Tesco demonstrates augmented reality with Kishino

As you have no doubt gleaned from the media by now, Tesco is taking augmented reality seriously as a great way of bringing a great experience of our products and services to customers.

Until now, a lot of augmented reality has been marketing led. The experience you get when you use your smartphone or iPad with the Blippar app and point the camera at our ‘Price Drop’ logo you’ll see what I mean. I include the logo below so you can try it on your smart phone with Blippar right now:

The first thing I thought of when I saw augmented reality in action was to consider how it might help customers visualise the size and shape of our products better. This is particularly true of products you can’t see fully-formed such as toy construction kits (for example, lego and airfix models). It’s sometimes difficult to visualise the size of a fully formed kit when its in pieces in a box and all you have to go on is the photo on the box cover.


Here is what you get if you hover an iPad 2 over the image above (click for larger version):

Augmented Reality can also solve a slightly different problem - how about TV sets where you wish you could turn the TV around so you could see what sockets are available on the back?

Problems solved - R&D and marketing teams worked with Kishino (formerly Total Immersion) who are trialling a list of TVs and construction kit products on a web page at:

http://www.tesco.com/augmented-reality

Congratulations to the team at Kishino who have done a great job - and even produced a video demonstrating how it works, available on Youtube:




So go have a play at the web address above and let me know what you think!

Thank you, Steve Jobs, for inspiring me so much.

I join many of my colleagues in being saddened to hear the news of the death of Steve Jobs last night.

Apple, through Jobs' leadership, used disruptive innovation to smash through the complexity of using mobile devices by making the utterly simple to use. For the first time, anyone - young or old - techno-savvy or techno-phobic - could pick up an iPhone and iPad and immediately 'get' how to use it. The massive complexity of the underlying technology was hidden under the covers of a simple and intuitive user interface.

The iPhone certainly inspired me to 'see' technology from a non-technologists perspective. The first Tesco-branded iPhone app, Tesco Finder, came from the R&D team as we worked through the (then) unknown process of programming for iPhone and getting it through into Apple's App Store. The app was an instant hit because, we found, many customers could use the simplicity of their iPhone to locate their nearest Tesco - then products in that Tesco branch - using the simplest of taps and swipes of the finger. We could do it because the tools to allow the simplicity of that user-interface were, for the first time, at our command.

Now we have the situation where many senior managers and directors in Tesco are using an iPad to do their job. Indeed a few have shunned their laptop in preference for using their iPad!

Tesco 'gets' mobile; we are so enthusiastic as a company about the future of this technology on behalf of customers, and the work of Steve Jobs and Apple has had a profoundly positive contribution to that enthusiasm.

Thank you, Steve, for being one of the greatest innovators and inspiring me so much.

A simple apple.com home page honours Steve Jobs today.

Tesco Triathlon app review

We've been evaluating a mobile application we set up for those participating in the Tesco Charity Triathlon last month. The app was created by mobile specialists mBlox so that triathletes could enjoy personal updates as the triathlon deadline approached. In this article, Ben Martin (who took part in the triathlon itself and raised £370 in the process!) shares his experiences with how the app - and its underlying content delivery system - worked for our event.

Ben writes:

Last month we trialled a pre-release beta technology from mBlox in an exclusive Tesco Charity Triathlon 2011 application. The application provided a method of keeping participants posted with the latest information about the event.

For this year’s Tesco Charity Triathlon we thought it would be great if the participants who attended the event could receive automatic updates about what was going on before, during and after the day. We worked closely with mBlox to create a mobile application for Android devices that could do just that.

The finished application had an HTML5 dashboard widget for uploading content (images, blog/Twitter posts, plain text and even video) that could then be sent to everyone who had the application installed on their Android device. We could even restrict the distribution to a defined location of our choice. The widget also provided analytical data reports of users who had downloaded the content and time they had spent viewing.

Before the Triathlon we used the app to send out useful information such as charity details, training tips/advice, blog entries from our leadership team, race numbers and race day details. During the event we published images of participants taking place in each of the activities and contestants could send images to us, which we could upload. After the day we sent out info on the winners, final messages from sponsors and info on the total raised for charity (impressively it was over £200,000!!).

Here’s an example screenshot taken from within the App:

The purpose of the trial was not only to keep participants up to date on the event but also so we could investigate the process of sending and receiving relevant information, and the value this would provide to the end user and to Tesco. We were also very keen to find out how valuable the analytical data was and how it could be used to improve future communications.

Sending and receiving information to mobile phones in a timely manner using technology is a research topic that we wanted to get some experience. Once we have completed the research we can think about how we might use this to incorporate this functionality into our existing customer applications or use it for our own internal communication methods. An idea that springs to mind is an app that can send delivery details to Tesco.com van drivers and we would receive confirmation on them receiving the info.

What we found out:
The application proved to send relavant information very quickly to the end users mobile device (instantly in fact) and was very reliable. It was really useful to have data that confirmed delivery of the content and even detailed when it had been read. Potentially this information could allow us to become more effective at our communication.

Another valuable learning from the trial was the speed in which mBlox helped us to deliver such a technology to market. Without their help we would not have been able to achieve this on such tight timescales due to our other commitments – thank you mBlox!

Thanks to all those who took part in the technology trial, we will continue to investigate its value and have passed on our learnings to our Mobile Development team.

7am: Social Media's Finest Hour

There's something about 7am.

It's at that time when I am still in bed with the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 sounding in the background and the smell of freshly brewed coffee indicating its presence on the bed-side table.

However the start of the 7am news usually causes me to sit up and reach for my smart phone, which has been charging-up nicely through the night.

So what do I see first? A selection of a few unread email messages, Facebook updates and Twitter tweets that came in just before 7am.

A quick glimpse of each (no more than 2 minutes in total) is all takes before getting up. In that time those snippets of incoming information have entered my waking brain which, absent of anything else to start the day, has entered my conscious thinking.

This morning - at 7am for 2 minutes - I ingested snippets of breaking tech news from Computing, New Media Age and Tech Crunch, contemplated today's London Groupon voucher, look through the Google News10 email with search results for 'Tesco', and read a message from those members of the R&D team working 5 hours ahead in Bangalore.

These short snippets of tweets, updates and email headlines continue to swirl through my mind as I stand there in the shower / search for clothes / sip my coffee. I ponder what I've learned - and I keep thinking of it randomly throughout the day. Basically this information has, whether I wanted it to or not, set my day's agenda!

I actually became conscious of the 'power' of 7am a few weeks ago when I was on holiday. Bizarrely I actually missed it! The 7am info-buzz connected me back to the world after a night of sleep. Without it my mind seemed to feel it was missing something.

I raised my awareness from 'conscious' to 'wildly aware' when I attended a Microsoft Creative Technology showcase last week. One of the presenters has a company that runs social media on behalf of several celebrities and sports-people. He spoke of the '7am broadcast' that occurs 24 times a day, time-zone by time-zone around the world. Twitter Followers and Facebook 'Like' Fans would receive their favourite celebrity's tweet at 7am. Feedback had found that this was the most effective time for the celebrity or brand to be remembered for the rest of the day.

The effectiveness of Social Media continues to fascinate me - and now it has a 'power time' of 7am. These days it seems that millions of people are experiencing that '7am' moment as they wake and pick up their smart-phone left charging by the bedside.

If they follow you - and you talk to them at 7am - they are likely to remember you all day. 7am is, quite literally, Social Media'a finest hour.

Speak or Scan - Tesco Groceries for Android launches

Please welcome the newest member of our mobile app family, Tesco Groceries for Android.

Yes, I know, you've wanted this app to launch for a long time. But the management team, designers and developers were patient, considered, and did things right so that we could launch an app to be proud of.
So take my hand and let's journey together through the delights of this android application. Would you like to be downloading while we walk? Sure, follow this link.

We start with the opening screen. with the various options for searching for products listed - including barcode scanning using the phone's camera:

However our team always likes to get better with each version of the app, so here we introduce voice searching for the first time:

Many customers of our other grocery apps love the concept of capturing their sudden thoughts of grocery products they need, even if they have no mobile signal, so here is the android recreation of the shopping list. Once you have a signal, tap what you have typed and a text search for that product will take place:

For all our customers who love to shop by department / aisle / shelf, of course this app caters for you too:

Here are your favourites - all product search results look like this, allowing you to see all products matching your search request, and a filtered view of just those on special offer. Once a product is in your basket, that same product has a green background if it appears in any search results:

Here is your basket:

...and you can choose a delivery slot at any time from a formatted view that can see up to three weeks ahead:

Congratulations are due to loads of people from the design prowess of Ribot, our fantastic new in-house mobile development team led by Hilda and Owen, and of course our amazing product owners for mobile, Annabel and Becky.

You'll find the Tesco Groceries app in the Android Marketplace, so download and enjoy!

Why losing to a womens network made me stand up and applaud

Sorry for not getting any blog posts up recently. I decided to go on holiday but the rest of Tesco decided not to pause while I did so!

Still, madly trying to catch up with projects is always 'fun' and being able to write blog posts (my lowest priority, alas) at least shows I am back on course now!

The New Media Age Awards took place last week. As you may be aware, Tesco.com R&D had been nominated for what the organisers referred to as its "Outstanding contribution to new media" with all our various projects. We didn't win, however, but the people who did win had me on my feet offering them genuine applause: The winner was "She Says", an organisation  established to encourage more women into creative roles in the digital industry through events, mentoring and awards.

"She Says" - http://shesaysus.com/ - started as a small community in London - and has grown into a 3000-member network across seven cities worldwide, and its success can be seen in the recent announcement that Lariu, one of the founders, was leaving her job to work for She Says full-time.

Why was I on my feet showing a happy 'losing Oscars' face? This is exactly the sort of thing that Tesco encourages through our 'Everyone is welcome at Tesco' work. At the head of this work is Tesco Diversity Council (TDC), a steering group .TDC is chaired by Tesco board member and Corporate & Legal Affairs director Lucy Neville-Rolfe (and I am privileged to be a TDC member) and provides advocacy to such staff networks as Tesco Women's Network (http://cr2010.tescoplc.com/our-people/inclusion.aspx) who perform a similar role to She Says but inside Tesco.

Creating a level playing field for all people is vital in our industry so that we can all get maximum access to the best talent out there. It's great to see that this work is appreciated and award winning.

That's why I had no problem losing to such a worthy contender, and why I stood and clapped as She Says took the award. Well done!

In-store 'Sat-nav' up and working now in a Tesco branch - come and try it!

We now have a comprehensive 'sat-nav' system working INSIDE one of our Tesco stores!

The new service is able to show you where all your wanted products are on a store map, show you where you are on that map, and guide you round the store to pick up your products using the shortest route.

The prototype system is installed at the Tesco Extra, Romford (Gallows Corner) in north-east London, and we need to recruit a large control group of customers (including staff) who would like to try it out on their Android smart-phones.

Would you like to give it a go? If so apply to join our control group (info below) which will assess the accuracy and reliability of the service from a technical perspective.. If you're accepted, here is what you'll experience:

1. Install our prototype app on your Android smart phone (it's not in the Android Marketplace, you'll be sent a link to download it directly and you'll need to change a setting temporarily to allow non-marketplace apps on your phone to install it).
2. Build up a shopping list on it (just like you can with Tesco Finder).
3. Send that shopping list to another customer with the same app on their phone so they can go shopping on your behalf (so I'm happy for members of a household to be in the control group).
4. Head to Tesco Extra Romford (click for map link).
5. Start the app as you walk through the front door.
6. See a comprehensive store map with all the items in the shopping laid out on it.
7. Press a button and the app will find the shortest distance between the products and create a route for you.
8. Show you where you are on the map with a blue dot with an accuracy of within 3 metres.
9. Walk the store following the route. The blue dot will move around the map as you move around.
10. If you want to find any product 'adhoc', we'll find it in the store and show you where it is on the map. 

So now we need your help. If…

1. You live or work near Tesco Extra, Romford, and
2. You have an android phone with Android OS v2.2 or later installed on it, and 
3. You're prepared to change your phone's application settings temporarily to allow installation of apps from 'Unknown Sources' just while you install our app, and
4. You are prepared to run an R&D app and accept no liability from us if we cause your phone problems (although it doesn't do anything more than require access to your wifi and location-based services on your phone), and
5. You accept that the app, being R&D, is a bit geeky but you are prepared to fiddle and play with it, and
6. You accept the system, being R&D, may just not work from time to time.

...then I would love to hear from you.

To join the control group, write to our R&D project manager Ben Martin at ben.martin@techfortesco.com with subject 'SATNAV APP'. Ben (@realbenm) has been running this exciting project from the start, so he'll look forward to hearing from you. Indeed you'll receive further instructions in a few days after contacting us. In the message please indicate what make and model of Android handset you have, and the version of Android it is running.

The service is only available publicly to Android phone owners at this time, because we don't want the app in it's current state going into the public app stores. Only Android easily offers the ability to install apps from 'Unknown Sources'.

Please note that we won't be rolling this out to customers in general for a while because we have to think about how useful it's going to be. The system involves a lot of infrastructure installation in the stores so we need to get all kinds of people involved in thinking about the customer experience. It would be awful if we did all this work but few customers really used it.

We must also see how we would put the technology into our production applications and make it really easy for everyone to use. There's also the possibility that the infrastructure is not reliable right now.

This project is in R&D for a good reason, and we are allowed to prove the viability - or otherwise - of anything we might wish to offer our customers. Sometimes R&D is close to production, and at other times it is far away. 


Apologies to other companies offering this service who contacted me after my original blog post that kicked off this project. We've had to operate under strict NDA with our chosen provider and not even intimate there was a such as system under construction. Until now!

Buy the right to watch the movie and NOT worry about the format

Tesco has just taken a majority stake in local video-on-demand service BlinkBox with an 80% stake in that business.

Blinkbox is the UK's leading movie streaming service, offering thousands of titles streamed on the internet to 2m users each month. Their catalogue of more than 9,000 titles is available to rent or buy, alongside a host of free-to-view movies, TV shows and trailers, on PC, Mac, PS3 console, tablet devices and internet-enabled connected TVs.

Tesco has bought an 80% stake in Blinkbox from Eden Ventures and Nordic Venture Partners.

Richard Brasher, Tesco UK CEO said, "Whether customers want to own the DVD, download a digital movie, stream a rental or all three, Tesco is committed to giving customers choice. We want to allow them to decide how they access entertainment content and on which devices, whether it’s on PC, TV or tablet. The acquisition of blinkbox, together with a range of other services currently in development, means we can link physical purchase of a product to the building of digital collections in a new and seamless way. Working with the blinkbox team and our content partners, we will bring these compelling propositions to life for our customers."


So what's the deal? As a customer, traditionally you buy a DVD and the reality is that you have really only bought the right to watch the movie on that DVD. If it gets damaged or lost, then no more viewing of that movie is available. The right to watch the movie is tied to the continued good condition of the medium and format on which it is embedded. Another example: the loss and non-replacement of my VHS machine means that I have lost the ability to play my old and substantial VHS movie collection.

Using this service Tesco can “link together” the physical purchase of films and entertainment with digital technology to create a multichannel entertainment offer. That means that when you buy a movie, you buy the right to watch it in any format and device covered by Blinkbox technology, not just on the physical DVD.  In future there might be a lo-res version for your mobile phone, standard definition for an average TV, and an HD version for your high-bandwidth broadband and HD TV.

I should point out that this is a long-term aim. The team set up to run the service will need to walk before they can run - and at each step offer a really good service for customers. Nobody at Tesco is going to rush into this without geting every stage of this journey working perfectly. Deep breaths, dear reader, this journey to Utopia will take time!

The Blinkbox technology exists today on Sony PlayStation/3 consoles (I use mine far more for watching content than playing games) and also on Samsung's Internet@TV service which is available as soon as you plug in an ethernet cable or wifi dongle into the back of the TV.

I've been a 'technical consult' on this project working with the business development team, which looked into the possibility of on-demand media for customers last year as a way of augmenting DVD sales. That's the real reason I ended up at CES Las Vegas last year. My role was to see how we could make this work technically from end-to-end. Buying into Blinkbox with their massive media library of more than 9,000 movies and proven delivery technology makes this somewhat easier.

So in future you buy the right to watch the movie, and no longer get tied to the format or medium on which that movie gets to your screen. Exciting stuff!

Further reading:
Tesco Press release: http://www.tescoplc.com/plc/media/pr/pr2011/2011-04-20/

Media coverage examples:
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/sectors/retail/tesco-buys-into-blinkbox/3025698.article

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8463413/Tesco-buys-video-on-demand-company-Blinkbox.html

Tonight's Lecture at Cambridge (Arcadia Programme)

A reminder that if you are a student at Cambridge University I am giving a lecture on Tesco's customer-focussed mobile journey (those Hunters, Gatherers and Groundhogs!) at the seminar room of Wolfson College starting at 6pm tonight.

The lecture forms part of Cambridge University Library's Arcadia Programme - for more information follow this link. I look forward to seeing you there.

The address is:

Wolfson College,
Barton Road,
Cambridge
CB3 9BB

Two of our delivery vans are missing...

If you've read the post showing the 'heat map' of our Tesco.com grocery delivery vans across the UK, you'll come away with a great feeling that we know where all our vans are. Which is true.

The trouble is, the truth can sometimes hurt - in this case there's something we uncovered in getting the material for that blog post that we decided not to show you on Monday until we investigated more.

You see, when we zoomed out the map to get a nice view of the UK to take the snapshot for that blog post, we accidentally zoomed the map out too far. We could see all of Europe with a UK 'blackened' with van positioning icons, as expected.

What was somewhat less expected was that two positioning icons were not in the UK. They were in Poland.


So we conducted an emergency data investigation to ensure that we hadn't received corrupted information, or miscalculated anything. Everything came back as OK - indeed one of the vans was following a road in Poland from the live feed. Someone was driving a Tesco.com grocery delivery van in Poland live as we watched!

Two Tesco.com delivery vans signalling live on 31st March 2011 from near Starogard, Poland.

So Mike contacted the van team to mention that two vans were, you know, not exactly in the UK...

Fortunately, the van team were able to look up the registration plates on the two vans and quickly found that the vans had been retired from service. The vans had also completed decommissioning (primarily, removing our tech equipment and Tesco livery) but for some reason, the hidden signalling box had been missed. This equipment is wired such that it signals 24 hours a day, not just when the ignition or engine is on. As a result, it has to be located deep down within the vehicle's wiring system - it's not a "box on the dashboard".

After 5-6 years, our vans are retired from Tesco.com duties and sold on to the second-hand market and are given a new life elsewhere beyond the control of Tesco - in this case, it seems, the Polish market. It would be great to know the sort of uses these vehicles (with built in fridge and freezer compartments) are put to. I guess they end their days still delivering food or similar temperature-controlled goods.

There is an interesting question to be asked about the ability of the equipment (or more accurately the cellular data accounts) to roam onto foreign networks with an inevitable roaming charges. Fortunately (for us) this cost is borne by our partner who operates the van location service. They are used to many clients requiring tracking of commercial vehicles into Europe and beyond.

The van team were able to get in touch with the new owners, who were able to remove the equipment which is on its way back to the UK. They were able to block the SIM card quickly, too.

Still, it underlines the message that we really do know where all our delivery vans are!

Next-Generation Picking Computers

Every morning at 6am, our army of thousands of personal shoppers across our biggest 300 Tesco stores and 3 "Dotcom-only stores" ('sort of' picking depots) set to work picking the first of tens of thousands of grocery orders on a typical day.

The technology they use - we call it 'teampad' - is a tablet computer running Windows XP Embedded and an application we have written in Microsoft .Net and C# to help the personal shopper pick accurately and quickly. You can often see our personal shoppers in action in Tesco with their distinctive trollies with on-board tablet computer.

The service has worked well this way for years - we've tuned and improved the software in response to our personal shoppers' feedback, but nothing major has happened beyond getting later generation tablets (as old ones reach end-of-life) and better batteries.

However, there has been one issue that staff have kept encountering over the years - and now Dotcom R&D is involved in solving it.

The issue is this: Often, if an aisle is crowded with customers, it is better to leave the picking trolley (and thus teampad) at the end of the aisle and walk down to pick up the products.

The issue is that sometimes you may not pick up the product the teampad asked for! The subtlelty of different product sizes comes into play here and you think you have picked up the product described on the teampad but have not. You've then walked all the way back to the trolley, scanned the barcode and told it was not correct, walked all the way back to the shelf to replace the product, and picked the correct one (hopefully) to try again.

That's a terrible waste of precious time - and our personal shoppers are telling us this. Indeed the argument they use is that it would be more useful if the information was always on them rather than on their trolley.

So we're currently experimenting with a range of portable - some wearable - computer devices to see if this new technology helps. After all, equipment with the sort of computing power we require is now smaller, lighter and with a much longer battery life than before.

I spent part of last week down at one of our stores starting early with a group of picking staff to see what they thought of the new kit and to get them picking with it to see how they got on.

Experiments continue inside R&D and with our experimental picking team and we'll see where this goes. There are no plans to roll out any new equipment until our personal shopper test team say that it fits their work better than existing technology. Even then we'll have a long distance 'race' between old and new technologies to be sure that "new is better".

This is definitely a case of "getting it right" to make tasks simpler for staff rather than using new technology for its own sake.

Careers at Tesco.com

Thank you if you are one of a number of people who have written to me about the possibility of a career at Tesco.com. It's great to see that we're inspiring people to consider working with us, and you can have no doubt that our offices are a great place to work.

Where appropriate I do pass on your details to the HR team and I leave it to them to get in touch if they think there is a suitable role. However there is an official route to apply that also overcome the possibility that I have missed your message (I get over 200 emails a day).

Take a look at the new Tesco careers web site that has been launched with career-seekers in mind. It's packed with information about Tesco, career options, and "how we do things round here".

Therese Procter

 Indeed our HR Director for Retailing Services, Therese Procter (pictured), has said that Tesco's success is down to our simple corporate values: "No one tries harder for customers" and "Treat people how we like to be treated".

Head to http://www.tesco-careers.com for all the information you can handle about careers at Tesco. Maybe I'll see you in our office sometime soon!

This blog supports the Tesco Charity of the Year, Alzheimer's Society.

After a fantastic year supporting the work of children's cancer charity CLIC-Sargent, this blog joins Tesco as we move to support our new charity of the year, Alzheimer's Society and Alzheimer Scotland.

These fantastic two charities work to improve the quality of life for people with dementia as well as supporting their families and carers.

Dementia is a cruel brain-wasting disease that can happen to anyone. There is currently no cure but with early diagnosis and the right support, people can live well with the condition. This year 100,000 people will develop dementia, that's on top of the 750,000 people already living with dementia in the UK. Almost half of Tesco staff have a loved-one or friend with dementia and the same is true for Tesco customers.

Tesco's aim is to raise £5 million to fund groundbreaking research, Dementia Community Roadshows and support services, helping families coping with dementia to feel less alone.

In a permanent location at the right-hand side of the web version of this blog at http://techfortesco.blogspot.com you will always see the logo supporting our fundraising. Please do click the logo to head straight to a web site especially set up for the year ahead and please help us reach that £5 million goal between now and the end of February 2012.

Tesco receipt-based Price Check - live!

You must go and have a look at our excellent new Tesco Price Check web application. We are introducing Price Check so customers will have no doubt that we offer the best value.

Price Check gives customers the ability to check the price of individual products and the total price of their shopping and, in the unlikely event that we are not cheaper than Asda, we will refund 'double the difference'.

The system works by looking up your receipt details and checks that we are the cheapest compared to Asda. If we aren't then you get double the difference back as refund.

Go and save some money now (if we aren't already cheaper!): Take a Tesco paper receipt (whether instore or online) and head to this web address:

https://www.tescopricecheck.com/PriceCheck

QR codes go into Tesco branches from Friday

From this Friday we’ll be using QR Codes in store to link customers to the mobile version of Tesco Direct to ore-order the new Nintendo 3DS console.

Mike Fethers, Assistant Buyer for Tesco Gaming (what a great role!) sent me a digital copy of the poster and QR code we'll be showing in-store. Mike believes that this is the first time the mobile site and QR codes have been implemented at a store level.

So if you're in a large Tesco branch on Friday, wander over to the console games section and look out for the Nintendo DS Top 40 Chart poster featuring the QR code (click poster for larger version):

Here's the code if you want to try with your smart phone and a barcode app now:

Techfortesco blog stats: 3,000 readers a week

I've just taken some time to read the Google/Blogger analytics for techfortesco and I'm both delighted and humbled to reveal that just over 12,000 readers a month (over 3,000 readers a week, where a "reader" is defined as a combination of pageviews and unique IP addresses) are enjoying the content - and that's not including those of you reading via the RSS feed and who receive articles by email.

Technorati, the blog directory, seems to have shone favourably - techfortesco has a current Technorati Authority of 116 and is ranked 19,380 out of 1.1 million tracked blogs as I write these words. Mind you, at around the time of the iPhone launch the ranking reached the 6,000s so the live ranking is a good indication of a blog's authority. I'm going to argue that the higher up the ranking the more effort is required to provide both good quality and a high quantity of blog articles. Very high ranking blogs that I read seem to publish as many as 20 articles a day!

Never mind; the arm-pulling I'm doing to get some colleagues to write about their work for this blog is getting traction and you'll see some of their content here soon. Indeed if you work at Tesco pursuing or working with technology to make the Tesco experience better for our customers and staff you are welcome to contribute. I have some self-imposed rules about observing confidentiality, business integrity, and attribution (making sure that content can be factually verified and is not libellous) but don't worry, I'll guide you through them. I'll also take responsibility for publication - that means I have the final say editorially!

It's time to make this blog the 'go to' place for those who wish to read about technology that helps Tesco - and to do that I think it needs to become more than just 'Nick Lansley's blog".

I have been appointed to the UK's MCJIC (Mobile Industry) Committee

I am very happy to have accepted a position on the UK's Mobile Commerce Joint Industry Committee (MCJIC), the committee established to ensure that UK businesses are prepared for the changes, opportunities and challenges that accompany the explosive growth in mobile commerce.

The MCJIC has been formed by the Association of Interactive Media and Entertainment (AIME), The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) - the latter of which Tesco.com is a senate member. I have been representing Tesco.com at IMRG events over the past few years, and have become well known for my advocacy concerning bringing Tesco to any internet-connected device (with the customer's permission!).

The MCJIC has been specifically set up to assist retailers, technology providers, consumers and regulators through the promotion of 'best practice' to help us all drive the growth of mobile-based commerce. It will cover all aspects of this form of commerce from mobile marketing and payment, to site optimisation, application development best practice, vouchers and coupons, and even the ability to verify someone's age.

We'll also engage in education, commission research and, as my driver, document best practice through the establishment of an online library.

The establishment of MCJIC results from recent research collaboration between the three associations (AIME, IAB and IMRG) which found 59% UK retail brands believe that their mobile revenues will increase in 2011, with 94% regarding it as a game-changing opportunity for their business.

My own involvement is to advocate best practice from a technical point of view. For example, when we have built Tesco apps for mobile phones, I have always made sure that the communications that has to take place between your Tesco app and our servers uses as few bytes of data as possible. Customers would not be happy if our apps bit deeply into their allocated monthly included data tariff, and I want to bring this level of thoughtfulness to all apps. So I want to build a library of good practice, with practical evidence that supports it.

I join several well-regarded peers on the MCJIC committee:

• Andrew McClelland, director of operations, IMRG
• Steve Ricketts, head of mobile marketing and payment services, Everything Everywhere*
• Toby Padgham, general secretary, AIME
• Jon Mew, head of mobile, IAB
• Patrick Munden, head of seller communications UK & Ireland, eBay UK 
• Richard Mann, chief operating officer, Mobile Interactive Group
• Sienne Veit, business development manager - new technologies, M&S Direct
• and myself as head of R&D, Tesco.com

At our first meeting just before Christmas, we appointed Andrew McClelland as chairperson to lead us through the first phase of projects, and we'll be meeting again soon to get underway with the new work.

I'm sure we'll have our MCJIC web site up and running soon, so look out for that - I'll announce it here as soon as it's live.

*Everything Everywhere is the joint collaboration of UK mobile providers Orange and T-Mobile.

Tesco TV Campaign Highlights iPhone App Barcode Scanning

If you're an Emmerdale fan than you will no doubt have seen the excellent and amusing 40-second TV commercial from our marketing department.

The commercial shows our "Tesco family" using the barcode scanning facility on their iPhone as they go about life. You'll see the ad popping up all over the place on commercial TV channels in the UK over the next four weeks.

If you haven't spotted the commercial yet, don't worry: I watched Emmerdale on your behalf and recorded the commercial (the things I do for you!). You can watch it now:

Don't forget that you can use the barcode scanner on the Tesco Groceries app only if you have an iPhone 4 or have upgraded your iPhone 3GS to IOS4 (which you can do easily using iTunes).

The groceries app will work on iPad and non-IOS4 iPhones but the barcode scanner is disabled for technical reasons and because the iPad has no camera!

Tesco Freeview Experiment - Freeview HD box recipients

Well done to the Tesco Freeview Experiment applicants listed below.
I'll be in contact with each of you shortly to get the set-top box delivered to you.

FirstName	Location	Freeview Transmitter
Mark	Belfast	Divis
Doug	Dundee	Angus
James	Stockton-on-Tees	Bilsdale
Tim	Ashford, Kent	Bluebell Hill
Alick	Glenrothes, Fife	CraigKelly
Daniel	Islington, London	Crystal Palace
David	Carnoustie, Angus	Durris
Ian	Leeds	Emley Moor
Brett	Watford	Hemel Hempstead
Paul	Chippenham	Mendip
Andrew	Wrexham, Clwyd	Moel-Y-Parc
Paul	Newcastle-upon-Tyne	Pontop Pike
Andy	Cheltenham, Gloucs	Ridge Hill
James	Arseley, Bedfordshire	Sandy Heath
Paul	Cullompton, Devon	Stockland Hill
Mike	Norwich	Tacolneston
Paul	Sale, Cheshire	The Wrekin
Mark	Newark-on-Trent, Notts	Waltham
Paul	Cardiff	Wenvoe
Ashley	Manchester	Winter Hill

60 registrants for Tesco Freeview Experiment but not all transmitters covered

Thanks to the 60 of you who have registered for the Tesco Freeview Experiment to date. Surprisingly all of you want one of the 20 free Freeview HD set-top boxes I am handing out to take part in the experiment....!

However not all main service transmitters have been covered so you are still in with a chance of obtaining a box, particularly if you live in the south-west or northern counties of England, or Northern Ireland or Wales.

Head to http://www.techfortesco.com/freeview and register before the end of 14th November.