications of Watson than the companies investment in .building apps for companies
The final guest speaker of the event was Alex Meisl who in 2002 helped set up a company called “Sponge” which is one of the worlds most successful mobile application agencies which has helped to build mobile applications for brands such as Adidas,Coco Cola, Mc Donalds and many more. He also set set up WiForia in 2014, this company basically uses a consumers wifi to detect when a consumer is in one of their stores or nearby and is able to send targeted offers to individuals. Alex went on to explain the importance of mobiles not only marketing but in life claiming one third of people would rather give up sex than their phone.
Alex explains how important it is for companies to identify the mobile market not only for sales but as a way to build up new clients. Around 145 billion texts were sent last year and he claimed that if companies would use text messages as part of their marketing then they increase sales dramatically.Alex expressed how frustrating it was a marketer that media’s such as newspapers receive more investment than online media.As much as Alex claimed how important it was that companies advertise more through technology he also understand technological resistance and how it may actually discourage consumers giving the example of a company who used someones search history to send them free samples but it just so happened that the user was hiding their pregnancy and this company exposed them !. Ale went of for quite a bit about the importance of online marketing for the future of companies. I myself found the talk interesting but perhaps went on for a little too long.
After listening to these various speakers i have to say i was quite interested in the whole area of digital marketing and it sparked a lot of interest in myself and i may consider going into this area.
DCU dice student 0001 
