Investments
AudioBoo
Twitter without the typing!
Audioboo is a platform for the capturing and sharing of audio. Primarily aimed at the spoken word market, its mission is to become the dominant way in which consumers create audio and share voice on the web. The platform currently consists of an iPhone application and a website at http://audioboo.fm
Users can download the app for free from the App Store and start using it immediately to create audio up to free minutes in length. When they create an account (either in the app or at audioboo.fm) all their previous audio is gathered into that account.
Why 4iP? When we launched 4iP last year our ambition was to help identify projects that would deliver public value through the innovative and creative use of digital media as well as supporting the development of creative digital talent throughout the UK. To my mind AudioBoo delivers on both of these objectives.
Firstly, and most importantly, AudioBoo is an open platform to ignite the creativity of both users and developers. I like the way a simple mobile application puts the power of local / contextual broadcasting into peoples’ pockets. AudioBoo creates a range of exciting possibilities to use audio content to provoke, inform and entertain. Imagine the power of being able to record, find and share first hand accounts of major news events, public events or personal stories. However, this commission reaffirms our commitment to digital tools over content. Secondly, it’s great to invest to invest in small, talented and passionate UK outfits like BestBefore. As Tom Loosemore said to me the other day ‘I’ve lost too many friends to the West Coast’!
Business model: Audioboo provides a limited, free model with a ‘Plus’ version for enthusiasts and a ‘Pro’ version for businesses. In addition, the iPhone app is built using a full Read/Write API, which will be opened up to developers on other mobile platforms to build audioboo clients.
Where from: London
Before I go to Sleep
Provides a secure online chest where people can deposit any thoughts, worries or fears before they go to bed
The site is available during the evening to allow people to deposit their worries and sleep easy. At 7am the site closes and becomes In The Light of Day, showcasing what kept the UK awake the night before.
Why 4iP? MOT Your Life, mental health. Collaborative and participative.
Business model: Currently being worked up in development period.
Type: Initial Project
Partners: Screen WM
Where from: West Midlands
FestBuzz
What's the word on the tweet?
Crowdsourced Twitter reviews from the world's biggest arts festival
Why 4iP? New talent; amplifying voices; new modes of discovery of on- and offline content
Business model: Client-facing dashboard of statistics and reviews specific to their venue/show
Type: Initial project
Where from: Scotland
GymFu
WiiFit for the iPhone
The 4iP investment will be used to fund the next round of development in the action Fu series. The new Fit 5 iPhone application and the underlying platform, codenamed Fit5, will allow users to train and track their progress in a variety of exercises, enabling them to squeeze in the recommended 30-60 minutes a day in bite-sized chunks. To keep them motivated, users can follow and comment on the progress of their friends and share their own progress on the web.
GymFu are going to make being active fun and compelling – encouraging and empowering the population to take control of their fitness. Fit 5 is an always-present personalised mobile exercise system, empowering people to get active wherever and whenever they like.
The service will also feature a robot motivational personal trainer (the “FuBot”) and a FuBot Advanced which will create a customized workout schedule based on users’ preferred exercise timings and past exercise progress. It will prompt them to workout via email, Twitter, Facebook or Push Notifications (as requested by the user).
Why 4iP? From a 4iP perspective the public service remit is clear. Perhaps no other investment to date so explicitly makes the case for improving people's lives but importantly it tackles the problem in a '4' like way. The application and platform caters specifically for people doing small bursts of informal exercise not beefcakes in the gym. It encourages users to compete with others and makes the whole experience more entertaining.
Business model: micro transactions
Type: Product
Where from: London
HashDash
Reinventing the water cooler
HashDash is an integrated Twitter platform to organise, host and deliver automatically filtered discussion around live and scheduled programmes and events. The project empowers audiences to meet, interact and comment in real-time on a massive scale.
Why 4iP? Amplifying voices, rethinking journalism, discoverability. 4iP supported the early prototype and the development of a longer term business plan looking at the development of a social EPG.
Type: Initial Project
Where from: Yorkshire and London
Help Me Investigate
Connect. Mobilise. Uncover.
An online investigation site that allows the public to pose the questions that matter to them, and then work together to provide and answer.
Why 4iP? Wisdom of the crowd, holding power to account, participation and collaboration.
Business model: Not yet worked out
Type: Initial Project
Partners: Screen West Midlands
Where from: West Midlands
Mapumental
Beautiful, useful maps.
A unique software service that has the power to unlock complex spatial data to produce beautiful and useful maps. Through a simple but playful web interface Mapumental allows users to make better informed decisions on where to live, work and play.
Why 4iP? A high risk technology where the risks of failure were too high for traditional funds. Mapumental delivers a revolutionary new digital tool for users to make some of their most important decisions. Technically innovative computing 300,000 times more variables than it’s closest competitor!
Business model: SaaS
Type: Project
Where from: London, Cambridge, Birmingham
MirrorMe
The Facebook app that shows you how your current bad habits f(m)uck up your future face
A Facebook, Bebo, MySpace app that ages and morphs your profile pic based on what habits you tell it about.
Why 4iP? New talent; Health/MOT Your Life; youth oriented; Inspire change in people's habits
Business model: Anonymisation of data for resale
Type: Project
Partners: Northern Film and Media
Where from: North East (Middlesbrough)
MyBuilder
Squeezing out cowboy builders
MyBuilder is an online marketplace that brings together consumers and tradesmen, offering an open and transparent platform that promotes and supports high-quality work. Working on a principle of accountability through feedback, tradesmen are rated on their workmanship by those who hire them, making it easier to find high quality builders and avoid rogue traders.
Why 4iP? 4iP’s investment will fuel rapid, consumer-focused expansion and catalyse this UK start-up to build a dominant market position and become a ‘go-to’ brand for UK consumers. This is consumer protection for the 21st century. 4iP will leverage the successful channel4.com/homes website to drive traffic and increase MyBuilder's profile.
Business model: Marketplace
Type: Equity
Where from: London
Newspaper Club
Helping People to Make their own Newspapers
Newspaper Club is a tool to help people make their own newspapers using online content.The product is designed to make it really easy for any group of people to take content from the web and print it in a basic newspaper format. It might be a group of birdwatchers, the residents of an estate campaigning for improvements, or a yearly "best of" printed product for obsessive bloggers.
Newspaper Club will combine the ease and collaborative power of digital with the accessibility and friendliness of the physical. The quality and breadth of online content is growing but 30% of people don't yet have access to the web and for those that do sometimes reading online is not as pleasurable nor as practical.
Why 4iP? At 4iP is passionate about getting the best of the web to a wider audience and, when combined with initiatives like Talk About Local, Newspaper Club will give communities - both online and offline - a more effective voice. Revenue for Newspaper Club will be generated by taking a small percentage off the the printing price as well as selling bespoke solutions to larger corporate clients requiring a more sophisticated service.
Business model: Transactional
Type: Product
Phabling
What's on, Who's there?
A mobile web service that shows you the hottest tickets in town, gives frequent users special offers and brings together all your digital relics from nights out with your friends, instead of leaving them to be lost in the black holes of Facebook streams.
Why 4iP? New talent, discoverability on and offline
Business model: Freemium, subscription from venues
Type: Initial project
Partners: Nesta, Company's own bootstrapping
Where from: Scotland
School of Everything
Reorganising education
A platform for informal learning that connects those with something to teach with those wanting to learn. From yoga, belly dancing, driving and languages to martial arts, knitting and piano there's a teacher out there for everyone.
Why 4iP? School of Everything has huge potential to disrupt traditional means of accessing learning, using the transparency of the internet to empower choice and inspiring people to try new things.
Business model: Marketplace
Type: Equity
Where from: London
School Report Card
The Truth About Schools
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 as only 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 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 it is really like - the atmosphere, internal organization, 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 takes the user journey on 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 be providing a positive step next step that is localised and appropriate.
Why 4iP? 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.
Business model: Print on demand / freemium
Type: Product
Where from: London
SCORES
Helping kids get fitter
SCORES is a platform for recording and interacting with school competition results. This pilot project 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. The SCORES service will initially 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.
Why 4iP? 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.
Business model: Government contract
Type: Project
Partners: Screen West Midlands, Department of Culture, Media and Sport
Where from: West Midlands
ScraperWiki
Unlocking public data
ScraperWiki is a platform for scraping, storing, aggregating and distributing data sets, legally.
Why 4iP? ScraperWiki unlocks publicly useful data sets hidden away in unstructured and unusable formats on the web. This service will bring together a community of journalists and developers to use their respective skill sets for the betterment of society.
Business model: Freemium, Consultancy services
Type: Full project
Where from: Liverpool based, with developers around the country
Slugger O’Toole
Non-partisan politics with partisan voices: extending a platform for local journalism
4iP is reengineering the Slugger O'Toole platform to extend its reputation for 'playing the ball, not the man' in political coverage at a hyperlocal level in other areas around the world, and creating a more sustainable business designed to support a free online service.
Why 4iP? Amplifies voices, especially those of the commenters in the 'general public', as well as the authors; Exploring sustainable models of local political commentary and journalism
Business model: Consultancy and support on engaging communities and local polities in young democracies; Freemium content for those working in the political sphere; Advertising
Type: Full Project
Partners: NI Screen
Where from: Northern Ireland
SplashPath
Making Swimming Social
Splashpath is an online platform and mobile offering with one clear goal; to get as many people enjoying the health benefits of swimming. Splashpath is the brainchild of Dan Morgan sometime music video director turned iPhone developer.
Splashpath's core functionality will help people find their local pools and check opening times. Trust me, there's nothing more frustrating than being kicked out 20 minutes in to make way for the 60+ aqua jogging session. Swimmers will be able to record their swims and unlock achievements through completing goals and competing with other users.
Why 4iP? Firstly there's is the size of the opportunity. Over 5.6 million adults regularly swim in the UK. Not only is swimming the most popular sporting pastime, it is also the sport that 12% of the adult population would like to do more often. Despite it being the most popular sporting pastime, it is currently poorly marketed and hasn't really embraced new technologies. Swimming websites don't help either. Most pool timetables are available as downloadable word documents or PDFs. SplashPath develops a new route to market and introduces new swimming opportunities via new technology.
Secondly, there is the clear public service benefits. 4iP has always had a stated its interested in funding ideas that improve the health and fitness of it's users. By making swimming more accessible and more fun Splashpath hopes to coax the metaphorical whales off the beach. With free swimming now available to anyone under-16, there has never been a more perfect time to encourage people to seek a healthier lifestyle.
Business model: LeadGen
Type: Product
Where from: London, Birmingham, Sheffield.
Talk About Local
Talk About Local is a project to give people in local communities up and down the country a powerful online voice. We want to help people communicate and campaign more effectively to influence events in the places in which they live, work or play.
Why 4iP? 4iP were keen to fund this project as it aligns so closely with our investment criteria. Firstly, it stimulates alternative voices bringing fresh perspectives to the web. This project is all about giving those without a voice online a chance to get themselves heard. With the emphasis on creating local sites we hope the majority of the sites will be local in flavour helping to fill the gap being left by the retreat of traditional local journalism.
Secondly, by giving voices to local activists the project continues to hold those with money and power to account. Again we hope this will take up and enhance the job once done by local newspapers. But let me stress the hyper local sites on Talk About Local have a mutually reinforcing relationship with newspapers. For instance, Will Perrin’s www.kingscrossenvironment.com regularly breaks stories that the Islington Gazette, Camden New Journal, Islington Tribune and occasionally the Evening Standard run to a wider audience with attribution. The hyper local news site augments the commercial media models by providing it with free content.
Last but not least we believe TAL has a sustainable business model at it’s heart. There are customers who will pay for a Talk About Local service to deliver community websites on the ground. William’s plan is to sell TAL services to major national organisations on a consultancy basis. There have already been a number of exciting pre-launch conversations with potential customers and we’ll post more news on this blog as it happens.
Type: Project
Partners: Screen West Midland, UK Online Centres
Where from: London, Birmingham, Sheffield.
Tweeview
Generating online reviews through Twitter
Why 4iP? Harnessing the wisdom of the crowd.
Business model: Developing tiered pro-account subscription model with data tracking and visualisation.
Type: Initial Project
Partners: Screen WM
Where from: West Midlands
Yoosk
Letting you put the questions to people in power.
Yoosk is a platform that allows the public to pose questions to those in power, and then rate the answers that are given.
Why 4iP? Holding power to account, participation and collaboration.
Business model: Providing bespoke Yoosk platforms to media and government partners.
Type: Project
Partners: Screen West Midlands
Where from: West Midlands
You Booze You Looze
How much is your night out costing your wallet, waistline and liver?
An iPhone app that encourages the user to input their actual consumption in return for some fun games to show the effect of booze on their body.
Why 4iP? New talent; Health/MOT Your Life; Mobile games
Business model: App Store receipts
Type: Project
Partners: Scottish Screen (Creative Scotland)
Where from: Scotland
#FC
Football banter, live from the ground, by the fans and for the fans
An early 4iP project looking to explore the idea of commentary from the terraces of Norwich City Football Club using Twitter.
Why 4iP? Helping to amplify voices from the crowd, exploring football journalism via Twitter.
Business model: Advertising
Type: Initial project
Where from: Norwich
