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Announcing the BlueVia SDK for .NET, a collaboration with Microsoft

March 28, 2011 2 Comments

 
 

Today we are delighted to announce a groundbreaking partnership with Microsoft to create the BlueVia SDK for .NET. We recognises the need to drive awareness and adoption of the BlueVia platform, and from today, this partnership with Microsoft puts BlueVia in front of Microsoft’s 6 million developers.

The BlueVia SDK for .NET is a set of drag and drop controls and templates for Microsoft’s Visual Studio, making BlueVia powered app development super simple for any.NET developer who wants to build applications for Windows Phone 7, Windows, Internet Explorer or Xbox. The BlueVia SDK for .NET also enables real-time, programmable voice and data communications that can connect applications to social-networking capabilities. Core to this concept will be the creation of controls that tap into Windows Live Services for key functionality, including user identity, network presence and contacts.

As well as collaboration at a technical level to create the BlueVia SDK for .NET, the partnership will see joint developer outreach between Microsoft and BlueVia. One of these developers is Medianet, who were excited to announce integration of the BlueVia.NET APIs within their TAXISTOP application to ensure non-smart devices can take part in the TAXISTOP transport revolution: Gideon Clifton, CEO, Medianet said: “Developers have been waiting for an opportunity to integrate network operator services within our apps in a robust and seamless way for over a decade. Third party solutions have never delivered due to the historic lack of understanding by operators of the Developer opportunity. Telefonica and Microsoft have corrected this and we are excited to integrate their tools to deliver our TAXISTOP application to millions of feature phone passengers who would not have been able to access TAXISTOP had it not been for the BlueVia SDK for .NET.”

At the launch event today, Tony Mestres (VP Microsoft Communications Sector) had this to say:

“This relationship with Telefonica is an incredible opportunity for our worldwide community of developers to build mobile applications that serve millions of customers. Given the combined capabilities of Visual Studio, Silverlight, Internet Explorer 9, Azure, Windows Phone 7, Windows 7 and Windows Live Services, we think there are huge prospects for innovation in connected consumer experiences and the Cloud. We can’t wait to see what our developer community comes up with.”

Download the BlueVia SDK for .NET here.

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Entries Open for the 2011 Meffys Awards

March 23, 2011 Leave a Comment

Our friends over at the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) have just launched the 8th annual Meffys awards.

The Meffys categories span the entire mobile content & commerce ecosystem, from Best Game to Best Music Service to Best Content, so there’s something for everyone and we encourage you to enter any apps or projects that would be suitable.

This year, MEF is also offering a special developer rate of £75 per entry, so there’s no excuse not to enter and we’d love to see BlueVia powered apps up for some of the awards.

There’s more details over on Meffys website and here’s the full run down of Meffys categories for 2011:

  • Best Game
  • Best Music Service
  • Best TV & Video Service
  • Best Content
  • Best Content Discovery & Personalisation Service
  • Best Social Media Service
  • Best Ad Campaign
  • Best Brand on Mobile
  • Best Mobile Website
  • Best Blockbuster App
  • Best Innovative App
  • Best Technology Innovation
  • Best Innovative Business Model
  • Best Innovation in a Mobile First Market
  • Best M-Commerce Service
  • Best Business Intelligence
  • Best Mobile Connected Device
  • Outstanding Contribution Award

You can enter by visiting www.meffys.com, just submit your entries by 26th April 2011. The winners will be announced at a Gala dinner on 7th July at the Grand Connaught Rooms in London’s Covent Garden.

Good luck!

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Event Report: The Big M

March 22, 2011 2 Comments

 
 

This week, the BlueVia team headed down to The Big M conference in Bath, “a brand new independent mobile focused event aimed at those who want to learn from and connect with the very best people in the industry.”

Day one kicked off with Raam Thakrar (@raamthakrar) talking about app distribution and monetisation, both subjects that BlueVia are familiar with. Ramm’s main point was to make sure that developers needed to move on from a “hobbiest mentality” and make sure they sort out the product proposition and find distribution channels that will really scale. More notes from this talk over at It’s Developmental.

Ramm was followed by Arel Balkan (@aral), who gave another of his inspiring and speeches on UX, titled “Beyond Usability”. Bruce Lawson (@brucel) from Opera came next, and gave the following presentation on “Web Anywhere”:

Web Anywhere: Mobile Optimisation With HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript

View more presentations from brucelawson

Ewan MacLeod, editor of Mobile Industry Review, was next up and always makes things interesting. This time round he spoke about what frustrates him about mobile and how operators and hand set manufactures should be help fix the problems of connecting services. We’re aware that we operators haven’t got a good track record of working with developers (watch Ewan’s  interview with BlueVia’s Jose Valles for more on this), but he did mention that BlueVia is the start of operators doing things right and mentioned the user context API as an example of this.

BlueVia then took to the stage for our 5 minutes of fame, talking about BlueVia and getting people ready for the developer connect sessions later in the day. There were lots of positive vibes about BlueVia on the day, so if you want to follow up and find out more, take a look at BlueVia.com or get in touch with Elayne Checketts at elayne@bluevia.com

Our very own Paul Golding (@pgolding) gave the closing keynote on “Future Mobile Innovations”:

Big M Conference – Future Mobile Innovations

The event continues today, so make sure you keep updated by following the hashtag on Twitter #bigmconf or follow @bigmconf

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Jose Valles interviewed on the background to BlueVia

March 21, 2011 Leave a Comment

 
 
The third episode of the BlueVia video interview series is up on Mobile Industry Review, this time with an exclusive interview with the head of BlueVia, José Valles (@josevalles49).

Jose discusses how mobile operators have a poor track record when it comes to working with mobile developers, then goes on to explain how BlueVia is set to change this and Telefonica’s thinking behind the initiative.

It’s an enlightening interview if you want to find out more about BlueVia. As Ewan MacLeod, editor of Mobile Industry Review, says: “The most exciting element of the interview was the refreshingly direct and hugely enthusiastic manner in which José presented BlueVia”

You can watch all previous interviews and keep updated on the next set of interviews by visiting the BlueVia series on Mobile Industry Review.

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Founder of Twitea.me interviewed on Mobile Industry Review about BlueVia

March 16, 2011 1 Comment

 
 
We blogged recently about the BlueVia video series on Mobile Industry Review, which was introduced with a video interview with James Parton (@jamesparton) about BlueVia.

The next interview in the series is with Arturo Garrido, the founder of Twitea.me and a mobile developer who’s already using BlueVia.

We’ll let Ewan MacLeod (@ew4n), editor of Mobile Industry Review, explain the rest:

“Arturo’s service is a Twitter-by-SMS service for Mexico where there’s a high proliferation of feature phones, but also high demand for services such as Twitter. Arturo’s service enables consumers to use Twitter via SMS. All well and good. The problem for him used to be the business model. Sending and receiving SMS used to cost him a lot of money and Arturo used to have to support the service with advertising (or, in some cases, pay for it himself). That’s until Telefonica’s BlueVia came along and changed his world for the better.”

Watch the video interview with Arturo below to find out how he is now generating revenue instead of losing it, has now got carrier-class reliability and the capability to launch into lots of other countries using BlueVia’s APIs:

You can watch the full series of video interviews over on Mobile Industry Review.

Filed Under: APIs, Apps, Case Study, Events, Mobile Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Jose Valles speaking at Mobile Apps 2.0 conference

March 16, 2011 Leave a Comment

 

 
If you want to see what the Head of BlueVia, Jose Valles (@JoseValles49) has to say about where and how Telcos can add value in the new app economy, then get yourself along to the Apps 2.0 Conference, taking place 6th April in Palo Alto, California, organised by Telco 2.0.

Part of the New Digital Economics Americas Executive Brainstorm and Developer Forum, the Apps 2.0 conference explores what needs to be done to build a more sustainable mobile-tablet-TV apps ecosystem that benefits all parties.

Jose will be speaking on a panel titled “Telcos’ New Role in the App Economy”, along with Laurent Therivel, AVP of Corporate Strategy at AT&T, and Peters Suh, CEO at WAC:

“Most operators are struggling to gain traction with their current API offerings and developer programmes.  The use of APIs for ‘core’ products and capabilities such as voice, messaging, location and payments has been poor.  At the same time, operators are struggling to gain a foothold in apps and app stores beyond connectivity as Google, Apple and the handset manufacturers have attracted the vast majority of developers.”
(Quote from the Apps 2.0 conference site)

The session will be looking at how operators could tackle these business challenges by seeking to make APIs for products and services available within applications and app stores, such as BlueVia.

Jose will be speaking on how developing a suite of valuable APIs supported by viable business models will be critical if operators are to develop a sustainable position in this market:

“ Telefonica, with BlueVia, is currently demonstrating the most innovative approaches to ‘API business models’ and similar creative activity is required by the operator community. How important a blue print is BlueVia in developing a sustainable approach to telco APIs and how these APIs?”
(Quote from the Apps 2.0 conference site)

Find out more about the Apps 2.0 Conference or keep up to date with where the BlueVia team will be appearing by following us on PlanCast.

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Watch the BlueVia video series on Mobile Industry Review

March 15, 2011 Leave a Comment

 
 
We’ve teamed up with Ewan MacLeod (@ew4n) at Mobile Industry Review on a series of video interviews with the our team, looking at how to get involved with BlueVia, the APIs available, as well as business models and revenue share opportunities for developers and their apps.

The first in the series is an interview with James Parton (@jamesparton), who introduces BlueVia and highlights its key offerings for developers:

Make sure you keep an eye on Mobile Industry Review for the rest of the series, where Ewan will be going into a lot more detail with BlueVia, particularly on the revenue side.

Everything you need to get started with BlueVia is right there on the site including all the API documentation.

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SXSW, Adam Burmister on the #StartupBus and how to get your own BlueVia schwag

March 10, 2011 Leave a Comment

This week we are seeing one of the year’s big technology and digital conferences kicking off in full flow: SXSW in Austin, Texas.

When we heard from Adam Burmister, developer and co-founder of Mojolly.com, that he was looking for support in his trip to SXSW this year, we jumped at the chance of helping out.

You can follow Adam’s travels on his Twitter feed from the #StartupBus, which is taking a number of entrepreneurs from San Francisco to Austin. You can read more about the idea of the Startup Bus on its site here.

This morning Adam posted a picture of himself wearing one of the BlueVia schwag shirts that he has with him. The backdrop looks just amazing and back here in Europe we’re very jealous. But we thought what better way to spread the BlueVia kit out across the world than do to it like this. To people who can lay claim to be in some of the most interesting places across the world.

So here’s our offer: if you would like one of the BlueVia shirts (a photo of the different kinds is below – polo, light bulb or smiley) then let us know either through a reply to us in the comments below or a reply on Twitter. We’ll send you one and then all we ask is you put up a pic of yourself wearing it somewhere that will make us even more jealous.

For everyone at SXSW this year, look out for Adam and have a great time from all of us here at BlueVia.

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First BlueVia Powered Mac App Available in Apple Store

March 9, 2011 4 Comments

Text Deck, a Mac OS App that allows Mac users to simply and quickly send SMS messages from their Mac, has been approved by Apple and is now available on the Mac App Store.

Text Deck is powered by the BlueVia SMS API allowing Hamish Rickerby (@rickerbh), the app’s developer, to directly monetise the SMS traffic created by the Text Deck application:

“From a developer’s perspective, BlueVia’s technologies simplify integration and offer access to services previously unavailable,” Rickerby said. “For consumers, the security and control that these technologies offer makes it very clear what apps can and cannot do on their behalf, as well as giving them simple interfaces to approve and deny applications access to their accounts.”

BlueVia’s API’s are cloud based meaning they are compatible with any operating system or end user device, including feature phones, smart phones, PC’s, Mac’s and internet TV’s. To learn more about the BlueVia APIs read our documentation here or watch our video tutorials here.

Read more about Text Deck in our case study or download it from the Mac App Store.

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Telefónica sigue impulsando la innovación y el talento en Latinoamérica

March 7, 2011 Leave a Comment

Ya hemos escrito con anterioridad sobre la apuesta estratégica de Telefónica en Latinoaméirca. No sólo en el “core business” con inversión en las redes que comunican a los latinoamericanos, sino con una apuesta por el talento creador que atesora esta región y que, con el adecuado empuje, hará volar a Latinoamérica muy alto. Con este espíritu ha nacido Wayra.

Wayra significa “viento” en quechua y es la nueva iniciativa de Telefónica
para apoyar a los emprendedores latinoamericanos y dotarles de la
tecnología adecuada, herramientas necesarias y recursos financieros que les
permitan sacar adelante sus proyectos de innovación.

Como decimos en BlueVia, las cosas están cambiando y la creatividad ya no
está en manos de unos cuantos, sino en el grueso de la comunidad. Si
BlueVia le permite al desarrollador usar las capacidades de la red para
rentabilizar sus desarrollos, Wayra complementa estas capacidades técnicas
financiando a estos emprendedores con la finalidad de crear un hub
Iberoamericano. La apuesta por la innovación en LatAm es firme porque
creemos en ello. Como dice Javier Santiso en su artículo “La década de los
emergentes“,  se abre un año nuevo y con él entramos todavía más en una década que será sin duda la de los mercados emergentes”.

En los próximos años seremos testigos de una deslocalización de los sitios
que por tradición han liderado la innovación hasta la fecha e iniciativas
como Wayra, Amerigo y BlueVia contribuirán directamente a este cambio.

Si eres emprendedor, no lo dudes, visita Wayra y apúntate.

Filed Under: APIs, Apps, Mobile, News
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