Bluetooth Everywhere

Ok, let me give you a word of advice. If you’re planning on developing a mobile, wireless, or internet application, then the best way to deter users from using your product, game, or service is to force them them to sign-up or register. I know that it’s an industry standard to have all your users to sign-up or register, but believe me, today’s customers are tired of having to register just to use every new application or service that pops up.  Here’s some of the major reasons why people DON’T want to register:

1. The registration process could be time intensive
2. The user my be required to give personal information
3. The user my be required to give their email address (and you can spam them)
4. The user will have to try to remember yet another username and password pair
5. The user may have to read a long license, disclaimer, or privacy policy (which protects YOU, not them)

Currently, I’m at the point where I’m walking away from the sites where I have to sign up, unless it’s REALLY worth the hassle. And guess what? Your potential customers are doing the same thing.

So, what are we doing differently with BlogRadio (coming in June 2009 to the Ovi store)? Take a look at the beta version of the BlogRadio Desktop Manager, shown below:

The whole purpose of the Desktop Manager is to allow users to manage the list of blogs that they want to hear on the BlogRadio Mobile application. So, if we don’t force the user to sign up, the how can we determine the data coming from one copy of the Desktop Manager among the thousands of copies of the Desktop Manager?

Key codes.

If you look at the bottom-left section of the image above, you’ll see that we assigned a key code to this particular user. When the user initializes their mobile client for the first time, all they need to do is enter in the key code that’s clearly shown on their Desktop Manager. We now have everything that we need to send their personal blog list to their mobile client. And of course, the user is happy because they don’t have to register.

Now, if you’ve never written an application that uses the Bluetooth protocol with OBEX before, then (in my opinion) the effort can be a little daunting. Of course, The Bluetooth specification gives you plenty of options on how to send data, but the best way to send files between two devices is truly the OBEX protocol in the Bluetooth specification. Below are links to two articles that I wrote for IBM a few years ago, and the code provides some great examples for developers. Additionally, if you’re looking for help in developing a desktop application that uses Bluetooth and OBEX, then the example code in these two articles will be invaluable to you since all the examples were written using the JSR-82 API on the Java SE JVM.

The first article is entitled, “File transfer with JSR-82 and OBEX“, and shows you how to create an OBEX server using Java code. The second article is entitled, Creating the Bluetooth Music Store, and it shows you how to create an OBEX client application. At the end of second article, there’s another example application presented (which extends the basic OBEX client application) which is called the Bluetooth Music Store.

The articles got high ratings by the readers on the IBM site, so I figured that you would find them of interest. Of course, you can find links to all the mobile computing articles in the “articles section” on main JavaBluetooth.com site.

Ok folks, I can admit that it’s been a while since I made a blog posting. However, I want to assure you that I haven’t fallen off the edge of the planet. I’ve been working on an earth-shattering new mobile application that will completely change the way you use your mobile device. The application is named, BlogRadio, and it’s a very simple concept that will allow you to listen to your favorite blogs sites using a mobile device.

Now, if you’re like most internet users, then there are some blogs that you like to read. On the other hand, if you’re like me, then there are alot blogs that you like to read! So I created this application to allow anyone to listen to their favorite blogs while they’re on-the-go. I have alot more to announce about BlogRadio as we get ready to launch the application on the Ovi Store next month (including a free beta program), so stay tuned, an don’t worry, you won’t have to wait long for this app.