Graeme Thickins

Web Innovation Is Everywhere in Minnesota – Even In an Ice Cream Shop!

May 10, 2010 By Graeme Thickins

A small retailer in St. Paul that’s obsessed with serving its customers has introduced an innovative new convenience for them that would shame even the largest retail giant — and it’s been no less than a year in the making. Izzy’s Ice Cream in St. Paul today announced a service that delivers real-time updates to its loyal customers about ice cream flavors currently being served in-store via its web site, Facebook and Twitter pages, and email updates.

It’s called “Izzy’s Flavor Up!” and it essentially allows customers to subscribe to their favorite ice cream flavors. Current flavors are updated every three minutes on its “flavor grid” web page.

With web site design and technology assistance from Bloomington MN-based The Nerdery (aka Sierra Bravo), Rogers MN-based RFID firm AbeTech, and CA-based tech vendor Phoenix Technologies, Izzy’s Ice Cream is now tagging all its 90+ flavors of ice cream in-store with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. Each flavor’s tub is tagged with a unique code that’s automatically scanned when placed in the dipping cabinet.

What it means for an ice cream lover is nothing less than nirvana. Customers can now know, with absolute certainty anytime around the clock, which flavors are available in-store. When new flavors are removed from or added to the dipping cabinet, Izzy’s web site, Facebook and Twitter pages will automatically be updated, alerting fans to the latest changes. Customers can sign up for email alerts for their favorite flavors – so they’ll always know when their favorite Hot Brown Sugar, Soy Peanut Butter, or Peace Coffee ice cream is available. My buddy Al Maruggi told me today that Izzy’s has the best coconut ice cream in the Twin Cities, too, as he licked a sample thereof.

We also learned that SMS or text updates are on the way, if you’d rather get your alerts that way. In-store customers can see the technology in action via a large-screen monitor that shows which flavors are now being scooped.

“Our customers are extremely passionate about their favorite flavors of Izzy’s ice cream,” said Jeff Sommers, Izzy’s owner, in a statement. “Their enthusiasm, while motivating me to continue creating delicious flavors, can also prove to be a customer service issue. Before today, our customers had no way of knowing if their favorite flavors were going to be available when they walked through the door. This system solves that problem and makes it easier for our customers to enjoy their favorite flavors.” The title of a video that Izzy’s crack PR firm put up on YouTube says it all: “How to Subscribe to Ice Cream.”

The nameplates for each flavor in the store have RFID chips built in, which are then read by antennae anchored in the dipping cabinet. The inventory is automatically updated simply through the act of an employee changing flavors in the dipping cabinet. That act triggers an inventory update, which in turn publishes the current flavors to multiple channels: the in-store screen, Izzy’s website, its Twitter and Facebook pages, and it’s automated emails to subscribers of individual flavors.

Izzy’s isn’t just a retail business. It has a catering business as well, and a wholesale business that has signed up several upscale grocery stores and restaurants throughout the Twin Cities that now offer its products — Kowalski’s, just to name one chain.

Regarding its latest new wrinkle, “This is undoubtedly one of the first uses of RFID as a customer service application,” said the company’s statement. Izzy’s has a history of embracing new technology, having installed solar panels in 2005. Owner Jeff Sommers also showed attendees at his media briefing today an innovative new cleaning system he has implemented in Izzy’s kitchen called “Zap Water,” which is an amazingly more environmentally friendly way to maintain a germ-free, allergen-free environment.

Izzy’s gets my vote as a true Minnesota innovator! Now, excuse me, I’m jumping onto their web site to check if my favorite flavor is still available tonight….

MN Mobile Developers Clocking Millions of Downloads

May 2, 2010 By Graeme Thickins

Local developers of apps for mobile devices, especially those designed for Apple’s platform, are quietly amassing large numbers of users for their creations, I’ve been learning.

This past week, I thought it would be an interesting little project for me to do a survey of sorts as the basis for this blog post. What I did (totally unscientific, I admit) was ask all the Twin Cities-area mobile developers I happened to know just how many apps they have on the two major platforms, Apple and Android, and how many users have downloaded their apps to date. It turned into a bigger project than I thought! It required a lot of back-and-forth emails to clarify all their current offerings. But I’ve sorted it all out as best I can, and you’ll see the results of that survey in the second half of this post.

The two most-experienced mobile app development firms in Minnesota I have known quite well for some time, having been a consultant to both in the past: DoApp and CodeMorphic. These two firms began developing for the iPhone platform as soon as Apple released the SDK in March 2008, and had their first creations in the App Store from the get-go, in the case of DoApp (July 2008), and CodeMorphic soon after. So, it was no surprise to me, then, that these two have the largest numbers of downloads locally. But many more Minnesota developers jumped in after them, and still are jumping in. In fact, I learn about a new one almost weekly. Some publish apps in their own name, some only for clients, and some do both. (For apps developed for-hire for client companies, developers cannot track ongoing download numbers in real time — only their clients know, unless they tell them or otherwise publicize the numbers. But the developers can certainly make educated guesses, which some of them did for me for my survey.) What triggered this idea for a post was a news announcement one of the two big local development firms just put out …

DoApp Inc. Announces One Million Downloads of Its “Mobile Local News” App

Actually, it’s not one app; there are more than 100 of these DoApp “MLN” apps out there, because that’s how many customers (media outlets) have signed up with DoApp to date to use what is really an “app platform.” It allows DoApp’s customers — TV news stations, newspapers, online publications, and radio stations — to easily brand the app for themselves and deliver their content via smart phones and other mobile devices, including the Apple iPad. (DoApp has not yet submitted to Apple an app designed specifically for the iPad, though its many iPhone apps do work on that new device.) In its recent announcement, DoApp counted downloads for all its locally-branded Mobile Local News apps, including both Apple and Android downloads, in saying they have surpassed the one million number. The company first made the Mobile Local News app available in April 2009. For more about all of DoApp’s products, see the company’s web site. (In the photo: Joe Sriver, center, Founder; Wade Beavers, left, CEO; and Dave Borrillo, VP-Software Development.) I conducted an email interview with DoApp founder Joe Sriver to learn more about the current status of his company’s Mobile Local News app business, which follows…. … [Read More…]

Minnesota iPhone App Developers Talk iPad and OS 4

April 9, 2010 By Graeme Thickins

I’m having so much freaking fun with my iPad, I almost forgot to post this week. I started asking my developer friends about it almost as soon as I got mine last Saturday, so I’ve had this post brewing for days now. Then, I’m finally about ready to post it, and Apple goes and holds its “sneak-peek” media event yesterday. So, natch, I had to ask some of them for their reaction to that, too.

Here we go, then — five experienced Minnesota mobile app developers tell me, straight up, what’s up with iPad as relates to them. And, after that, I include some great insights from a couple of them about iPhone OS 4 — coming this summer for the iPhone, and soon after for the iPad. (Bring it on, Uncle Stevie!)

Joe Sriver, Founder, DoApp Inc. Joe, will your company be developing iPad apps?

“Yes, we do have plans for the iPad, first for our real estate product, then our other products. No ‘made for iPad’ apps are in the store from DoApp on day one, though. But I did preorder an iPad for the team.” In a story our friend Julio Ojeda-Zapata wrote in the PioneerPress on April 2, we learned that DoApp was frantically at work on the iPad version of it’s “Home Kenex” app, which is for home buyers and real estate agents. Maps can be positioned alongside lists or photos of homes to make navigation easier and more intuitive than the cramped iPhone screen allows, said the story, facilitating better house comparisons. iPad becomes “a coffee table-type of thing, with people in their agents’ offices cruising for properties on the device,” said the story, quoting DoApp’s Wade Beavers. GPS capability will be added in an upcoming version of the iPad, so home buyers or agents will be able to pull up listings in their vicinity and “drive effortlessly towards them using satellite navigation.”

Bill Heyman, Founder and Lead Developer, CodeMorphic. Bill, what apps are you doing for iPad? Redoing any of your existing ones?

“No existing apps. What we’re doing are new ones for various clients. Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to say what they are. I’m also working on a new game app I’m publishing myself, but I’m not ready to submit it yet. I’ll let you know when it’s getting close.”

I assume you now have an iPad in your possession? “Yes, I had one delivered to me while on vacation in Arizona this week.”

What are you finding in regard to how well your iPhone apps work on iPad? “They seem to work fine. ”

What about landscape mode? Are you concerned that apps should work either way on iPad? “Apple has basically told developers that they MUST support rotation in their iPad apps. Unfortunately, it can be a major PITA to support it well, but developers are going to have to bite the bullet now. ”

Any other comment? “I think iBooks is the killer feature of the iPad. There’s been talk about the iPad developer gold rush, but no discussion about the author and independent content provider gold rush. It’s going to happen — and I think it could be every bit as exciting as some of the apps.” … [Read More…]

Minnesota Startup Launches ‘Spark Radio’ iPhone App

February 27, 2010 By Graeme Thickins

Is it possible to design a radio app that delivers the ultimate radio experience, complete with visually stunning graphics and social media capabilities, too? Minneapolis’ own Handcast Media Labs LLC thought so, set out to prove it, and just launched the result on the iTunes App Store a couple of days ago. It’s called Spark Radio (press release), and works on the iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s available for $5.99 at this link at the App Store.

I grabbed it the day it came out and have used it multiple times since, in a variety of situations — at home, on a road trip, even in a foreign country (Iowa) — and I must say I’m impressed. Right now, I’m listening to a great station that’s all Grateful Dead all the time, which I discovered via the app. It’s called RadioIO Dead, and “Big Boss Man” has been my favorite track so far. I’m on wifi in my motel room at the moment, and the sound is perfect — and I’m not even using an external speaker. On the way down here to Des Moines, I used the app via my iPhone on AT&T’s 3G network (note: I was in the passenger seat!) to tune in multiple stations, including WSL in Chicago, and the sound was way better than any station I could tune in on the car radio.

Spark Radio not only gives you tons of station choices and social media features designed to make radio listening more interactive, but it also features visually stunning animations. Far out, huh? Its robust, visual radio tuner uses the guide from a company called RadioTime.com to give you access to more than 10,000 terrestrial and Internet-only radio stations worldwide. Handcast says it’s adding new stations to Spark Radio daily, and will support more than 30,000 stations by April. You can listen to precisely what you want to at any given time — music, talk radio, sports events, public radio, or special programming from around the world. Its elegant interface lets you search for stations or programs by keyword, location, or the station URL, and you can browse programming by genre or location. (I’m still looking for two of my fav genres: rockabilly and surf.) A GPS component lets you find local stations in any given city based on current GPS coordinates.

I took the opportunity to dial up the founder of Handcast Media Labs, Terry Anderson, whom I’d met in 2008, to ask if he’d be up for an interview. That follows. … [Read More…]

Minnesota Apple Watchers React to Steve Jobs’ Rant

January 31, 2010 By Graeme Thickins

So, if you haven’t seen the news Wired broke late Saturday (updated Sunday afternoon) about Steve Jobs going off on Google and Adobe at the Apple all-employee meeting, here it is: Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Mantra is ‘Bullshit,’ Adobe Is Lazy: Apple’s Steve Jobs.

Here’s an excerpt:

“After a big public announcement of the sort Apple had this week for the iPad, CEO Steve Jobs often takes time in the day or two afterwards to have a Town Hall at One Infinite Loop, making himself available for questions from employees bold enough to stand up and take one right between the eyes.

This time, the big topics included Google and Adobe — no surprises there… And the absence of Adobe Flash support on the iPhone for three years and counting, and now on the iPad, is either celebrated by users as a poke in the eye of one of the web’s most dextrous tools, or the most over-rated and overused crutch for decent design.

Jobs, characteristically, did not mince words as he spoke to the assembled, according to a person who was there who could not be named because this person is not authorized by Apple to speak with the press.

On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars.

About Adobe: They are lazy, Jobs says. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.”

I decided to ask three local observers with a special perspective on Apple for their reaction. Two of them are former Apple employees, the other a 26-year user of both Apple and Adobe technologies. … [Read More…]

‘The New Industrial Revolution’ and Minnesota

January 24, 2010 By Graeme Thickins

I absolutely love it when my new WIRED magazine shows up in the mail. Hey, I read as much as the next guy online (on my little 13″ Macbook screen, or my iPhone), but I still love excellence in print — good ol’ ink on dead trees. And WIRED continues to stand out in this category. (Bonus: having a print subscription means I can read the latest issue before others can online.) The February 2010 edition has another hard-hitting cover story, as only this publication can do, declaring with bold artwork: “The New Industrial Revolution.” These guys know how to sell magazines! I especially liked the title of the article, which I saw as I quickly flipped to the table of contents: “Atoms Are the New Bits.” And it’s by none other than editor-in-chief Chris Anderson. This has been a favorite discussion topic of mine with some of my colleagues. Yes, there’s quite a bit more to life, and innovation, than just digital stuff.

In the article, Anderson chronicles the age of “open source, custom-fabricated, DIY product design.” He profiles a fascinating startup called Local Motors of Wareham, Mass., and another one called TechShop of Menlo Park, Calif. (which I first heard of when I met the founder at a DEMO Alumni Reception in Palo Alto in August 2007).

… [Read More…]

An iPhone Fanboy Reviews the Droid

November 2, 2009 By Graeme Thickins

Or should I say “tears it apart”? No, seriously, my objective is to be fair here. As an independent blogger, I take the opportunity from time to time to do a review. And I was offered a Droid loaner a few days ago by local PR guru Al Maruggi, while we were at our Twin Cities Social Media Breakfast meeting. I told him, sure, I’d take a look at the new phone, which he handed me in the box, then return it to him today. What does all this have to do with Minnesota, other than the fact that both Al and I are located here? Well, let’s see — lots of people use smart phones in Minnesota? Yeah, that’s it! But, in my review process, I even downloaded Minnesota-produced Android apps to this brand-new Verizon/Motorola phone. And, hopefully, more than a few Minnesotans are interested in hearing about how the Droid stacks up. Droid_VS_iPhone

Note to the FTC: I’m not keeping the phone, guys — it’s a loaner! Of course, I don’t need it, anyway, since I’m now into my third year of unmitigated iPhone bliss, having upgraded to a new 3GS a couple months ago. Well, I should say bliss with Apple, not necessarily with AT&T. The latter is, of course, the only carrier choice in the U.S. for the iPhone — unless you want to jail-break your phone and void the warranty. People tell me they do that on T-Mobile and the phone works fine. But for those locked into a Verizon contract, or those convinced they can’t live without the better 3G network that Verizon claims it has — you know, the superior coverage they keep beating us over the head with in their ads? — then the Droid would seem to be the closest you’re going to get to the iPhone experience on Verizon.

The Experience

So, okay, let’s start with that — at least the initial experience. (And no company, hands down, does that better than Apple.) Which of the above phones would you rather have? It all starts with the home screen, I guess. Now, granted — on the Droid, if you touch the arrow on the tab at the bottom and slide up, you get a much better looking screen on with all your little app icons — and without the mottled gray background (what’s with that?) — but, overall, I have to say that the visual experience with the Droid doesn’t compare well with the iPhone. And I say that even knowing that the screen is supposed to be higher resolution than the iPhone (personally, I didn’t notice that much). I guess it’s really the “brand experience” I’m talking about here. And that applies to the box, the packaging, too. Motorola (or is it Verizon?) tried to come up with something here as good as the iPhone, but to me they missed the mark. Something about the darkness of the whole thing — the black, the gray, and then that goofy little glowing red ball on the screen (on both the package and all over Verizon’s promotional materials). Inside the package, though, the little “Getting Started” booklet is very nicely done — love the fanfold, and it tells you everything you need to know, quickly.

(NOTE: See the “Update” at the bottom of this post.)… [Read More…]

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