Becks in Turku and Bridge Collapse - Two things within a week proving the strength of mobilecasting

Beckham's arrival into Finland today to have surgery on his ruptured achilles tendon and last week's collapse of Myllysilta in Turku have proved the power of transmitting the events to the net with the help of mobile broadcasting services. Or perhaps we could call them narrowcasting.

Even if the images delivered live to the internet from user's and ordinary people's mobile phone might not be as spectacular as professional cameramen's, they make it possible that individual people can deliver their "own newscasts" direct to their Facebook walls and transmit the events to their social network. In some cases it can be a powerful tool in people's hands in demonstrations against totalitarian regimes.

In case of Turku, the service used was Bambuser. The service Live2011.com team uses regularly. Technology developed by couple of students from Åbo Akademi and brought to live with a company of Swedish friends.

Here's what Norwegian VG writes on the Becks in Turku.

Local Buddy is the winner of Creative Idea for Mobile City Guide -category

Local Buddy by Timo Pietilä et al. is the winner of Mobile City guide category in the new media and media-art challenge Live2011.com Grand Prix.

Local Buddy is an innovative city guide concept for the new generation of smartphones. It makes use of advanced features such as GPS tracking, touch screen and digital compass to locate and guide users to interesting places in different cities around the world.

Local Buddy stood out of its competitors with its innovative and intuitive UI design. Local buddy makes use of a radar and compass hybrid UI, while simultaneously offering a possibility to use a map. Overall the concept was solid and aspects such as user created content and revenue logics were taken well into account.

Concept design: Timo Pietilä
Programming & Software Design: Olli Raivola & Timo Härkönen
Producer: Bertta Häkkinen
UI and usability consulting and design: Joel Hakulinen
Graphic Design: Hanne Zenjuga