The Heineken Delivery Men Campaign where we followed delivery from distribution center to some 300 bars and restaurants, has been nominated for this years Webby Awards – INTEGRATED MOBILE TECHNOLOGY-. After winning a silver Spin Award we are now going for Gold in New York. To win the People Voice award, we need your vote!

To Vote:
http://pv.webbyawards.com/ (register ☹)
http://pv.webbyawards.com/ballot/home/127 (Vote!)

check http://www.awardinzending.nl/deliverymen02/ if you want to ‘replay’ the Campaign.

We will keep you posted!
bliin team

We had a good day today, early coffees Amsterdam time, lots of late night red bulls on the other side. Going down this morning was exciting, coming back aLive! just now even better. We are happy to present to you our new desktop service with complete new design and full of rich new features which we shall soon blog more about … after this night turns into day again. Also on the go, we updated our mobile service: following the new design style and implemented features.

For now we leave you with some notices and issues which will be addressed  soon. We hope you enjoy it … Do leave us a note in the Feedback box to tell us what you think. Here’s a snapshot of the beauty

with kind
bliin team

Browser Support
* a recommendation is shown to users using IE7. The new site renders sweetly and performs nicely in the much improved, latest Microsoft browser Internet Explorer8. We recommed all visitors to upgrade to this browser. IE7 will work fine, but you can get a better experience.

Trip migration to new approach
* in the past you were allowed to pause and resume trips, this is no longer supported. Paused & Resumed imported Trips may show weird behaviour on Trip Playback

* Photo Z-index not fully perfect

On mobile service: m.bliin.com
* you may need to clear cache and cookies for the new style to render correctly
* updating Status Message shows no response … yet Message updates
* iPhone: shows iffy username in Info window, service works fine
* iPhone: missing homeX icon in Home Tab
* iPhone: no map may be selected in Home > Settings causing no map display

* bliin widgets are temporarily out of sync ;( working on a fix

Today we will be closing down our desktop and mobile service (bliin.com & m.bliin.com) for a long anticipated service upgrade! Over the past months we have been working hard to design a completely new desktop front-end with many new features and improvements.

Stay tuned as we anticipate to be back up in just a little while. Next time you’re here please let us know what you think!

With kind
bliin team

Today - and we are incredibly happy to say - we welcome Thomas C. Tyler to the bliin team. We met Tom at ESA in last great late-summer where we had lunch and Thomas was going to ‘listen to our story’ … Two months (to the day) and many inspiring meetings later, we welcome Thomas as new CEO and President of bliin.

We trust Thomas to help grow bliin to a better experience and to best serve our user communities world wide.

Naturally we have captured Tom in one of our meetings … you can find him here.

Download above press statement here: Bliin TCT 120908 FINAL FINAL 5PM ESTl.DOC

Hope to see you soon
Kind regards
bliin team

Today we have release a new version (1.3) of our locator software bliinGPSXS for Java & BlackBerry clients. Both packages contain new features and some bug fixes.

• bliinGPSXS users on JavaClients with external GPS where experiencing a lag in sending GPS coordinates. Hence it was possible that two Live! users in, for example the same car, would show a considerable distance between them on bliin. We have located this problem and fixed it. Thanks for your input in this!
• Due to iffy signal handover from tower to tower, sometimes the app would crash internally on internet connect routines. The UI on bliinGPSXS would display ‘Live!’ while in reality your last location update could have been minutes ago … showing this on the desktop client. Also this is fixed in both releases.

As for the BlackBerry clients:
Our last release was developed to work with BlackBerry BES data accounts only. This release supports both BIS and BES. HOWEVER: internet data connections with 3rd party applications remain troublesome on BlackBerry; read more about it here …

BlackBerry users who have a data account straight with their provider (BIS users) must manually (if not done already) set their TCP / APN settings to reflect the settings of their providers to be able to connect to the internet. bliinGPSXS will give a “Network Error” alert if these settings are not provided and correct. Please consult your telco to provide you with the correct APN settings for your BlackBerry device.

Below some screenshots of where to find your APN settings and which permissions to give to bliinGPSXS during installation. To download the new software: point your mobile browser to http://m.bliin.com and click downlaod. Please drop us a line if your problem persists (info[at]bliin[dot]com).

Goodluck and regards
bliin team

Our new release for iPhone has just come to the shop and we have taken the opportunity to make improvements not ONLY for iPhone but across our mobile platform. Below a changelog of new features, updates, bugfixes and still … a few known issues. Stay tuned, we’re making smoke

ChangeLog
dd: 090808 New

• Add profile picture in your Home tab, select from your Shared Photo library
• Trip distance in Trip list items
• User Live! speed in User list items. Beware iPhones: your speeds may be (way) off caused by locator-source (Cell and WiFi) hopping … On GPS your speeds should be steady and accurate
• Un-read comments and messages are displayed bold
• Added a link to our mobile FAQ at bottom page

dd: 082908 New

• Faster Map rendering on all devices
• Upload your Photos to bliin via your private upload email address … check Upload Photo for your private upload email address at bliin
• iPhone v1.1: Application icon now shows Inbox Message count
• iPhone v1.1: Application now remembers and opens last page at restart
• iPhone v1.1: After successful upload of Photo now landing on Photo item page

dd: 082908 Fixed

• iPhone v1.1: Location Send Interval on Manually bug now fixed. App stops updating location untill user presses Send now
• iPhone v1.1: Photo upload bug - uploading same Photo multiple times - fixed
• iPhone v1.1: You are not connected to the Internet, alert now working properly

dd: 082208 New

• Edit Photo Shares: rotate, mirror and delete
• Comment-count overlay on Photo thumbnails
• Show all Friends in list in Friend view
• Start of News page link in bottom page, with ChangeLog, etc

dd: 082108 Fixed

• Add Photo to unlimited Groups, was limited to 5

dd: 081508 New

• Added Microsoft Visual Earth base maps: Aero, Map, Hybrid.

dd: 081508 Fixed

• iPhone: Now record Trips when GPS send interval is 15minutes-manually
• iPhone: Added iPhone specific Help / FAQ on mobile service

dd: 081308 Fixed

• iPhone: Increased font size and map navigation buttons for better screen tapping
• iPhone: Removed bliinGPSXS legacy download links

dd: 080208 New
bliin iPhone app downloadable in iTunes App Store world wide

Known issues
Below a list of open issues. Please report your issues at [info]at[bliin].[com] … so we can make it better.
iPhone:

• Spikes in Trip recording caused by alternating location sources
• Your speeds may be (way) off caused by locator-source (Cell and WiFi) hopping … On GPS your speeds should be steady and accurate

Generic

• If recipient deletes messages from Inbox, your conversations lack recipients messages.

BlackBerry:

• bliinGPSXS locator only works with wifi and / or BlackBerry BES accounts … not (yet) with BlackBerry BIS accounts

Some of you may have already noticed … as of august 2nd, bliin is available for download from the iTunes App Stores World Wide. We have waited a little with this blog post to incorporate some of your much appreciated comments in it. Below some justification, a summary of features, known issues and tips to help you get around your bliin iPhone App. We stay committed to serving you the best experience possible, so please do keep sending us feedback info[at]bliin[dot]com and do come back for updates of the app.

With bliin we started off on the promise of an Open Location Service; a service which means to ad location-interaction to all platforms, all handsets, all carriers … in all countries. Not a little ambitious, we know. However; in our development efforts we try to stick to this promise and while doing so have now available for you a small portfolio of locator applications & a desktop and mobile site for your location interaction.

Our locator application - bliinGPSXS - runs on Windows and Apple computers. Windows Mobile devices may also run the same software. A universal bliinGPSXS download, also supports a wide range of feature phones such as: Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and more; all with internal or external GPS. Recently we have added the RIM/Blackberry device to our supported handset list and now we are happy to announce bliin support for the iPhone 3G.

Still looking for an open solution, in January this year we switched from an application-based to a browser-based canvas for your location interaction. Granted: not nearly all handset browsers are up to the task of (fluidly) displaying neither XHTML nor little sophisticated CSS, yet we believe that strategically we made the right decision in moving this direction, and that gradually handhelds are maturing into proper web devices. To support both the lame and the cripple browsers, our mobile site m.bliin.com has a micro and a mini version. bliin strongly recommends Opera Mini as your mobile browser … unless you’re on an iPhone.

As for the base maps: while developing – and to our knowledge still so – importing Google Maps into a mobile application is a violation of their TOU, and their API did and does not float on any of the less then iPhone capable devices … So we looked sideways and connected to the excellent user-generated mapping initiative OpenStreetMap. We choose OSM as our default mobile street map provider and are furthering discussions to enable bliin users to – optionally – send their raw GPS data to OSM to enrich their maps. To be continued … Meanwhile if your maps on iPhone don’t load as fast as what you’ve become accustomed to on Maps … please be patient as we are working hard to optimize this base.

Having said this, bliin for iPhone – and bliin in general – is far from final and up for improvements … which we will continue to make.

Yet on the whole we think that we have and continue to be a competitive alternative for other location based networking services out there … if not only for the following reasons:

• No walled gardens. First World-Wide Open Location Service, any platform, any handset, any carrier, anywhere … connect to any other person in the world
• Cross-platform, cross-handset, unified user experience
• OpenStreetMap maps; user generated street maps
• No hidden costs: bliin doesn’t charge for location updates; use your flat fee subscription, NO SMS charges
• Custom set your location update interval; manually if you like, to save battery power
• No adds, no spam, 3 security layers: Private, Friends, Public

Features include:

• Find your Friends
• Share Geo-tagged Photos
• Record Trips, playback later. View speed, distance & time elapsed
• Search locative content
• Zoom able maps (OpenStreetMap, Microsoft Virtual Earth)
• Create and join Groups
• Messages, Comments, Conversations
• Location Bookmarks
• Real-time Feed

Known issues, open bugs

• if you set your Send Interval to 15minutes or to Manually, the info pane in the application will tell you that you are Live while the main application and the website tell you that you are ‘last seen: xx minutes ago’.
• If Send Interval is set to 15minutes or to Manually, you may receive this notice while recording a Trip: ‘You must be Live to record a Trip’. Confusing as the app says that you are Live. (FIXED dd: 14 aug 2008, no software update needed)
• Send Interval set to Manual buggy … app may continue to send location per last setting. Reboot app with desired Manual Send Interval if this happens.
• On iPhone, we have no control over the locator source that is used for position (Cell, WiFi or GPS). When recording a Trip you may find spikes in your Trip, these spikes are generated by switching locator source; eg: from GPS to Cell-ID … unfortunately we can not change this …
• FAQ on iPhone not iPhone specific (FIXED dd: 17 aug 2008, no software update needed)
• If – for some reason – you have no connection to the internet while starting bliin, the start-up screen remains empty. Will develop notification ‘you are not connected to the internet’
• We will cache the last view when leaving bliin, to return to your last view upon return.
• Upload photo may be buggy in V2.01 of iPhone 3G. reported bug in iPhone.
• When photo is uploaded you return to upload photo page … will fix this so you return to last view
• Font size and map navigation buttons too small for screen tapping (FIXED: dd 13 aug 2008, no software update needed)
• Legacy-links: download bliinGPSXS within the app to be removed (FIXED: dd 13 aug 2008, no software update needed)

New Features:

• switch basemaps (home > settings) Choose: OpenStreetMap, Microsoft Virtual Earth (Aero, Map, Hybrid) (dd 15 aug 2008, no software update needed)

Working an the FAQ for iPhone, for now here’s a few screen shots … we hope you enjoy it.

With kind
bliin team

As of today - after several weeks of testing in a private environment - our locator software bliinGPSXS is now downloadable for BlackBerry / RIM devices from http://m.bliin.com and from our desktop client.

bliinGPSXS for BlackBerry is similar to other bliin-Client Locator software in providing a seamless, automated, location updater. You can freely install the software and give it a spin … keep us posted [mailto: info[at]bliin[dot]com] … of your findings.

This version of bliinGPSXS works with BlackBerry BES data accounts and/or WiFi only. BlackBerry BIS data accounts are not yet supported.

Regardless some of the essential UI drawbacks (send SMS, send Location, Upload Photo == troublesome or none existing in Opera) bliin remains keen on endorsing the Opera Mini Browser … try it and you will understand why … For now, heres the score:

Goto: http://m.bliin.com on your BlackBerry device and hit the download button. You will be pointed to our installer which should download to your desktop,

From your Desktop, start the application … it will ask for your username & password … enter it … or hit Sign Up to register an account.

From here you can choose 2 ways of connecting to bliin: over Operator signal or over WiFi signal. Both are accomodated in the application.

When your Accont ID is known to bliin and the connection is made … you are Live! … from here: minimize the bliinGPSXS application, startup a browser - preferably an Opera Browser - and start enjoying bliin.

goodluck, have fun

bliin team

In our continuing effort to make your bliin experience richer and simpler, today we have launched a new release of our mobile site: m.bliin.com

NOKIA handsets: clear your cache and/or restart your device. We are using new CSS and NOKIA has a reputation for storing CSS data very very deeply. If your browser does not render something like below … you know where to go: Options > Clear Privacy Data > Clear Cache

Now for the novelties …

• Partly because of the new Group Category addition to bliin, we have come up with a new top-nav tab design. It is a combination of the simple 3-tab design you are familiar with on bliin, combined with a breadcrumb path for specific content items e.g.: users, photos, trips, groups … When entering m.bliin.com you land on the Find tab. Left of it is your Home tab which contains all your personal items. To the right is the Feed tab which shows a global view on all public events on bliin. If you click a specific content item, a 4th item tab appears with the item category as tab name; indicating that you are now browsing within the item itself. If you now click the Find tab, you will find the item centered on the map, the Feed tab shows you all the events connected with the specific item. You can ‘release’ the 4th tab by un-marking the box below the map; which brings you back to the global tab.

  

• Below the map you will now find a dropdown to display - search for - content: anywhere, near me, very near me, or within current view, allowing you to find content anywhere, easily.

  

• The big one: we have now added Groups to bliin. Groups are designed to help you categorize content on bliin. You can create groups e.g. to manage your photos or trips. You can also group content from other bliin users and they may group yours. If a group you want to create already exists - e.g: ‘cats’ - you may choose to join that group or create new one with a more specific name - e.g: ‘cats amsterdam’.

This years The Web and Beyond dives into the world of Mobility. From their site: “The web is in a state of motion, no longer is it primarily being accessed through PC’s, but more does it find its way into our phones, our cars, on the streets and in buildings. And once there, the Web is interacting with us in smarter and richer ways than before.”

The Web and Beyond 2008: Mobility takes place on May 22nd, 2008 at the historic Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. bliin will be present to demo her service and interact with speakers and visitors.

Keynote speakers include:Adam Greenfiels (author of Everyware), Juri Engström (founder of Jaiku), Ben Cerveny (Game Neverending -> Flickr) and Christian Lindholm (Nokia & Yahoo!Mobile)

We hope to see you There!
kind regards,
bliin team