Clickboards are made in Flash.   The input material such as phone numbers go into input boxes just as if you were making equations.  These boxes are part of the Flash programming.  The material has a destination, the destination can be a URL.  At the particular receiving box at this URL, the data is received,  just as if a mathematical part of an equation was received for computation.  Both the phone number and coupon code.  With this information, the coupon picture is uploaded to the users feed.

So this all happens with Flash and is very important in the development of the mobile applications.  With Flash, this is very easy.  But as you will see below, the table has not yet turned and more understanding of HTML5 needs to be made to understand if the same thing can be done as stated with the Flash entry and accepting boxes.

http://on.mash.to/i7r6bk

It’s been an interesting year for Adobe Flash. The technology has withstood criticisms from Steve Jobs, has been heralded by RIM and is now available on Android handsets.

Adobe is doing a lot of work to help make Flash more suitable for mobile platforms; the problem is for Flash to really work well on these devices, existing Flash content needs to be reoptimized. For many developers or companies, if a site has to be retooled anyway, it is simply more pragmatic to adopt a solution like HTML5 that will work on a wider variety of mobile platforms.

Flash 10.1 was a big improvement, and I expect that Flash 10.2 will be even better, but I still don’t think Flash is going to become a massively adopted mobile technology.

That isn’t to say that Flash is dead — or that on the right platform (like the BlackBerry PlayBook),Adobe Air runtimes won’t be perfectly suitable. On the whole, I still think that the momentum that HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and native libraries have in the smartphone and tablet space is unlikely to be usurped by Flash.

This graph shows the amount CPM’s cost per industry, some a little over $12 and some only $3.  I will have to go back and reference this factoid but only 2% of all ads on the Internet are clicked on only once.  So if we take the first ten industries giving us ten industry CPMs and say ten advertisers per industry that would give us 100 ads and 100,000 views.  Now only 2 of those ads would be clicked on.  The total for the ten industries is $76.13 and the total for the 100 ads comes to $761.30 for the 100,000 views meaning each click is then worth $380.65.  I could fly to Singapore for that.

Basically the cost per click method is way more valuable than CPM.  I don’t know why more people don’t use it!

This is starting to really get somewhere.  The interactivity is what it is all about.  The actions on the ad can be tracked.  However there is no user input.  I’m sure this will eventually be incorporated.  Another down play is that you still need to be directed to a third party website in the end for various options.  I know that is most advertisers point, but in the end it is unnecessary and is a draw back.

I want Clickboards to be much like the Google Gadget Ads and I think if I want to start I should probably just create them and become a client of Google and just use them the way I want to.  It’s not hard with this format to promote discounts and relay enough information to promise the user that when they disclose some information about the product they like that the next time they go to the store to purchase the advertised item, the discount will be waiting there for them.

We also talked about the difference between SMS and MMS.  It seemed common that this idea worked better through MMS and that most phones are capable of receiving MMS.  We did argue about the potential plagiarism rights an SMS creates.  He was saying that people can simply send themselves coupons, thereby creating cause for theft.  He was saying that waiters can simply send themselves a bunch of messages, or even in the first place not tell that the SMS was used and pocket the money.  This led me to the validation step.  Currently his process does not have a validation system.  I suggested that once the coupons have been sent to the user, that they would be required to validate the coupon in front of the waitstaff thereby expiring the coupon from use by that user.  The total validated coupons received for that client could then by submitted at the end of the week or month for their records, eliminating theft from waitstaff.  But he saw that people would not pay the extra money to send one more message to validate their coupons.  This led me back to the fact that I wanted to change his model to be free to the user.

Regardless each message is locked in to costing RMB1 under his model so this would not work or change.  However he said I could have my own number to use for RMB3000 a month.  So the Clickboards on his site or others around the Internet could be accessed through my number.

He kept explaining that the mobile coupon market is still very young and has not taken off.  He has seen little success with this type of business model.  Something that can not support itself.  And charging the client for giving away the coupons is very difficult.  Alvin sees the light that the Clickboard has but not necessarily through coupons and believes charging clients RMB12 per acquisition of coupon will be difficult.  Getting any money out of them would be hard.  So he sees value in the Clickboard but not for this.  This is a conundrum.

He followed up his argument with a colleague he helped try to take print coupons to the mobile media for use.  He said there was little success.  However I am going to follow up with this person Andrew Collins of MailMan.com to see if he sees the light in what I’m doing.

We concluded by saying that I need to do my own stand alone website that would act as the hub for Clickboards and that I could on a trial basis use his website as an extended portal.  And again use my free number in which these discounts would be accesses through MMS.   This he said he would do on the basis of a friend.  However to build this standalone website with full Java applications could take three months with ten people working solely on the project for a grand total of RMB300,000.  This is currently what his mGuanxi.com website is worth.

I then asked what he is doing with mGuanxi.com and he said it was simple the social tool of his service.  I began to understand that not too many people are that involved with this site as their choice for a social media.  We then went into behavioral advertising and that kind of tailspinned as he did not see people interacting heavily enough with the site to truly allow it to work for the clients.  I see that and asked why there was no advertising on the site now and he said he did not want it to be overbearing to the user at this point but that is in the plans.

Currently Alvin is working more in Search Mobile Advertising which I agree is where most people see the potential for the mobile devices in the future.  He is working with some big names and I think that is where his aim is.  Maybe he will apply the Clickboard to this service in the future.  He liked the idea and I’m sure he is thinking of ways to utilize it.  One day I hope I still get credit.

He left me feeling encouraged that the idea has potential but told me the more you do the more pitfalls you will discover.  He is reluctant to change, that is one of the number one pitfalls that occurred during this meeting.  However if I was to start he would go with the flow and help me out.  So as he said keep talking to investors and get their advice.  So keep talking about it!

So, I have changed the name to reflect more of what a Clickboard does.  In four clicks you are still free to surf the Internet without being dragged into a buying process or printing off coupons.  Four clicks is pretty powerful when you think about it, what will you accomplish in your next four clicks?

Then enter imaginary Clickcard number and click…

Then replay or go to Clickboards.net.

Next modification will make it so you don’t have to wait for the hand to stop moving to click on it.  Might add some motion tweening also.

However, I can also make the pointer do that to the star too.  I will put an update when I make that one and you can tell me which do you think would work better but also be recognizable.