Just had a Skype conversation I’d like to share.
I’ve anonymized the person I had the conversation with, but he asked just the right questions.

Q: how do u *really* make money?
A: we make money with the real time web… we sell platforms like http://theplaya.mobynow.com for between 20-80k per year…

Q: but that’s not a mobypictures thing that’s mobynow no?
A: Mobynow is build on top of Mobypicture… MobyNow is nothing else then a contextual template on top of Moby content, still need to showcase that to you
His reply: I get the idea

Q: how many of these have u sold?
A: Right now we are selling one or two every week…
His reply: :O

Q: r u serious?
A: this week we’re actually launching 4 MobyNow platforms, theplaya.mobynow.com is a freebie btw

Q: lol who buys 80k topic radars? at 2 a week?
A: it’s way, way more then a radar… it funnels the traffic there… it doesn’t just aggregate… we give the publisher back the traffic and let them own the conversation again… 80k is the highend… we sold a couple of those

Q: how does it funnel traffic there?
A: because Moby does the distribution of our users aventures, we control the traffic
If the context is right we can then direct the traffic to the MobyNow.

Q: from Mobypicture?
A: yes, we control the moby.to link we posted for the user on all the social networks (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube)

Q: so ur like doing contextual ads – if someone takes a pic #burningman u promote this page?
A: if he/she approved of sending the traffic there yes… check the link on this tweet: http://twitter.com/ncilla/statuses/22109465224
The publisher totally owns related the MobyNow platform, can add all kinds of functionality to it and can convert all the traffic any way they like… so the traffic lands in the site, so we actually give the publisher a Mobypicture sharing service… integrated in all social media…

Q: so photos tagged a certain way redirect u to topic pages that ‘own’ that tag
A: tagged, geofenced or by predefined lists of users etc. (red. read about MobyNow)

Q: but the user has to be using Mobypicture for this to work
A: we aggregate all the content, but the traffic is dependent on Mobypicture usage… which the publishers heavily push amongst their target demographic of course…. so we also show flickr, youtube, twitpic postings etc. on the platform… and facilitate the conversation on the platform as well. right now Moby is integrated in over 800 third party services and sites, but getting in all the apps is an important focus
(we are in all the major twitter apps)

Q: hah too funny
A: but you’re not using it yet you should!

Q: so u can hijack my photos to destinations sites
A: exactly
His reply: lol
My reply: but seriously we don’t hijack anything it is all opt in…

Q: how do they opt in?
A: people want to share their pics amongst other fans, when you send something which is relevant we send you an @reply stating the tweet/moby/blogpost has been aggregated and ask them to sign up… during the sign up we ask them if they also want their traffic to end up there if it is relevant…
His reply: interesting! cool stuff – very ethical
I’m not being sarcastic
My reply: click on the ‘going to the playa?’ button
http://theplaya.mobynow.com/ and you see the opt in (actually they can opt out )

Next week the 2010 Burning Man festival starts.

Mobypicture has launched a MobyNow platform to enable burners to share their adventures on the Playa with their friends, family and jealous connection and co-workers.

All social media updates from Black Rock City are aggregated on the platform as well as the #burningman tagged content.

This platform will of course also be a collective diary of the 2010 edition of the worlds most radical and creative event.

If you’re joining the 50.000 festival goers, make sure you sign up and set your photo/video/audio service in your favorite Twitter app to Mobypicture. Or just download the native app for your phone. All your Burning Man related content will then also be captured on the platform.

Make sure you enable the geo location features of your phone, because we place all content on the map.

The platform also contains the official Burning Man blogposts and the most shared social media links (popular blogposts).

Check it out: http://theplaya.mobynow.com

About a year ago there was a rainbow in Tokyo. That was the first time I realized how many users we had in Japan.
People were taking pictures of the rainbow from every angle from within the city, posting them and sharing them with their friends.

The postings all together told the story even better.

Today there is a big fireworks display in Tokyo, showing how we grew over the year, based on the number of postings from the festivities.

It was kind of a coincidence I was looking at the main Moby stream. This triggered me to start thinking about the contextual information we have on the Mobypicture platform we can use to make content more insightful and capture serendipity.

With MobyNow we are trying to solve this. Not just for Mobypicture postings, but for all shared social media.

We look at content and then try to figure out the context to categorize this and match it with other content.
Basic stuff we use to define the context:
- the title and description might contain words/hashtag
- geolocation
- contacts and lists of people

There is also more advanced stuff we will start using soon:
- face recognition
- object recognition
- semantics and lingual analysis

When content qualifies, we can aggregate it and direct the social media traffic to the MobyNow platform.

Check out what MobyNow does and give us your feedback

To check out the fireworks from all different angles in Tokyo:

http://moby.to/z3cemf

http://moby.to/7ehp31

http://moby.to/9fwuof

http://moby.to/jcve00

http://moby.to/vej13v

http://moby.to/u8fosi

http://moby.to/haojul

http://moby.to/zai992

http://moby.to/fnj3qy

http://moby.to/jr0btv

http://moby.to/j67q4m

http://moby.to/2zm29v

http://moby.to/qjou1h

http://moby.to/mtwrrj

http://moby.to/1amcpy

http://moby.to/d1kiys

http://moby.to/nj6bzu

http://moby.to/cbm3lm

http://moby.to/nxpi3q

http://moby.to/pcyf78

http://moby.to/w6a8tb

The Dutch posted the most soccer related social media updates of any participating country in the world.

Thursday morning Mobypicture decided to launched a Holland MobyNow to aggregate all this social media updates for the final of the soccer worldcup on Sunday.

This MobyNow platform aggregated all the social media (twitter, mobypicture, blogposts) complying to one or more of the following contextual drivers:
1. the social media update contained either #ned or #wk2010.
2. the social media update was posted by a person from predefined lists.
3. the social media update was posted from a geographical location within a predefined timeframe, from which we knew people were watching the final. (like the stadium, Soccer City, or the Museumplein in Amsterdam)

The amount of social media updates complying to one or more of these contextual rules at some point during the game exceeded 100 per second. (The rate of tweeting typically averages 750-per-second, according to the San Francisco based startup.)

The infographic give you more insights in the data we aggregated and presented on the Holland MobyNow platform.

Total tweets
577043 + 2163 Mobys

During the game;
1st half: 75044 tweets (27 tw/sec. ( tweets per second)
half time: 25802 tweets (29 tw/sec)
2nd half: 66825 tweets (19 tw/sec)
extended time: 72390 tweets en 40 tw/sec

Peak time was at 20:59 with more than 100 tweets per second.

The first tweet after the goal:

Last week the first MobyNowLite profile was launched.

MobyNowLite enables our users to seamlessly integrate branding and (corporate) communications into their social media. This means you can direct your target audience to your own web environment directly by using Mobypicture.

What it does:
1. you get a brandable version of your Moby pages (item and user)
you can adjust the header, add a background and fully customize the colors and fonts.

2. you can add a media stream from a selected group (#hashtag based)

3. you can add your own tweets

4. or you can add a Twitter search stream

5. you can add a feed (from your blog or any other source) + a read more link to your site

6. you can add your own banners (optional)

7. you can add a favicon

8. the header can be made clickable to your own website

The first MobyNowLite account was launched one for the Dutch Field Hockey Team.

We are giving away 10 year subscriptions to the best blogposts about this new product.
Just write a small review about this new possibility and link to this post.

The 25th of July we’ll decide which bloggers/media will receive a free MobyNowLite account!

Thursday morning 10 am CET I said to our CTO: “Don’t you think it would be nice to still do something with the Worldcup Final and the celebration afterwards and MobyNow?”

Timan replied: “Yeah, let’s do it!”

One tweet got things rolling…

Two days later we’re proudly presenting the MobyNow platform for ‘Onze Jongens‘, the realtime social media coverage platform, to follow the Dutch national players, fans and officials experiencing the final game and festivities.

This is made possible by the quick main sponsor Holland.com, and two other flexible partners Agis and IAmsterdam. Kudos!

read the press release below:

—-

Especially for the Worldcup final and the celebration ceremony following on tuesday, Mobypicture launched a realtime social media coverage platform, to follow the national players, fans and officials experiencing the game and festivities.

Please check http://now.holland.com.

All Mobypicture and Twitter updates containing the #wk2010 hash tag or the official #ned hashtag are aggregated on this platform.

Together with Holland.com the platform was launched this morning. Also Agis and IAmsterdam joined forces to make this possible.

Mobypicture geofences the important places where people are watching the matches, like the Amsterdam Arena, FanFest in Eindhoven, the Museumplein (estimated 100.000 fans will watch the game there) and of course Soccer City.

Mobypicture offers the content on the platform, embeddable maps for other sites to use and there is also a special Augmented Reality view, which you can use to view the content around you using Layar.

IAmsterdam teamed up with the platform and will provide realtime content regarding viewing the final in Amsterdam and the celebration ceremony planned on tuesday, giving the supporters and fans all the vital information for attendance.

The platform already aggregated over 70.000 items (Mobypicture postings and Twitter updates) and this grows with an average of 6 per second.

About Mobypicture
Mobypicture helps users share adventures in real time with friends. In one simple action, all social Web sites are updated with text, audio, photos or video files. Mobypicture helps companies regain control of the realtime online conversation with the recently launched product, MobyNow. Clients use Mobypicture to send mobile digital content which is aggregated, enriched and distributed using APIs of all important social sites and services. Mobypicture works for international brands like T-Mobile, MTV networks, Rabobank. Over 750 third party developers use the open Mobypicture API to incorporate social sharing to their websites and applications. Mobypicture is a Red Herring Winner, Runner-up for the 2009 Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition and Webby Award Honoree. Mathys van Abbe, the founder, was awarded the Online Media Man of the Year 2009.

Press release, Amsterdam, July 8th 2010:

The Branded Rabosport Now Layar lets you explore the content around you in augmented  reality. Showing you the latest photo and video Mobypicture postings and Twitter updates of the Rabosport Cycling teams and those of the Press and all Fans, nearest to you. The Layer shows all the location tagged content of the realtime platform Rabosport Now, developed by Mobypicture.

Fans can post content to the Layer by adding #raboploeg to their regular Mobypicture and Twitter postings using any of the over 750 different Mobypicture enabled applications and services.

Users can view  the content on the Map, through the mobile phone’s camera in Augmented  Reality view and there is a List view.

Clicking the content gives you  more info (title, comments etc.) and options; the routing how to get to  the spot where the content was recorded and a link to the content on the  Mobypicture website, where the user can get more info and leave a  comment or like.

How can businesses benefit from these  possibilities?
The branded Mobypicture Layer is developed by TAB Worldmedia  using the Mobypicture API. Mobypicture commercially  offers branded versions of the layar to companies, enabling  them to filter the content to specific topics and locations. The branded Layer is a powerful tool to engage visitors of events  and exploration of brand related content, bringing realtime experiences  to like minded people instantly. This branded Mobypicture Layer is part  of the MobyNow solution, the  social media content aggregation platform  Mobypicture recently launched  as a managed service helping publishers  and brands to regain control of  the social media conversation.

Mathys  van Abbe, founder of Mobypicture, comments: “The branded Mobypicture Layer solution enables brands to become part of user experiences in realtime. It’s contextual, value added and non intrustive.”

He adds, “Rabosport, really tries to leverage the technology and possibilities, understanding that people come in different sizes and shapes and content is consumed in different ways as well. The Realtime content of the RaboNow platform can be viewed on the dedicated website, the freshly released iPad client and now also in augmented reality.”

Remco Vroom, TAB Worldmedia: “We think it is great that Rabobank wants to give an extra dimension to the Mobynow platform with this augmented reality view. It really adds a great experience to the Tour locations for the fans.”

About Mobypicture
Mobypicture helps users share adventures in real time with friends. In one simple action, all social Web sites are updated with text, audio, photos or video files. Mobypicture helps companies regain control of the realtime online conversation with the recently launched product, MobyNow. Clients use Mobypicture to send mobile digital content which is aggregated, enriched and distributed using APIs of all important social sites and services. Mobypicture works for international brands like T-Mobile, MTV networks, Rabobank. Over 750 third party developers use the open Mobypicture API to incorporate social sharing to their websites and applications. Mobypicture is a Red Herring Winner, Runner-up for the 2009 Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition and Webby Award Honoree. Mathys van Abbe, the founder, was awarded the Online Media Man of the Year 2009.

About TAB Worldmedia
TAB Worldmedia creates augmented reality experiences for International brands.  With popular augmented reality layers like “TweepsAround, Foursquare and Panoramio” and commercial brands like “Walt Disney, Berliz and National Geographic” in their portfolio, they are among the top full-service mobile augmented reality agencies in the world.

About Layar
Layar is the world’s largest Augmented Reality platform with over 1000 layers published. Layar is available on Android and iPhone and comes pre-installed on 1 out of 3 new AR capable smartphones sold worldwide, providing millions of people with a better understanding of their context and rich immersive experiences.

Press release (http://pressdoc.com/p/0003hl)

Sharing
People all around the world share their adventures using Mobypicture to all their social networks. From their mobile phone they easily upload photos, video and audio to their friends on networks like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, their blog and numerous other social sites and services.

The Moby Layar lets you explore the content around you in augmented reality. Showing you the latest postings nearest to you. You can view the content on the Map, through the mobile phone’s camera in Augmented Reality view and there is a List view. Clicking the content gives you more info (title, comments etc.) and options; the routing how to get to the spot where the content was recorded and a link to the content on the Mobypicture website, where the user can get more info and leave a comment themselves.

How can businesses benefit from these possibilities?
The Layer was developed by TAB Worldmedia using the Mobypicture API. TAB Worldmedia and Mobypicture commercially offer branded versions of the layar to events and companies, enabling them to filter the content down to specific topics and locations. The Layer proposition is a powerful solution to engage visitors of events and exploration of brand related content, bringing realtime experiences to like minded people instantly. This branded Mobypicture Layer is part of the MobyNow solution, the social media content aggregation platform Mobypicture recently launched as a managed service helping publishers and brands to regain control of the social media conversation. (see RaboNow below)

Mathys van Abbe, founder of Mobypicture, adds: “To see in realtime what your friends are experiencing at a festival or during a sports game in the near vicinity is of course way more powerful than reading it on Twitter.”

Remco Vroom of TAB Worldmedia, the company behind the most succesful Layer sofar, TweepsAround: “With this Moby Layar we enable social media trough augmented reality. We think it is the best social Layer so far.”

Claire Boonstra of Layar adds: “I love it when two great concepts come together to create one even  more amazing experience. This Moby Layar helps to get a better  understanding of your context, plus a richer immersive experience. Two  aspects which make Augmented Reality succesful and attractive”

About Mobypicture
Mobypicture helps users share adventures in real time with friends. In one simple action, all social Web sites are updated with text, audio, photos or video files. Mobypicture helps companies regain control of the realtime online conversation with the recently launched product, MobyNow. Clients use Mobypicture to send mobile digital content which is aggregated, enriched and distributed using APIs of all important social sites and services.

Mobypicture works for international brands like T-Mobile, MTV networks, Rabobank. Over 750 third party developers use the open Mobypicture API to incorporate social sharing to their websites and applications. Mobypicture is a Red Herring Winner, Runner-up for the 2009 Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition and Webby Award Honoree. Mathys van Abbe, the founder, was awarded the Online Media Man of the Year 2009.

About TAB Worldmedia
TAB Worldmedia creates augmented reality experiences for International brands.  With popular augmented reality layers like “TweepsAround, Foursquare and Panoramio” and commercial brands like “Walt Disney, Berliz and National Geographic” in their portfolio, they are among the top full-service mobile augmented reality agencies in the world.

About Layar
Layar is the world’s largest  Augmented Reality platform with over 1000 layers published. Layar is  available on Android and iPhone and comes pre-installed on 1 out of 3  new AR capable smartphones sold worldwide, providing millions of people  with a better understanding of their context and rich immersive  experiences.

In the latest update Twitterrific adds Mobypicture as an upload feature for photos and video.
How can you use Moby on Twitterrific?

1. Log in

2. Type a tweet and click on the ‘camera icon’

3. Click ‘Change Upload Service’

4. Select Mobypicture

5. Shoot n Share!!!

Thanks Craig for the nice integration!

Oh, and it of course also works (the same way) on the Twitterrific iPad version!