Rupert Englander

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.   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...

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...

This Tuesday, the 30th April, I am delighted to be attending Contactless Intelligence in London. This annual conference brings together the thought leaders and instigators of NFC enabled activity together under one roof, and open up the debate on where we are collectively and the challenges we continue to face. I am delighted to say that I have been invited to attend a panel session covering "Creating successful brand campaigns through NFC Marketing". The event will cover all aspects of NFC from payments through to customer engagement and promises to probe, search, test and showcase all things NFC. If you are...

One of the biggest challenges we have as an industry is de-mystifying new technologies, and helping people understand how this technology helps them and the problems it solves.  The challenge is further heightened when you realise that there are different audiences for your messages, and they all have a different focus. In terms of NFC, I am hoping that what we have created with our explainer video is something that has meaning and reference to everybody in the oft-quoted "value-chain", from supplier / manufacturers, to retailers, and right the way to consumers. We hope you enjoy it but more importantly find it useful.  ...

This Sunday I will be participating in my first sportive (cycling challenge) of the season. A relatively amenable 76 mile route from Godalming, around Farnham and surrounding villages and back to Godalming. It will serve as a gentle warm up to my 250 mile challenge in June from Manchester to London in 24 hours, and will for the basis of my proper kick-off in terms of training. I will have aimed to do in the region of 150 miles this week as a result. I had hoped to hit 200 but work commitments and a finger injury when replacing my drive belt on the dryer...

It's that time of the year again, when thoughts turn to spring and summer, where the fruit crops start to flower and talk turns to the next Apple phone. Here we go again. The rumour mill is in full swing with, yes you guessed it, Apple purportedly building the new iPhone (6? 5s?) and this time there will be NFC in it. Apparently.  For me the greatest pity is that there is so much focus on this particular entrant. Sure, it will make life a bit easier for those of us in the NFC business to be able to say ALL...

On June 8th and June 9th I will be embarking on my most challenging cycling quest to date. A daunting 250 mile non-stop Manchester to London cycle ride, in 24 hours. This is by far the furthest I will have ridden in 1 day, and despite meaning I only have to cover an average of 10.4 miles per hour to complete the course in the designated time, 250 miles is a loooong way on the bike, and 24 hours is a long time in the saddle. If I can average 13mph for the ride it will mean only have to endure 17.8...

As you may have realised, over the course of the last few weeks we have re-branded the business. Tagonic never really felt that exciting and we wanted to identify the business in a way that would present the opportunity and fun that NFC enabled campaigns can create. We were also acutely aware that it's better to re-brand sooner rather than later. We also think the name and image is more memorable. Admittedly it won't be to everyone's tastes but we've certainly seen a number of smiles in reaction to the name, and that can't be a bad thing. The previous website is now...

There's no denying that Sony has been struggling in recent years in the mobile space. It's dropped Ericsson, re-acquainted itself with the Walkman brand, become an important pillar in Sony's cross-platform strategy, and concentrated on areas where they can add differentiation. The Xperia Z is a beautiful device, and the Android skin is fresh and different from the standard fare served up by the likes of Samsung and HTC. In terms of the NFC implementation though, this is where Sony shows, that a little bit of thought can make a big difference. To start, when you take the device out of...

Through January and February we ran a poll across Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter asking 1 question with 4 possible responses. Q : Does your phone have NFC? A1 : Yes A2: No A3 : Don't Know A4 : What is NFC?   The approach we took wasn't necessarily that scientific in terms of audience and the truth is our results are possibly skewed by the natural audience our poll got, given the nature of the business we are in. However, that doesn't negate the responses given, because in fact any person, in any walk of life, is a relevant target for these questions....