The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

The most recent report released by Pew Internet Research, The Rise of In-Store Mobile Commerce, revealed that 50 percent of shoppers used their smartphones to research purchase decisions over the holidays. Of note were the following statistics:

• 38% of those surveyed used their smartphones to make a voice call while shopping in a store to ask about a product.
• 25% used their smartphones to do price comparisons; they were comparing the price of an item in stores to prices for the same item in online shops.
• 24% used their smartphones to research the products they were shopping for online. I do this all the time at shops. It’s how I picked out my current camera, the Canon ELPH 300HS.

“You can’t win the web without winning mobile,” I told my manager’s manager back when I was at Microsoft (and that’s how I became the Windows Phone Guy on Microsoft Canada’s Developer and Platform Evangelism team). Now that I’m at Shopify, I’m still waving the mobile flag: you can’t win at ecommerce without winning at mobile. And as of today, we’re a good deal closer to winning.

Shopify has just announced that it has acquired Select Start Studios, an award-winning mobile development company based in Ottawa with over 35 apps in Apple’s App Store and the Android Market. This acquisition brings over 20 new people and a helluva lot of mobile app skills and brainpower into the Shopifold.

[Update: Here’s TechCrunch’s coverage, and here’s Mashable’s.]

Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke has this to say: “The S3 acquisition brings in top talent that will rapidly deliver on our mobile strategy, and produce several new mobile product offerings this year.”

Tariq Zaid, Select Start’s cofounder and CEO, says “We’re thrilled to be joining Shopify to execute on the company’s mobile initiative. Their focus on mobile, deep understanding of technology, and overall culture make this a natural fit. We’re already cooking up some really exciting innovations that show just how game changing mcommerce will be.”

Welcome aboard, Select Start! I’m looking forward to working with you guys.

Select Start were in the process of building a mobile app for our friends at Toronto-based startup FreshBooks, so technically, they’re now clients of ours. In response they sent us this lovely “horse head in the bed cake” inspired by that classic scene from The Godfather. The message that came with the cake reads: “Nice selection for the start of 2012…you bastard!”

Here’s an interesting observation made by Adam McNamara: Shopify was once based at 185 Rideau Street in Ottawa, and that’s where Select Start were based until they joined us. That’s an office with killer startup karma. The question Adam asks is: “Who’s next"?”

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

I’m in Ottawa for the week and staying at Les Suites, a pretty nice all-suites hotel. Looking at the name of the available wifi networks, it seems that some folks on my floor are really enjoying their stay…

As a fan of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a student of the Ferris Bueller philosophy and a happy Honda CR-V owner, I can’t help but approve of this promo spot for the CR-V starring Matthew Broderick.

Titled as found. Now I’m a little bummed out.

This is a great family project: a dad, his kids, some home instruments and one of the best synthpop tunes ever written.

Return to the Capital City

I don’t know if the Rideau Canal looks like this right now, but Ottawa is damned cold this time of year. However, it’s the home base of Shopify, where I hold the title of Platform Evangelist, and I make it a point to try and regroup with my team face-to-face every six weeks or so.

I’m due for another visit, so I’m going to be in Ottawa from late morning on Monday, January 30th to late morning on Saturday, February 4th. If you’re based in Ottawa and want to catch up while I’m there, leave a note in the comments, drop me a line via email or send me a tweet at @AccordionGuy!

Home Security

A number of people have asked me if it’s such a good idea to post on the blog when I’ll be away from home. For many people, doing so is a bad idea, but in my particular case, it’s not so bad because:

• My line of work – tech evangelism, or basically being the company’s schmoozer and spokesmodel – is one where it’s better that people know where I’m going to be, so they can catch up with me. If I’m not communicating, I’m not earning my keep.
• My building has the best possible type of security team. Yes, there are security guards, but that’s not the team I’m talking about. The team to which I refer is so good that they catch all sorts of wrongdoing: they’re grumpy retired people who like to watch the lobby cam channel on their TVs. Not only are they good at catching suspicious-looking characters loitering about the building, they’re also good at catching residents breaking the rules. I once got nailed by them for trying to bring in a big piece of furniture without first booking an elevator (and thus getting the padding put up on its walls) – and I was doing so after midnight. Hell hath no passive-aggressive fury like the members of a condo owners’ board.