Happy Packages

Mobile technology companies Mobile Pie and Thought Den got together in 2007 to brainstorm ideas. “Some of our original ideas were great fun but not necessarily that practical,” recalls Thought Den’s Ben Templeton. “Slowly, we arrived at something more achievable, based around how we could deliver happiness to mobile devices.”

The original project used three platforms: text-messaging, Bluetooth, and GPS. However the project changed radically due to one crucial technological advance: Apple’s iPhone. “The fact that the iPhone got GPS during our time on the project made the GPS-based project the most promising,” explains Mobile Pie’s Richard Wilson. “The iPhone took out all the variables and put it all into one machine.”

This led to developing a format for creating GPS ‘treasure trails’ around a city. Richard’s colleague Tom Dowding explains how it works. “People create their own trails and send their friends on a personalised voyage of discovery around their favourite places. The creator sets up ‘happy points’ around town and guides the player there via clues delivered to their mobile. When they get to each happy point, the friend gets a ‘gift’ delivered to their mobile – perhaps an image, short film, some music or money-off vouchers.”

Both companies took residency at the Pervasive Media Studio as part of Media Sandbox and are hugely aware of the benefits this brought them. It showed them, for example, that they weren’t alone in pushing boundaries. Dan Course of Thought Den explains, “Finding this community of people all trying to do something similar, made us realise that maybe there is something to this technology that we’re playing with after all.” Tom adds: “Sandbox gave us confidence to become a company. It gave us the mindset that we were a business, not just freelancing in our bedroom.”

Related Links
Mobile Pie
Thought Den