layout: post title: "Yiibu: re-inventing microcontent" created: 1132258870 categories:

• yiibu
• bryan rieger
• microcontent
• andaman
• Vancouver
• Wireless, Cellular, and Mobile

Bryan Rieger came by the office yesterday and we caught up on where his new company, Yiibu is at. They just soft launched with an example of one of the first pieces of open microcontent that they're going to be working with. Their first microcontent stack is a guide to tropical fish, a wonderful nod to the original Mackerel Stack mentioned in Bryan's recent thank you post. It's been my pleasure to get to know both Bryan and Steph, and it's been amazing seeing the ideas they come up with.

What they're doing and thinking about is a new new thing, I believe. We're finally getting to the point where mobile devices can easily work with multimedia content, with new devices like the colour iPods and the Sony PSP turning out to be great platforms to carry around user-created content. The Creative Commons and the very concept of shareable content shouldn't be discounted either -- lessons like the Sony DRM debacle are only reinforcing that.

How can you share microcontent? How can you get paid for creating microcontent? What is the best way forward in terms of mobile platforms and the carrier walled gardens? These are the types of things that Yiibu is thinking about, and has started creating solutions for. There are still lots of issues, like truly portable metadata, and being able to source where content comes from, but this is exactly the space that Bryan and Steph are working in. Their doors are open if you want to pick up some smart consultants in this space, never mind start experimenting with some of the content and payment models they've put together today.

I'm going to write a longer review of Andaman: A Wee Guide to Tropical Fish and how it works on different mobile devices -- or at least, my iPod Nano and my Nokia 6630. Check it out yourself, and think about what universal microcontent means to you.