4iP Blog

Choosing a suitable school for your child is one of the most important decisions you will ever make. Should it be state or private, co-educational or single-sex? What are the academic standards like? Is there a discipline problem? Is the atmosphere a happy one? What do the kids think of the school dinners?

Schools have been inspected by Ofsted and reports produced for almost a decade. These reports are published online where they can be read by parents and the media. The form, however, is convenient only as a report archive, and not for the deeper goals of knowing. When you have pages of information how do you know what information is important?

This investment by 4iP in School Report Card addresses these problems. It will bring together multiple data sets to provide a newly accessible way of researching and comparing schools. This product will go beyond the idea of league tables to show schools in context and provide a meaningful interpretation of what they are really like - the atmosphere, internal organisation, teaching standards, facilities, discipline and much more.

Unlike the numerous books and school guides this product doesn’t just provide for parents researching new schools. School Report Card goes beyond selection providing existing school communities with the ability to take what they’ve found and act on it socially, whether that’s sending a link to a parent-teacher association or contacting a councillor. This product takes users from being informed about a system to having agency within the system. It will always provide a positive step next step that is localised and appropriate.

The team are making positive and friendly responses to school reports central to the product. School Report Card’s motto for the first public release is to celebrate the many great schools, making the data equivalent of school photos: a memento for every school’s performance.

So for the customary reasons why 4iP have invested. Firstly, and most importantly the team are incredibly talented. We care more about how smart you are than how old you are, and more about the quality of your ideas than whether you have a formal business plan. With Matt Jones (ex Dopplr) and Matt Webb (ex BBC) leading the business you know you can guarantee they’ll deliver something innovative and different. But talent attracts talent so as they ramp up I’m sure we’ll see distinguished designers and developers come on board.

Secondly, we know there is a user need and the opportunity is large. There are well over 7M parents of working age in Britain and we know that many parents care deeply about their kids’ education. We can see there’s a high demand for schools information with all the major newspapers and the BBC providing supplements or online products that surface the OFSTED data. But we have both qualitative and quantitative information that shows their needs are ill served online at present. We hope this product will be a first for giving schools data meaning and gives parents agency to affect change.

Finally, we know School Report Card will tackle this problem in a ‘4’ like way. The products will be fun, engaging and controversial; challenging the views people hold about schools and teachers and informing and opening the minds of parents.

See TechCrunch article

Get more information on the BERG blog

I’m delighted to announce MirrorMe, 4iP’s first health-related product launch under the banner of ‘MOT Your Life’, launching this week. 4iP and Northern Film and Media have invested in an innovative application that demonstrates the effects of smoking, drinking, taking drugs, eating junk food and sun bed usage. Yes, that’s what happens to Digital Commissioners after more than a year of 4iP.

Initially launching as a Facebook app, MirrorMe launches this week and comes out of young North East games development studio Ideonic, from Middlesbrough.

MirrorMe takes advanced Facial Recognition technology, turning it into a fun app available to everyone on the web and, soon, on the iPhone.

Users upload an image of their face or use their Facebook profile pic, and then answer questions relating to their lifestyle and habits. The app then scours for over 86 points on the face, generating a new image of the user’s face based on how they might look in future if they continue in their current lifestyle. These are then used to accurately distort face shapes to show changes with aging and weight variation. By detecting the exact contours of the user’s face, multiple photorealistic overlays can be morphed and blended to the individual’s face to given a unique and scarily accurate facial distortion.

A later version will show a short video of the user’s progression from current day vitality to their last wrinkly days.

Although primarily designed to be fun, the app does take medical factors into account, creating rules that can be applied to each individual user based on factors such as their location and ethnic origin as well as their habits.

The technology behind the app is based on advanced facial recognition technology developed by German face recognition experts BetaFace.

Why 4iP?

This light-hearted way of helping people connect how current day health habits affect their future is pure Channel 4 territory, with obvious connections in content terms to a host of prime time programmes such as Embarrassing Bodies - in fact, last Sunday night we tried out the app on Channel4.com for the Embarrassing Old Bodies Special. It offers an entertaining yet troubling app that shows every user how they can prevent the impending lines, discolouration, bags or spots from happening in the first place.

The app has its viral loops baked in, with users’ curiosity piqued the moment one of their friends shares the gruesome results to their friend feed. It therefore fulfills our public service role in two swipes: it gets people talking about what certain activities could do to their good looks in the long term, and gets them using the app to play around with the effects of different habits.

We’re hoping that the forthcoming iPhone app will ride on the back of a successful implementation on Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, and take the game away from the PC and to the locations where many of the habits begin: the pub. The app also provides one element of the revenue model for the investment.

Importantly, MirrorMe is just one more example of 4iP helping stimulate the creative industries outside the M25. The idea, born out of a 4iP- and Northern Film and Media-supported cross-creative lab earlier this year, uncovers Ideonic, a young, innovative company, to the wider attention of the digital media world and is 4iP’s first investment in the North East of England with Northern Film and Media, who this week announce a new £2.4m content fund to further stimulate the sector.

Visit www.MirrorMeGallery.co.uk to add the app to your Facebook profile, and see how future iterations of the product develop over the next few months.

Investing in the stability and growth of the UK’s political blog with arguably the most local reach represents what Channel 4 and 4iP is all about. This week 4iP announced its investment in the Northern Ireland-based political blog Slugger O’Toole, in the fund’s first co-investment with Northern Ireland Screen. The investment adds to a range of web products running along the theme of “keeping an eye on money and power”, providing a means of exploring localised political debate at scale.

Working with Belfast-based developer and instigator of beautiful things Andy McMillan (@GoodOnPaper), we’re helping to revamp the Slugger site for existing readers, with a relaunch of the site planned for the New Year. The goal is to make what is currently a crowded, busy and perhaps intimidatingly quick-posting blog more accessible for newbies and more enjoyable for current readers and commenters. The next step is to take the most influential political blog in Northern Ireland and turn it into a sustainable collaborative public service media platform, moving the means of pluralistic political debate forward elsewhere in the UK. We’re also keen to explore how we amplify the voices of those commenting: the debates under each post are just as vital as the posts themselves.

Slugger is unique among political blogs for its combination of public service levels of trust with the blogosphere’s forensic and adversarial demands. According to a recent Stratagem/ComRes poll, 96% of Stormont’s politicians read it regularly, and it’s demonstrably reaching deep into local political issues. With many major political news stories being broken by its readers before the mainstream media gets hold of them, it is also Northern Ireland’s journalistic watering-hole of choice.

For politicians and the public, the value of good political blogs has never been clearer. The last twelve months have shown what the power of social media can do to inspire and engage the public in the decision-making processes that affect them, from digging though expenses claims to helping claim electoral victory for the Obama administration.

But proximity to what ‘real’ people think and the provision of a forum to amplify those voices is what Slugger O’Toole has been doing for the best part of seven years.

Why did I want to pursue an investment in Slugger O’Toole, though, and not any one of the other political blogs out there? Slugger’s readership is large, and arguably more varied than any other political blog, especially given its geographic focus: to have both your national Assembly and a critical mass of your local councillors coming to you for genuine breaking stories on a regular basis is something that any national newspaper would be content with. Their support was particularly demonstrable on Tuesday night, as nearly 300 politicians, journalists and readers from across Northern Ireland packed into Belfast’s Black Box for the Slugger Awards. For goodness sake: even Bob Geldof joined us.

I’m particularly fond of Slugger’s ethic of “play the ball not the man”. ‘People want to debate the issues, not the politicians’, believes its founder Mick Fealty. Many of his political blogger compadres would and do disagree. But when we’ve excluded the political hacks and scandal junkies, the vast majority of us want change on specific issues and we want a place to debate them where our politicians see our view. Slugger provides that. In spades.

At a time when politicians and citizens are subject to more noise than signal in a growing web of unmoderated “citizen-produced democracy”, and national news repeatedly fails to account for local political issues, 4iP’s investment is a timely one.

In the next four weeks we will finalise a refreshed design for the site, with new functionality in the New Year which should help spread Slugger’s ethic further into the mainstream, further into its already highly localised audiences. We will uncover yet more voices that need amplified for the eyes and ears of the political classes in Stormont, Westminster, Brussels and Strasbourg; we will see Slugger pushing these representatives to get more done for their people, rather than just talking about it.

Towards Spring we will see Slugger trying to replicate the same, honest “play the ball” political coverage in Scotland, and perhaps further afield. We’re building some business cases around the work Slugger’s authors are arguably the most capable people in the world at carrying out, having lived through Western Europe’s worst civil war and come out the other side with an online forum for genuine political discussion between all sides. Slugger will help fill a significant media gap of coverage and comment on politics at local levels while having a growing impact nationally in Westminster.

This is not a 4iP ‘investment’ on the same level as some of our six figure sums, but with the impact Slugger-the-blog is already having, Slugger-the-platform is a win for “amplifying voices” from the word go. It is exactly where Channel 4 at its most cantankerous should be.

Picture Credit: John Baucher, with permission, aka Moochin Photoman. Blogger Alan In Belfast picks up his Martin Rowson portrait after winning Slugger Awards Blogger Of The Year for his “election monitoring” of the darker side of the EU election processes.

During the heady summer months I led 4iP’s investment in Newspaper Club. The wonderful team at Newspaper Club are building a tool to help people make their own newspapers. And by ‘newspapers’ they mean anything you can make with ink on newsprint.

They’ve been documenting ‘the start-up dream’ on their blog which I suggest you read but if you’re a joyless, number crunching, fact loving capitalist you might prefer this investors summary.

Now, despite their best efforts to manage users’ and investors’ expectation by constantly reminding us that ‘it won’t be as good as you’re imagining’ they’ve been getting on rather well. In fact they’re getting on slightly better than I had hoped for. Here’s why.

Firstly, they’ve hit their beta revenue targets prior to actually launching their beta. Investors like this. Cynics amongst you may make the point out that Russell Davies is the master of disappointment management only to swoop in at the last minute to over deliver and delight! But the revenue targets weren’t set by NC they were set by 4iP’s investment manager (see scowl here). Generating revenue is a good thing for all the obvious reasons and because I believe start-ups that generate revenue early-on will show more financial discipline from an earlier stage. This is even more important when a company is funded rather than bootstrapped. Hey now they’re spending their money and ours!

Secondly, it seems that this newspaper idea is proving rather popular. Yes, they may be in alpha but they already got a lovely selection of paying customers. In investor land we call this traction or product / market fit and we love it. 4iP loves it a little less than most but that’s because were odd and put product first. 4iP literally fizzes with excitement when the club’s newspapers pop up at events like Playful09 and Wired’s Intelligence Briefing. Don’t even get me started about the data newspaper. 

 

Finally, I value management integrity and openness above almost everything. 4iP can do it’s bit to bring in external directors, advisors and specialists but this no substitute for competence and maturity from those running the show. I never leave Newspaper Club with the feeling that I’m not 100% in the know. Yes, they make mistakes but they don’t pretend everything fine when it isn’t and give a balanced view of how things are going without my having to dig too hard. I can see this openness flowing through to the customers convince people that they’d like to spend their money with them. 

Get ready for the beta..!

4iP - What’s the right deal for deal rights?

When 4iP launched in October last year we knew one of the key questions we’d be asked was how we would deal with IP and rights.  Our blog post (http://www.4ip.org.uk/blog/post/4ip_update/) last September attempted to address this, explaining that 4iP’s commitment to innovation and experimentation would require a flexible approach to both the business models used and the way in which we dealt with IP and rights.  This was principally because, with such a wide range of projects and partners operating in such a dynamic and fast paced sector it was impossible to come up with anything remotely ‘standard’. 

However, there was always a danger that, in the absence of done deals, some would interpret this flexible approach as ‘we’re not going to tell you because you’re not going to like it’.  So, just over a year from the launch and, with around 30 projects under the 4iP belt, we thought it was a good time to clarify our position. 

Flexiblility

The principle of flexibility remains; the widely differing needs and requirements of our various investments combined with the rapid and ever-changing development of business models in this fast-moving sector means it remains appropriate to consider the circumstances of each and every deal: this approach is sound and sensible.

We adopt a range of approaches to rights ownership and rights exploitation, and believe that the responsibility for the latter should be placed in the hands of those best able to maximise availability and potential for revenue.  We believe it makes sense that whoever is in the best position to market, distribute and sell the product should be given the responsibility to do so contractually.  For all 4iP projects to date that has been the company that pitched the project, with 4iP providing support and advice as needed. .

In all deals done to date, the companies 4iP has contracted with own the project IP and are the party primarily responsible for realising the value of that IP.  However, we need to retain flexibility as this approach might not be appropriate for all projects. 

Showcasing not warehousing

We also believe that 4iP should leverage its access to the assets of Channel 4 to increase the impact of the projects it backs.  That may mean using our platforms to feature 4iP products, where appropriate.  However, the successful sustainability of web and mobile products and services lies in their breadth of distribution.  To that end, 4iP generally takes a non-exclusive license to use and promote the output of the project.

Risk and reward
Finally, it is also worth remembering that with the responsibility of owning and exploiting IP comes not only reward but risk.  Live products have running costs and require plenty of ongoing maintenance and development.  It is rare that the IP created in a project can simply be exploited for commercial gain without requiring ongoing investment in terms of time, effort and funds.  We therefore structure our contracts to recognise the input and risks taken by everyone involved in the creation and ongoing exploitation of our products and services, which we believe is ultimately of benefit to everyone.

4iP is pleased to announce that the team at School of Everything have developed another exciting product offering.  Not content with helping people who want to learn find people with interesting stuff to teach, the site now provides you the perfect opportunity to purchase lessons for your loved ones.
So if you think your mum could do with improving her memory, your brother could use some dating lessons or you’ve been bitten by the ballroom bug and fancy buying your other half a tango session the range of School of Everything gifts is perfect for you.

What’s more it lands at the perfect time of year, no more scratching your head wondering what to buy those who have everything for Christmas - everyone needs some new skills or hobbies.

So check out the site now and follow the guys on twitter @EverythingHQ to keep track of the growing range of gifts on offer.

Oh, and on the offchance you’re surrounded by super-perfect people with nothing more to learn, why not add a gift of learning to your own Christmas wishlist?  I’m already penning a letter to Santa asking for photography lessons and a bread-baking course.

Working at 4iP is great. Not only do we get to back great products and visionary entrepreneurs but we occasionally sponsor the odd event. Helping to facilitate people meeting, talking and thinking in the real-world hopefully sees more folks applying and receiving 4iP funding. This Friday London’s Conway Hall plays host to Playful09. Tickets are running out fast so I suggest you grab em while you still can!

ooo I’m not speaking but the awesome Lucy Wurstlin is.

Playful is a one-day event all about games and play - in all their manifestations, throughout the contemporary media landscape. Games mean different things to different people, but a fundamental desire to play is something we all have in common. Playful 2008 focused on the creative and cultural dimensions of game design as both discipline and craft - 2009’s edition will go all out, frolicking across disciplines like nobodies business, and celebrating the presence of play in all its forms and successful/daring/original and brilliant implementations.

As Jonathan Follett wrote in 2007:

“Playfulness, like usability, refers to a quality of user experience that can span many disciplines—information architecture, information design, interaction design, and graphic design. In our minds, however, many of us have relegated play to the realms of gaming or kids’ stuff and don’t consider play daily when designing. Though, in the digital space, satisfying the desire to play can be integral in determining the success or failure of a digital product or service. So it’s time for user experience designers to take play seriously. (And stop being so darn boring.)”

So how are we doing? Are we being playful enough? Let’s see eh?

Today we are confirming further investment in Audioboo, one of the first projects we backed.  As part of the deal, UBC Media, has also injected cash into the forthcoming Audioboo Pro product by buying 8 licences for it. This will help to both finish the product and establish a strong customer pipeline for the company.

Audioboo is an online platform which allows users to record and share audio from their mobile phones. Initially conceived and developed by Best Before Media, Audioboo uses geo-location data to provide individuals, local groups, institutions and commercial services with a set of tools to easily record audio and share it amongst multiple social networks. Take a look back at why we originally invested and some of the ways it’s been used in the past.

Audioboo Pro is a set of online tools that allows companies to moderate, edit and filter content that is created with the platform. Since launch in March 2009, Audioboo has reached a loyal and expanding number of users that have attracted well over 2.5 million listens since launch. Used both by everyday bloggers and celebrities like Stephen Fry, it has become the audio tool of choice for social media reporters and evangelists in the UK and beyond. Audioboo’s users have been out capturing audio from the most diverse sources from conferences and council meetings to maternity wards and memorial services.

Audioboo has also attracted a loyal following from professional media commentators and brands. The Guardian, Channel 4 News, the BBC, TechCrunch, The Telegraph and PaidContent have all used Audioboo to enrich their content.

The further investment from 4iP will help fund ongoing development on other mobile platforms and to establish a solid presence in the USA.

Seeing the strategic fit between Audioboo and their existing audio services arm, UBC has purchased 8 premium licences to resell to their existing customers. Audioboo has already sold a Pro version to The Royal Opera House and more customers are in the pipeline.

Daniel Heaf, Investor for 4iP, said:

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to follow our money in Audioboo. Helping innovative and early stage UK start-ups reach a greater level of financial and product maturity is exactly what 4iP is about. Our first round of funding helped Audioboo to market to prove both a user and market need. Now is the time to help Mark and his team fully realise that opportunity. Audioboo’s understanding of their users and UBC’s strong relationships with professional customers in the audio and radio broadcasting industries is an unbeatable partnership.”

Simon Cole, CEO of UBC Media, said:

“We think that Audioboo perfectly meets our criteria for investing the funds we have accumulated.  It is a technology which moves the audio content world on and can be key in allowing radio broadcasters a new way to engage with their audience.”

Press coverage so far:

http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2009/10/audioboo-gets-amplified-funding/

http://eu.techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/audioboo-gets-further-cash-from-4ip/

http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-4ip-gives-audioboo-more-funds-for-mobile-u.s.-expansion/

4iP are announcing an early investment in SCORES or the school competition results system. This pilot project, which will be based in the West Midlands, is the first stage of an ambitious project by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to commission a national database of school sports results.

In March of this year 4iP and Screen West Midlands put out a call for proposals around using the power of digital networks to engage, inspire and reconnect young people to sports in the UK. After wading through proposals and some brilliant face-to-face pitching we selected AllTeams to design, build and run the service.

The SCORES service will showcase the results of a selection of team sports played by local secondary schools based in the West Midlands. Over 40 schools based in the Black Country, Birmingham and Hereford & Worcester have been selected for the project.

While the site will be free for schools to use we anticipate the SCORES reaching financial sustainability should the DCMS go on to  commission a national database of school sports results as part of its ongoing commitment to building a vibrant sports culture across the UK, helping encourage children into sport and a healthy ‘playing-to-win’ culture into English sport at grassroots level. The national database could operate for all 5-19 year olds involved in the widest range of school sports.

Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Ben Bradshaw

“The School Sports website will be a key part of the Government’s ongoing drive to build a vibrant culture of competitive sport among young people. By harnessing the technology that young people are so familiar with we can help them to share their sporting successes, inspiring even more young people to get active.  Our ambition is to see a national website, so children in the West Midlandswill be blazing a trail for the rest of the country.”

From a 4iP investment perspective a key ambition has always been to use the power of digital networks to engage, inspire and reconnect young people and help them change their lives. The SCORES service, powered by AllTeams is a fantastic initiative that, if effective, will encourage more children in England to become involved in playing sports and I’m delighted that 4iP is able be involved at the pilot stage.

“You’ve taken the world of sticky promotional fliers, and shunted it into futuristic smartphone-land where you can do all the interesting social stuff.” Phabling beta tester.

Earlier this year 4iP put a little startup investment into Phabling, a mobile web app that makes it easier to find, share and record great nights out with your friends. Phabling is the first product of Glasgow-based digital start-up Sauce & Vinegar Limited, and 4iP invested along with Nesta’s Starter for 6 programme to develop a prototype, explore how it could be harnessed to help users discover other cultural treats on their doorstep and provide support to a new startup.

Since the investment, Heidi was invited to take part in mini Seedcamp and come away with more ideas on how to improve and develop the service.

Sauce & Vinegar was founded by Heidi Proven, moving from an eight year past working in broadcast television to bootstrapping her own startup. Founded to trial the Phabling concept, Sauce & Vinegar pitched to Nesta and 4iP to raise funds to develop a first stage beta.

Following many months of development, hard graft by a tiny team, and a steep learning curve Phabling is now in private beta. An app for desktop and mobile web, Phabling is about capturing snippets of events, which create your own personal guide to the best nights out. It also helps bring together those memories instead of seeing them lost in the black hole of status updates on your social networks. Venues can add events with a simple system dashboard, and users can interact with events and offers, either on their desktop or mobile web.

Phabling fills a gap for promotors, who want to have their events across social and mobile platforms, but don’t have the time to maintain all these spaces. Users and promoters also want higher levels of interaction, which Phabling’s beta phase has tested the potential for with its MySpace-based venue dashboard. This is where part of the revenue generation can take place to support the service into the future.

One of the beta’s core aims was to test the feel of a mobile app, using a mobile browser site. This approach enabled a broader test base to be accessed more quickly and with less expense. Ultimately, future versions of the app are well-placed to work across a myriad of devices, not just the device du jour. The Phabling beta illustrates the potential of the site, and tested the process of developing for mobile web.

Phabling will continue to be developed in private beta, tweaking the service following the key lessons learnt during the test stage with venues and users. Sauce & Vinegar are also scoping development of native phone applications to complement the mobile browser service, and pitching for funding to develop the product and be launched out of private beta.