Sunday, December 16, 2007

Get Granny texting

There was a minor kerfuffle when Meteor aired an advert which seemed to be ageist.

And while Jessica James, may have had fun filming the advert, as a 91 year old she may not be a regular texter.

Which got me thinking. I know that while Granny Mar is still a young woman, she isn't the first person you would come to mind with when it comes to high end technology... so I'm going to make a request... to Meteor.

Get granny texting. Find and film a senior citizen using your products. Upload it to youtube and try to viral it. Even if you don't succeed you can at least point to it as an attempt to make up for the kerfuffle. You could make a series, and I suspect that not only would it smooth the troubled waters created, you might even sell more product.

There is a niche market in making technology for senior citizens. However any product designed for this market is going to have an interface that most people would love. Large screen and buttons would be a start. It's not as if old people don't get technology. Watch the grandparent playing on a Wii (if you can find a Wii) and you'll see a simple and intuitive interface that everyone will love. That's usability!

Living Control are a UK based company which use the tag line is so simple an adult can use it. Do we loose out ability to do things as we get older. Well, yes, but not that much.

There are frequent adverts on the radio at this time of year about keeping an eye on elderly neighbours. Why not give them the technology and the time to learn how to use it so they can communicate the way we're used to. A friendly chat isn't as good as an IM chat, but it's a start.

And while I'm on the topic. Could anyone recommend the computer set-up I should get my mum using?

take care,
Will



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Friday, October 05, 2007

One time at Mashup camp

To be honest, the word mashup makes me think of music before technology, but technology internet technology mash ups are the best thing to happen to the web.

A mash up is a mixing of two disparate elements to make a unified whole. Those elements could be Lilly Allen singing "LDN" mixed with Chad Jackon's "(Hear the drummer) Get wicked" or a Google map mixed with Dublin bus routing information and timetable to generate all the usable bus routes near any location.

Well Mashup Camp and Mashup University are coming to Dublin (after an abortive attempt earlier in the year) in November, and personally I want to go to the Uni sessions as I want to learn this. What can I say, I'm used to half of this, taking data from a single source and manipulating it to reveal the underlying structure. Mashups mean that you take the data from one (or more) source(s) and manipulate it to fit the structure of another data set (e.g. crime data and a geographic map).

Of course the sign-up for the uni isn't working but...

In the meantime, here is a mashup of a different sort... Dunproofin's "LDN WDK"


take care,
Will

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