This release is available in Spanish.
Through its Telecom Unit, Tecnalia has co-ordinated the m:Ciudad project, aimed at developing new services infrastructure using the mobile phone and which will enable companies and individuals to become superprosumers; i.e. consumers and producers of content at the same time. This is the first project with revolutionary mobile phone micro-services for the Internet of the Future. Participating in the promotion team in this line of pioneering research in Europe are companies such as Telefónica, Alcatel-Lucent, VTT, YDREAMS, FTW and the University of Surrey in England.
The m:Ciudad project will enable each user to develop and operate their own services using their mobile phone, in such a way that the consumer, besides becoming a provider of content, knowledge and information with a mobile device, will be able to offer himself or herself as a producer.
Currently, most mobile phones have multiple capacities: connection to the Internet, GPS, photo camera, video camera, audio recording, etc. What m:Ciudad proposes is to take full advantage of these capacities, in such a way that content can be generated and shared: creating a blog and locating it in the mobile phone itself, a user being able to locate their friends and viceversa, share routes in real time, and so on.
Business models
But m:Ciudad also focuses on the development of business models that exploit this new platform of services, in which the user takes on an active role in the value chain. This generates content and makes it available for access by other persons, in a user-friendly manner and with their own mobile devices. In this way, a multitude of potential services can be provided with relevant and updated information which is adapted to our instant preferences and to the circumstances in which we find ourselves at any time.
The platform involves simple but high value services highly focused on the needs and specific interests of users, from own services to social networks (MyBlog, MyCollection, or MyPreferences), or other creative services (MyGallery, MyPhoto, MyVideo) or commercial ones (MyService, MyAdd).