PRESS RELEASE Wooshping welcomes 2 Investor Directors to the board FARNHAM – August 28th, 2013 – Wooshping, the market leading cloud-based NFC mobile engagement platform, today announced that it has welcomed 2 Investor Directors to the board. Andrew Yates and Mark Pritchard, 2 highly successful UK entrepreneurs have joined the board as strategic non-executive directors of Wooshping, as well as investing significant personal stakes in the business. Welcoming the 2 directors, Founder and Managing Director Rupert Englander said, “I am delighted to welcome Andy and Mark to the board of Wooshping and I welcome their personal investment in the business. In...

It's been widely written that it's been pretty much Nokia themselves who have not only been keeping the Windows OS category alive, but even managing to grow it's market share whilst the likes of Blackberry and HTC look to falter. This growth has not been down to the high-end flagship devices like the 920, 925 and 1020 but rather the more affordable mid and low-end devices which the Windows platform allows to run on relatively meager specs. The benefit of this in terms of NFC has been that NFC has become increasingly accessible through mid and low range devices. The users...

Sony's re-emergence in the mobile space having dropped the Ericsson moniker and focussed 100% on Android seems to be paying some, albeit small, dividends. Very much the 2nd player in the Android space, a fair mile or 2 behind Samsung, Sony are doing a good job carving out a style-conscious category within the space. With the likes of the Xperia Z, which is a beautiful device, they are competing on style at the top end, but they, like so many other manufacturers, recognise the need to compete across the portfolio in all price categories. The Xperia M is one such device. Probably classed...

PRESS RELEASE Wooshping & Gamelayer partner to bring NFC based real world Gamification solutions to customers Wooshping, the leading provider of near field communications (NFC) cloud-based customer engagement solutions, is partnering with GameLayer to create and offer a complete NFC-based Gamification solution to its customers. GameLayer, an industry expert in Gamification solutions, is keen to implement innovative and exciting gaming experiences that leverage physical objects and real-world spaces. Wooshping has been chosen to be its primary NFC partner. It will provide the NFC technology and cloud-based platform to enable customised real-world challenges and games, following a simple tap on an NFC...

We are delighted to announce that the winners of our Spotify campaign competition were Jealous Monk who submitted their track "Repeat" from the album "I love, I hustle" into the competition. Jealous Monk will receive 100 NFC tags and an associated QR code, programmed to a Wooshping Spotify campaign that automatically launches and plays their album on Spotify. We were blown away by the track and are delighted to be helping Jealous Monk drive fan engagement and Spotify listens through this competition. Jealous Monk’s brand of synth-heavy indie hip hop has been a New Orleans favorite since the band’s inception in...

Last weekend I had the pleasure to participate in the UK's largest ever cycling event and joined 16,500 other cyclists to successfully ride the 100 mile course from London, through the Surrey countryside, up Leith Hill and Box Hill, and back to the Mall, in 5 hours 26 minutes. It was an incredible day and a great way to put another 120 odd miles on the clock against my target for 2013 of 3102 miles in aid of Children with Cancer. I have written extensively about the event on my personal blog at www.themamil.co.uk...

Wooshping has been instrumental in successful launches of Nokia's Lumia mobile phone range as part of its preferred supplier relationship with the mobile group. One key example of this was the provision of 22,000 NFC enabled silicone wristbands to retail store staff across the country - the largest ever such initiative in the UK. The wristbands enabled staff to engage directly with customers. A tap of the new Lumia phones on the wristbands gave instant access to an exclusive music playlists, whilst owners of other types of handset were presented with an exclusive Lumia sponsored music selection. The wristbands were also...

This weekend just past I participated in the RideUK24 Manchester to London in 24 hours bike ride. It was over twice the distance I have ever ridden in 1 go, so it was always going to be stretching my limits. I am delighted to say that I completed the ride in 20 Hours 50 Minutes (15 hours 53 mins riding time)but more importantly raised over £700 through incredibly generous donations and fantastic support. My hands are still numb (that's what gripping your handlebars for that long does to you), but I'll be posting a full event report on my personal blog...

As a small business with a vested interest in seeing the successful adoption and use of NFC, I am writing this open letter to urge the mobile telecommunications sector to collaborate in a better way to ensure maximum consumer recognition for NFC. NFC will be pivotal in the next wave of consumer interaction. But the very basic premise of opportunity – that NFC collapses barriers to engagement – are being greatly challenged by the industry voluntarily (through lack of thought, agenda or non-collaboration) putting barriers in place to drive adoption, awareness and usage. It is now getting to the critical point...

Last year we ran a successful competition to find companies wanting to do some innovative campaigns using NFC, so we have decided to run another competition but this time we are aiming it fairly and squarely at published music bands. We recently demonstrated the ability for bands to give their fans instant access to their material by using NFC and Spotify to give a "spontaneous" experience to users. {youtube}nixyw9s9M_U{/youtube}  Well now we are giving the opportunity to all published bands to win up to 100 NFC tags for use at their gigs, on marketing, collateral etc. All you have to do...

Customer feedback is crucial to businesses and smart phones offer the perfect way to get smart real-time insights and reviews. That can make all the difference to the success of any business. Wooshping has formed a pioneering long term partnership with Local Viewpoints - a market leader in capturing real-time customer feedback, providing businesses with actionable insights and “digital word-of mouth.” Gib Olander, CEO of Local Viewpoints, says “we have found through our research that the main reason that customers chose not to give feedback or write reviews today is because the process is too tedious. Leveraging NFC technology is one...

Back in 2000 I was fortunate to be offered an exciting role at a mobile operator. In the day it was called One2One (and soon to become T-Mobile) and it was a fresh challenger in the mobile operator landscape with iconic advertising and a real challenger mentality. I was asked to come in and make sense of this "thing" called Java. Breaking through all the jargon and corporate wrapping, it was clear to see that one of the most immediate benefits of Java on mobile phones would be the ability to download apps directly to a phone. We worked through the...

With less than 3 weeks to go I am delighted to say that we have reached £400 in sponsorship (offline and online, including Gift Aid) which is fantastic, and I am truly grateful for everybody's support and donations to date. The 250 mile non-stop ride is looming fast, and this support and encouragement is gratefully received and will keep me motivated through the darkest miles. As is human nature one always wants more. So if you haven't donated and would like to support this challenge then please do. I'd love to get to £500 by the start of the event. Every penny will...

Wooshping was recently delighted to team up with the Retail Marketing Group (RMG) and Game to implement a 10 store, 3 week, customer engagement campaign centered around the launch of Gears of War. Customers in the 10 stores who played the in-store X-Box consoles were offered the opportunity to tap (NFC) or scan (QR code) a laminate sticker on the console protective casing, to enter a competition to win some Gears of War goodies. When the customer interacted with the campaign they were prompted to check-in on Facebook first, thus validating their location and sharing the availability of the game in...

I'm sitting in a Starbucks in Fleet writing this. My bike is in for a "gold" service. I need all the help I can get if I am to complete the 250 mile course in 24 hours, from Manchester to London in just 3 1/2 weeks time. Training has been very stop / start because of weather conditions, business priorities and illness / injury. However, I determination is strong and the support I have had from family and friends has been heart-warming and humbling. The total donations now stand at £325 including online, off-line and gift aid donations. Well over the...

The Google Nexus 7 is still a fairly rare breed of tablet that has NFC embedded. For reasons only known to themselves, Samsung haven't yet included NFC in it's tablet forms of the Galaxy range which seems like a strange oversight given their commitment to the capability, and their support for it in their marketing campaigns. The Asus built Nexus 7 is a 7" Android tablet running Android 4.2.2 AKA Jellybean. The layout itself is fairly standard Android stuff with the Homescreens, Google apps pre-loaded (Play, Magazines, Books, Video, Music etc).  So out of the box, there was a slight tip to the hat of...

I had the pleasure of attending, and being invited to one of the panel discussions, at Contactless Intelligence in London yesterday. There were many themes and discussions that took place. One in particular that is close to my heart is that of a truly consistent identity for NFC. Currently NFC can be seen or referred to as :- NFC Contactless S-Beam Tap and Share Techtiles QuickTap Xperia Tags In fact the list I am sure goes on and on but you get the idea. There are also many different visual identities, variants of NFC (see blog image), the wave marks etc. My point...

When Wooshping teamed up with Microsofts new design and developer center in Shoreditch, Modern Jago, to provide them with NFC tags to truly connect with their public, even we couldn't imagine the creative output that would come about as a result of the collaboration, but needless to say 33Digital and Modern Jago have come up with some striking, original and unique designs to drive education and awareness of NFC in the Modern Jago space. The first "explainer" poster is called "1910s Syle" and sets the scene for the quirky and fresh approach used. This one is called "Russian Propaganda Style". This one is...

Mobile World Congress this year in Barcelona was a busy affair. The venue was changed to accommodate the swelling visitor numbers and Near Field Communication was high on the agenda with a specific exhibition area given over to the capability. Nokia has a busy show, and on the content side launched their new premium cross-platform music service, Mix Radio +, which promises higher music quality, unlimited music skips, greater number of off line playlists, and a new web interface.   To coincide with this launch Nokia wanted to promote the availability of the service as widely as possible, and embarked on some tactical lateral around the...

Nokia recently launched their Lumia Live series of music events, with a show in Bristol with Ghostpoet and Towers. Apart from electrifying the audience with stunning light shows and great music, attendees were also given an exclusive NFC enabled wristband that gave them to an exclusive Mix radio playlist, developed specially for the event. All attendees had to do was tap the wristbands with their NFC phone and the wristband would spawn music from participating artists. Lumia owners got the full Nokia Music experience whilst non-Nokia owners were served a great promotional playlist, albeit more in the guise of a promotional...