Rebtel Blog

Focus on Mobile Web

A new day and a new post from San Francisco. This time the topic will be on one of the presentations from the actual conference that I found generally interesting, but particularly from a Rebtel perspective.

The session was entitled Mobile Ajax and the Future Web and was held by Daniel Appelquist. Daniel is senior technology strategist with the Vodafone Group based in London, UK, where he primarily works on Web and Internet projects and industry activities.

The first part of the talk (which I found most interesting) was a lot about the two different (and today separate) entities we refer to as “The Web” and “The Mobile Web” and how a convergence between the two is taking place.
In a (not too distant) future there will only be one Web when referring to mobile devices as well as regular laptops and desktops. Thematical Consistency, ensuring that content across all devices is provided coherently and consistently, will be ubiquitous and the standard to aim for. Thanks to devices like the iPhone (which naturally was mentioned as a groundbreaking device in this field), the task of obtaining Thematical Consistency becomes significantly easier.

Daniel also mentioned that today, mobile devices are slowly overtaking desktops and laptop based web usage (so cool). Mobile browsing is in other words seriously on the rise and with that device from Apple that came out last year securing a fourth place overall on the Internet browsing market share list with its 0.15%, we can get a hint of what’s to come. In as little as five years, the majority of the total worldwide web usage is predicted to be mobile (!).

A cool little detail during the talk, which felt very reassuring for us coming from someone like Daniel, was that he mentioned Rebtel (see the picture above) as one of the companies that truly are in the forefront in mobile technology and web. Thank you Daniel, you are a rock star!

Posted in 2.0, In the media, Vodafone, blog, daniel appelquist, iphone, mobile, rebtel, rebtel staff, rebtel web, web 2.0 expo | No Comments »

In-Flight Calls With Verizon

As you might know, some of us from the Rebtel crew are over in sunny San Francisco, California to attend the Web 2.0 Expo. The Expo, which ended on Friday, was really awesome and featured some very heavy names from this web world of ours. A selection of some of the people we were fortunate enough to see include Tim O’Reilly (O’Reilly Media), Jonathan Schwartz (CEO at Sun Microsystems), and Marc Andreesen (co-author of the first web browser Mosaic and currently with Ning).

We will cover some of the most interesting talks from a Rebtel perspective in a later post. To make sure you don’t miss it, you can go ahead and subscribe to our blogs RSS Feed.

Anyhow, on our flight from Chicago to San Francisco we noticed that Verizon offers a solution for in-flight calls. That’s great you might say, considering you are not (yet) allowed to use your mobile phone on board an aircraft to call your business acquaintance or your friend waiting for you on the ground to pick up you up. Phones on planes are pretty much ubiquitous and not new thing in any shape or form so nothing really remarkable there. Although, what did catch our attention, was the price they charged. If you’re a sensitive person, you might want to hold on to something. To call with Verizon on a United Airlines flight, you have to pay the ridiculous amount of $10 per minute + taxes and a setup fee (see the image above). God knows how much that setup fee is but the point is, for us that are accustomed to making international calls for just a few cents per minute, this was a pretty shocking revelation. Trust me.

So what are the learnings here? Well, you will be able to call use your mobile phone on flights sooner rather than later so maybe Rebtel should get into the market of offering ultra-cheap international calls while in the air? You know what, maybe be will! What we do know for certain is that we have barely scratched the surface of what is possible and we still have a long way to go on our road towards making sure as many people as possible have the opportunity to make international calls for the cost of a local call.

Best wishes from San Francisco,

Alex

Posted in Verizon, blog, rebtel, rebtel staff, telecom cartels, web 2.0 expo | No Comments »

spreading the love in hyde park…

On Saturday, Flic and the Rebtel Hippies were spreading the Midsommar love in Hyde Park, as thousands of Swedes gathered to celebrate the solstice in typical Swedish style. Here’s her field report…

“Never to be deterred by a spot of torrential rain, the Swedes were out in force in Hyde Park this Saturday. Though feeling a little silly in our full-on hippy gear as we started to do the rounds – tentatively waving leaflets and promises of cheap calls to Sweden at everyone in sight – it soon became clear that we fitted in quite well. Numerous offers of beer, cider, fish and doughnuts later we’d exhausted our stacks of blindingly colourful leaflets and made quite a few converts. All in all a good day, though I never did get to dance round the maypole…

Flic xx”

Watch out for the Rebtel Hippies around Liverpool St and Canary Wharf later this week. They’ll also be making their way to Trafalgar Square on Friday afternoon for the Canada Day celebrations, so keep your eyes peeled!

Posted in blog, events, rebtel staff | 1 Comment »

swedish midsummer madness!

It’s all going quiet over in Stockholm today as they prepare for their Midsummer celebrations. Summer’s short over there, so they like to make the most of it with a bunch of MASSIVE PARTIES. There are also some pretty wacky traditions, as magic is believed to be the strongest at this time of year. Young ladies who place seven varieties of flower under their pillows on Midsummer’s Eve are said to dream of their future husband; a flask of dew collected at Midsummer can cure illnesses; herbs are said to be more potent, couples more fertile, and people decorate their houses with greenery to bring good luck.

As they’re not around, let’s take this opportunity to take a sneak peek at their swanky offices. As you can see it’s much bigger than the London office. You can’t see it properly but at the end of the office there’s a meeting room with glass walls and a view overlooking the Skärgårdshavet (the Archipelago Sea). This meeting room is adorned with cowhide rugs and Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chairs, and is very fancy and nice.

And here we have the infamous naked farmer calendar, which hides in the girls’ loos of the Stockholm office. It’s rumoured that May 2007 bears a striking resemblance to a certain gym-loving member of our Development team. Rebtel’s official line on this? “No comment”!

Posted in blog, events, rebtel staff | 2 Comments »

hippy shoot + spread the love

We made a film! It’s all about Rebtel and how much we love 02, Vodaphone, Orange, 3, etc. Here you can see Flic from the London office posing next to our official Rebtel Beetle.

Keep your eyes peeled for the Rebtel hippies this weekend. They’ll be spreading the love at the Swedish Midsummer Party and Picnic in Hyde Park on Saturday from 3pm.

Posted in blog, events, rebtel staff | 1 Comment »

meet the work experience boys

Say hi to Linus (left) and Bjorn (right), our new interns. They’ll be working at Rebtel in our Stockholm offices, doing viral marketing and other top-secret entrepreneurial type activities.

They’re running a Facebook group for Rebtel-related fun and discussion, including a few candid shots of the Stockholm crew hard at work, so if you’re on Facebook you should take a look. They’ve also started a blog to document their summer - check it out.

All together now: Hello Bjorn and Linus!

Posted in blog, rebtel staff | 1 Comment »

saying hi

Alright blogsters. My name is Anne-Marie. I work at Rebtel. I write things for them. I’m going to be writing things on here too.

Some of those things will be interesting. Some of those things will be informative. Occasionally, they may even be both at once.

I’ll let you know when that’s going to be.

Until then, my hearties

AMP

Posted in blog, rebtel staff | No Comments »