The problem is that (according to the press release) Todt’s trip to Bahrain was back approximately five months ago (November 2011) and since then, unrest has only grown as the date of the race grows ever closer. According to one foreign correspondent I follow on Twitter (Byron Young of the Mirror (@byronF1), protesters are planning two ‘Days of Rage’ during the GP on Saturday and Sunday. No one wants any trouble at the GP, but if the citizens are determined to have their voices hears, there is likely no better time when much of the sporting world will have its attention focused on their tiny island in the Gulf.
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I’ve recently become particularly intrigued by two small companies – Insightpool, and Placeme. They have nothing in common with each other except that each of these is thinking ‘outside the box’ and have come up with solutions to problems that didn’t even exist. I don’t mean that in a sarcastic manner. After all – Apple’s success was at least partially predicated on coming up with consumer products that didn’t exist and all of a sudden everyone had to have an iPod, an iPhone, and now an iPad. Insightpool has become adept at data mining and farming Twitter feeds to a deep level in order to provide its clients with very granular data specifically geared to market research. As Twitter grows in popularity and this company’s data mining tools and algorithms become more sophisticated, I believe Insightpool is poised for takeoff (or perhaps acquisition) as the company gains customers and word of mouth. The founders are skilled at social media and are well connected with the Atlanta technology scene. Insightpool could use a lot more depth on its website (all it has now is a landing page). Insightpool’s tagline is ‘Converting your competitors’ customers’ – something all companies would like to do. Whatever the future holds for this company, I’m sure it’s be bright and I’ll be watching intently.
Placeme is a startup that was founded by Sam Liang who is one of the super smart ex-Googlers creating the world we live in now. I’d have to thank Robert Scoble for bringing this to my attention. Robert doesn’t know me from Adam, but he posted a video interview with Sam Liang on Google Plus and I was immediately hooked. Sam likes to use the phrase “persistent ambient sensing”. Once invoked, Placeme records the sensor data from one’s smart phone including the GPS, accelerometer, compass, clock, - virtually all motion – “to learn about the mobile user in real time and over time”. Placeme runs on Android and IoS and is from Alohar Mobile which offers an SDK to developers who could then use this data to develop their own location based apps. To paraphrase from Alohar’s site, an app developer interested in creating a ‘healthy living’ app might use the SDK to tell a user something like, “I see you’ve been to McDonalds’s five times this week, but you’ve only been to the gym once”. I’ve only begun using this app, and don’t have much data recorded yet, but my head is spinning when I think of the possibilities. For those worried about privacy concerns the privacy policy is strong and frankly, if you’re worred about stuff like that, no one is forcing you to use it in the first place. Just log out and turn of the app if you don’t want your phone to record your locations and time spent there.
Disclosure – I have no personal connection with either one of these companies except for one small exception: The founders of Insightpool also have a music-related site, gorankem for which my daughter has occasionally helped with social media marketing until the rigors of being a fulltime student took precedence. It was through her work with gorankem that I first learned about the very cool work being done by Insightpool.
