The first Prototyping Weekend is just over a week behind us. It was so much fun that the talented group of people that participated even worked two nights during the week after to finish up the prototype. The project is shaping up and we decided to Open Source it when it’s ready. This means all code and designs will be available to you to use, remix and re-share within a few weeks.
Open Source not only is about producing working code for let’s say a Content Management System. Eventually it’s a the thinking power, time and vision of a group of people that gets bundled and publicly available. We think this should include more aspects than only the design and code. An growing aspect of building and launching web apps is about having a clear business model. Don’t wait for IPO’s and maybe even work without investors.
So we’ve set-up a MindMap where our vision of the business model is captured. It’s still quite simple. It leverages the current options of the software or those of what are coming up. We took some interesting trends in the mobile market, like the iTunes app store. Also we thought of advertising in Wallstream(s) and took a closer look at Google AdWords and AdSense.
The MindMap is a Wikimap. Which means if you own a MindMeister account you can edit the MindMap. Don’t worry, if you don’t have a MindMeister account you can create one for free.
So feel free to share your thoughts on possible business models on the MindMap!
Wessel van Waas participated during the first Prototying Weekend and created a 3D impression of Wallstream. We’ve uploaded two stills of the movie which is being finished and rendered. We will post the movie here when it’s done.
More information on the actual launch of Wallstream will be posted later today.
In the past few hours we made some steady progress on the interface design.
Two screens are currently finished and right now prepared for integration with Wallstream. A load screen which will be displayed when a user logs in using his RFID enabled pass or when a Wallstream is booted. The Wallstream lay-out for the display is how a Wallstream looks when displayed on a large screen or computer / laptop.
Wallstream load screen
Lay-out for displaying a Wallstream
The left side of the lay-out displays news from feeds that automatically will be aggegrated. The middle section is reserved for displaying content and automatically changes it’s lay-out to the content that will be displayed. On the left side there is space for widgets. Currently we’re developing a Flickr photo widget, agenda widget and a weather widget.
Progress
Right now we’re working on several enhancements for Wallstream. The call-in functionality is functioning, which means a user can login to a public screen by calling to the specific telephone number for that Wallstream. This comes in handy when a user doesn’t own or lost his RFID pass.
The following services are integrated: Twitter (with automatically loading Mobypictures and Twitpics), Flickr, and RSS feeds. The RSS feeds will be used to extract information from other external services in a simple way.
Please feel free to post questions, suggestions and other feedback to our Getsatisfaction page! We expect to launch a first version of Wallstream today.
This weekend we’ve gathered to build a web app. We started with the idea ‘Wallstream‘. Which is a backchannel-like webbased application which aggegrates online information and displays it on a large (LCD or Plasma) screen. We aim to use physical prototype interfaces to let the users interact with the online content. Also, a more personalized experience will be created.
History
More companies store important information online. This information is becoming more accessible via API’s and therefore can be re-used and connected easily. During events backchannels are very important as they provide additional conversation and information about the event. Backchannels most of the times are displayed on big screens (LCD / Plasma tv’s).
The idea
Now, if companies are having more important information stored online… Why are we only using our laptops, workstations and mobile phones to view and interact with the content? For example, physical office space and online content are disconnected. Wallstream aggregates content and displays it on a big screen within the physical space. Through physical interfaces Wallstream enables users to interact with the content displayed.
Conceptualized
We’ve already talked a bit how Wallstream is going to operate, but we used the first few hours of day #1 to create a concept which is realistic to build in two days. Two objectives were set. First is the actual application we need in order to display the information on the screens. It runs in a browser and must be optimized for a display resolution of 1920×1080. It connects to different online services like Twitter, Flickr, RSS Feeds and others. Later on services like Basecamp, Highrise, Harvest and other online collaboration tools are added in order to aim the service at (small) companies. Second, physical interfaces are added so users can interact with the displayed software.
Day two is ahead of us, so I’m taking a brief moment to do a short review of day one.
We started with the kick-off where we explained more about the concept ‘Prototyping Weekends, what the goals are for the weekend and what we aim to build. After the introduction Michiel explained what we believed to be the hardest part of the weekend, collaboration between the participants. We came up with a few different models for collaboration during the weekend.
We choose this model, where a central ‘mission control’ is responsible for the end product and two teams hand in their development and design works. Mission control combines all the work into a working piece of software.
The first day is mainly used to lay all the basics for the application. First we formed two groups, one group focussing on concept and the other group focussing on setting up the development environment. This consumed our first hours of developing before lunch. After lunch the teams moved on to creating the first works of the weekend.
In the afternoon we worked on a bunch of different preperations for the final application. These preperations will pay off today when we start building the front-end. Most of the preperations are done. For diner we had pizza’s outside ^^.
Today we’re going to post updates for Wallstream to the internet and we’re going to need your help. Part of the Prototyping Weekends concept is Open Innovation. We want users to give feedback during the creation of the web app in order to keep it simple and relevant to the end user.
During the day we’ll post blogpost on how you can help us with feedback. Stay tuned!
As most of you might now a very important part of a web app is the interface. A big part of the attendants of Prototyping Weekends is interface design. Here are some pictures of the interface sketches.
Concept designs
We started off with some experiments for designing the interface. Below are some sketches made during the process.
Applying more details
Bas Bakker is putting more details in the interface design. At this stage we’re still working with sketches. Currently the only digital steps in the design process for Wallstream is the online identity.
Michiel has streamed some meetings and footage from the CabFabLab today. Below we embedded these movies. In a brief moment we’ll post more on the Wallstream concept we’re developing.
Yesterday we announced the first Prototyping Weekend. As promised we post more information the coming days at our blog.
Location The first weekend will be held at ‘De Caballero Fabriek’ a cluster of creative and innovative companies in The Hague. It’s a very inspiring location with several meeting facilities. We arranged the biggest meeting room for the two days. It has a big roof terrace, so we hope the weather will be good enough to work and have drinks outside.
Inside the venue there is space for about 70 people. During the weekend we work with a maximum of 20 people (excluding organizers). We set a maximum amount because otherwise it will be hard to get things done. Below are some pictures of the inside of the venue. Right now it’s set up as a conference room, but for Prototyping Weekends we have enough tables and whiteboards to work with.
The weekend takes place during the European SME week. During this week ‘De Caballero Fabriek‘ will turn into a ’shopping mall for creativity’. Focused on Entrepreneurs, each event in the week has it’s own subject. We believe there are some interesting events you should check out!
Finally it’s time to announce the first Prototyping Weekend of this year. It took some time to finalize all the details about location, sponsors and organization.
The first weekend will be on the 9th and 10th of May and will be part of the European SME week. The location is ‘De Caballerofabriek‘ in The Hague, where we’ll have the biggest conference room during the weekend.
A Prototyping Weekend is meant to promote Open Innovation and to bring skilled people together to have a weekend full of fun and collaboration. The goal is to launch a fully functional web app within two days. All work created during the weekend will be licensed under open licenses and therefore will be available to the public to remix, share and re-use.
During the weekend only one app will be build. The idea for the first weekend is called ‘Wallstream’. An online application that allows users to create a backchannel for certain content, for example content related to their small web development company, and display it on a LCD TV or beamer in the office. We want to get the online content into the physical environment, bridge the gap between bits and atoms.
Currently we’re in some final conversations with CabFabLab (prototyping lab for physical products) in order to use their lab during the weekend. They have interfaces like Arduino. The prototype interfaces could be used to easily control the interface or to give signals when certain content is aggregated.
With the help of Maarten den Braber we created a meetup group where you can RSVP for the weekend. In the coming days we announce more details about the weekend and Wallstream.
Today we like to give you a glimpse on Dealkeeper, the webservice we’re currently working on. At the moment we’re working hard on some conceptual details and strategies.
In our business we probably set up 5-10 deals per year and agree on Service Level Agreements a few more times than that. It’s common that there are questions when a customer or business partners sees the contract for the first time. The type of deal determines if there will be a lot of communications and changes to the initial contract. For example a deal to sell a copyright or webservice involves a different kind of level of commitment than a Service Level Agreement.
So this is where Dealkeeper comes in. Dealkeeper is a webservice that socialize and supports the process of making deals and signing contracts. A more transparant dealmaking process wil not only lower the burdon we experienced during dealmaking, we believe it potentially makes it more ‘fun’ and could speed things up. In order to be of help Dealkeeper will offer help with Dealmaking in different kind of ways.
As we are working on the concept and the first prototype we created a Market Survey. With this survey we’d like to collect some general data on how your experience with dealmaking is. It would be of tremendous help if you fill out this survey.
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