Featured in latest DZone with a Flash lite article

It has been awfully quit around here the last couple of weeks. I’ve been away for 10 days on a snowboard trip, had a lot of fun btw, and I have been working on the new Boulevart Blog together with my colleague Erlend. This resulted in a minimal amount of free time and forgive me for doing other things than blogging to :) Nevertheless, I thought it would be cool to inform you that during my talk in Amsterdam a while ago, I was interviewed by Hans Frederiks from DZone. Together with Serge Jespers and Lee Brimelow from Adobe, I talked about Flash Lite, the iPhone and mobile in general. I even agreed doing a little photoshoot as you can see in the picture. I still have some work to do if I want to get as tough as Serge but who does not?

Interviewed by WebDesigner

In WebDesigner’s 13th edition I got published with an interview as a result of the Max Award we won in Milan. In the ‘Behind The Scenes’ section I’m talking about Flash and the iPhone, Boulevart and my vision on mobile in general. I’m very proud to represent Boulevart in one of the most cutting-edge multimedia magazines in the Netherlands!

FITC Amsterdam09 goes Mobile

Today, FITC has send out a press release in order to inform all attendees that there is a whole range of mobile FITC Amsterdam content available. As some of you know, I kinda have my share in this one:

Toronto, Canada [January x, 2009] — Adobe Max Award08 winner Boulevart is busy putting the final touches on a mobile content package for FITC Amsterdam, a two-day event focused on the art and craft of Interactive design and technology. This is the second year for FITC Amsterdam, which takes place February 22 – 24, 2009 at the Felix Meritis European Centre for Arts and Sciences. The Boulevart team includes Mobile Consultant and Flash® Lite™ expert Thomas Joos, a graduate of the Technical University of West-Flanders.

“Thomas is on the cutting-edge of rich media for mobile and typifies the kind of sharp, young creative minds that make our events a success,” says Shawn Pucknell, Founder and Executive Producer of FITC Amsterdam.

Beginning today, FITC Amsterdam attendees can download mobile screensavers, wallpapers, and a 2009 event guide at http://www.fitc.ca/amsterdam/mobile. All content was developed by Boulevart using Adobe® Flash® Lite™, a powerful runtime engine for mobile and consumer electronics devices.

[…]

You can download the entire press release here. Go and check out fitc.ca/amsterdam/mobile and if you are attending make sure you don’t miss FITC’s mobile boat this year!

Standing out in the blogosphere

Last week, Clo Willaerts, Marketing Manager at Sanoma Magazines and organizer of Brussels Girl Geek Dinners did a presentation on “Standing out in the blogosphere”. A very relevant topic for everybody who sees himself as an active blogger. We all may have various reasons, we like to see our blog being read and followed, no?  Using her twitter timeline Clo got a lot of input and feedback in order to create “10 free tips”. It was nice to see my input used in her slides. If you want to maintain a quality blog you should not wait any longer and check them out.

Mobile Vikings: A new Belgian Operator

About a week ago CityLive released a new initiative: Mobile Vikings, a Belgian mobile operator offering free mobile internet!

Everybody has the right to have drinkable water, energie and education. We think having free acces to information and digital information is also a right everybody should have.

– Mobile Vikings

CityLive is thinking big, the Mobile Vikings initiative is part of something more!

1) Mobile Vikings: free mobile data

At first they will start with providing free mobile internet acces (1gb). On top of that they offer acceptable sms and call rates ( € 0,24 / MIN  | € 0,10 / SMS ). For a 15€ card you even get 1000 free text messages.

2) Mobile Social Networking: Lifeline

To stay in touch with your friends and family you need to now what they are doing. LifeLine is a mobile service that will provide facebook, myspace, twitter & wordpress functionalities on your mobile phone. This service will launch at 1/02/09.

3) Interaction with the world around you

CityLive is also preparing a set of tools and services for local organisations, hotels, restaurants, bars, … Using these tools these organisations are able to create mobile services at the right time, focussing on the right type of user profiles. Transaction management, mobile payment and even a doctor’s appointment are a examples of mobile services that can be created!

If you are interested and want to know more you can always go check out the homepage! If you want to be a mobile viking you need to request an acces code or you can send me an email because I have 10 invites left. First come, first serve: thomas.joos[@]boulevart.be

The BMW Winter Tyres MMS campaign earned 45 million (!!) in additional business

Via my colleague Erlend I came across this amazing BMW mobile marketing campaign in Germany. The BMW Winter Tyres MMS campaign earned 45 million (!!) in additional business. This tiny messaging campaign was not organized by a pornographer, or a crazy tones subscription provider, nor a phony voting scam on TV, nor some outrageously addictive social networking phenomenon. It was that ultimate driving machine company from Bayern, called BMW. The BWM Winter Tyres campaign is an excellent example of excellence in mobile marketing and advertising.

The campaign went out to only those BMW new-car buyers who bought their Beemer in the summer season in Germany. Out of all cars sold in 2007, BMW sold 117,000 to private citizens in the summer period (anyone who bought a BMW as part of a fleet, would have bulk buyers for their winter tyres). They decided to send out 117.000 MMS picture messages to all their customers, in order to inform them BMW was having a Winter Tyres action. It cost them approximately a total airtime of 60.000 US dollars. According to Ajit Jaokar, who did a nice analysis of the mathematics and economics of the campaign the BMW campaign received a 30% conversion rate (ie people actually showed up in a store, and made a purchase) which is an amazing number (internet advertising gets an average of 5% click-through rates..)

The cost of a set of winter tyres is 700 dollars, and average cost of tyres plus rims 2,500 dollars. According to the analysis, the average customer would spend approx 1,300 dollars. Multiplied by 30% of 117.000, this means that 35.000 customers ( who received the MMS message ) appeared at a registered BMW dealer and bought tyres and/or rims for their new cars.

Total earned by BMW out of this campaign = 45,500,000 million dollars. Comparing this to the total airtime cost of 60.000 dollars this means the following: The return of investment per single MMS ad transmitted was 758 dollars. Should we start questioning running television campaigns that cost millions and newspaper and magazine ad campaigns that run hundreds of thousands, with no way to measure their effect? Is this a win-win situation? BMW did a good job earning 45 million by a tiny MMS campaign and the customers who received an mms are feeling less spammed or bothered, they are being approached in a far more personal way and in this case they actually need this information! This campaign seems like a perfect match for both sides, no?

Interviewed by DutchCowboys

After receiving a max award for Rock Werchter Mobile I did an interview for DutchCowboys. Patrick Petersen asked me some questions about Boulevart, our submission and my vision on the future of flash on mobile. The BelgianCowboys picked it up as well. I think this is officially the first time I did something like this :)  Check out the video below but please note that it is in Dutch.

The Wim Vanhenden Challenge: Live at Boulevart

Today I woke up very excited: we were finally cutting off Wim’s hair as a result of the Max Award we won in Milan! Because a lot of people were very excited to be a part of this iniative we decided to set up a livestream using qik.com. Wim’s motto still is ” Nerds UNITE ” so we kinda had to no? Feel free to experience one of the most exciting moments at our Boulevart offices:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

We noticed a lot of people shouting live comments and for those who missed the show here is a summary of the funniest comments made ( I translated some of the funny dutch comments )

1. Wim is soooo getting divorced now :D – Serge Jespers
2. wim 2.0 has born – Erlend Debast
3. Would this be a good time to tell Wim the voting was rigged? :D – Serge Jespers
4. Lambiek! – Owen
5. mariah doesn’t like bald guys – BFourneau
6. Wim Burrows – MStichel
7. It seems like he becomes smaller  :) – Kris Meeusen
8. @Kris It will be a 10cm difference! – Bart
9. Next time we should go for a tattoo! – Christophe Herreman
10. Event of the year! – Bert Hagendoorn

Thanks everybody for the support, the votes and the live comments!

Boulevart wins Adobe 2008 MAX Europe Award

Last sunday I got on the plane to Milan in order to attend Adobe Max Milan 2008, together with my colleagues Wim and Wannes and with Dimitri ( co-manager adobe usergroup and former classmate ). We were representing Boulevart as one of the Max Award Finalists in the develop category. As the only mobile entry that made it into the european finals we were already very proud of how far we got, together with our partner Barefoot.

The Wim Vanhenden Challenge

Sunday evening we announced the winners of our Shootemup contest, during the Adobe Usergroup Meeting that was hosted in our Hotel. I also informed the ( surprisingly large ) audience about the Wim Vanhenden Challenge that was going on at the Boulevart offices. Wim’s initiative to let us cut off his long rockstar hair if we won the award, resulted in a lot more than just a wild promise. A before and after picture was created, a facebook group was set up, the blogging started and a complete email campaign got orchestrated. That’s what I call working as a Boulevart Group!

We would like to thank everybody who voted for us and are very honoured to be part of such an active and open-minded community. If they were not laughing at Wim they were sending emails to their colleagues at home, asking them to vote for Boulevart. We really appreciate that guys!

Meet the finalists

On Monday we had the opportunity to showcase our mobile entry at the Adobe Community Lounge. We got a booth of our own where people could have a talk, drink or just take a look at our Rock Werchter guide running on the iphone. It was nice to meet the other finalists, have a talk with community members and of course enjoying an adobe sponsored meal! Well actually, Adobe was providing breakfast, lunch and dinner for all attendees, together with hot and cold drinks. No need to run out of energy at Max!

The 2008 Max Award Show

On Tuesday evening it finally began. After going to the rehearsal, Boulevart was ready for the Max Award Show. Having no clue who was going to win we were getting more and more excited & curious. It was definately on our mind this could turn out into Wim’s last moments as a long-haired rockstar. What happened then was probably the most amazing and exciting moment in my career so far. Check out the video to be part of it:

The Wim Vanhenden Challenge

As some of you already knew, Boulevart is selected as an award finalist for Max Milan. An interesting contest is going on at our offices though. Our colleague Wim Vanhenden promised to let us cut of his hair if we win the award! Another reason to vote for us I guess!

A direct link to enter your vote: https://www.adobemaxsubmission.com/viewer/?projectid=626&location=EMEA

Here is already a good taste of how Wim would look like if we win!