Transcripts For KNTV Press Here 20141207 : vimarsana.com

Good morning, everyone. Im scott mcgrew. This small hunk of plastic is a beacon. This one is manufactured by estimoten. Retailers stick them all over their stores as they broadcast a lowpower bluetooth signal to your cell phone. You stand near the shoes, get coupons for shoes. Bottom line, beacons track you. And this model from aruba networks, there are 1,000 of these placed strategically throughout levi stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers. Now, they wont give you coupons for shoes, but they will give you guided step by step destinations from your feet to the hot dog stand. Our guide is john miller, Vice President at adobe and an expert on the business use of beacons, joined by John Schwartz of usa today, Colleen Taylor of tech crunch. Before we get started, i need to ask you. Adobe, wait a minute. Those are photoshop guys . Adobe, its an interesting story. A lot of people know us for acrobat. Adobe has become the leader in Marketing Enterprise software. You guys are big data guys. Were big data. I know some people are worried about the privacy implication. I think these are cool. They can guide you through the airport, help you find the gate because they know where you are. Very true. Beacons are simply a way to create more intimacy between the brand and a couple. Its a way to know a little bit more about the consumer, or as i think about it, tell a brand more about yourself so that the brand can do more for me. Now, what else does it know about me . When i walk past these beacon, what data do you take . Well, its sort of programmable. But essentially a beacon is a little device that transmits a signal that can communicate with a mobile phone, for example, and just say im here, im here. And im in this location. So as a retailer, you would know if im in the shoe section, the shirt section, the pants section, etc. The beacon transmits a number. My cell phone would say, what does it mean when i see beacon 123456 . It means youre in macys. And the app would understand that beacon signal. And essentially the app can make a decision based on that signal. A very nonthreatening little device. Are they in the parking lots of levi stadium . Thats the one thing, i used to always get lost in the parking lot at candlestick because theres no signage around. Would you have Something Like that in the parking lot where you really do need to get to your car quickly and get out . Sounds like a wonderful use case. I would love to see these all over the city to tell me about parking, whats an open parking spot. And guide you to it. Macys says these are now in every single macys store all over the united states. And there are a number of other ones. Im wondering about some of the department stores. Because this is very convenient and seems like its safe and theres not a privacy concern. Were having breaches in every conceivable brand. We have sony, we have target. When youre in target and you have one of these devices, you feel like youre a target at target, right . So im wondering, who are some of the stores and have any of them experienced any type of breaches and is this just comparing apples to oranges . I think its fair to characterize these and say this is early. A lot of people are talking about this. The installations that were seeing are still what i would call experimental stage. Yes, there are some broad distributions of these, but i think were very early in understanding what kind of data this gives to a retailer or even a manufacturer, and how that data will be used to customize the individuals experience. Were seeing a lot of these start out as kind of couponing opportunities. I saved a coupon on my phone, now im in the store. Wouldnt it be nice to remind the user that they saved a coupon for this particular store while theyre in the store. I think the use cases were just really scratching the surface. Its about creating intimacy with the consumer. One quick other question. So im getting a signal. Can i set the parameters of how close like for instance, if im in a Grocery Store and im getting 50 coupon offers, like im getting a ton of email, can i set limits on how you know, the control that these apps are giving to consumers, i think are really pretty good. You have to download the app. As you download the app, you have to set the permissions about whether or not youre going to make your location available. And whether youre going to make your location available when the app is open, when the apps not open. So theres a lot of controls that are given to the consumer on the download process. I think the use case youre talking about, this will bear out in how they actually get put to use in a store. If you get bombarded the irony is the more of them are there in the store, the less likely you get bombarded because they can then talk to each other and understand okay, its a much finer sort of where is he. Well, hes one foot away from the beacon as opposed to five. Youre under surveillance. Just pings, which i think is fascinating. One of the things i think would be an interesting use is in a 49ers stadium or whatnot, to watch traffic flow on foot and say we need more doors here. Because look at how they all get crunched up. That happens at that stadium. I went to the first game against the bears and there were definite traffic bottlenecks everywhere. Gates that were closed that should have been opened. So i think maybe they probably learned because the second time those issues were no longer there. I think its fascinating. Where were going to see the use cases starting out are going to be those that deal with retail, those that deal with helping consumers buy more things. Thats what retail likes to do. Yes. Where these start out. I started in the web analytics business. This was ten, 12 years ago. What we put on web pages is called a beacon. And all it does is say hey, this web page got loaded. Now what do i know about that individual, and what theyre perhaps looking for . Theyre shopping for shoes. That gives them more shoes information. Whats the life span of Something Like this . How long does it last . Physically . Yes. I think its about two years. Because its lowpower bluetooth, and the other thing is if you attach them to the wifi network, theyll attach to the wifi network and say beacon number 75 is running low on its battery, which is miraculous. We do live in the future. Thank you for being with us. Thank you, pleasure. Up next, the hightech founder reveals something few founders are willing to admit, when press here continues. Welcome back to press here. Have you ever had a good idea for an app, kind of thing that would make you millions, only you dont have the faintest idea how to make an app . That would make you something called a nontechnical founder. Chris toy is. I mean this in just the nicest way i can. A nontechnical founder. He is the ceo of bindle, a group app. Not only are you the nontechnical founder, you are the sole founder as well, so you havent got someone youre leaning on with this. So explain this to me. Ive got a great idea how to app. I dont know how to code. What do i do . Its something that comes out frequently. Weve all had those moments before i started to bindle. You dont need to code to use your idea. Theres a lot of free tools you get to lock up the prototype without ever having to write a single line of code. A lot of them you can get a working app without having to do any coding at all. And really get to the point where what youre looking for is the confidence to take the leap, do your job, go ask for money, all those kinds of things. And you can really get there now in a very short amount of time, just by spending the time to look and then outsource . Where do i go from there . Yeah, we outsource our development to a team in hong kong. Its a team that ive used for different years over the years. I trust them, so its a little bit different. Their entire industry, entire market is to help put you in touch with someone who knows how to code. So you obviously got funding for your company. Was this your First Company that you founded or was it the second . Because im wondering how do you say i have this great idea, but i dont have any technical expertise. So this is the first venture, first investorbacked company. Its not a venture round yet. But ive started two businesses prior that were small businesses, profitable from day one, that i built up. So they had track records. Yeah. And its a really important thing. If i went in and said hey, im planning to start a record level, i shouldnt be given money because theres no reason on paper for me to do that. You have a history. Those people who dont know soccer very well, youre fairly wellknown. Ive built up websites with 20, 30 Million Viewers per month. I have clothing that ive designed. You just cant code. I just cant code. Keep bringing it up. I think weve moved away from startups being about just technology. We call them products now. And technology is just one part of a product, let alone one part of a good product. Theres a lot of great engineers out there building terrible products. As youre saying, this is something that clearly youve kind of overcome. I imagine at some point in the development of your company, maybe when you were talking to investors or potentially employees, that they were worried you were outsourcing the development. People have this idea like fat head. Its kind of a dirty word in silicon valley. How did you overcome that . I think we overcame that by doing more work up front. If i say hey, wouldnt it be great if x, y, and z still give me a check, im asking for a significant space when i have a background. If i walk in there as i did with a minimum viable product, im a marketing guy, so ive done a ton of market research. You can spin a narrative why they should invest or why they should believe in your company. My dad was an engineer. He did start companies, but there were always nonengineers with him. Because if it was up to him, they wouldnt know what the market was. My company before this was a Marketing Agency for startups. Different sizes. They came to us because theyre like, well, i booked this product. It sort of works. But were not going to use this, what do i do . It doesnt really matter if i could code, because these guys could code and theyre still stuck. It just reverses the order of things a little bit. How do you evaluate the Technical Team . How can you tell that the engineer that you are contracting to build your app actually know what is he or she is doing . Great question. That is one of those things where depending on who you are or where you live, im lucky enough that i have a lot of people who i know and might not work who are engineers and a very high level. My brother is an engineer. I have a lot of people that i can speak to. Its probably a half dozen people that i speak to on a regular basis specifically for that. But i dont know what i dont know. I also dont know what i dont know about mobile ui design. I also dont know it about many other things. There are a lot of analogy. I dont know anything about manufacturing, but that wouldnt stop me from contracting with an asian manufacturer to build something. Or i run a soda company, but im not a chemist. If you make a film, you can be the best writer in the world, but if you dont have the right director at what point do you say, all right, now we need an engineer . I need a guy, or a woman, equally, a person on staff . Its a great question. I spend a lot of time managing our technology resources. Its not Something Like i cant code. Forget it. You have to pay a lot of attention to it. I spend a lot of time looking into the different back ends that we could be using. I understand the pros and cons of them. I cant build them, but i know the pros and cons of them. Were moving to a face where its helpful for us to have someone in San Francisco that i can sit down with and be like oh, move that over here and just be with us. You make these as you go. And nowadays, its no different to any other part of your company. You manage your marketing, you manage how youre going out to investors, p. R. , all those things are things to be managed. I think youll find that they like how lean your startup is. Yeah. We have a lot less overhead. And people the reviews that weve got in from App Store Review sites and the app stores are very, very glowing. You know, five star. So its not hard for me to say it wasnt a problem because people really like the product. Theyre going to keep on going. We wish you the best of luck. Thank you for letting me tease you. The future of passwords when press here continues. Welcome back to press here. I want to talk to you something about authentication. The bank needs to know you are you and you do that by providing a card and a pin. Someone who knows your pin cant do anything without your card. A number of websites now do this, too. Twitter asks me for my password but also sends me a fourdigit code to my phone and i have to have both to access twitter. This is the ceo of a company that provides this technology to hundreds of different websites and services. I suspect it provides it to twitter, but youre not going to say. Youre going to be secure about that. We do it at a lot of companies. Nine of the top ten web properties. Hundreds of others. How much safer does twofactor authentication make me from potential hackers . Do you have a percentage of how much better it is . So, it is really safe. I mean, the reality is they have to have your mobile device in their hands as well as your user name and password and coming from a trusted device. It makes it really safe. Is it going to stop everyone . Nothing does. But its very safe. There are a number of journalists who are worried about getting their twitter hacked or their facebook. They need to be them. What percentage of users i mean, i think were more sensitive to that sort of thing than most people. What percentage of users are now using double authentication for things like twitter or a gmail, that kind of stuff . So it used to be zero. So its growing. Its not where it should be yet, though. So from understanding tecat th the consumer leavell, about 2 3 of those have turned it on. So its growing, though. Events like the security breaches, the constant flow of security breaches, has that had any effect whatsoever on consumers using huge. How significant . When tim cook cops out after the icloud issues and says everybody should use twofactor authentication, thats awesome for our business. What were finding that right now is that so right now, twofactor authentication is an optin program. A lot of our big strategic clients are considering making it an optout. When that happens, thats when its really going to take effect. So when a couple has to specifically say i dont want my accounts protected, thats when its beginning to really change. Is it something they have pate patented . Why would a company that has its own engineers use your company to make twofactor authenticati authentication . Thats a great question. Were in a business thats incredibly easy to do badly, but its really hard to do well. If youve got users in every single country in the world, and has to be localized in every single language, were about the only company you can come to to get that done. So we operate in every country and territory. Were localized in 87 different languages. Well do about 5 billion authentication events for our clients. If i were the ceo of evernote, i would say make this, but we need to cover the guy in zambia that uses a certain kind of cell phone carrier that weve never heard of in the correct language. That would be something i would like to hire you to do. And we have intelligence on every single phone number in the world, so we can help our clients make determinations as to whether they want to do business with that person. I find that fascinating. You have intelligence on my phone number . On every phone number. And it tells you whether im a Trustworthy Customer . It doesnt tell us whether youre trustworthy. It tells us whether that phone number would have the likelihood of being associated with fraudulent activity. So phone numbers make them very unique. Like what . So for example, whos your carrier . Verizon. How long have you been with them for . Six years. In a 408 area code. So contrast that oh, right. To a phone you can buy from walmart today with no name attached to it, with no history, no nothing. So you take the attributes from that phone, versus the attributes to your verizon device, wildly different. Bad guys dont use verizon phones, simple. What would you then tell the bank of america or whatnot okay, hey, this is a burner phone and it came from some region that we think has a lot of fraudulenting ativi ing acti. What are you then telling them . We let them make a determination. A lot of our cliepts we have a patented product i. D. , which returns information back. A lot of our clients will block that phone, and theyll say, you know, if its a burner phone, theyll say when you get a real phone number, come back and try again. That makes sense. And you mentioned a couple of years ago, twofactor authentication was nowhere near as common as it is now. Why was that the case . Scott mentioned this is something weve been doing at atm for years. Twofactor authentication has been around forever. Employees have a dongle that produces a code. Its a big pain in the butt, as everyone knows. The fob was a terrible thing. Had maybe 30 seconds to type in seven numbers. Extra device youve got to carry. Plus, that would never work tecum level. So what they did was to make that process really simple by turning your mobile device into that same security token. And everybody carries it. Mobile devices are never more than three feet away from you. If youre accessing your bank on a mobile device, you cant double factor authentication it. Theres lots of things that take place with mobile devices. A little over 50 of people use a pin lock on their screens. Almost half dont, which is just mind boggling. Users still use 1234 for their password because im thinking if youre dumb enough to do that, somebody could steal your information. Even if you do have dual authentication. At least if you have twofactor authentication, they still cant access your account. Because its a onetime code as well. Because it requires a code. So the problem with all the breaches that are happening these days is if hackers go in, theyll hack someone, get 100 million user names and passwords, publish them on the web. So it doesnt matter how complex your password is. That doesnt help you. Everyone can cutandpaste. So as long as you have twofactor authentication turned on, they still cannot access your accounts. Youll receive a pin code on your phone going i didnt do that. Someones trying to access your account. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. Press here will be back in just a moment. Welcome back. John schwartz interviewed stephen hawking. I did. I did. It was a long process, though. And thats part of the story. So intel in conjunction with his movie not his movie. The movie about him. The theory of everything. Theyre developing a technology to make it easier for him to communicate. So as it stands now, its a very long, torturous process for him to communicate through his computer, multiple steps, and if theres a misstep, he has to go back to the againing. They came up with a system that makes it easier for him to converse with people. Do you feel any of the answers were canned . You know, actually, i asked a couple of questions that were far off topic. Theres a pink floyd album that came out and theres a song about him. I asked him about that, thinking he cant have a canned response. I was amazed about how honest, for somebody as intelligent and engineeringbas engineeringbas engineeringbased as he is, theres a nice voice. Thats the way he can communicate through word. It was a conversational style. And it actually had a certain pace or rhythm to it. It was really nice. So when i read it i hate q as, by the way. Id rather write, but with him i couldnt. One of the reasons i liked doing it with him is because theres that sincerity or honest that seeped through. John schwartzs interview with stephen hawking, of which we are both very jealous, is in usa today. Thanks for the plug. Youre very welcome. Thank you. Thats our show for this week. My thanks to my guests. Im scott mcgrew. Thank you for making us part of your sunday morning. Sponsored by barracuda. And City National bank, to help Northern California businesses grow. Welcome to the u. S. Bank nbc sports report. Heres your host, jimmy roberts. I had again. Out to north carolina. First your sports headlines beginning with College Football and today the Game Selection committee finally makes his decision on which four teams will make the 50 ever playoff and go on