Drinkers and award judges alike raise their glasses to David
Seabright's innovative use of SMS messages
David Seabright is the technical wizard behind one of the
coolest innovations to hit the drinks industry - the SMS beer
token, writes Guy Campos. Seabright is technical director at agency
Soho, London, the company that designed the www.mywapworld.com
site.
Visitors to Mywapworld can get beer tokens sent to their mobile
phone as a short message service (SMS) message by entering their
number. All they then have to do is hand the token to the bartender
at the participating establishment, who then checks an ID number
and deletes the message after pouring the drink. Sadly, the user is
limited to one voucher per day.
The tokens, however, don't only cover drinks but also bear
offers such as 10% off a taxi ride, a free bottle of wine with a
meal, or a jump-to-the-front-of-the-queue pass.
The mobile promotional token is one of the most refreshing
features of Mywapworld, which provides information on bars, pubs
and clubs in London and Brighton. By the end of the summer, when
the service is formally launched, Mywapworld is expected to cover
11 metropolitan areas. And it has already won an award for the most
innovative use of technology at this year's Yell UK Web Awards.
As technology develops, Seabright will be making Mywapworld work
with interactive TV, the next generation of mobile phones and with
Bluetooth devices.
Seabright and his team of five created their own content
management system to run the site using Cold Fusion and Microsoft
Active Server Pages. Naturally, this means the data is formatted in
XML so that it can be used on any device that may be developed in
the future.
Since completing the initial development of Mywapworld,
Seabright has also worked on www.swapcd.co.uk, a site that invites
users to send in CDs which earn swap points they can then use to
purchase other CDs that have been sent in.
When not innovating for the Web, Seabright, a keen amateur
Egyptologist, likes to pop out of the office and take a look at the
mummy of Pharaoh Ramases II at the nearby British Museum.
Perhaps he should offer old Ramases an SMS beer token - let's
face it, it's enough to bring any old mummy back into the world of
the living.
Curriculum Vitae
Name: David Seabright
Job title: technical director, mywapworld.com
Age: 39
Qualifications: BSc in materials science
IT skills: Microsoft ASP, VBScript, Allaire Cold Fusion,
Microsoft SQLServer 6.5 and 7, HTML, Javascript, SQL, NT, Unix
Hobbies: Egyptology, buying the latest kit
Favourite book: Arthur C Clarke's 2010
Favourite pub/bar: Cabanas Aquarela, Porto Seguro, Bahia
- a bar on a tropical beach in Brazil. I go there every year
Seabright on Seabright: modest, calm, collected