Source: besttechInfo.com

A rumour that spread like wildfire across the web a month ago has now metamorphosed into a big, exciting News butterfly. Facebook is on a journey to take on the might of Apple and Google in the mobile market, much like Leonidas and his 299 fellow under-dressed men.

Project Spartan, as it is known, is Facebook’s plan to develop their own new App Store; think iTunes but through Facebook. While not too much has been said yet (Spartans are men of action, not words) it is not too difficult to imagine what the project could lead to.

This will allow for e.g. making better use of some features like Facebook Credits for sales, in-app purchases and thus making more profit.  It is a clever battle-plan which the Financial Times and Playboy have already kicked off.

Apparently about 80 outside developers and companies (including Farmville and The Huffington Post) are contributing to the project, and we also know now that Apple is giving a certain level of support.

This effort from Facebook to bring a whole new experience to the iOS devices is something to celebrate. It would be nice to see this new platform being spread through other mobile devices, let’s say… Android OS for instance!
It may very well push developers and the rest of the industry to have more interest in HTML5 and CSS3 features, pushing forward new web standards.

source: Slashgear.com

The exciting news for our clients however is that it is a new contender in the app market with Facebook’s 750-million users behind the top brand.

Thought Den’s experience with the technology, HTML5 and Javascript will allow our clients pretty much instant entry to the service.

Now less talk about the naked men fighting please!

Or is it a “Doh!”? This email has actually come from a chain of events starting at a simple idea, putting it to Paypal, getting it selected, heading to Whitiker House (Paypal UK HQ), being part of Paypal’s entrepreneurs discussion group and all the way to actually receiving some honest sqilla’ for it!

Not bad, eh eh eh and here’s a piccie from the day with the other entrepreneur winners, I’m the goon posing on the side…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54389050@N05/5038261043/

In-fact our  competition entry said, “give us £100 and we’ll buy an Apple Dev licence”. A pretty sensible thought with all the requests for iPhone, Blackberry, Palm and iPad apps our studio is getting.

Low and behold, we won it and now, Thought Den is already working on our first app for the iTunes store!

And here’s the official mail out, (head to Ideas 101)

Official email

So now TD is officially producing apps for the mobile market using our extremely honed skills in games and rich website development. Contact dan@thoughtden.co.uk if you think you business, game or idea will be better placed directly in the hands of your consumers as an app…

…and please don’t send me a good looking spammy email. I will click it.

There’s a lot happening in the mobile payment world, with companies trialing systems, meeting dead ends and big companies partnering to start pushing the boundaries. But what really matters is, how do we all feel about it?

Does it meet your high expectations of security, simplicity and convenience? Are there any fears coming up, like if someone stole your phone or you lost it, phone and penniless!

Personally I think it sounds great because there’s no need for a wallet any-more and it means you can start paying for things even easier than ever, but then again does that mean people would want to steal my phone?

We’d really like to know how you feel about the whole caboodle, what scares you, what makes you think “wicked”, what things you’d probably use it for?

A lot more mobile technology news stories are beginning to hit the news in comparison with straight internet related interest reads and so this week I’m mostly rounding up any great/bad news that’s affecting the Happy Package’s further development.

Mobile Vouchers for greasy hands

Apparently South Korea isn’t the only place where mobile phone vouchers are taking off. Following our chased by fanny post where we researched the success of mobile vouchers delivered to your phone in KFC & Subway, the McDonalds chain in Japan has launched Kazasu Coupon which uses Sony RFID technology to redeem the voucher.

It seems the wave of mobile technologies is taking off already, time for our happy fountains to catch-up in for the next iteration.

Can’t set-up your freaking phone to access the internet!

One real barrier to entry for the Happy Packages application route was that people’s phones weren’t set-up to access the internet, use MMS or use their Java applications.

Configure my phone believe they’ve got the answer to it all, for the cost of a quid they’ll send you details to correctly set-up your whole phone for access to all those services.

In our minds it seems like a good partner service to advertise with our products to allow more people to experience every application they want to.

Enjoy the Bank Holiday with 118 118

Last weekend, 118 118 jumped on events listing in the same way Happy SMS helped Bristolians find something to experience for an evening. For the whole long rainy weekend you were able to text into 118118 and be sent something interesting to do!

The system seemed a huger version of what we achieved with our product, but without a lot of the clever features. So we suppose that’s the POC (Proof of concept) dealt with, thanks 118, we just need to go build it for the next iteration of Happy Packages.

We’re chairing part of the interaction to uncover everyone’s thoughts this Thursday (27/03/08) at the Watershed 7PM. It promises to be an interesting night and we’ll be utilising some of our Bluetooth technologies so we’d love you to come. As always, there’ll be drinks in the bar afterwards!

For more details, see the Cineformation site.

During the final pitch session we were introduced to Gill from Plot and John from BDH who have also been commissioned to complete a Pervasive Media project. As it turns out both groups have chosen to explore Pervasive Media using the theme of ‘happiness’, so we look forward to the discussions we will have and to discovering the ways our projects will influence each other over the coming months.

What a great way to start the New Year!