24k Steps, My Websummit 2015 Day 2 Recap
The VR revolution, doing business in China, the only true smartwatch, Blaa, more rugby and the coolest UAV I’ve ever seen. These are my highlights of today’s 16km trek around the websummit.
VR Is Coming
There have been many VR themed talks yesterday and today, most of which I didn’t attend. I knew what they would all say, VR is the next big thing, but it’s a year or two away, blah blah Oculus.
Then I sat in the Sports stage and listened to Don Cornwell of PJT Partners and Nakisa Bidarian of UFC talk about how VR viewing of octagon matches will be the next big premium viewing option for UFC. If you’ve ever watched a 360 degree video (like this one), you’ll recognise that immersive 360 degree video delivered through VR is going to be amazing. Bitten by the VR bug, I headed over to the content stage to take in Nicholas DiCarlo, VP & GM of Immersive Products and VR at Samsung talk about how VR content will work.
If the content is good enough, we’ll all find the time to use it and so far, Samsung has found that VR video works best for tourism, news, experiences and fictional scenarios. Contrary to what you may first think, sports may not be that well suited to VR video, unless the geometry of audience and focal points can mould to the immersive nature of VR. Perhaps mat-side at a UFC octagon may be different. Samsung are currently in the process of making 360 degree video camera units to make it easier for all of us to produce content for the upcoming VR revolution.
China Is Not An Alien Planet — Yat Siu
An excellent talk on the content stage challenged some of the misconceptions about doing business in Asia, particularly in China and Japan. Yat described how there are more people in China right now learning English that there are Americans in the United States. He predicts that in 5 to 10 years, English will be so prevalent in China’s major cities it will be like visiting Italy in terms of language barrier. On the topic of launching in China, according to Yat, big business in China don’t have time to clone incoming services and are in fact investing in western companies to speed up the route to market. On top of that, the meshing of western and eastern ideas is resulting in better products and concepts overall. This cross pollination is primarily facilitated by Chinese returning emigrants, known as Sea Turtles. Prime examples of this are WeChat and Xiaomi. WeChat has built upon the standard concepts of IM chat but is innovating on integration where users can order products and services like insurance within the app. Xiaomi has taken android as a base OS and as a result is a natural platform option for western android businesses.
BLAA!
Today I had my first Blaa in the Good Food Ireland tent at the Food Summit. For those of you that don’t know, a Blaa is a Waterford delicacy, a floury bap sandwich suitable for all mealtimes depending on the filling.
Check out the amazing floury Blaas of Walsh’s Bakehouse filled with gorgeous Irish beef and sauerkraut from Bodega Restaurant.
Pebble Sales Doubled Since The Apple Watch
Eric Migicovsky, the founder of Pebble, gave the afternoon keynote on the Machine stage and took us through the history of Pebble up to the latest news from the company. I own a Pebble Steel and love it. Eric described why owners love Pebble. It’s a smart watch that meshes into your life. It’s a watch from the ground up rather than a smartphone on your wrist. These key differences between Pebble and other smart watches, coupled with the active community and affordability, have pushed sales to double numbers since the Apple Watch has launched.
It was interesting to hear about the three main types of Pebbles users which they’ve identified over the last 3 years. Connected users are the first key user group, those who live online and need to be connected 24/7. Health and fitness nuts are the second key user group that use Pebble to track and manage activity. Surprisingly, unconnected users are the third key group, those who want to ignore their connected life with the exception of one or two close contacts. These users can leave their phone in their bag/pocket, safe in the knowledge that they will be notified of those high priority notifications on their Pebble, but everything else can wait. To close, Eric described Night Scout, a hacking project that sends diabetic levels from detection equipment in real time to your Pebble screen for monitoring and peace of mind to those with diabetes and their carers.
The Social Media Rugby World Cup — Alan Gilpin
The head of the Rugby World Cup Alan Gilpin gave us some insights into Rugby World Cup 2015. The #RWC2015 twitter hastag was used twice per second during the tournament. 2.5 million tickets were sold, twice the size of the last world cup and 1 million people interacted with the fan zones.
The use of Hawkeye during the tournament was also very successful in enhancing the game. As well as the in game TMO deployment, Hawkeye was used in player welfare, disciplinary procedures and in team analysis packages. A surprising insight about this tournament is that viewing in Germany jumped to 3 million due to broadcast over free to air TV. As a result, World Rugby are now looking into longer term plans to introduce new markets like Germany into the tournament in 8 to 12 years time.
Facebook Isn’t Just A Website
Next to the Centre Stage area, Facebook have installed a large exhibition space which can be accessed in groups of 12 at a time. Queuing for about 30 mins had me skeptical, especially since Oculus demos are invite only and not available to use mere morals. The wait was worth it for the great tour of their internet.org project. We’ve all heard the media byline, Facebook wants the whole world on Facebook. That might be the end goal, but right now, they are looking at solving some real problems with innovative solutions to deliver connectivity and essential medical, weather and agricultural information to areas with 2G or no connectivity.
The Aquila drone is in development and is designed to fly months at a time to deliver connectivity over an area of 50 miles. These UAVs have the wingspan of a passenger jet and are powered by 4 super lightweight battery pylons that each weigh about the same as a macbook. Bandwidth is delivered to the drones via line of sight lasers. Interruptions to the line of sight delivery is just one of the issues still in development but nevertheless, this project is very impressive and altruistic.
Last Day In Dublin
Tomorrow, the last day of the last websummit in Dublin :-(
About Me
I’m a web consultant, contract web developer and technical project manager originally from Cork and now based in Swansea, South Wales. A lot of my work is done with clients in Ireland & the UK, where I offer strategy, planning and technical delivery services. I also offer freelance CTO services to companies in need of technical bootstrapping or reinvention. If you think I can help you in your business, check out my details on http://darylfeehely.com.
