For a long time now, Augmented Reality has been established and embedded in western society as a force for good.
It's been 50 years since Pokemon Go made the concept of AR mainstream, then a year later, Microsoft showed us its true potential through HoloLens, finally, just 5 years later, Apple changed the face of the planet, literally, with the Apple Eye.
Read Morenor am I a Window, or an Android, or a FaceBook...
...I am certainly not Uber, or LinkedIn, and I am not Epicurious.
I am Rob.
Yet nowadays, more than ever, we are defined by our OS choice.
Read MoreThere are lots and lots and lots of people telling us why the picture above is a sad indictment of modern society...
There seem to be several arguments against this maligned activity, it takes you out of the moment, it's illegal, it's a waste of time on a crappy cameraphone, or it's just plain sad...
Read MoreToday we're running a Hack Day at TTF, we're looking at social login, so allowing people to login through social networks to our site. I thought I'd live blog it, and see where we get to...
Read MoreAre we really doing everything we can as an industry to enhance the customer experience?
Here's my vision of how we could create an engaging experience throughout the ticketing process with technology that exists today and without massive investment.
enjoy :)
Read MoreApple has finally announced it's new flagship iPhone 6, iPhone 6+, and their faithful sidekick, the Apple Watch.
The time is now rapidly approaching when our customers will be rocking up to gigs with their credit card on their wrist (in effect, everyone will be wearing a Disney “MagicBand”)
That cashless future people have been talking about is now just around the corner, and if you can buy a pint in the interval with your e-wallet , surely that's also where you'll be keeping your tickets?.
Read MoreI got my Glass last week, a clever piece of equipment that, after a few days of use, I feel has a place in our future. It's not ready yet, but it's well on the way.
It's part of the new wave of wearable technology that includes the Samsung Galaxy Gear watch, the Narrative Clip, Fitbit, Jawbone and Misfit fitness trackers, the Basis band, the autographer, etc. etc. SmartPhones, after a good 10 years as the Champion of consumer technology are starting their slide into obscurity. Wearables are the new kid on the block...
What I'd like to focus on here though is the knee jerk reaction that I'm seeing in the media. Specifically over the recording capability, a very small part of the overall functionality of the device.
Read MoreIt’s very easy to underestimate ticketing and all it’s complexities.
Recently TicketMaster have been in the press a couple of times due to some unfortunate incidents around the 2015 Rugby World Cup, and the 2014 Commonwealth games...
It’s easy to play the blame game, (and tempting, as one of their competitors!) but rather than look at whether they are at fault, or whether I could have done better, I'd like to look at why ticketing isn't as simple as it first seems. and why the increasing complexity is bad for all of us.
Read MoreIn this post I'd like to propose a simple 6 stage model for the ticketing customer journey, and In a follow up post I'd like to use it to put forward a vision for the future of ticketing... simple ;)
So here is a simple six stage model for the ticketing Journey, let's call it "The rollercoster model" because being on it feels like being on a rollercoster.
My girlfriend tells me Nine Inch Nails are touring, she saw it on an email, and instantly I want to go. This is stage one...
Read MoreThe longer I work in the Ticketing industry the more I realise that we don't sell tickets...
I know people who get this, and people who don’t… but it’s easy to understand why some people don’t.
The box office is surely a place where tickets are sold, I know ticketing managers, and ticketing departments, I’ve been to hundreds of ticketing meetings, and a ticket conference or 12… and most agencies have the phrase ticket in their title somewhere… cough cough
Read MoreWe've just returned from holiday, and I'd like to thank the following apps for their assistance
There's an interesting shift happening at the moment, away from product and towards experience.
I first noticed it with Apple, their products / packaging / setup / service / support all promote this radically different experience that defines and distinguishes them from the competition.
Read MoreMy First Vlog! take a look at a few of the apps I use to track aspects of my life, and what I do with the data...
Since the launch of the first iPhone I've been undergoing a steady switch across to the Apple platform I have an iPhone and iPad a MacBook, an AppleTV, and an iMac, that must be Bingo! A complete change from my Windows life years ago...
However I've always maintained I'm not an apple fanboy. Whenever anyone has asked me how that's true with all the devices I own I've simply said I use the stuff that works, and that's the best in breed.
Until this, or maybe last year I would have agreed with that statement, It was simply true, Apple was best in breed. But it's becoming less and less so. Now more and more every day I'm beginning to wonder whether it's time to make true with my motto and switch to a different path.
Read MoreA few people have been making waves in the payment industry recently. Companies such as Square and Mpowa and concepts such as Bitcoin have been turning the world of online and off-line payments on its head.
Read MoreFor a number of years now I've been fascinated by the idea that reality as we percieve it is a metaphor for some higher, or lower level of being that would be incomprehensible to us as humans.
Read MoreI don't think people understand what's currently happening to us, to human interaction, to our current idea of society. It's very easy, and perhaps all a little too comfortable to percieve the changes happening within the online world, the world of so-called "Social Networking" and the mobile world, to be nothing more than a fad, a new distraction. Which means too few people realise that we're undergoing a fundamental shift, a transformation, a step change in the way our society manages itself.
Read MoreEver heard of Quantified Self? Do you know what you do in an average day? How much you eat? What you weigh?
I use a set of simple tools to track my behaviours, analyse the results, and effect change in my life.
Read MoreOver the past few weeks I've been setting up and using iCloud, and it got me thinking about how great it's going to be when iOS game saves are stored in the cloud as standard, so I can be playing Hardlines or Jetpack Joyride on my iPad at home, and later be sat on a bus somewhere and pick up the game on my iPhone and carry on from where I left off, just like I do when reading books on my kindle app.
Read MoreMany people in the videogames industry talk about the maturing of the medium. In his fantastic Indecade / Gamecity talk "Beauty and Risk" Richard Lemarchand from Naughty Dog, showed a rather astute representation of the history of the media by Chelsea Howe, ending with the bubble, "Medium Coming of Age"
but are we there yet...
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