Updates from Bliin, FireEagle - developing sites that can display your GPS location in real time.
Created by grebble on 26/08/2008
Last updated: 24/03/10 at 01:30
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Living in a world with many different social location-based services to choose from should make it easier to know where all of your friends are located, but people often miss out on the action because there are a number of places to check out friend’s check-ins and location chatter. Rummble’s answer to this problem is to tell you where your friends are located, regardless of where that information was created.
At South by Southwest Interactive, an improved Rummble friends list went live on new versions of Rummble for iPhone and Android; containing not only your Rummble friends, but also the people you’re following on Twitter. Now your friends list stays up-to-date when someone checks-in via Twitter, by annoucing that they have arrived at a location; or tweeted out their location via another service, such as Brightkite, Gowalla and Foursquare.
How? I hear you tweeting…
In June 2009, Rummble launched an experiment called Tremors that matches tweets to rummbles in London, New York, Austin and San Francisco. We built a natural language processing algorithm that devour tens of thousands of tweets and matches venue and address “mentions” to rummbles, along with a sprinkling of sentiment analysis to determine whether you are saying something positive or negative about the place (hence the smiley faces on Tremors).
The Tremors algorithm has been refined over the past few months and it’s now possible to check-in directly from Twitter by including the hashtag #Rummble in the tweet – i.e. “I’m at the Rummble Office, Clerkenwell Road, writing a blog post about checking in!”. Adding a rating (i.e. 8/10) will treat the tweet as at rummble.
Since November 2008, Rummble’s mission has been to make it easy to find the people and places you love. The location of the people you care about will always play a major role when deciding what to do next.
We’re sure that you will the new friends list useful and are listening to your feedback.
http://blog.rummble.com/2010/03/19/rummble-for-everyone/
At South by Southwest Interactive, an improved Rummble friends list went live on new versions of Rummble for iPhone and Android; containing not only your Rummble friends, but also the people you’re following on Twitter.
Now your friends list stays up-to-date when someone publishes their location via Twitter or tweets out their location via another service, such as Brightkite, Gowalla and Foursquare.
Living in a world with many different social location-based services to choose from should make it easier to know where all of your friends are located, but people often miss out on the action because there are a number of places to check out friend’s check-ins and location chatter. Rummble’s answer to this problem is to tell you where your friends are located, regardless of where that information was created.
How? I hear you tweeting…
In June 2009 Rummble launched a labs project called Tremors which recognises recommendations for venues in London, New York, Austin and San Francisco (infact, it’s now possible to check-in directly from Twitter by including the hashtag #Rummble)
Rummble’s mission is to make it easy to find the people and places you love. The location of the people you care about will always play a major role when deciding where you go next.
We’re sure that you will the new friends list useful and eager to hear your feedback.
http://blog.rummble.com/2010/03/19/rummble-aggregates-location-checkins/
Our Android and iPhone ninjas have been slicing and dicing and today we’re happy to share details of not just one but TWO point releases for our most popular mobile apps, including many bug fixes and UX improvements. The most notable are:
Rummble for Android – version 1.08.5
New Login screen
New Location screen
More detailed RummbleDetail screen
No white screen displayed in case of no results
Added ticker throughout load screens, showing progress bar on load (add rummble screen)
Various Bug Fixes
Rummble for iPhone – version 1.6.2
Set location map and Rummble detail map are migrated to MapKit.
Implemented average ratings functionality.
Updated sign-in view to emphasise login with Facebook functionality.
Swapped Map/Neighbourhood buttons.
Locate Me button changed to green.
Added green Save rummble button to add rummble summary view.
Changed text of some labels in the app.
Fixed app crash in maps when there are less than 2 rummbles in the list.
Integrated appIRater.
http://blog.rummble.com/2010/02/19/rummble-for-android-and-android-updates/
Everything is bigger in Texas, including the infamous South by South West Interactive Festival (SXSWi)!
Some members of the Rummble team, including Andrew, will be headed to Austin from the 11th of March until the 17th to take part in this year’s festivities. Rummble will be headed with 35 other UK startups, via Digital Mission, a group organised by Chinwag and UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), that enables digital companies to expand into overseas markets and attract investment outside the UK.
Key speakers at this year’s event include Twitter’s CEO Evan Williams and the founder of music sharing goodness Spotify, David Ek… We’re excited to show Texans what Rummbling is all about and will be sure to update you on ways you can get involved when the event gets closer!
http://blog.rummble.com/2010/02/09/rummble-on-a-digital-mission-to-sxswi/
With all of the recent hard work our resident Rummble for Android coding ninjas have put in, we thought we’d take a minute and introduce them to you…
So fellow Rummblers, meet Ashkay (right) and Paolo (left)! You can check out their individual bio’s on our team page.
If you have any feedback or comments about the latest Rummble for Android version, they are here with open ears… Just send us an email directly or tweet to @Rummble with #Android.
Also, don’t forget to join our beta testing list to get first-dibs and give us feedback on Rummble for Android releases before they hit the Android Market.
Recently the guys have been hard at work days, nights, and weekends to get you all a sleeker and faster Rummble for Android version 1.1 very soon; so watch this space.
(And have a quick chuckle at their matching Android t-shirts whilst you’re at it!)
http://blog.rummble.com/2010/02/05/meet-rummbles-resident-android-ninjas/
Our coding ninjas have been hard at work since the new year bug fixing and adding new features to Rummble for Android. We appreciate your feedback as we work to develop an app that you’ll love using… So, join our Rummble beta testing list ASAP, as we’ll be emailing updates this week!
Send your android comments here or tweet to @Rummble with the hashtag #android.
Keep your eyes peeled for Rummble for Android v1.08, coming to Android Market very soon!
http://blog.rummble.com/2010/01/28/test-rummbles-latest-android-version/
Want some early Valentine’s Day love? Rummble and Total Hotspots are here for you!
Total Hotspots powered by Rummble for iPhone is now available for FREE in the app store (it previously cost £2.99 / $4.99).
In case you didn’t know, Total Hotspots integrates Rummble’s trust profiles with over 200,000 WiFi hotspots, allowing you to quickly add, rate, review, tag and photograph your favourite hotspots around the globe, to better share them with others.
For the love of staying connected, download Total Hotspots for iPhone here.
This sweet offer ends the day after Valentine’s Day, February 15th, so hurry up and get it now!
http://blog.rummble.com/2010/01/27/love-is-in-the-air/
Welcome to the second installment Rummble’s 60 Seconds With.. each month we’ll be interviewing different top Rummblers from the Rummble community for a quick minute & posting them on the blog.
This month we are featuring Emma, who has 279 Rummbles!
Username: Emma
Hometown: London, UK
Profession: Forward Investigations
What mobile platform are you using at the moment?
I am using an Android phone.
How are you finding your experience with Rummble on it?
Well, I’m still somewhat new to the Android platform, so I’m learning to Rummble on it as quickly as possible. Lately, I’ve been Rummbling from the website a lot more, but love being able to check-in on my mobile phone now and am looking forward to new versions of the Rummble for Android in the market soon
What’s your favourite Rummble to date?
Broadway market. Since I live in Hackney, it is only a short walk away on a Saturday morning. I love going there to get a coffee and browsing the market stalls, although I usually end up buying a load of books that I don’t need!
What do you find Rummble most useful for?
At the moment I’m mainly using it to bookmark and store places I’ve already been to. For me, it’s like a library of cool places.. so if I’m headed out to dinner with a friend and can’t remember the name or location of a place I went to once, I just hop on Rummble. I’ve recently been going through my past trips to Tokyo and Rummbling venues from there, too.
Would you tell you friends about Rummble?
I do all the time – I always end up telling random people s as I’m out on a Saturday night about the service. I’m always telling those who are hesitant that its not just another social network and that it’s really useful.
How much time do you spend on Rummble every week?
I go through random bursts. Whenever I’m not busy I try to jump on and always end up Rummbling different places in batches after a weekend out. My recent goal is to hit 300 Rummbles before the New Year!
A big thanks to Emma for taking the time to chat with us. If you’d like to be featured on one of our upcoming interviews contact Cait or Tweet us @Rummble.
Think you can catch up to Emma? Let us know..
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/12/26/whos-londons-top-rummbler/
Rummble is celebrating the holidays with a Rummble.tv Christmas special this year!
Check out our 4th episode as Cait explores some of London’s most celebrated Christmas venues. A stop for some window shopping was a must at Selfridges this year, along with surveying the local Christmas Market. Also, check out the humorous footage from Rummble’s holiday ice skating adventure!
A huge thanks for all of the feedback, tips and tweets. Please keep it coming – leave your comments below, tweet @Rummble or email Cait if you want to be featured in January’s episode.
Happy Holidays!
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/12/23/rummble-tv-christmas-special/
Keeping up with our regular Rummble for Android bug fix releases, the Android team are pleased to announce that version 1.05 is now available in the Android Market. This release improves performance, fixes bugs and improves functionality:
Ratings can quickly be created from the Rummble details view by clicking on the existing rating icon. Previously the option was only available by pressing the menu key.
Fixed performance issues in the Rummble details screen
Interface improvements to the people list
Fixed logout
Expect to see further major updates early in 2010. Are you using Rummble for Android and want to help us improve? Please send us your feature wishlist and bug reports – we are proud that the Rummble community are playing an important part in creating the #1 social LBS app for Android
To download, simply zap the above QR code or visit Android Market from your handset.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/12/22/rummble-for-android-1-05/
Rummble for Android was released a little over two weeks ago and we have been delighted with the response – including high praise and constructive feedback on how we can improve. Thanks to the Rummble community – new and old – for making yourself heard and being an important part of the development process.
Since launch we’ve made five small bug fix releases, and as of today are rolling with Rummble for Android v1.04.1 – we urge all Android users to upgrade for an optimal Rummble experience!
If you downloaded the APK directly from a tweet or previous blog post, then we also recommend that you upgrade via Android Market.
To download, simply zap the above QR code or visit Android Market from your handset.
So, what’s changed? Based on your feedback, we have fixed several bugs and issues:
Improved user-interface performance and usability, with bug fixes on the UI – as mentioned by Top Rummbler Emma last week
Fixed ‘Force Closes’
Improved sorting in the Rummble’s ‘People and Friends’ view
Added miles support throughout the UI – as requested by user Brian using the Android Market!
Fixed map marker function in the ‘Add a new Rummble’ option
Improved search bar usability
Fixed distance bug
Added ‘Settings Menu’
Added customisability to the Rummble home screen
Improved overall performance
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/12/18/rummble-for-android-fixes-ahoy/
Click here for the official press release
Rummble are today announcing the acquisition of Total Hotspots, the global WiFi community. This acquisition brings the global WiFi database to all Rummble users, along with an active community and partnerships.
I met Andrew Scott and the Rummble team on a bus at FOWA London 2008. After mad dash to Scotland to face-off against 3G at Hadians Wall on the Gadget Show, we launched Total Hotspots for iPhone which combines Rummble’s mobile platform and a rich database of global WiFi hotspots.
WiFi provides a better mobile data experience and usage has increased by around 50% in 2009, with over a billion public connections. This is the most advanced app of its type, not only telling you where the nearest paid and free hotspots are around the world, but also providing personalised recommendations for those venues. To celebrate the acquisition, Total Hotspots for iPhone has been reduced from £2.99 to just £0.59 over Christmas (iTunes link).
I have joined Rummble’s founding team as VP Business, to help drive service development and key partnerships. Total Hotspots was created in 2004, while studying Business and Computing at City University, London, helping more than a million people find WiFi on the way.
Alex Housley | alex.housley [at] rummble.com | @ahousley
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/12/16/rummble-acquires-global-wifi-community/
Celebrate (and win) with The Rummble 12 Days of Christmas
Wherever you are in the world and whatever you are celebrating during this silly season, starting from Sunday December 13th (unlucky for some of us westerners, but not if you’re a Rummbler) we’ll be holding a 12 Days of Rummblmas competition to see who can create the most Rummbles in the shortest time possible!
Inspired by the speed at which some Rummblers have been becoming Local Heroes, the rules are simple:
1) Rummble as many unique places as you can in the next 12 days
2) Thou must be a registered Rummbler
3) Thou must have fun whilst Rummbling
That’s it!
The winners (one for each continent) will receive a snazzy Rummble t-shirt (see below) and if you can make it to London, we’ll treat you to lunch with the Rummble team too (flight costs to get to London are sadly, not included )
We’ll be posting interim results on our blog here throughout the 12 days, so keep checking back to find out where you stand on our Rummble 12 Days of Rummblmas leader-board.
Competition will end on December 25th, and the winner will be announced on December 26th. Feel free to contact us with any questions or comments and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter (@Rummble) and become a fan of us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/rummble) to get the latest updates during the competition.
Happy Rummbling!
- Cait and The Rummble Team
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/12/11/join-us-for-the-12-days-of-rummblmas/
As Rummble has been growing on the service side (translation: all the gritty technology which does the heavy lifting) our mobile applications have been rather left behind as we hire some new mobile engineers. We’ve also had feedback from our Rummble for iPhone v1.0 users. So today to answer your prayers we’ve released an interim Rummble for iPhone v1.5 (rather than make you all wait until 2010 for version 2.0!) It’s bristling with lots of new functionality and social sharing features! Spanking new features in v1.5 include:
Log in using Facebook Connect for iPhone
Just slide across a Rummble in the list, for a quick one-touch button to Check-in to any venue/Rummble
Get instant notifications of where anyone is, based on the real-time public Twitter stream
Shows what all your friends are up to as it’s happening nearby
Activity stream for your Rummble friends
Sort by “smart sort” (a combination of nearby and how recently)
Sory by “Distance only” or “Check-in only”
Message another Rummble user
View a Rummblers profile, recent activity
Access your Rummble inbox and edit your profile’s basic details
Download Rummble for iPhone v1.5 here all free, as usual of course!
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/11/30/rummble-for-iphone-feeds-your-social-media-addiction/
Some say, the Rummble for VF360 widget is the worlds first location aware JIL widget (seriously, it really might be!). Some say the widget is the most useful widget ever deployed on a Samsung H1 handset… All we know is that it is in Beta, it is available now and if you’ve got one of Vodafone’s shiny new @vodafone360 handsets then you’re going to want to download it right now from here: http://bit.ly/rumbeta360
Rummble for VF360 is a JIL widget optimised for the Samsung H1 and the Vodafone widget platform and API. It uses Vodafones own Location API to locate where you are (although it can be a little slow to attach to GPS) and then give you all the rich content of Rummble at your H1 fingertips!
It is just a version 1.0 but we’ll be rolling out new features and polishing the remaining UI over the coming days… User feedback is the only real way we can improve the widget – so please speak your mind feedback
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/11/27/is-this-a-world-first-rummble-for-vodafone360-widget-beta-available/
Welcome to the first installment Rummble’s 60 Seconds With.. each month we’ll be interviewing different top Rummblers from the Rummble community for a quick minute & posting them on the blog.
This month we are featuring Jennifer, who after just 14 days had over 80 Rummbles!
Who? JenniferAngela
Profession: Graduate Student
Hometown: Cambridge, Massachusetts USA
How are you finding your experience with Rummble so far?
Since I live in a small town in the US that that doesn’t have many Rummbles yet, I use Rummble to find new places to go on vacation. I also use Rummble to keep in touch with friends. Recently a good friend of mine went away for the weekend and Rummble let me keep up with her on her trip as she was traveling! Every time she uploaded a new photo or review, I’d log-in and see what she was up to. It was really cool because I almost felt like I was traveling with her, too!
What is your favourite personal Rummble?
Definitely where I had my best family vacation in Corsica last summer.
What do you find Rummble most useful for?
I love Rummble from the perspective of being able to keep track of every place I have been. I always used to struggle remembering the exact name or location of venues I visited, but now I can use Rummble to keep track and record them all in one place. So, when friends ask for tips on ‘where to go’ in a certain area, I tell them they have to join Rummble to see! I also work with a lot of foreigners and they’re always asking me where to go in town for dinner and fun experiences. Instead of writing it all down in a lengthy email and having to include directions, etc… I tell them to Rummble me!
Whats your most recent Rummble?
Well just last weekend I went on a hiking trip in the Wachusett Mountains. My legs were killing me after that hike!
(Don’t forget to check out this Rummble featured on the 3rd episode of Rummble.tv!)
Would you recommend Rummble to your friends in Cambridge?
YES, I already have. At first, a lot of my friends are hesitant to join because they think it can be ‘overly addictive’ like Facebook or Twitter, but when they start using and find out how useful it is to record personal and travel information, they’re hooked like I am! Just the other day my friend was trying to describe a nice hotel she recently stayed in for a work trip in Chicago. After a few minutes of her trying to verbally explain its location and details, I finally said: ’Can’t you just Rummble it?!’
A big thanks to Jennifer for taking the time to chat with us! If you’d like to be featured on one of our upcoming interviews contact Cait or Tweet us @Rummble.
Can you beat Jennifers record..?
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/11/23/meet-top-rummbler-jennifer/
Hi, I’m Dan. I make websites.
Since graduating from the University of Portsmouth in July, I’ve been looking for a place where I can unleash my creative skills and gain some much needed experience within the working world. I enjoy sitting in Photoshop and designing for all sorts of stuff ranging from websites, to print and t-shirt designs.
I hail from South East London, although claiming that Sidcup counts as London is highly disputed. I love music. My listening tastes span far and wide, but my favourite music comes from bands like Norma Jean, Thrice, The Bled, Converge, Every Time I Die and all that noisy stuff. I play guitar too.
At Rummble, I aim to bring some cool new ideas and graphics that aid it to become a simpler and even more enjoyable platform to use.
Contact me via:
email, via daniel.williams@rummble.com or danwilliams1987@gmail.com
twitter, via @dw1987
and facebook
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/11/10/rummbles-new-pixel-surgeon/
Rummble was recently featured on Reuters for participation in ‘The Gauntlet’, hosted by The Hatchery and UKTI.
The event took place in New York City. The Hatchery is designed as a “tech and interactive process that gives entrepreneurs seven minutes to present their business models to a range of investors, followed by a 15-minute Q&A session”.
With an audience of 100+, Rummble and two other startp-ups (our friends at Huddle.net and Tailgate Techonolgies) were chosen to present from over 120 companies. Supported with flights from British Airways in conjunction with the UKTI, it was great to present Rummble in the heart of New York City and look forward to working with the people we met there.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/10/23/rummble-gets-reuters-recognition/
It has been a little over a week since the Rummble team relocated to an office building next to Farringdon station.
We’ve been enjoying our time in the new area and have been Rummbling along the way! Some of our new favourite spots include ‘Meze Meze Juice Bar‘, a new lunch spot that serves grilled paninis, bagel sandwiches, and specialies in falafel wraps.
Damir, Rummble’s iPhone developer, tagged the venue under ‘drink, juice bars, food’ and rated the venue quite highly based on his delicious lunch there last week… we’ll definitely be back soon!
Another Clerkenwell ‘hotspot’ are the shops and market stalls along Leather Lane. From a Pret a Manger, to fresh fruit/veg, to vintage clothes, or random household nick-knacks, Leather Lane has it all. One of the area’s infamous lunch stalls is Daddy Donkey, a local Mexican takeaway stand. Daddy Donkey queues can get up to 30 minutes waiting time during the lunch rush!
Although one of our staff members had a some bad side-effects from the infamous burrito one afternoon, plenty of us still think that the average waiting time speaks for itself…
We’re looking forward to plenty more adventures on Clerkenwell Road, so keep your eye out for new Rummbling around the area.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/10/23/clerkenwell-rummbles-home-sweet-home/
Thanks to Rummble’s current involvement as alumni at Microsoft Mobile Incubation Week in Washington DC, Alex Housley got the opportunity to join Brian Hoskins, Director of Microsoft’s Emerging Business Team, on ABC News. The interview featured on ‘Ahead of the Curve’, a program that features the latest technology innovations in the American marketplace.
David and Alex spoke about the upcoming launch of (recently rebranded) Windows Phone and how Mobile Incubation Week helped speed up the development of Rummble for Windows Phone. Windows Marketplace for Mobile is set to debut tomorrow and will soon feature Rummble among the launch apps for over 30 shiny new Windows Mobile 6.5 devices to be released before the end of the year; plus the millions of existing Windows Mobile 6.1 devices.
It’s our mission for Rummble to become the #1 social local discovery service in the US (and the rest of the World), so this was the perfect opportunity for Americans to get to know what Rummble is all about! Rummble is hugely appreciative for the support of Microsoft through initiatives such as Microsoft BizSpark and Mobile Incubation Week, and cannot wait to launch.
You can watch the video here.
Email Alex to register your interest in beta testing Rummble for Windows Phone.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/10/05/abc-news-gets-to-know-rummble/
Today is the last day to vote for Rummble in the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition!
With over 100 initial entires into the competition, we are very excited about the opportunity to give one last Rummble pitch, as part of the final 6 mobile start-ups next week in front of the judging panel at PICNIC ‘09 in Amersterdam.
Remember — Just a quick click, could better Rummble’s chances of winning one of the cash prizes (worth 150,000 euros in total), all so that we can help make Rummble even easier, faster, and more reliable for you to find cool places around the globe… Thanks again! We truly appreciate all your support!
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/09/18/rummble-wants-you/
As many of you are already aware, Rummble will be headed to PICNIC in Amsterdam next week to compete in the finals of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks Competition.
We’d like to issue a Rummble ‘call to action’ and ask you to vote for us NOW on the VF Mobile Clicks page! Voting closes this coming Friday, Sep. 18th… We encourage you to spread the link onto your friends and family, and appreciate all of the support.
Andrew and Alex have some cool Rummble updates to reveal at the finals next week and we can’t wait to tell you about them all very soon, too! In the meantime, remember – every vote counts, so show the love and vote for us! Thanks!
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/09/15/only-3-days-left-to-vote-for-rummble/
It’s with great pleasure that we welcome YOU to the second episode for Rummble.tv – featuring the most quirky, fun and unique Rummbles from our community.
The first episode of Rummble.tv captured the attention of TechCrunch. Rest assured, we’ve been innovating ourside of Rummble.tv and have some exiting tech announcements to make – some in the show, with more to follow this month
Also in this episode, we ride on top of the Rootmaster ‘busterant’, survive an encounter with a Drunken Monkey, and drink thick American-style smoothies at The Diner with Basti – our favourite German tech entrepreneur.
A huge thanks for all of the feedback, tips and tweets. Please keep it coming – leave your comments below, tweet @Rummble or email Cait.
Oh, and if haven’t already, please don’t forget to vote for Rummble in the Final of Vodafone Mobile Clicks.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/09/12/rummble-tv-episode-2/
Here at Rummble, we know that at the core to any good service is meaningful user feedback.
This said – We’d like to invite all Rummble users who have downloaded our iPhone app to participate in a quick survey. The survey is designed to help better work out exactly what our active users want and expect from the Rummble application… Please remember that every single opinion counts, as we’d ultimately like to make adjustments/improvements to the service that fit your needs!
Click here to get going; we promise it will only take a few minutes and truly appreciate your input.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/09/01/calling-all-rummble-iphone-users/
Rummble.tv is launched today to highlight the best, weirdest, funniest and most unusual places from the Rummble community. With users spread across the globe, Rummble.tv will be a irreverent look at what people are Rummbling where.
This week’s episode features…
our friend Anton’s treck up Ben Nevis, as part of BigEarth’s world record breaking attempt – more of which you can see here
lessons on where to become a voyeur
and a trip to a burial ground for some afternoon reading
Please contribute! ..suggest your best and worst Rummbles. Video that wonderful (or horrific) experience and send us the link to the Rummble for it.
Rummble is the easiest way to find stuff nearby you’ll love – share it and remember it.
Episodes are syndicated at rummble.tv and can be embedded all over the web.
Don’t expect Oscar winning production values as this has been thrown together in a couple of days. Major kudos to the hard-working team in the London office that made this happen, especially Kate and Andy.
Please tell us below what you’d like to see in the next show!
Hollywood CGI
However, we’ve got a bit of Hollywood style thanks to animations & transitions from the incredibly talented Chris Kelley… you MUST check out Chris’s website and contact him if you’re ever in any need of some truly awesome animation work.
Andrew (Rummbles Founder) apologises for sounding like a depressive on camera – hangover is his excuse. We’re going to inject him with expresso next time.
The next episode of Rummble.tv will premiere on Friday, September 11th and we want to include your experiences…
I want to be on Rummble.tv !
Although we haven’t added a video upload option yet to Rummble, you can upload any video from your mobile phone to YouTube or QIK TV and tag it RummbleTV Also, you can just send us a tweet and hashtag it ‘RummbleTV’ to be featured in an upcoming episode!
Enjoy! and feedback / comments welcome below.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/08/28/rummble-tv-is-alive/
Here at Rummble, we’re always looking for new ways to make our service faster, easier to use, and more accessible. This is why we are are VERY excited to announce Twitter and Facebook Connect integration for Rummble. Look for the new sign-in buttons on the top right of our Rummble site to get going right now!
By plugging into Facebook Connect for Rummble, all of your ‘Rummbles’ and trips will be published simultaneously into your newsfeed for your friends to see and interact with. Overall, this integration allows you to be even better connected with all your friends on the web and makes it a breeze for you to get started with Rummble if you are a first time user.
Also, true to Twitter form, we’ve discovered that Rummble and Twitter work together to do just one thing, simply and well… Through the new integration, when you create a Rummble it will also be posted as a tweet to your twitter page instantly.
In the meantime, don’t forget to become a Fan of Rummble on Facebook by clicking here. By becoming a fan, you’ll gain access to the latest news going on in our office before everyone else on the web & can be the 1st to hear about unique user opportunities, such as our soon-to-launch Rummble Brand Ambassador Team and many others!
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/08/26/integration-makes-rummbling-even-easier/
In case you haven’t already heard, we’re very pleased to announce that Rummble has been selected as one of the 3 UK finalists in the Vodafone Mobile Clicks Contest. The chosen UK finalists will be not only be competing against each other but, competing against 3 Dutch mobile internet start-ups for a prize of 150,000 euro this coming September 25th at the PICNIC ‘09 in Amsterdam.
We’re very excited about the opportunity and have recently posted a brand new blog post on the Vodafone competition site revealing some ‘Recent Rummble Happenings’ here in our London office. We’ll be updating that blog weekly to gear up for the final jury session, so check it out.
We also encourage you all to head to the Mobile Clicks site and vote for Rummble as your favourite finalist in the competition by clicking here (remember: every vote counts!). The start-up with the most votes will be awarded a set amount of points that will be very beneficial during the jury’s final selection process… Voting is open until September 18th, so spread the word, & as always we appreciate all your support and feedback.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/08/25/vote-for-rummble-in-vf-mobile-clicks/
Recently, our Rummble team joined the Microsoft BizSpark network and has been taking advantage of all the great services on offer. BizSpark is an innovative service that provides software and support to online start-ups. Some of the main perks of joining include:
Access to all Microsoft software, including Windows 7 (yet to be released on the market, we might add!) & all of their development suites.
Professional support from community forums & unique MS training tools.
Access to the BizSpark Network Partner Directory that’s full of entrepreneurial experts, whom are willing to give advice/mentor young start-ups through the many obstacles they may face.
After some encouragement from our friend Bindi, Rummble couldn’t resist the opportunity to join such an invaluable program. We’re really excited about the service and would suggest it to any new start-ups out there that are looking for some guidance or support and cool software perks you won’t find anywhere else! It may be love at first site…
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/08/21/rummble-loves-using-ms-bizspark/
My name is Damir…It’s a bit too late to say hello, but…Hello! I am a mobile developer and joined Rummble in June to make it truly mobile and available on all handheld devices (except calculators of course!).
A bit about myself… I’ve been working as a mobile software engineer for about 5 years and was working on several exciting projects such as mobile video streaming applications, instant messaging, push email, social networking and content sharing applications mostly for Symbian and Windows Mobile smartphones.
Hopefully my experience will be useful to Rummble and I will have a chance to develop new exciting apps for mobiles.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/08/21/hello-the-world/
After riding through the deserts of Sinai on a Quad Bike dressed up as a Bedouin, swimming with some amazingly colourful fish in Ras Mohamed and suffering some extreme sun burns as a result of forgetting his Sun Block on a Yacht trip, Tamer is back (hard at work, we might add!) in Rummble’s London office from his holiday in Egypt… Only to be welcomed with a good ol’ rainy London day, which actually never felt better after all the heat he’s been through.
If you’re ever in Egypt or plan to visit Alexandria, Cairo or Sharm El Sheikh then check out Tamer’s rummbles for some local recommendations.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/07/17/back-from-the-land-of-the-pharoahs/
Here at Rummble we’re very pleased to celebrate and acknowledge Mike Butcher’s achievement at the recent 2009 Europas Awards. For those who are unaware – the event was put on by TechCrunch and was the first Europe-wide awards ceremony for technology innovation of its kind in London! Ultimately, the awards aim to recognise Europe’s top-technology startups, web & mobile innovations of this past year.
At the ceremony, Mike Butcher (editor of TechCrunch Europe) was acknowledged for the ‘Biggest contribution to the London & European Tech Scene in Last 3 Years.’ Basti at Zensify and Andrew here at Rummble wanted to honour Mike with the award and nominated him for it some months ago.
As you can see from the snapshot above, plenty were just as proud of Mike as we are! Those pictured (from left to right) include: Basti , Andy from Huddle, Nick Bell from Quick.tv, and Peter Ward from WAYN.com.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/07/15/mike-butcher-honoured-at-2009-europas/
Hey all. My name is Cait - I am very excited to join Rummble as the new-bee marketer!
A bit about myself, necessary (of course), & I promise not too longwinded… I recently graduated with my Bachelor’s Degree from a state university in New York. Less than a month with the diploma in my eager little hands, I moved here to London to pursue my MA in Marketing Communications, where I’m currently studying at WBS for a completion of January 2010. My resume is loaded with hands-on experience in the advertising/promotions sector & I guess you could say my keen interest in changing the world through the use of integrated marketing communications all began when I was an intern for a hotly contested political campaign back home at the age of 17. From there I moved onto media sales, interning for one of the top radio stations in the U.S. & later worked directly under the marketing manager for a service-based company at my prior university.
All in all, I hope to bring a fresh and open minded outlook to marketing here at Rummble and will be working on promoting it everywhere and anywhere deemed appropriate. Also, my newest project will be developing bi-weekly ‘Rummbletv’ programs featuring the coolest/weirdest/most random Rummbles of the week along with some top staff picks to keep everyone on their toes (couldn’t resist the plug!).
So I’d say the future, yes.. is infinite.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/07/07/hiya-from-the-new-marketer/
Much to our delight and joy Rummble (and our Founder/CEO Andrew Scott) has been nominated for TechCrunchs’ inaugaral European Awards, set to rival the Crunchies!
Rummble has been nominated for Best Mobile App and Andrew for Best Start-Up Entreprenuer. You can vote for the two awards at the following the links…no login required, just click and vote!
The Europas: Best Mobile App
The Europas: Best Startup Founder(s)
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/06/24/rummble-nominated-for-techcrunch-europas/
Its not always possible to everything you want to do in-house. We’re a big believer at Rummble that in order to understand your product and service fully you should get your hands dirty and build it yourself. That is what we have done with Rummble for iPhone; but the reality is we are a startup and have a very small team.
Thankfully there are lots of talented developers out there and the Beta version of Rummble for Android is close to launch thanks to Droiders, a pure Android-only mobile development company based in Spain.
Thanks to the Rummble API, anyone can produce an app which takes advantage of Rummble technology - and if its good enough for others, its good enough for us. So it makes sense that our own applications use our own API! This makes using a third party a lot easier, especially when they are based in sunny Madrid.
Julian, Founder of Droiders, has been great to work with and we’d certainly recommend him if you need an Android app built - thats ALL they do!
Rummble for Android will be available in the Android store in July 2009, free!
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/06/19/rummble-for-android/
We’re incredibly happy to announce that on Friday, Rummble won the “Most Improved Application” category during Microsofts Mobile Innovation week. Rummble partnered again with Total Hotspots and joined forces and resources to build a working app in just 4 days.
Microsoft helped all the startups by providing access to 4 days of developer time from Muranosoft - a Microsoft partner. To our delight, Dimiri of Microsoft described Tamer, Bens and Alexs hard work as a near “miracle” pulling together a decent working version of the application within the week through.
You can read more about our win on Microsofts own blog and it was also covered by The Telegraph.
Related articles by Zemanta
Microsoft EMEA Mobile Incubation Week: A midweek sneak peek (telegraph.co.uk)
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/06/08/rummble-wins-microsoft-mobile-innovation-week-award/
The Rummble team are encamped at Microsoft HQ in London this weeks for Microsofts first Mobile Innovation week EMEA.
Hand picked by Microsoft along with seven other European startups (including our friends at Wubud) the week is designed to assist us in polishing the native version of our Rummble for Windows Mobile 6.5 .
Bindi and her team have put together a fantastic week of support and insight into their plans for Windows Mobile and the Windows Mobile Marketplace - set to launch in the near future.
The Rummble team at work at Microsoft London HQ (Left to right: Ben, Tamer, and Alex - Total Hotspots)
We’re working closely again with TotalHotspots and look forward to launching a couple of exciting applications in the not very distant future!
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/06/03/rummble-is-selected-by-microsoft-for-its-mobile-innovation-week/
As you've already probably noticed again, Fire Eagle authorizations have been back up and running for a couple of days. We've got a big nasty scary message up for you before you click to authorize any app. You should read that. It's important!
In the meantime, we thought we should probably let you guys know what's going on. The problem with the authorization process was because of a potential problem with the OAuth protocol that Fire Eagle, Twitter and a bunch of other sites use to make it easy to hook different services together. Work has been going on feverishly behind the scenes to work out how to make sure these problems don't happen again, and a new version of OAuth looks like it's going to be approved fairly shortly. Once it does, we'll implement it straightaway.
In the meantime, remember, you can hear all the new stuff that's going on with Fire Eagle first by subscribing to our Twitter feed: Twitter on Fire Eagle. We also use it to talk to you guys directly, so let us know if you have any questions, comments or ideas.
http://feblog.yahoo.net/2009/05/06/fire-eagle-authorizations-are-back/
Some of you may have noticed that it's been difficult to authorize a new application to get access to, or update your Fire Eagle account over the last few days. This is because a security issue in the OAuth protocol—the mechanism by which we handle app authorization—has come to light, and as a result we've temporarily disabled new authorizations. You can read more about how Yahoo! is responding here: YDN OAuth Update.
We're going to be turning on authorizations again in a day or two—mostly for developers—with a new warning screen. You can read more about that here: YDN OAuth Update #2. As the new warning screen says, Yahoo! is not aware of anyone exploiting this issue prior to April 23rd—the day we suspended new authorizations.
Obviously, this is annoying, but we take our user's privacy and security very seriously, so please bear with us and thank you very much for continuing to be patient a little longer...
http://feblog.yahoo.net/2009/04/25/temporarily-stopping-authorizations/
It's the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas this week and we have a few of the Fire Eagle team in town to launch our new project. It's an app that we've been working on for a while that joins together your location (Fire Eagle) and your social network (Facebook) to create something new that we're really proud of. We call it Friends on Fire!
Friends on Fire helps you take your location from Fire Eagle and share it with your friends! You can see all your friends on a map, you can share your own location on your wall and you can leave little hints, tips, messages or invitations all over the map. We call these 'signals'. They're really useful. More on them later!
As usual, we've spent a lot of time trying to work out the right way to give people control over their data and privacy. You can choose to share your location with trusted friends or with all of your social network, and you have separate control over whether or not to post updates and signals to your wall (at either neighborhood or city level).
You can also update your location with any of our mobile updaters—I personally like Voilà or Sparrow on the iPhone—or through web-based services like Dopplr or Brightkite.
We built Friends on Fire for a couple of reasons. Most importantly we built it because we wanted to use it! We thought bringing location to Facebook would be fun, and I think we were right. It is fun!
But we also built Friends on Fire to show what kinds of things you can do with your location. There are now seventy applications in our gallery that work with Fire Eagle, and we really think that's potentially just the tip of the iceberg. Any site or social network could be made more exciting if you bring your location to the party. And Fire Eagle's here to try and make that happen!
Friends on Fire may be the biggest thing we're launching here today, but it's not all we've got for you. We've also got a new way for you to update your location on Fire Eagle. The Fire Eagle Updater for Firefox adds one simple button to your toolbar and one to your status bar. And when you click on it, it uses Mozilla's Geode technology and your nearby Wifi signals to work out where you are and updates Fire Eagle. It's that easy!
As usual we'd love to hear what you think about the things we're doing - so please leave us a comment below or send us your feedback. Hopefully we'll see many of you using Friends on Fire! And for those of you in Austin for the week, you should be following @fireeagle on Twitter! We may have some treats to give away over the next few days. I can say no more. My lips are sealed!
[Oh and look out for another post aimed more squarely at developers over at the Yahoo Developer Network blog shortly.]
http://feblog.yahoo.net/2009/03/13/friends-on-fire/
We were incredibly excited at Mobile World Congress to able to announce that Rummble won first place in the Tele Atlas LBS Innovators Series.
It takes time and resources to enter a competition which is run in such a professional way as the Tele Atlas innovators series, so it was even better news that the prize included 28,000 euros PLUS a pod on the Tele Atlas stand at Mobile World Congress this year - we certainly could not have attended with such a prescence otherwise and presenting ourselves under the umbrella of TeleAtlas was a real boon. The Tele Atlas staff were fantastically helpful and we had a great week; despite some less luck outside the conference venue - but more about that in another post!
We were judged based on commercial viability and innovative use of maps in the application in two categories: Market Ready, which includes commercially-ready LBS applications targeted at consumers (which our friends at Nulaz entered an won) and Disruption Innovation, for location-enhanced solutions designed to push the boundaries in the LBS market, which Rummble won. The judges particularly liked our “Neighborhood View” functionality, which not only gives the distance of relevent content, but also the general direction - and then tracks you to the destination. For us, maps like anything else are important but should be leveraged to make life easier for users - not to just display flat data.
Semi-finalists Commandro, MobGeo, Texperts and Webwag were awarded prizes of €8,000 in cash.
Overall, if you have an innovative mapping application or are thinking of building one in 2009, we’d highly recommend you enter the competition this year.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/02/27/rummble-wins-teleatlas-awards-final/
We’ve recently upgrade our Fire Eagle support to enable full sycronisation with Yahoo Fire Eagles recently released XMPP Location Stream. In layman’s terms, this means that your location is now updated automatically in Rummble whenever you update your location in any other service you have also connected to your Fire Eagle account. Before, you would have to manually poll Fire Eagle to update the location, although Rummble location updates have always syndicated automatically out-bound to Fire Eagle.
Rummble Releases Open Source Java Location-consumer for Fire Eagle
If you’re writing an app to support Fire Eagle, Rummble has released the Java location consumer library for Yahoo’s Fire Eagle’s XMPP location stream as open source. This allow services who have Fire Eagle users, to subscribe (and unsubscribe) their users to Fireeagle’s location stream and receive instant location updates.
When a user updates their location on Fire Eagle the XMPP location stream pushes out their new location to all listening XMPP clients. The library is already being used at Rummble to update our users’ locations if they have a Fire Eagle account.
How do I use the Fire Eagle Java location-consumer library?
To use the library you will need to have a Fire Eagle application and access to an XMPP server for which you have a user that has fireeagle.com added to its roster. You will then be able to subscribe to location updates for users of your Fire Eagle application.
Written by Rummble’s CTO, Clive Cox, the Java Fire Eagle XMPP location stream library is published under the Apache open source license, to share the Java Fire Eagle XMPP love.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/02/26/rummble-upgrades-fire-eagle-support-releases-open-source-java-library/
Introduction
User location is interesting, obviously. As location data becomes increasingly stale, it becomes less interesting and less useful. It’s much more helpful to know where someone is, rather than where they may have been recently. As a result, Fire Eagle strives to provide applications the freshest locations it can, as that ultimately benefits end-users.
Background
Real-time data. The holy grail. We’re aware that our privacy model makes it tricky to get up-to-the-minute data, so we’ve been investigating alternate approaches. The recent API was our first step, but it’s painful to use and has necessarily limited granularity. It does its job, but it’s not good enough. We can do better.
You have to poll the recent API, then you have to make repeated requests for each new token that appears in the response (you might even have to page through it to get everyone). For applications with large numbers of users, this results in an equally large number of queries. In addition, your effective granularity is only as small as your polling frequency. You want to use Fire Eagle. You want to get really big. XMPP is how.
Web Hooks are one approach we investigated, but we didn’t want to require SSL for all application endpoints in order to verify that we weren’t publishing to a man in the middle. We also don’t want to get hung up on sending data to hosts that may have gone down. Given the resources (and frankly, interests) of our team, we wanted to explore where we could innovate rather than re-building web crawler infrastructure.
SUP (Simple Update Protocol) is interesting, but it doesn’t work well for a feed-per-resource privacy model like ours.
Publish-Subscribe, as described for XMPP, is a much better fit for us. In short: you subscribe, we publish.
We like XMPP for more reasons than just having a Publish-Subscribe protocol. It’s battle-tested (people have been using it for IM for 10 years), it’s federated (so you connect to your own server (securely) and it connects to us (also securely)), and it’s extensible. It forces people to think about data asynchronously, and thus more about queuing and distribution, which we think are good things in this world of increasingly expanding concurrency.
Last July at OSCON, at the XMPP summit, I and several other members of the OAuth community proposed OAuth over XMPP. This specification provided the tools we needed to support XMPP consumers of Fire Eagle location data. Before, it was clear how to authorize HTTP clients to act on your behalf; with this, XMPP clients can join in the fun.
Even better, though, is the ability to stream updates to subscribed users out in real-time. In most cases, location updates will be received by clients within a few seconds of being received by Fire Eagle.
Sending location updates as events eliminates the need for applications to constantly poll Fire Eagle for recent updates and dramatically improves the granularity of user location for applications.
As with all new things, the learning curve is steep. We’ve attempted to mitigate that as best we can. This doesn’t mean there aren’t rough edges, but tools like switchboard and the upcoming Java and C# libraries (developed entirely independently) attempt to address this. The response formats remain the same, so existing toolkits should be easily retrofitted to support the real-time streams.
What’s your point?
Building an XMPP-enabled Fire Eagle application is very similar to building a traditional web-based application. In fact, the XMPP componentry is intended to complement an existing application, simplifying it and imbuing it with real-time capabilities.
Create a New Application
Select “Auth for web-based services”
Fill in the blanks
Create it!
Take note of your General Purpose Token and Secret
Obtain an Access Token and Secret by sending a user through the OAuth
Dance
Create a JID on your XMPP server (you have one, right? If not, go
here)
Add fireeagle.com to your roster
Make a PubSub
request to
the node /api/0.1/user/ on fireeagle.com, signed with an
stanza
Sit back and wait for messages containing location-imbued PubSub
stanzas
Update users’ locations as you would normally (over HTTP).
Read on for the Frequently Asked Questions.
(more...)
http://feblog.yahoo.net/2009/02/19/fire-eagle-location-streams/
The keen-eyed among you will have noticed a few changes on rummble.com over the last week or so - we’ve been working on improving a few key features to make the site more useful (and nice to look at!). Here’s a quick rundown, in case you want to go and play with all the new toys we’ve added.
Find Rummbles anywhere!
We added search. Yes, finally. To many people, this seems like such a no-brainer - but for us it was a really hard decision to make. There are a million search engines out there - dedicated to places, experiences, venues - and we’re not trying to compete with these huge directories at all. One of the nicest things about Rummble is that you very often don’t need to search - you just tell Rummble where you are, and it gives you a seemingly hand-picked list of things you’ll like nearby. There doesn’t need to be a hundred results in the list, because the things that aren’t there are the things you’re not going to be interested in anyway.
Admittedly, this philosophy started on, and works best with, our mobile platforms. It’s different on the web - you’re much more likely to be looking for stuff somewhere other than the spot you’re sitting; if you’re planning a trip or a night out, or you’re hunting for spots to share with your mates in another town. For this sort of thing, ‘Find xxx near yyy‘ is indispensible.
So, we built it, and it’s working really well. The new search has two key parts:
1. What are you looking for?
The tag search includes some clever interpretation behind the scenes - so you can search for ‘restaurant’ without missing out on things tagged with ‘bistro’ or ‘bar and grill’. Tags are grouped together by theme, which matches what most people expect when they start searching.
2. Where are you looking?
The location search is where it gets really clever - it searches a variety of sources, from country and region names, through cities and towns, right down to databases of local businesses. Depending on what you enter, the search results are filtered intelligently - if you enter the name of a country, you’re unlikely to want local business results included in your results.
When your search could match more than one location, you’re given the choice to pick the one you want. If your search only matches one place, we center the map directly on that spot, and start showing you what’s nearby immediately.
Testing this was tricky - the search is so good that whenever I typed ’svshbsa’ to try to trigger the ‘we couldn’t find this place‘ response, I discovered tiny towns in Iceland and Mongolia!
Sexy new masthead and navigation:
We’ve replaced the old masthead with a streamlined new version. Much of the functionality remains the same - we know a lot of Rummble users really like the quick access to all the parts of the site - but the new design keeps visual clutter down, and stops those big yellow buttons screaming at you from the top of the page.
Bigger Rummble Explore view
The ‘Explore’ page now has a big Rummble map and the new ‘find’ box, and that’s it. Great for browsing around to discover new stuff.
What’s next?
As ever, we’ve got a whole lot of stuff in the works - the next big thing is the launch of our new mobile site. Those of you who frequent m.rummble.com are in for a real treat! More on that in a couple of days!
We’re all ears for your reactions to the new changes - either hit the comments form, or drop me an email at ben [dot] hull [at] rummble [dot] com.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/02/17/finding-anywhere/
To celebrate the enormous success of Twestival, today Rummble and Total Hotspots are donating £1 from the purchase of every Total Hotspots iPhone App to charity: water - a non-profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. The Total Hotspots iPhone app is the easiest way to find and discover nearby free or paid wifi hotspots, saving time and money. Thanks to the good people taking part in Twestival, we hope the app will also save some lives
WHY WATER?
Right now, 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. That’s one in six of us. Water gives 100% of the money raised to direct project costs, funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need. Just $20 can give one person in a developing nation clean water for 20 years.
Twestival brings together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water.
DOWNLOAD IT TODAY!
Want to be able to find wifi easily in over 100 countries? Then what are you waiting for? Download Total Hotspots: Find Nearby Wi-Fi from the App Store for just £2.99 AND donate to a great cause.
We will be donating £1 from download revenue between 0900 Thursday 12th February and 0900 Friday 13th February 2009 (GMT). Please help spread the word and enjoy Twestival
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/02/12/total-hotspots-rummble-give-1-to-twestival-for-every-download/
Just a quickie to let the Rummblers know that our servers will be having a massage and some extra memory installed this afternoon, which will mean that the site and service will be unavailable for a few minutes. If you find yourself without your vital Rummble feed, just give it a moment and we’ll be back up before you know it.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
Update: All done! Thanks Chris!
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/02/04/a-tiny-break-for-the-rummble-servers/
Total Hotspots, one of the leading providers of wifi hotspots data globally has launched its mobile application with Rummble.
Total Hotspots wanted to be able to provide its premium database to iphone users to help them to find pay for or free hotspots anywhere in the world. Normally, they would have had to build an entire application themselves including all the associated location based functionality. Instead, after a chat over beers in the MySpace Bus at FOWA London 2008, THS decided to utilise Rummbles LBS platform and API to rapidly roll out an App.
The wifi finding iphone app launched on Friday 30th January 2009 and was briefly featured on The Gadget Show on C5 that same evening. Since launch, in just 4 days it is now no.4 in the appstore for utilities which is fantastic news!
The Total Hotspots app is the first official use of the Rummble API which will be available for publicly very soon. Meanwhile, if you want to get started using the Rummble API please contact us.
The Total Hotspots app is a branded version of the base Rummble App, with added functionality specifically appropriate for the Total Hotspots use case. Alex Housley (Founder and CEO at Total Hotspots) paid tribute to the Rummble team, including our Design guru Ben Hull saying: “He [Ben] attacks front end visuals with the ferocity of a wild buzzard.” ..thats the sort of impassioned feedback we at Rummble treasure!
You can download the Total Hotspots app from the app store today for just £2.99.
We also had coverage of the launch courteous of the TechCrunch UK, Mike Butcher and the team.
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/02/02/total-hotspots-launches-on-rummble-api-going-straight-to-4th-top-utility-in-appstore/
Christopher Osbornes fantastically popular Geomob group, which only held its first meeting before Christmas, held the second event to a packed room at the lovely Wallacespace, err, space, near Covent Garden yesterday.
Speakers were Russell Middleton from Google, Alfie Dennen, Terry Jones from FluidDB (not to be confused with FluidDB.com!) and our very own Rummble Founder, Andrew J Scott.
The topic was the connection between context, location and device.
Andrew discussed the rise of LBS, the fact they are finally with us and that the future will be all about crunching data in order to make services RELEVANT and CONTEXTUAL. Personalisation for the user is key, but you cant do that without understanding the user behaviour. “It’s about the data, stupid” was Andrews mantra for the evening, which luckily for Andrew other speakers seemed to agree with!
You can view a good text overview and summary of the event on Alfies blog post about Geomob number 2, view the Rummble Geomob presentation on SlideShare here and photos from the Geomob events here.
Thanks to Christopher for all his hard work organising, to Yahoo for sponsorship (free beer, juice and munchies just make the evening SO much better!) and see you at the next event!
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/01/30/geomob-meeting-no2-its-about-the-data-stupid/
With Andrew on the wagon this week, Tamer waved the Rummble flag at OpenSoho#3 which was held in Floridita yesterday. It was so busy even going to the lavatories was an adventure in itself, although it’s not necessarily great to bump into chatty people along the way to the toilets when your bladder’s about to explode!
Overall the event was great, lots of professional and friendly people from all sorts of different IT backgrounds, lots of different conversations going on from deep technical discussions about the alleged superiority of Ruby on Rails over Java (yeah right!) all the way to business discussions about how best to start your own startup company.
Floridita was a perfect getaway from the grey London weather into a Latin American setting with a live band and people showing off their Salsa skills. Eventually I jumped in only to find out I should’ve trusted my gut instincts telling me I’m a bad dancer! (I blame the rum and cubanero)
Recipes from a Rummbler: Marketing stunt #1
What you’ll need:
Lots of IT guys who’ve had a bit too much to drink
A couple of girls who have nothing to do with IT
A couple of T-shirts with your company’s name on them
What to do:
Get the girls to wear your T-shirts
Make a scene by laughing way too loud
Sit back and watch as the guys are slowly drawn towards the girls like bees to honey
Take photos (free brand coverage!) and shout your company’s name out loud for everyone to remember afterwards in the cloudiness of their hangover
Make sure to have the girls say they work for your company, so guys will be more likely to check out your company’s website afterwards to try and find contact links leading back to the girls!
Obviously, if you’re a geek girl this can work in reverse, providing you find some cute guys willing to swap their clothing. Guys willing to remove clothing for girls shouldn’t be a problem, judging by OpenSoho attendees, “cute guys” might have to remain in the eye of the beholder.
Don’t forget to tune in for more of our crash course lessons in start-up marketing, in the near future: Subscribe by RSS or our Twitter feed www.twitter.com/rummble
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/01/16/crash-course-in-marketing-a-start-up-lesson-1-rummbling-opensoho/
All of us at Rummble are extremely excited that Rummble has won a place on the Digital Mission to SXSW 2009, run by Chinwag and UKTI and backed by the great guys at Bootlaw and Sun Startup Essentials (if you dont know these guys, worth checking them both out if you’re running a UK startup!)
Rummble kicked off 2008 by attending Web Mission 2008 to San Francisco which was a fantastic trip (incidentally, WebMission 09 submission for Enterprise Web 2.0 and mobile, are now open). Web Mission 08 provided tangible business benefits to Rummble and the other startups who went. Since then there has been a Digital Mission to New York for WebExpo, which our good friends UnLtdWorld and Veedow amongst others, attended.
Andrew went to SXSW in 2008 independently and was impressed with the number of attendees and level of engagement at the event; there are a huge number of panels and presentations at the event covering all manner of internet, mobile and digital.
One of the main benefits of Web Mission was spending so much time with a peer group amd sharing the down and dirty details, challenges and solutions when running an internet startup - we expect the Digital Mission to SXSW to be no different!
Many thanks to the panel for supporting Rummble, congratulations to our peers, and we’ll make sure we make a big splash in Austin, Texas in 2009 not only for Rummble but for the UK Tech Startup scene in general!
http://blog.rummble.com/2009/01/09/rummble-wins-place-on-uk-digital-mission-to-sxsw-2009/
Not a new way to inflict pain on your best mates, but yet another entrant into the already fraught and busy “who’s nearby” space. I’ve pontificated often about how this is no basis for a business, but with Tom and his gang at FireEagle it makes perfect sense as aggregation of location is their business.
I’m unconvinced of the UI they’ve built for this iteration - but who are we to talk when our Web UI still needs it new upgrade rolled out ;-) and essentially this is a technology beta, so I’ve on doubt they will do some polishing.
The biggest complaint I have is that after choosing who to share my location with from my FB fiends list, I then had to go through the process again, to invite them to use it and of course hit the stupid Facebook 20 invites limit. I simply don’t have time to go back and do it all again with the invites (requiring me to do it 10 times to invite the 200 I wanted to of my circa 300 friends). The biggest annoyance is that this limit doesn’t seem to have affected the number of crappy notifications I get for rubbish apps … my personal profile currently sits at 262 requests since my last purge a few months ago; but I digress.
This can only be good to accelerate take up of location based services and therefore we’re all fully behind it at Rummble; just those startups focusing on “whos nearby” as a core service, unless they have an existing big userbase (such as people like WAYN for whom its an obvious value add), should think carefully about where they are excerpting their efforts - but again, I’ve been preaching this for 3 years already and so I have little sympathy … a quick look at Loopts -lack- of progress, should give you any answer you need; and they have blown $15m+ up the wall trying to do so, with precious little traction to show for it. Still, we wish Loopt all the best and maybe they will yet rise from the ashes like a Phoenix … but then again, some other bods have a rather more appropriate name to achieve that particular feat…
Rummble for Facebook
Dont forget you can install the Rummble app to update and sync your status with Rummble (and SMS in from Rummble which changes your FB, Bebo and Twitter status) and will also publish your Trips and your new Rummbles to your newsfeed. Install here: apps.facebook.com/rummble or read more about our Rummble for Facebook here ..but dont read, install!
Friends on Fire for Facebook, from FireEagle
You can signup to the Friends on Fire beta here at: http://apps.new.facebook.com/on-fire/
Andrew, Founder, Rummble.
http://blog.rummble.com/2008/12/12/fireeagle-beta-tests-friends-on-fire-for-facebook/
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