Interview with Mans Adler, Founder of Bambuser
Last week, I wrote about Mobile Video Streaming industry and the fact that many start-ups are after this niche and revolutionizing the way mobile media has traditionally worked. One of these companies is Bambuser based out of Sweden. The company was announced as one of the most innovative Internet companies in Sweden and Mans Adler, Founder has been named as 2008 top Internet entrepreneur in the country by the “Internet World” magazine. The company is also nominated for Tech Crunch’s Best Mobile Start up award in Europe. Mans was kind enough to provide oviapplications with firm and well-focused answers to questions I posed to him recently. He can be reached at via email adler [at] bambuser.com or on Twitter.com/Manster.
First, tell me a bit about your company. How long have you been in business? How did you get started in it?
Bambuser was funded back in early 2007, November the same year we launched our service bambuser.com and was first to bring live video from mobile phone to flash on the web.
It all started out as an mission on trying to democratize a technology that earlier only been available for a lucky few, namely the broadcasting buses owned by big broadcasting companies. The possibility stream live video from wherever to whomever gives people an enormous opportunity to share experiences. A long the road we realized that bambuser were much more than simply a broadcasting tool it was a great communication tool that could be used to increase decision-making based on the greater information that video brings than only voice.
Talk about Bambuser and how is it different from other broadcasting services?
The main thing about live mobile video streaming is the LIVE part, which many of our competitors are not so very good at. When something is live you get the opportunity to interact with the person holding the camera, and that is the real magic of live. Going over a couple of seconds in delay you loose that interaction and your technology cannot work a two way communication tool, which has proven essential in many scenarios such as for the rescue service where bambuser is playing a role today.
The difficult part here is that 3G network varies a great deal in bit rate from second to second, bambuser flexible adapts to these fluctuations not by buffering the data but by leaving it behind and in that sense jumping into real time. The data left behind is then upload afterwards and puzzled in at its right place on the time line.
What other apps are you working on and are you expected to make additional apps available to the Ovi store?
At the moment bambuser is our main focus and it is more on bringing the bambuser app to more mobile OS´s. However we are planinng making a viewing app where you can watch other live-streams on your phone.
In what ways do you think Nokia can improve the store?
First of all I think they are doing a great job. It is a natural step for Nokia since we today more and more choose our phones based on which applications it can run.
Since your app is free to download, what is your monetization and marketing strategy? what is going to take to win in this crowded space (mobile applications)?
As I mentioned earlier we are in example working with the rescue service we charge them for using our service. Also a lot of media companies also use our service. We could view this as some sort of robin hood business model, but it works due t the fact that both the rescue service as well as the media companies see the great potential when everyone is ready to broadcast live from the accident scene or the big news scenery.
What other apps do you have on your phone?
Skyfire, best browser especially for watching live bambuser broadcasts.
Google´s app (Search, Maps etc all in one)
Salling Clicker for controlling my mac wirelessly
Mail for Exchange, doing all my syncing with my google apps
Any tips for other developers that are just starting out on the Ovi platform?
Well basically focus on developing application that actually fill an already existing need at people.
