A Limerick entrepreneur specialising in mobile marketing and communications has been unveiled as the Limerick winner of this year’s Impact Media Elevate Award. 

Shane McAllister of Mobanode took the prize worth €60,000 at a glittering awards event at the Carlton Castletroy Park Hotel in Limerick last Thursday.

Shane’s unique communications service uses technologies such as Bluetooth, WiFi and NFC to provide free audio, video and mixed media content to people at all kinds of events.  This novel technological approach to marketing made a big impression on Elevate judges Oliver Moloney of Instore, Michael Kearney of The Carlton Hotel Group and Niall McGarry of Impact Media, who chose Mobanode over strong competition from Sports Academy International and Travelace.

Mobanode will now benefit from a fund designed to elevate emerging entrepreneurs to a whole new level. The prize includes a generous advertising package on Limerick’s Live 95fm; full marketing, design and PR services from Impact Media; press advertising with The Limerick Post; print services from Castle Print; legal advice from RDJ Solicitors and a photographic session with Viewmaker.

“Mobanode is a very deserving winner,” said Niall McGarry of Impact Media. “The standard of entries was fantastic and Shane showed the kind of entrepreneurial drive and spirit that the Elevate Award is all about.”

Shane McAllister was delighted with his win: “Mobanode has really taken off since it was showcased at Electric Picnic last September. I’m delighted with this prize which will take the business to an even bigger stage.”

MobaNode's Amhrán na bhFiann for Nokia & Gaelchultur from MobaNode on Vimeo.

MobaNode created the Amhrán na bhFiann Karaoke style application for Nokia and Gaelchultur as a project to get Irish content onto Nokia's newly launched Ovi Store. Launched in time to coincide with the all Ireland Football finals, the application was featured on Ireland's RTE 1 news station on Septemeber 17th 2009

It’s a common enough site in the pubs up and down Ireland and at the end of a Saturday night. Emotional grown men, faces red from Guinness and with moist eyes, passionately bellow out the national anthem Amhran na Bhfiann.

But did you ever ask yourself, how many of them actually know the words or are just mumbling along. Like sex in 1960s Ireland, the subject is taboo and you just don’t ask anyone.

But that’s about to change. Mobile giant Nokia, in conjunction with Gaelchultúr, have launched an application where you can learn the words of the Soldier’s Song on your Nokia handset.

Users can log on to store.ovi.com to download this karaoke-style application for free!

Are you embarrassed that you don’t know the national anthem in English, let alone in Irish? Are you one of the many people who stand in the crowd at sports events, miming the nation’s favourite song because you don’t know the words - Olé Olé is not the national anthem!

You can now learn the national anthem in a fun, funky way with friends and family.

The application will teach you the words line by line, by following the highlighted Irish text, while the English translation is featured underneath.

Dublin firm Gaelchultúr was established in 2004 with the aim of promoting the Irish language and various aspects of Irish culture including music, song and dance, throughout Ireland. Who knows? Maybe they’re working on an app that will teach us Irish dancing.

By John Kennedy

The architectural site is testing a tourist guide which can be downloaded to any phone using Bluetooth wireless technology.

Launched this month, the guide contains an interactive map. Clicking on one of the 11 places of interest on the tour launches text about that location, a photo and an audio commentary. The information can be updated and changed.

The guide was developed by Mobanode, a Limerick-based digital agency. “Mobile is the ideal medium to reach out to tourists and provide content,” said Shane McAllister, founder of Mobanode.

“Many tourist attractions have proprietary handsets to hire or rent, which can be expensive to maintain, but everybody coming through the door already has the display technology in their pockets in the form of a phone.”

On arrival, signs prompt visitors to switch on their phone’s Bluetooth setting, and they receive an opt-in message asking whether they wish to receive the guide.

Since it was launched, 65 per cent of visitors with Bluetooth-enabled phones have downloaded it.

The application remains on the phone long after tourists have left, and it includes a “send to friend” feature. John Davoren, owner of the Caherconnell site, said this could be a useful viral marketing tool. “We’re hoping for a multiplier effect, where if they have downloaded it and know someone who is visiting the Burren, they can say, ‘Have a look at this’.”

The file is 800kb in size and can take up to 15 seconds to download.

The project was developed after a report by tourism, wireless-access and interaction-design researchers at University of Limerick.

Click here to see the original article in the Irish Times

by Nick Rabbits, Limerick Leader

A CITY firm which specialises in providing bluetooth content to mobile phone users has teamed up with researchers at UL to offer a free application for use at a top tourist destination.

Mobanode, which operates out of the Enterprise Acceleration Centre in the Limerick Institute of Technology, has signed a deal with the Caherconnell Stone Fort which means tourists heading for the Co Clare location can access a free visitor guide which includes an interactive map, audio and visual supports.

Shane McAllister, founder of Mobanode, said he hopes this new development - which has been brought about following research from UL into technology usage in the tourism sector - will lead to their company engaging at other tourist destinations across Ireland.

The firm has already supplied free content to mobile users at a number of blue chip events, including the Heineken Music Festival, and the Top Gear Live event at Dublin's RDS.

"Mobile is the ideal platform for content like this. Your phone is your constant companion, always with you, and always on and capable of so much more than the humble phone call," Mr McAllister said.

He also pointed out the application was popular because it was free no matter what country you come from, saying: "Bluetooth is ideal for any tourism related concept. No network is required which is a must for any roaming tourist."

It was following the end of the UL research - conducted by an interdisciplinary team of researchers and funded by Failte Ireland - that Mr McAllister met with the owner of Caherconnell Stone Fort, John Davoren and struck up a partnership with him.

Dr Martin Hayes of the Wireless Access Research Centre at the University of Limerick said: "Our investigations into the use of technology at visitor attractions suggest that future innovation will feature mobile as a cornerstone. In the past, tourist attractions relied on bespoke, proprietary and expensive solutions to enhance the visitor experience. Now mobile can deliver that platform at a fraction of the cost."

Mobanode - a company Shane founded in 2007 - was recently nominated for the 'Best Mobile Start up company' award at the prestigious TechCrunch Europas awards.

These recognise technology companies from across Europe.

Appeared in the Irish Times on Friday 13th March, 2009

VISITORS ATTENDING the St Patrick’s Day festival this year can keep a guide to events in the palm of their hand with a new mobile application to track the festivities.

Developed by MobaNode in conjunction with the St Patrick’s Day Festival, it can be downloaded directly to a mobile phone or through a PC from

www.stpatricksfestival.ie.

“What we built was a mobile festival guide that can be downloaded to your mobile phone,” said MobaNode founder Shane McAllister.

“Everybody has a mobile phone – there’s 120 per cent penetration in Ireland alone. It’s the ideal medium on which to provide content related to your event.”

The application includes an interactive map with details of where and when each event takes place, and supplies information such as ticket prices and times.

McAllister said the company approached the festival with the idea, after searching the list of events for the year to see what would be the major attractions. “The St Patrick’s Festival popped out at us,” he said.

The company put together a demo for the festival committee, and got approval to develop the application.

“We fast tracked the development of this. When we got the okay to do it, we threw all the manpower we could at it,” said McAllister.

“An application like this would usually take six to eight weeks to develop. We halved the timescale on that, given that we had a pretty strict deadline to get it ready for March 12th, the first day of the festival.”

The application can be used with any java-enabled mobile phone, except the iPhone, as it would have taken too long to get the application into Apple’s AppStore, missing the festival.

Other routes to get the mobile guide to people were considered, including an SMS download. However, with up to 700,000 people expected to attend the festival, it was feared that the cost to the festival committee would become prohibitive, as the number of people downloading the application could not be capped. It was not disclosed how much the application cost to develop.

The company is hoping the application will take on a life of its own. “Once a user has the application on their phone, they can share the download links by SMS with friends,” said McAllister

Mobanode plans to expand the application for use with other events, both in Ireland and overseas. “The festival and entertainment space in Ireland is dwarfed in comparison to the UK. They might have 10 times the amount of events going on that we have,” said McAllister. “There’s great opportunity for it.”

Click here to see this article on the Irish Times Website

Appeared on Silicon Republic on March 10th 2009

To help visitors and natives alike make the most of their time, St Patrick’s Festival, in conjunction withMobanode, has developed a mobile guide to the celebrations.

This free guide is now available for download from the official festival site. It can be accessed from a desktop computer and transferred to your handset or accessed straight from the handset through your mobile web connection, and you can share the download link via SMS with friends.

The St Patrick’s Festival mobile guide app allows you to search through all the events happening in and around Dublin by day or category and gives details of the event, including ticket price, data and time.

While the guide mostly includes Dublin-based events, it also covers the Skyfest in Waterford city.

This app works on all Java-enabled phones, ie all Nokias and Sony Ericssons (iPhone and BlackBerry handsets are not compatible).

Appeared in the Limerick Leader November 29th, 2008

If you are going to the Top Gear Live event in Dublin’s RDS this weekend, chances 
are you will receive a text from a Limerick-based entrepreneur. Businessman Shane 
McAllister, who founded MobaNode last year, has won a contract with Nokia to provide people at the event with free mobile content in a bid to engage the audience with the show. 

As the audience take their seats to watch the presenters of the hit BBC show, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May play around with motors, those who 
have Bluetooth technology will get, the opportunity to download engine ring-tones, a mobile game, and Top Gear-related videos. Since setting up Mobanode, Mr McAllister, who works from the Limerick Institute of Technology’s Enterprise Acceleration Centre, has won contracts to supply what he describes as “personal, targeted, relevant, content and messaging to mobile devices” at several events, including Oxygen and Electric Picnic, as well as texting UL students about upcoming college events. But he said that those 
going to this weekend’s showpiece will represent the most diverse audience he had ever catered for. 

Appeared in the Irish Independent September 4th, 2008 and on siliconrepublic.com

It all began in the Seventies at Glastonbury with free love and lots of mud, but the modern music festival has evolved. From connecting with nature to connecting via Bluetooth, the picnic has been electrified.

This year’s Electric Picnic music festival at Stradbally Hall Estate saw the modern music fan escape to the cultivated wilds of Co Laois, armed with toilet roll, a tent and the all-important mobile phone.

With the boutique festival’s repertoire of not only musical acts but also eco-workshops, comedy gigs, yoga classes and cookery demonstrations to list but a few, Irish telecoms and technology firms have spotted a growing niche in keeping the music-loving public informed and connected at the touch of a button, navigating their way round the dizzying array of activities that the modern festival has come to offer.

O2, already an established presence at the music festival, introduced the ElectricNav service for the first time this year. Festival-goers simply subscribed via text and, on the day, were sent a link to download the guide in time for the kick-off.

The service was free for O2 users, while subscribers to other operators paid the standard data charge as per their own network while accessing it.

What O2 aimed for with ElectricNav was to turn the mobile phone into a real-time gig guide: “Ultimately we developed this to help you get through the weekend. It’s a tool to help you have a better experience of the festival,” says Johnny Cahill, head of communications and sponsorship for O2 Ireland.

“A lot of what we hear is that — with so much to do and see at festivals such as Electric Picnic — the challenge is to figure out what’s going on, where to go next and what time your favourite bands are playing at.”

A music festival is like any organised event — consumers need regularly updated information to make the most of their experience, says Cahill.

Another increasingly popular mobile-based technology at the music festival is Bluetooth. Shane McAllister’s mobile-comms firm Mobanode teamed up with Nokia to bring a free digital goodie bag straight to the handsets of all Electric Picnic-ers.

At the Nokia tent, Mobanode sent out a free Electric Picnic ringtone — fittingly for this kooky but grown-up festival it was the song Pure Imaginationfrom Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

McAllister’s firm also provided a mobile torch for Nokia handsets: a simple application that turns the screen white so your trusty mobile can double as a light while you rummage around your tent at night or act as a flashing beacon if your friends are trying to find you.

“We’re also sending out the O2 ElectricNav via Bluetooth so non-O2 customers can avail of this free in the Nokia Bluetooth zone.”

Mobanode has already teamed up with Heineken for the Oxegen festival to provide similar services, MP3 tracks, event guides and competitions, all via Bluetooth, something that it also extends to sporting events throughout the year.

With all this mobile-oriented activity, Nokia correctly predicted many festival goers would arrive with low batteries and no charger, and so it provided a solar and wind-powered charging station that powered up over 50 phones at a time in an eco-friendly manner.

For Nokia, this is a savvy move, acting as an image boost and valuable service at the same time — something more tech firms have realised the festival goer appreciates — and a more efficient branding exercise than the banner ads of old.

“Mobile technology fits in with the way the festival model has evolved over the past few years. The old model involved large groups of people heading to see one or two bands — the Slane-type model.

“Now, you’re seeing more complex, diverse festivals such as Electric Picnic and Oxegen where the lists of artists and things to do and see is mind-blowing. With this, O2 has a great opportunity to help people make the most of the modern festival experience.”

It is the main form of communication throughout the festival, says McAllister. “People are more likely to be there without their wallet than their mobile phone! You’re talking about a tech-savvy crowd that is more than happy to use their mobile phones to their full potential.”

Also at Electric Picnic this year was IMtv (Irish Music Television) — a multimedia platform for Irish music that lives online through social networking site Facebook, as well as peer-to-peer web TV service Joost and the increasingly popular micro-blogging site Twitter.

Before the event, IMtv founder Stephen McCormack said: “IMtv is bringing two camera crews to capture the sights and sounds of Electric Picnic and we will be using our Twitter account to keep festival goers up to date and able to interact with other Twitter attendees about their experiences.

“Festivals are where technology and entertainment converge.”

Appeared in the Irish Examiner August 28th, 2008

Limerick based company MobaNode is one of a generation of new companies who are tapping into the marketing potential of the mobile phone. Aiming to become an international player in the mobile proximity marketing space it provided information and content for Oxegen goers this summer and will be doing the same this week end at Electric Picnic.

“At Oxegen MobaNode provided concert goers with an event guide and it create two mobile applications one which turned a mobile screen into a torch, so festival goers could use their phones to light their way and another that turned a mobile screen into a disco-light which could be held in the air to locate friends. It also ran a competition and sent out selected music tracks,’’ reveals MobaNode founder Shane McAllister

The technical bit is that all of this is done through Bluetooth wireless technology and nodes set up by the company at a venue. Concert goers with Bluetooth enabled mobiles can read notices at the event and opt in to accept the content being offered.

Mr McAllister says the possibilities of this type of technology is huge. “ This is a new way to reach out to customers or target audiences . It can be used at any event that has fans , who welcome content related to an event especially when it’s free,’’ observes Mr McAllister.

Having launched the service early this year MobaNode has used also its technology at the Carlsberg Comedy Festival , the Taste of Dublin and Green Energy Festival. The only company in the country to specialise in proximity marketing for large events, it now has its sights on the UK where there are 500 annual festivals a year compared to just 70 in Ireland.

The idea for this type of company came to Mr McAllister in 2006 when he subscribed to a Vodafone service for highlights of a Munster Rugby game. An electronics engineer he had previously worked for software company MagneticTime and from elearning company PrimeLearning .com.

Sharing the match highlights with friends in the pub afterwards made him realise that people value and keep this type of content on their mobiles. “ I thought surely there must be some way to provide such content to music and sporting fans for free and to use advertising and sponsorship to pay for it,’’

Using his own funding and a feasibility grant from Enterprise Ireland he set up MobaNode in October 2007. The first six months he spent on research and prototyping. In January this year the company moved into the Enterprise Acceleration Centre in Limerick, signed up to participate in a Venture Start 2 programme and was identified by Enterprise Ireland as a High Potential Start Up .

MobaNode’s new service had its first outing at the Chernobyl Children’s fundraising ball in February and a month later Mr McAllister took it to the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona. In May the company secured the contract to provide Bluetooth services at the Green Energy Festival in Dublin Castle and its clients since then have included Heineken, Barry’s Tea and Carlsberg,

MobaNode has focused mainly on music events because the age of concert goers is perfect for this type of service. “ They are young, mobile savvy and consume a lot of information and content on their mobiles,’’ observes Mr McAllister.

One of the aims of the company is to have MobaNode equipment permanently installed at all major concert venues around Ireland. The University of Limerick has been the first to accept this fixture which will be used to provide students with weekly event guides . Mr McAllister has had discussions with the owners of several event centres in the country and is optimistic that they will see the possibilities of the service being offered . Meanwhile he will continue to talk to event organisers and PR agencies.

MobaNode has also done some work on selling the service to sporting organisations including the IRFU, the GAA and the FAI. Sporting fans tend to be older and less mobile savvy than concert goers but Mr McAllister is hopeful that the idea will catch on in time. He says the IRFU have agreed to try out the technology at Thomond Park when it reopens in September.

Mr McAllister is currently the only staff member of MobaNode although it employs three contract workers. Next year the company plans to take on a staff of two or three and to target both the tourist and transport markets . He will be talking to airports and Bord Failte with a view to providing a service which would give tourist information to incoming travellers on their mobiles.

The major focus for next year will be on the UK “ We aim to capitalise on the success with music Festivals here,’’ he says adding that MobaNode is now receiving assistance from Enterprise Ireland in developing exports.