Assen: A living Internet of Things laboratory

14

October

2016

5/5 (1)

One of the most promising and important developments for companies is the Internet of Things. Generally speaking, the Internet of Things refers to the networked interconnection of everyday objects, which are often equipped with ubiquitous intelligence (Xia et al, 2012). Companies are starting to explore the possibilities this development brings along. It is the next big thing and experts predict that companies who will not follow, will be left behind. This is because the Internet of Things will increase the ubiquity of the Internet by integrating every object for interaction via embedded systems, which leads to a highly distributed network of devices communicating with human beings as well as other devices (Xia et al, 2012). In this manner, the amount of information companies can acquire will tremendously increase, resulting in better decisions, services and products, as well as new business models.

What not many people know, is that there is a city in the Netherlands with a huge sensor network. This city is Assen, the capital of the province Drenthe. The project group named Sensor City Assen states that the purpose of Sensor City Assen is “the realization and in-position posture of a metering network in rollers for various applications”. To be able to measure in all sorts of different environments, it is necessary to have a large network of connection points for sensors, which are distributed regularly throughout the area. At the beginning, the goal was to improve traffic flow and environment in the city centre and surrounding region. The project group did this by developing real-time intelligent traffic management systems making use of different sensing sources of real-time traffic data. For this purpose, a real-time traffic estimation and prediction model will be developed and deployed (Friso, Zantema & Mein, 2013).

After this project had been proven very useful, it is now used for many other researches and tests. Companies and organizations can use the sensor network to acquire information and test their applications. The sensor network in Assen is an unique “living laboratory” and can be very valuable for companies and organizations. Nevertheless, the name recognition and attention it gets is little. Maybe sharing this project with my fellow students, who are seen as the “the leaders and forerunners of tomorrow”, will change this.

The project group has made a video, in which they explain  Sensor City Assen. This video is definitely worth watching!

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Friso, K. Zantema, K. & Mein, E. 2013. Online Traffic Modelling in Assen: The Sensor City. Conference Paper, December 2013.

Xia, F. Yang, LT. Wang, L. & Vinel, A. 2012. Editorial Internet of Things. International Journal of Communication Systems. 25:1101–1102

Sensor City Assen: http://www.sensorcity.nl/

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Technology Of The Week (TOTW) Summary – Platform Mediated Networks and the private transportation industry

30

September

2016

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Dear fellow students (and others),

The subject of the week we were assigned to was Platform Mediated Networks. In our video, professor Robo, John and Susan helped explaining this concept in a specific industry we had chosen.

First, we introduced and explained Platform Mediated Networks. Generally speaking, a Platform Mediated Network is comprised of users whose transactions are subject to direct and indirect network effects, along with one or more intermediaries that facilitate users’ transactions. These network effects imply that the more active members a network has, the more value it creates for everybody in the network. We decided to look into this regarding the private transportation industry and we can differentiate between two kinds of vehicle sharing: car sharing and ride sharing. Car sharing means that a car owner lends out his car to somebody who requests it. Ride sharing means that somebody traveling to a certain place, is taking other people along that need to go in the same direction.

After this, we collaborated the main commonalities and differences between the two types of vehicles sharing. To do so, we took two innovative companies to illustrate each type: SnappCar (car sharing) and BlaBlaCar (ride sharing). The main commonalities are that both companies are two-sided platform mediated networks with a mixed structure. They share the same goal of make traveling less expensive, more efficient and less polluting to the environment. Furthermore, the business models of both companies are a mix between an open (everybody can rent (out) a car) and a closed (platform is solely provided by the companies) platform. Therefore, the two can be called proprietary platforms. The value by both companies is increased by two consumer groups (owners and renters). The bigger the groups, the higher the value of the platform. With regard to their revenue model, both companies get their revenue from taking a cut of 15% of the rental price. While at BlaBlaCar the renter only pays a set price for a ride, at SnappCar there are various costs for things such as fuel and insurances.

The main difference between the two business models can be found in the specific market they target. While BlaBlaCar targets customers who simply need transportation from A to B, SnappCar targets customers who are more specific about the means of transportation. This means that while BlaBlaCar is mainly competing with public transportation means like trains and buses, SnappCar is rather in competition with conventional car rental companies.

At last, we gave our prediction for the future. People tend to share their private cars with others, because they, just as the other users, don’t need a car, but a way of getting from A to B. Hence, more and more people may start using car sharing platforms. In addition, for reasons of practicability, efficiency and environmental concerns, access to a car will trump private possession of a car, resulting in less people owning a car. Businesses in the car and ride sharing industry will have to be prepared to adjust to this change. Even though this development will continue to boost growth in the industry in the short term, it will eventually result in less cars available on the supply side of car sharing platforms. Therefore, the private vehicle sharing industry might be only bridging the time between a world with lots of privately owned cars and a world in which privately owned cars have ceased to exist.

That summarizes our completion of the assignment. We hope that with this summary we gave you a better view of Platform Mediated Networks and vehicles sharing, SnappCar and BlaBlaCar.

Kind regards,
Johannes, Bernhard, Lisette & Guy

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Snapchat: A Platform Mediated Network success story

29

September

2016

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Snapchat was launched in September 2011. It is a mobile app you can download to your iPhone or Android smartphone, which you can then use to “chat” with friends through photos, videos and captions (so called “snaps”). An unique feature of Snapchat is that these photos or videos are “self-destructing”. After a few seconds after it’s been opened by the recipient, it gets deleted instantly (Moreau, 2016).

Another social media application is Facebook. Launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, more than ten years later it reported a revenue of 17.93 billion US dollars and an accumulated net income of 3.69 billion US dollars over 2015 (source: Statista). Like Facebook Snapchat is charging no costs to users. But a big difference lies in the fact that Snapchat didn’t had a clear business model. Years after the launch, people had no clue were Snapchat was planning to make money with. Therefore it was a big surprise that it had turned down a 3 billion US dollars offer from Facebook (Fiegerman, 2014), because Snapchat didn’t earned a dollar yet. At Snapchat they could only dream of revenues like Facebook had.

So why did Evan Spiegel, founder of Snapchat, refused this offer? The answer lies in the power of the network. Nowadays almost everybody has a smartphone and carries it everywhere at all time. Users are able to download Snapchat for free, making it very accessible. This resulted in a large user base of 200 million users. Compare that with other big social media platforms as Instagram (300 million), Twitter (302 million), LinkedIn (364 million) and Facebook’s (1.4 billion), and everybody will agree that Snapchat created an interesting and promising network (source: Investopia). The users of snapchat use the app a lot. Snapchat reported 100 million daily active users worldwide in May 2015 (source: Statista). The network is an essential part of the success of Snapchat and provide us with a good example of the network effect. The network effect is a phenomenon whereby a service becomes more valuable when more people use it (source: Investopedia).

After acquire such a large user base, Snapchat improved their app and service in such a way that money could be made. In an effort to move beyond just messaging, Snapchat introduced a new featured in early 2015 called “Discover”. After this update, the platform of Snapchat provides two services. First, there is the possibility for people to send each other snaps. Here users rapidly switch between the role of sender and receiver. Secondly, snapchat makes it possible for media publishers to send content to their large user base, using Discover. Here the role of sender and receiver are changeless. Discover allows media publishers to have daily content featured on the app. In this way Snapchat can make money, using the user base they built up.

Only a short time after Snapchat has launched Discover, it has been asking some top brands to pay $750,000 a day for placement (Adweek, 2014). In May 2015, only months after launching Discover, Snapchat was valued at 16 billion US dollars (Kosoff, 2016). Snapchat only provides the network, which illustrates the power of their network and Platform Mediated Networks in general.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Fiegerman, 2014:
http://mashable.com/2014/01/06/snapchat-facebook-acquisition-2/#S_oEAssOXmqj
Moreau, 2016:
http://webtrends.about.com/od/Iphone-Apps/a/What-Is-Snapchat.htm
Adweek, 2014:
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/snapchat-asks-brands-750000-advertise-and-wont-budge-162359
Kosoff, 2016:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/03/why-snapchats-valuation-is-better-than-it-looks
Investopedia:
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/061915/how-snapchat-makes-money.asp
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/network-effect.asp
Statista:
https://www.statista.com/topics/2882/snapchat/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/277229/facebooks-annual-revenue-and-net-income/

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