Sony-Ericsson X1 developer competition NOW ON

The battle for hearts and minds of developers is well and truly on - and it's a battle all the major players are tackling head-on.

The iPhone has Itunes, Android is offering developers an apps marketplace too.

That's all well and good for the software houses, for the companies, for the bigger guys.

Now Sony-Ericsson's X1 is entering the fray with a competition for developers. I'll be able to share exact details of the prize later this week. They want you to create panels for the X1. Details here.

If you're one such, here's an early heads-up. The site hosting the competition doesn't go live until November 14.

UPDATE: In the meantime the competition site is live already AND the closing date is sooner than I'd been led to believe, Nov 30.

But take it from me, it's coming (I know, because the company I work for is building it right now!). Drop me an email for details when it goes live.


So, best get cracking!

In the meantime, get a lead by downloading the FREE Developer SDK.

Watch a video of how the phone and its touch panels works here.

From Gizmodo

Developers can use the Windows Mobile SDK, free of charge, to produce a wide variety of panels to meet the consumer’s demand for a rich, individualised multimedia experience on their phone. Users of the Xperia™ X1 will be spoilt for choice as they personalize their handset with panel applications to suit their mood and lifestyle. Whether it is a search engine, advanced calendar or social networking application, music or film catalogue, sports or news related content, the panels enable you to access any information – quickly and directly – with a simple tap on the 3” super high resolution touch screen.

The X1's panel interface runs on Windows Mobile 6.1

Happy Halloween: Don't fear the adaptor

Almost a year ago I wrote a post that called on those who would 'do viral' to remember who actually 'does' viral: The humans doing the interacting with one another.

And to that end attempts at 'viral' work which enables co-creation gives you both engagement and relevance.

One example I remember well from a previous life was an excellent and funny video - expensively made with high production values too. It was on topic. The seeding strategy was sound.

But it was essentially broadcast, broadcast which USED the user as the distribution channel.
So the message couldn't be adapted by the receiver. There was no room for their input. No adaption = low adoption. And if I don't adopt, I'm not going to pass it on; as simply illustrated as I can, here.

The quality was high. But the relevance was low. And relevance, as I so often say, beats quality every single time.

Allowing people to put a little of themselves into 'your' viral makes it 'their' viral.

And as Alan Moore - and by osmosis I, am so fond of saying: "That which we create, we embrace."
It allows us to work with the user rather than targeting them, based on the understanding that the User Is The Destination Now.

It makes it their message, not yours.

So I was delighted to walk into my new job this morning to be met with this new piece of work from Brando-Digital (yep, that's where I'm working now).

(By the way, we're so new the company site is nothing but a holding page right now. If you'd like to know more about us, drop me an email at david AT brando-world.com )

Despite the he-would-say-that-wouldn't-he inevitable in this; I think it's pretty cool. It allows the adaption of the message which will encourage that adoption.

It's promoting a new phone, the Sony-Ericsson W595 - so the youtube element is not only relevant (you can upload direct to youtube from the W595) it's also a helpful viral aside.

Technically, some may be interested to know the creation of this effort has involved mashing-up apisfrom youtube, googlemaps AND facebook.

And importantly, it uses not only the silo'd social networks (in this case facebook) but also email - the most ubiquitous of all the social connectors.

Yeah, yeah, yeah but it's also a bit of fun people can have together at Halloween. We've given people, as Mark Earls would say, something they can do together - we've made the human interaction element the important element.

Have fun with it. Pass it on if you think its cool and think someone else will do to. Here's mine, below.
BTW I'm not 43 - yet! But I am odd.