Adrian Porter – Head of Strategic Research

As promised, here is the first of a short series of follow-up blogs on our second Digital Finance Forum. Please feel free to comment below, and let’s keep the conversation going using #PrecSem.

After our initial forum in September last year we anticipated that compliance issues would be high on the agenda for delegates attending the forum yesterday at the Merchant Taylors Hall in the City.

With this in mind, as those of you who attended yesterday discovered, we attempted to recruit two, or three people with experience of dealing with compliance to help us facilitate a panel debate on the subject.
The irony was of course that none of the people we approached could get the clearance from compliance to participate. Excuse this use of text speak but,  – LOL!

However, we were determined to embrace the subject and tryto focus on positive approaches to common problems, rather than turn the morning into a ‘compliance-bashing exercise’.

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By John Campbell, Regional Director Scotland

Any improvement in digital connectivity speeds across Scotland will be very welcome – in rural communities and remote towns we still watch the Windows egg-timer ask us to be patient or we notice our mobile phones give up on that last download as we leave yet another 3G or even GPRS zone. Therefore, recent positive talk from those involved in the Scottish Government Action Plan and the use of terms such as ‘digital boost‘ in Scotland fill me with hope.

At Precedent we strive to deliver optimal digital experiences and we need the connectivity promised. Personally, and from a Precedent viewpoint, I can’t wait.  We are told the best internet speeds we can expect are up to 300MBPs with a current average of 6.8 MBPs.  Working recently in the north of Scotland I achieve a broadband speed of less than 1MBPs and even when home working (a working style keenly promoted by the Scottish Government), in commuting distance from Edinburgh, I get little more than 2MBPs!

What will 4G on mobile and the implementation of super fast broadband mean for Scotland? Opportunities for companies and the economy to grow through digital innovation and for rural communities to feel fully part of the worldwide internet cloud.  I look forward to seeing the timeline as the plan is launched, but 2020 does seem all long way off.

By Adrian Porter, Head of Strategic Research

No, I’m not talking about QVC or similar shopping channels, I mean using your mobile, tablet or laptop to buy something while watching the TV. According to Ofcom we all do it all the time anyway, sitting there with our laptops, or tablets surfing the web while watching the latest episode of our favourite series. So it’s no real surprise that it was announced today that BSkyB has invested significant amounts in Zeebox – ‘The new way to watch television’.

So what does it do? Well it’s an app for your device that knows what you are watching, it can show you what your friends are watching and lets you interact with them, and it offers you tags that are related to the programme you are watching which will link you to places where you can find out more about the subject, or buy stuff mentioned in the programmes you are watching. If Joe Bloggs is plugging his latest book it will provide you with a link to hop off and buy it before he’s told you the plot.

Is that something we will all be getting into soon? It could be.

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By , Head of Digital Marketing

Speaking as someone whose iPhone 3 (yes 3) is finally showing its age, I was certainly disappointed yesterday evening to find the iPhone 5 is still locked away in some Apple logoed vault in America.

However, after reading reviews and reactions from the tech industry, I must admit excitement over a couple of very cool advancements:

1. The iPhone Assistant came true!
Keeping its old name of Siri, after the start-up purchased by Apple last year for its amazing voice technology, the idea of a cyber assistant that can understand both my casual voice prompts and Canadian accent fills me with a sense of excitement. Especially for the clever ability is has for interpreting meeting appointments in your calendar and offering you reminders based on your location (so when I leave the office for my meeting it helped me reschedule, it also stops me from forgetting my Oyster card on my desk – nice).

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By , Head of Digital Marketing

As highlighted on Mashable, artificial intelligence (along with some truly remarkable voice recognition technology!) is coming to the iPhone 5 in the form of iPhone assistant and it’s going to mean big changes for businesses who aren’t already actively engaging in their wider web presence.

The iPhone Assistant has an eerily smart ability to take verbal, casually worded requests and turn them into search terms it then sorts and rates for you based on existing criteria. To see the old version in action, check out the YouTube video by Siri, a start-up acquired by Apple last year, who’s original app has been in development ever since in preparation for today’s iPhone 5 unveiling.

Because the assistant feature uses user generated web content to assess search results, whether or not someone liked your business on Facebook or put a favourable review for it on Qype will suddenly have the power to determine whether the assistant feature even bothers to show your listing to its human master.

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By , Head of Research

It is with a sense of relief, and not a little gratitude to my colleagues, that I can formally announce the launch of our latest sector report: Integration or isolation? – The digital landscape for UK financial services.

I have been producing big reports into various sector websites for over ten years and the title of this one had me reflecting on the process that we undertake to get these reports ‘to press’.

As always the research and data collection is really the easy bit. It can be done in isolation. Just put me in front of a computer, leave me alone for a few weeks with a spreadsheet and ‘the job’s a good ‘un’!

It’s the concept, design, proofing and coordination of the people who help me bring the reports together that presents the biggest challenge – the integration.

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By John Campbell, Regional Director

This year a core focus for financial institutions is to develop their transactional based services for smartphone devices. Statistics show us that smartphone usage is growing month by month, and 91% of UK retailers are saying that they expect a sharp increase in mobile sales as m-commerce develops.

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By Jamie Lemon, Interactive Developer

With some recent figures in from the industry we have been looking at some of the trends in mobile market share, from device manufacturer to operating system. Nielsen provide a very recent summary from a group sample which neatly bands the manufacturers with the operating systems:

For more details on this survey by Neilsen, see here.

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By John Campbell, Regional Director Scotland

There is no denying the appeal of the easy to use and increasingly popular range of applications available for mobile phones, which provide instant access to information anywhere.

As a result, the ability to promote your company and your message through such mobile devices is not only a necessity, it is the future. (more…)

By Simon Fryer, Developer

With the recent unveiling of the new iPhone, the world has once more focused all eyes and ears on this technological marvel, almost shunning any other phone in existence. Brands such as the HTC and Blackberry, which by the way are outselling the iPhone in North America, and are very quickly and efficiently releasing new handsets, upgrades and packages, albeit without the fanfare surrounding them, and are yet providing the hardware, software and usability to easily match the iPhone. (more…)