How many times have you turned round and said to someone “will you remind later me to…” - knowing full well you’re BOTH going to forget?

Of course, the more organised amongst us have ways to deal with these little ‘notes to self’ – from old fashioned pen and paper, to the latest digital devices, or just a damn good memory.

But unless you’ve got a memory like an elephant, or a degree in PDA instruction manuals, it’s likely that lots of those reminders, To-Dos and Eureka moments are going to slip through the net…

If you’ve ever read David Allen’s classic on leading a stress-free life - Getting Things Done – then you’ll know that your brain shouldn’t waste valuable space in your ‘mental RAM’ by just trying to remember stuff you can refer to somewhere else…

Well Jotterbot is a little gizmo that we have created, that lets you capture any thought on your mobile phone when you’re out and about, and sends it to your email so you can deal with it when you’re in front of your computer, cup of tea in hand. Whether it’s about sending your mum’s birthday card, picking up your dry cleaning, looking up the review for the camera you just saw in the shop window, downloading the i-player downloader your mate just told you about, or you’ve just ‘invented’ the next Google…  all you have to do is send a text to Jotterbot and he’ll send it onto your email. It’s dead simple.

It’s our little Christmas gift from Zygo for you – and don’t forget – Jotterbot’s not just for Christmas - you can use him whenever you like…

Check it out at www.jotterbot.com.

Enjoy!

Last Wednesday, Twitter announced that it was going to stop delivering SMS messages over its UK number, mainly because of the cost. As they say, and we well know, “Mobile operators in most of the world charge users to send updates”. We thought this was a shame, because as we have said before, we really like the Twitter service, so we stepped in and set up a web site called ZygoTweet to gauge the appetite of Twitter users for a low-cost replacement SMS interface that we, Zygo, would build. Response so far has been encouraging, and we’re well underway with our technical investigations.

We’re looking into developing a service that will use a version of the billing platform we use for ZygoHubs, with message credits bought in advance, because this will give users the best value. We’re not going to rush the development process, so we’re not promising a launch date yet - but watch this space for more news. And if you haven’t registered your interest yet, head over to www.zygotweet.com.

…..forget the BAFTAs, forget the OSCARs, we’re talking Mobile Awards!

It’s been an exciting 2008 so far here at Zygo HQ. We’re moments away from taking the covers off our new consumer ZygoHubs service (more about that in the next blog) but we’ve had a great start to the year already as we’ve been shortlisted for two industry awards.

The first is the UK based Mobile Marketing Awards where our advertising funded service has been short-lised for the best new offering from a mobile service provider. The second is the Nokia sponsored Mobile Rules! competition that searches for the best business plan for mobile businesses from around the world.

We know how tough the competition is - but fingers crossed…..

Welcome to ZYGO and thanks for exploring our new site. By now you’ll no doubt know ‘it’s a group thing’ although you might be asking yourself what really makes Zygo different?

In the beginning it was just a question - well two actually.

In the old world of ‘telephony’ life wasn’t perfect but it was simple. If you wanted to speak to someone - you called their work or you called their home. If you couldn’t get hold of them you’d speak to them later. If it was urgent you’d have to locate them. It was about calling places.Enter the mobile and it’s about calling or more often than not - texting - people not places.

But life’s not always about speaking to one person at a time. Sometimes we need to get a message out to more people more quickly, or more easily. Sometimes we need instant feeback or input from a variety of people in order to move on. Sometimes we just want to banter or show off in front of a crowd. In the real world this is catered for - we gather in groups socially, we attend presentations, we have meetings. In the online world we have forums, group emails, and social networking sites (although many of these have arrived since those early thoughts!).

So naturally the question was - isn’t there some way for groups to do this on their mobiles? And the more important question - and easily - so that the whole group would understand how to do it? The simple answers were yes. And no. What followed was a lot of research, hard thinking, and developing the insight that was to become the core of the ZygoHubs service. It is so simple it is obvious. Places have their own telephone numbers. People have their own telephone numbers. Groups don’t have their own telephone numbers.

So ZYGO does just that. We give groups a telephone number. A unique number that all of its members can store in their mobile phone address books like any other number. If any member in that group wants to contact the whole group, instantaneously, they just use the group’s telephone number.

So now people can communicate as a group over mobile. And easily.

This is not a flash in the pan idea - it is a service that we have researched, prototyped, trialled, developed, patented and above all tried to keep as simple as possible. We know that everyone that has used it seems to love it. And soon we will be launching it commerically. We’ve had a huge amount of help along the way and to all those who have invested their blood, sweat, tears and hard currency - we are very grateful.

Jeremy