Mobileizer (Oyble.com)

Oyble is a multimodal group communication hub application. It provides a platform that allows any group to stay connected through a computer and/or a mobile phone. Oybleuses SMS, e-mail, the web, an API and screen scraping to allow groups of people and applications to communicate in highly heterogeneous circumstances. An embeddable widget allows subscription possibilities on every web site.

Multimodal group communication hub

Mobile adoption is still limited. A small number of people have 3G and/or a suitable mobile device to communicate. This leaves a large number of people excluded (digital divide). SMS is an established medium to communicate while on the go. Aims to solve difficulties for groups, organizations to exchange information last-minute or during an event.Brands are finding it more and more difficult to reach their audience with contextual information
Use cases: Student bodies organizing activities, university teachers sending students last-minute notices, small communities keeping each other up to date, bridging communication boundaries between diverse communities (e.g. youth – older people).

Approach

Users create channels (several types are available), other users can subscribe to these channels
Channel updates (by channel admin or, if allowed by admin, other members) can happen through SMS, e-mail, API-calls or screen scraping (using key words). People can choose to receive updates through SMS, e-mail or API-call
A widget is available that can easily be pasted into existing websites, allowing people to sign up to Mobileizer channels without leaving the website of these organisations.
Fair use is free but will be in the future be ad-supported. Premium model will be available to large-volume single-users and organizations that want to keep their channel free for all users. Businesses can place ads, and give out free packages of sms to their followers.
Not just an sms-hub: groups can be notified when online information changes (screen scraper), or when an other application sends an API-call to Mobileizer (API). Mobileizer can send updates to other applications by calling their API.

Benefits

Makes communication fast, easy, flexible and efficient. And mobile! Ideal for all types of small to medium-sized social groups that need to exchange information. The ability to message entire groups from your phone is very handy if e.g. an event has to moved, changed, or cancelled at the very last-minute. Organizations can set up channel registration on their own website in minutes (widget). Leaves no-one behind (most people have sms;digital divide!). Can easily be integrated into other applications (API).

Next steps

Mobileizeris one of the results of the project initiated by the Brussels Regions Information Centre (BRIC), the Ministry of Informatics of the Brussels-Capital Region and the VrijeUniversiteitBrussel. The application will go into private alpha (supervised by researchers of IBBT-SMIT) on the university campus in the month may 2009, and other pilots in the city of Brussels are being considered.

Mobileizer will also be introduced to European audience consisting of professionals of both living lab and testbed origin at the kick-off the Swedish Presidency in Lulea July 1st 2009. The application has a planned trial in addition to Belgian users also for Swedish, Finnish and Spanish
user communities for summer-autumn 2009.