Vodafone Exchange (Agora Betavine prototype)
Dug did the ethnography, concept development, service design and prototyping in partnership with Vodafone R&D teams in London and in Romania.
From the Vodafone site:
Agora is an open trading platform for individuals and groups to post items and services for sale or exchange. Have an extra laptop lying around? Need a bike instead? No problem! With Agora, you can specify what you’d like in exchange (including cash or services) and the system will alert you to others that have what you’re looking for. You can make offers, negotiate with others until you secure an agreement, and then leave comments and ratings for your completed deals.
Agora is deployed as an Android app that is downloadable from the Android Market. It has been tested across a range of handsets and is compatible with Android 1.6 OS and above.
You can download the Android app from Vodafone.
Agora was launched as a pilot in Egypt and Romania. The Agora UI was translated and the design modified to make localisation quicker. The service allows users to agree the value of given items allowing these to act as a currency for a transaction.
The beta of the Exchange server was built on top of Ocastalab’s Statusnet service and was piloted in the Egypt and Romania with funding from the Vodafone Social Investment Fund.
In
(comments disabled)