I first found out about Woobius, a startup company set up by architects and techies, at a be2camp event that, appropriately, I was attending via the internet. Now Woobius’ little multiplatform real-time-visual-chat application Woobius Eye has won the MEX 2010 award, just another step on a road to inevitable stardom.
So What’s a MEX Award?
Mex stands for Mobile User Experience, a conference held every year to showcase the best innovation in the field of helping users of mobile technologies. The MEX awards are a challenge to students, designers and companies to create the most cutting edge innovations. Winning a MEX award means that you have embraced the future of wireless connectivity and made it into a real opportunity for your users.
Woobius Eye won the Professional Category of the MEX awards, and the judges noted:
“We chose Woobius Eye because it represents a great multi-platform customer experience and focuses on the needs of a group of users – architects in the field – who can really benefit from new ways of combining visual and audible communication.”
Those of us who have been watching Woobius Eye for some time are aware that its usefulness will extend beyond architects into a much wider world, including other construction professionals, other professionals, in fact anyone who needs to explain something to someone some distance away, when an image speaks a thousand words. Paul Wilkinson commented recently that it would be an invaluable tool for the St Johns Ambulance Service, for example.
So what is Woobius Eye?
Woobius Eye takes a simple problem – explaining something to someone on the phone – and finds a simple solution – draw it for them on your iphone/laptop/computer. And because mobile technology is interactive, they can draw too.
Woobius doesn’t use any complex gimmicks, it simply lets you annotate a photograph that you can share in real time with someone else you’re talking to on the phone. ‘Look, this is what I mean, that thing over there’ – such a simple idea, solving a simple problem. Can you think of a way to use it?
You can see a demonstration of how Woobius Eye can work in this video – and visit the Woobian YouTube Channel for more.
If you’d like to meet the guys from Woobius, Bob Leung @bobleung (and maybe Daniel Tenner @swombat too) will be at #be2campEast – a half day event on Property and the Internet on 24 June at the Essex County Cricket Ground. Why not come along and see a great new application in use?
And in the meantime you can try out the Woobius Eye beta online now.
Cartooon by Bob Leung
The Masked Architect from Woobius blogs about the award over on their blog