Disqus - Latest Comments for vhirsch

Re: Let them stay? EU nationals in the UK after Brexit

Volker Hirsch — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 15:48:54 -0000

As an EU citizen having lived in the UK for the past 11 years with my family, there was never a need to jump through all those hoops of the 85-page (!) form. Together with the documents required, I would likely have to file some 10 inches of paper. I am not aware of the implications for non-EEA relatives. However, if I would like to apply for a British passport, I now first have to provide this residence certificate, it seems.

Re: Breaking the spirit of Brexit | British politics | Europe | For Europe, Against the EU | spiked

Volker Hirsch — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 19:44:29 -0000

That totally makes sense. I, too, subscribe to the superior judgment of Nigel in my local. Why? Well, he has not really much of a clue about most things. He clearly isn't one of those pesky experts. He is just, you know, a plain dude. He must be right, right?

Re: Tech London Advocates announces northern working group

Volker Hirsch — Wed, 11 May 2016 10:08:42 -0000

I should clarify that Tech North Advocates is covering the entire North of England, not only Yorkshire. I am personally based near Manchester. Amongst our group, we already have advocates hailing from all over the North, including Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle to name a few.

Re: Really, so the only European tech companies you know are Skype and Spotify? Here’s another 120 for you

Volker Hirsch — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 20:29:40 -0000

If you're after rarely-told success stories, Robin, you might spare a thought for Scoreloop, sold to BlackBerry, with today - I believe - some 450m users across the major mobile platforms. I would like to think we were the biggest mobile gaming play absolutely no one outside the industry knew... ;-)

Re: Capturing Users / StartUp Next Sofia [Slides]

Volker Hirsch — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 11:21:39 -0000

Yes, that's my point indeed! :)

Re: Capturing Users / StartUp Next Sofia [Slides]

Volker Hirsch — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 08:51:27 -0000

Thanks! And, yes, McClure is of course well-known. What I tried to do is to get people to design their product/service/app in a way that they pull retention in by way of design rather than sales/marketing/pre-/after-sales. The AARRR metrics refer to similar things but McClure could have made the importance of "engagement by design" a little clearer: without that, the job gets so much harder. In essence, I think we are all saying the same thing though, I suppose. :)

Re: Next-Gen Mobile Computing

Volker Hirsch — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 07:55:17 -0000

Hello, old friend! :)

re iBeam: yes, you are right of course, good old BLE. However, note how Apple manages to re-position it not by highlighting tech stuff but by offering use cases. This is where they excel (and have always excelled): they were rarely first with anything but they were often first with packaging things in a way AND communicate the resulting benefits to consumers well.

My hunch this is (and I think I mentioned this in the post) that this is the reason for choosing BLE over NFC: from a user perspective, the slightly larger distance you can bridge matters. Security concerns etc *might* be the reason why they have not (yet?) introduced payment functions together with it but that doesn't matter as long as they can deploy a solution that makes sense to a normal user. And as to handshakes in public places: as long as it is paired the user perception will likely be OK. I am not enough of an expert on the technical side of this so will happily listen to anyone who knows better but from a UX point of view, this certainly has the chops to win.

As to cost/unit: If you can defend the price points (and margins) Apple has by putting something into the device that is, say, $1 more expensive, I would assume that you still have a more than sound business case (as far as I know Apple's margins are by orders of magnitude higher than this). At the same time, you preserve the superior UX (and this is something that is crucial to Apple's positioning).

Re biometrics: I do not think they look at the fingerprint reader to authorise train fares (yet). As I mentioned in another comment, I haven't played around with it yet but it is said to be quite quick, so perhaps soon. Alas, when you look at it from an ecosystem perspective: how quickly can you roll these things out (see this article: http://news.techworld.com/m... The amount of stakeholders is insane. Again, this has nothing to do with the technology but with the experience of a user: too many stakeholders, too complex an ecosystem (or at least the bits that are exposed to the user), bad UX, no uptake.

I am not saying all this is ideal or this is how it should be but my hunch is that this is why they took that route.

And, yes, I wish for some drinks at a friendly neighbourhood pool bar soon, too! :)

Re: Next-Gen Mobile Computing

Volker Hirsch — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 16:16:17 -0000

Thanks, Jon, I just learned something! I had never thought it would be 5-7% of people! I haven't used the new phone yet myself, so can't say but - conceptually - the combination of the all the features I mentioned in the post open remarkable pathways, I think. I do not think that a single one of them in itself is the bees knees - it is their combination (or rather the opportunities the combinations open).

Having said that, I fully agree with you that this is only a beginning, both in terms of identification/security as well as in the overall scheme of things. It is why I titled the post "next-gen mobile computing" rather than "I, too, like the new iPhone", you see... ;-)

Re: Oh America, where art thou?

Volker Hirsch — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:33:17 -0000

A bit creepy (and/or expected): most hits on this are from "bots" of Facebook or Google...

Re: London’s Tech City or the Art of Navel Gazing (?!)

Volker Hirsch — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:14:34 -0000

No harm meant, Russell. I appreciate you're just getting started and you would probably be the last person I'd accuse of navel-gazing!

I will be in touch as soon as there are funding needs!

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts! And please let me know if you want me to show you around the NW a little. :)

Re: Angry Birds Or Wings of Distribution

Volker Hirsch — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 15:19:24 -0000

That's a whole new post, I suppose: the ability to publish third-party titles (Amazing Alex was one of those, too, if we're being honest). And I was quite critical of that one: http://vhirsch.com/blog/201...

Re: Is There a “Big Win” for the Payment Startups?

Volker Hirsch — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 20:32:09 -0000

You've got to be kidding me. The answer is mobile of course! PayPal removed the friction of traditional banking for online transactions. Companies like Square, iZettle, etc remove this for mobile. The even more interesting ones like M-PESA in Kenya are, however, the true revolutionaries: they bypass traditional banking (because most people in Kenya are unbanked) and are already transacting 25% (!) of the country's GDP via mobile.

Your piece is US-centric navel-gazing and leaves aside not some but all of the world's growth areas (Latin America, Asia, Africa - did you know that there are 1bn people in Africa and that Africa has been growing on average by 5% over the past 10 years? Did you know that the African "middle class" (people earning more than $20k p.a. already counts 100m people?)

And, quite besides that, there is a LOT of room to disrupt traditional banking in the US and Western Europe (where I am based): I am time and again astonished how little banks and credit card institutions do with the data they (theoretically) could use. Slow dinosaurs...

Re: Musings of a mobile marketer: The Road to Mobile World Congress 2013

Volker Hirsch — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:35:02 -0000

I'd second the apartment option: it is nicer (you're staying in one of the most beautiful and vibrant cities in the world, so make something of it), much cheaper (I am paying for a week roughly as much as you would stay in a regular 4-star had you booked back in October) and a lot more fun!

Re: Cash bribes help add 15,000 apps to BlackBerry 10

Volker Hirsch — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:51:51 -0000

Shame on you for this cheap, trashy link bait of a headline! That a company - any company - can motivate such amount of developers to submit this amount of apps over a single weekend would have been worth at least a wee note of acknowledgement, don't you think? I would be surprised if you believed yourself that any developer would get out of bed for $100.

It is, of course, significantly easier to port any app over to BlackBerry 10 than to all other platforms (thanks to clean standard-compliant tools and its C++ base) but to even insinuate that the offered incentive constituted a bribe is laughable. It does show RIM's commitment to the app economy though and to add to the 105,000 or so apps that are on BlackBerry World today is very much a focus. This, however, surely isn't a bad thing.

Full disclosure: I am RIM's Global Head of Biz Dev for Games.

Re: Angry Birds Creator Has First Original Idea

Volker Hirsch — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:57:27 -0000

First of all: I agree with the basic premise of the article in that it is a really well-made game with some new and nice twists. I will not comment on whether that genre had ever been tackled before or not (yes, it has been).

When it comes to Rovio's power to innovate though, everyone (including our dear author here) seems to forget all the titles they made before Angry Birds, and they made a fair few ones - innovative, well-made, just not the (accidental) break-out hit Angry Birds became. We published their "Darkest Fear" and "Totomi" titles, and they were good. Unique? No. Innovative and well-made? Yes. Polished? Yes!

What sets them apart is the speed and furore with which they polished and marketed the game and turned it into a large mainstream brand. Even if everything else was rubbish, flame them as much as you want but that is no mean feat in and by itself!

Re: #AltDevBlogADay » Porting your iOS game to Blackberry Playbook (and future BB phones)

Volker Hirsch — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 06:02:03 -0000

Let me add a few words on Scoreloop (I worked with them): we sold the company to RIM last year. It is not only available on BlackBerry but also on iOS, Android, etc. Scoreloop has about 190m users across all platforms. There is also a virtual currency and virtual goods solution to go with it. Finally: you can completely customize the UI to fit in with your design and art style... More here: www.scoreloop.com

Re: Angry Birds follow-up Amazing Alex tops app charts after just one day

Volker Hirsch — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 20:13:36 -0000

So do we actually think it is a great game? Despite its impressive commercial start, I am quite underwhelmed. Why is it commentators seem to shy away from passing judgment? Are people afraid of being caught red-handed?

Re: Idiot teenager’s gaffe proves we have no clue about Facebook privacy | VentureBeat

Volker Hirsch — Mon, 28 May 2012 19:01:31 -0000

Story with limited news value accompanied by tacky stock photo. This smacks a wee bit more like yellow-page rag, to be honest...

Re: The Difference Between the U.S. and Europe in 1 Graph - Derek Thompson - Business - The Atlantic

Volker Hirsch — Wed, 09 May 2012 06:44:59 -0000

Germany has, on national level, a system that is very similar to the US one (they call in in good German fashion - i.e. long-word enthusiasts - "Laenderfinanzausgleich"). It is, arguably, one of the tasks a federal state (as in "nation") has to discharge. In a single economic (and fiscal) area, you need a certain equilibrium. The EU does not have this in the same way: there are transfer mechanisms but no ability to impose any sort of fiscal discipline or even, at least, measuring.

Also: the reason why the (previous) German as well as the US currency are (or were respectively) so relatively stable is probably also to be seen in the relative higher stability of its parts (i.e. states), which benefits, in turn, the richer states as it keeps the value of the dollars generated in such richer states better... The richer states would have a smaller domestic market to address would they "bugger off" on their own, so the argument that they'd be better off on their own is also only a half-truth.I am not actually saying that either of the solutions is the holy grail of balancing differently-weighted economies out but I do think it is important to look behind the all too obvious "infographics" that are so en vogue!

Re: It Is Within

Volker Hirsch — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:43:09 -0000

Nice one, dear friend!

Here's a simple practical example for people to get going with this (the first step towards liberating yourself seems the hardest to most people):

1. Choose one little thing you want to change, something that always bugged you about yourself. This can be anything from not clearing your socks away, tip-toeing into the sea because it's oh-so-cold, forgetting to greet your loved ones with a bright smile FIRST when you get home, anything. But: choose little things first.

2. Then set your mind to it and change them. For those little things, this is easy: only one little step, eminently manageable for everyone. The result is awesome: you will realize (and many do so for the first time) the absolute power of your own mind. You can change it IF only you set your mind to it.

3. Then move on to the bigger and brighter things. And you will soon realize that everything is possible! As you rightly say, it is within, and if you can access it, you can unlock it!

Namaste!

Re: The 15% Tax Rate

Volker Hirsch — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:23:11 -0000

It might have been mentioned (forgive me for not being able to read through the hundreds of comments) but a country where this was done very successfully (and - at least initially - controversially) is Slovakia: in 2004 or so, they introduced a flat 19% tax on everything: personal income, capital gains (above €500 p.a.), corporate, VAT (or sales tax as I think it is known in the US). A personal allowance per person to cover the absolute, absolute minimum (running to below $5,000 per person p.a.) and that's it; no further allowances, rates, nothing.

The finance minister who championed this was, incidentally, Harvard-educated. People were initially very upset as they felt a lot of legacy privileges slipping away. The initiative has led, however, to an immense inflow of foreign direct investment and has helped the country's economy onto its feet much faster and much cheaper than most others.

Re: A Post PIPA Post

Volker Hirsch — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:56:12 -0000

You're mixing up production with distribution. if the high-end production model continues to work in order to produce the Avatars of this world, it will.

What is unlikely to work in the same ways it used to is the distribution model. And that isn't to say that the box office is going away: make the experience of "going to the movies" better than any other possible experience and the perceived value to the consumer will be greater than the price charged. Works.

However, Digital distribution now already equals physical (box office + DVD) and that shows the challenge the industry faces. And it is a challenge because the film industry has not come up with any of those models that now provide more than half of their revenue but were forced into it (the studios fought a lot before agreeing to do VoD, etc.).

This comes from thinking backwards: we always had that formula to produce a movie and we make billions, so we don't have a problem, we "just" need to enforce it. When perceived value (from a consumer's point of view) is decoupled from the price charged ("that's how we always did it") you are nearing disruptive change (you may want to read Clayton Christenson's old classic on this). I believe that this is where Fred and Charlie suggested a change in thinking and behaviour.

The case in the music industry has shown that mass law suits against individual breaches are a Don Quixotian endeavour; it doesn't work.

I believe no one here wishes for IP to go away or for great big movies to go away or the ability to make money with content to go away but the industry does have to start thinking forward and engage with the stakeholders in the process, and that includes the tech industry. It is very simple really...

Re: Developer Conferences in NYC

Volker Hirsch — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:44:26 -0000

Fred, isn't this exactly what you mentioned Town Hall is willing to address? Imagine you could have it at decent prices and without having to go to Vegas... ;-)

Re: Developer Conferences in NYC

Volker Hirsch — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:42:49 -0000

Not necessarily, Rick. Speak to the chaps who run the NY Games Conference. 200+ people, mostly smaller developers, tons of indies. They run it in the Museum of Jewish Heritage, which is not only a very nice space but also in an awesome location!

Re: Mobile Games Publishing in 2011

Volker Hirsch — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:37:01 -0000

Hey. Have a look which attributes you need and feel free to get in touch (use the contact form if you want to do it in private). Happy to help! :)