RSS Apologies

Apologies to RSS readers of this blog. I added some tags to a load of previous older posts and in the process, Blogger Beta has updated the publishing date so they appear higher up in the chronology of the feed. It makes for some weird reading - sorry.

More Apple iPhone/MVNO rumour

More Apple iPhone/MVNO rumour...this time at Bloomberg. Supports the spurious story I tried to spread back in May last year.

Related story in The Register (July 05)

Implications of flat-rate pricing - Michael Mace

Great article from Michael Mace over at Mobile Opportunity on the implications of the adoption of flat-rate pricing following the X-Series launch from 3. He argues that this isn't the only precondition for the mass adoption of mobile data usage and that operators need to do a lot more to stimulate behaviour.

Getmooh - automated prank dialling

"Getmooh is an automated call back service. It is designed to help you escape a variety of situations by calling you automatically on your phone at a pre-specified time and playing you a recording which will either instruct you on what to say to elude your tormentor(s), or which will simply give a convincing sense of you being on an important call".

Neat web front end to a service that enables you to schedule a call to another phone number (mobile or fixed + international support). You can set up the type of call as well, so for example there's Moving House, Happy Birthday, Creepy Voice, Scary Movie, Car Alarm, Wrong Number.

Service doesnt currently charge for the call but I suspect that monetisation plans include charging users to record a personal message or in-message advertising.

Sounds gimmicky, but these types of services are serious business. Premium rate services made an estimated £1.6bn in the UK alone last year.

Mobile links, bits and bobs

Last week was a busy busy week so there was little time for posting. However, here’s a quick roundup of some stuff I noticed in our mobile utopia.

The Yahoo Advanced Products Group have launched Mixd – a social “experiment” targeted at the US college demographic. The service enables users to send a text to multiple people and to share photos, arrange a party etc. Similar to 3Jam, it enables reply-to-all on text-messaging facilitating a multi-party chat conversation. Zingku has something similar currently in beta. Zemble also.

Shortly following a post I wrote about mobilizing YouTube content, the provider TinyTube I mentioned was asked to remove access to YouTube content. I thought Googles mantra was “don’t be evil”?

The W3C initiative is aggregating a number of mobile focused blogs at Planet Mobile Web.

CScout has an article here on the trend that Social Network sites are going mobile. The article covers YouTube, MySpace, Hookt and AirG.

And finally, the Economist did a great article on what the future of the mobile phone may look like in their Quarterly Technology Review. Go here

Mobile Monday Düsseldorf

Last night I went to along to the inaugral Mobile Monday Germany event at Ernst & Youngs offices in Düsseldorf. Congrats to the MMDE team as they put on a well atttended event with plenty of beer and food :-) and a good speaker line-up.
Ajit Jaokar and Russell Buckley have been doing the speaking rounds recently and both delivered interesting content which kicked off some debate. Alexander Lautz gave an overview of what T-mobile were doing to promote mobile Internet browsing (Web'n'walk devices now account for the lions share of the handset portfolio) and Carsten Schwertfeger explained some of the iniatives that VF has taken to simplify the on and off portal browsing experience.



Most interesting take-away for me was that Russell said AdMob has more advertisers than it has available inventory! That's awesome. [Prediction for 2007 - AdMob will get acquired at a huge multiple, probably by NewsCorp (!)].

ConceptShare - collaborative design

Much of this blog covers new products and services across the web and mobile. Today, I thought I would write a post on a new product I discovered that makes getting those new products and service to market that bit easier.
Anyone that has lived and breathed a new product development cycle will understand that one of the biggest hurdles is getting the project team to work effectively with the same understanding of what is expected to be delivered. Sure, product and design specifications help, but there are always going to be last minute changes, new angles and perspectives of looking at features and functions, and iterative improvement and user feedback that needs to be incorporated in to each subsequent release. In today's world where design and development teams are often geographically distributed across the globe, all operating in different time zones, a common tool has been needed to track a products development and to highlight and communicate to the team where and what needs changing. Getting this right will speed up the development cycle, resulting in faster time to market and improve the overall quality of the deliverable.

ConceptShare have very recently launched a new flash based service that enables a team to share designs and capture feedback from team collaborators (project team, beta testers, customers etc). The tool is an awesome implementation that makes it extremely easy to collate and manage feedback and revisions. You can create a specific workplace and add multiple projects to the workspace. Each workspace and project can have different contributors who can all be managed by the administrator or other nominated users. You can upload a graphic that you want to collate feedback on, or alternatively submit a URL and the service will automatically capture it and add it to the project.

The service has a range of price plans ranging from free to $199 a month. $50/month will get you 50 active workspaces, 5 account managers, half a Gb of storage and secure access. The quality and design of the interface is excellent with simple and intuitive functions that make it a doddle for the non-initiated.
If you're developing a new product or service and need a collaborative design tool to help you and your team manage feedback and improvement, then give ConceptShare a try.

Blogger Beta – Rubbish!

I have been using Blogger to manage this blog since Summer 2004, and have been waiting for a new shiny release to pimp up my posts. Until recently, the only major change to the service was the inclusion of AdSense and the ability to post from a mobile. Over the last few weeks, Blogger has been encouraging users to move over to Blogger Beta. So, I duly signed up to the beta version, and have been using it over the last week or so. Here’s my feedback:

Labels – great new feature (that’s been around for years in TypePad and WordPress) that enables you to add labels (tags) to each of your posts. As a relatively ancient user of the product, I’ve got loads of posts that I want to now add tags to in order to make it easier for readers to see related posts. But if I go in to the post and add a “label”, Blogger Beta updates the publishing date in the RSS feed so anyone reading my RSS feed gets regurgitated posts from several months back. This is a stupid oversight.

New Posts – A couple of days ago, you could create a new post in Blogger Beta and add pictures, change font, add hyperlinks etc at the touch of the button. These buttons have mysteriously disappeared today, allowing only plain text posts. Rubbish.

Display Formatting – I have a pretty standard 17” flat screen display on 1024x768 resolution. If I try and edit my blog in IE, the Manage Posts view only shows “edit” and “view “. You have to scroll to the right of the screen to see the post information and “delete” options.


No web stats? - Every person out there who blogs regularly, likes to occasionally (once every hour ;-) check their visitor stats and referral information (like who visited, where they came from and what search request brought them). I would have expected an updated and revised release of Blogger to include basic web stats, but nope, nothing.

In summary, disappointing. The new Blogger Beta does make it much easier and digestable to add and manage external links, scripts, headers and tags, but the service stinks of a product that hasn’t had enough testing and QA. I know it's Beta, and a few bugs are expected, but come on, this is Google!! I’ve seen much better quality product deliverables coming out of three person start-ups. Pull your socks up Google!

Goldman Sachs quit Softbank Financing - eMobile?

The FT reported on Wednesday that Goldman Sachs have withdrawn from the Y1,450bn ($12.4bn) refinancing for Softbank’s acquisition of Vodafone Japan. The article says that Goldman wouldn't commment on the reason for the withdrawl and the FT claims analysts believe GS has some misgivings about the term of loan, supported by revenues from the mobile arm.
abigidea? reckons that something is up here, and the reason for the withdrawl may be something to do with Goldmans recent investment in Sachio Semmoto's new mobile venture, eMobile. Admittedly, I'm not too familiar with Japanese corporate governance but I would suspect that providing significant equity funding to eMobile (GS holds approximately 25% of eMobile) while at the same time providing significant debt facilities to one of its major competitors may be deemed a classic conflict of interest.
Dr Semmoto, the legendary Japanese entrepreneur behind KDDI and eAccess has now got his sights set on the mobile sector and is using eMobile as his vehicle for disrupting the Japanese market in a similar fashion to what he did with fixed telecoms (KDDI) and broadband internet access (eAccess). A recent article in Red Herring revealed that eMobile is building out its own next generation wireless network and has recently signed a roaming agreement with NTTDoCoMo to provide gapfill until the network is complete. A data-only offering is expected in March 2007 with nationwide voice services scheduled for March 2008.

Further info:
eMobile corporate profile

Skype without a PC

There's been a lot of buzz this week about Skype Mobile, but before we crack that - I think the home experience needs to be sorted first - and me thinks this is the solution. Skypestyle are selling exactly what I need chez moi - a Skype handset (the RTX Cordless DualPhone 3088) that doesnt require the PC running in order to work.
Comes with two main parts; handset & charging station, and the base station. The base station plugs in to your router and telephone line and you can plug the charging station in anywhere in your pad. You can then make and receive both Skype and "normal" telephone calls from the same handset.
Having the PC on, connected and headset avaialble was an early adoption barrier for Skype, which people put up with so that they could make a free call. With this simplification of the user experience, it should trigger even higher usage as the handset is such a familiar hardware medium for making calls. Presumably, you can also check you contact list to identify a victim to call. The only downside to this is the price - 109 of the UK's finest green sheets!
Buy it here at SkypeStyle
Noticed @ Red Ferret

SunSim - Pre-paid Holiday Talk & Text

SunSim have launched a pre-paid offer to German residents, providing cheap(er) text and calls when abroad. In-country (Germany) calls are priced at €0.25/min while calls from abroad back to German fixed lines are priced at €0.35/min with a one-time €0.19 connection fee, and €0.45 for calls to German mobile networks. SMS are priced at €0.25 for most of Europe. The service doesnt require a monthly contract and top-ups start from €5.

Mobile Flickr

Flickr have launched a mobile site at http://m.flickr.com Great for finding free mobile wallpaper :-)

See previous post here

Via SymbianOne

Mobile YouTube - TinyTube

Last weekend, the Wall Street Journal ran an article about a Verizon deal with YouTube to distribute videos via wireless and TV networks. The plan is to initially provide viewing access to the top 50/100 clips and then follow this up with the ability to post a clip from your mobile.

TinyTube are already providing the first part of this - a mobile site where you can download and view the latest featured clips on YouTube.

Mobile Monday Germany

Mobile Monday is coming to Germany with the first gathering scheduled for December 4th at Ernst & Young offices in Düsseldorf. Speakers include Russell Buckley of Admob and MobHappy, Ajit Jaokar from FutureText, Dr. Alexander Lautz at T-Mobile Deutschland and Carsten Schwertfeger from Vodafone.
The second meeting is scheduled for the 5th Feb in Munich.

List of all Java Handsets

This is a handy list of nearly all Java handsets broken down by manufacturer, model, MIDP, screen res, JSR support, RAM, CLDC config etc etc blah blah.

The Top 12 operators - 1.2 Billion Customers!

MobileZoo provides a breakdown of the top 12 mobile operators "carriers" in 05 and their proportionate customer bases. Being an employee of Vodafone, I must admit I was slightly surprised and alarmed to read that we generate a total revenue and ARPU of..... zero!

Unified Short Code Launched in the UK

Full article here in Cellular-News
Well done to MX Telecom - this is another step in the right direction towards simple and unified mobile service experiences.

Under the Radar: Mobility Conference

The Under the Radar Mobility Conference looks like a mini-Demo, with a sharp focus on some interesting trends in the mobile space; imaging, social messaging, advertising and payments.

"On November 16, 2006, IBDNetwork will host its sixth one-day Under the Radar event, which will feature 32 emerging startups in the mobile sector. Under the Radar will take place on at the Microsoft campus in Mountain View, CA. You’ll see a collection of companies in areas such as mobile content/video; sms and messaging; voice services; marketing and advertising services; and a host of enabling technologies. From the industry experts and pundits to the company presentations and demos, you will learn about the future of mobility- it’s challenges and opportunities from consumer adoption to monetization of services".
Confirmed companies include:

4info Admob CascadaMobile ComVu Daem Interactive EQO Flurry GreyStripe Juice Wireless Loopt mChek MobiFusion Mobileplay Mobo MotionDSP Nexage Ontela PayWi Pixpulse Pixsense Plusmo Rocketalk Renzoo Sapphire Mobile Systems ScanR Sharpcast Snapvine TalkPlus TinyPictures Veeker Voxlib Winksite

Blyk - an ad-funded MVNO

News of a yet another MVNO to tackle the heavily congested UK mobile market has broken. The company, Blyk (further evidence of the fashionable trend not to use vowels in your company name) has funding from Soffinova, and a management team that is hotter than Nokias HQ Sauna. Blyk intend to offer a mobile phone service, initially targeted at the UK's young & fun segment. The key USP and differentiator is that the service will offer free calls (and text?) funded by targeted advertisements. The press release and other available information is short on detail, presumably to maintain an advantage until launch mid next year.

I was surprised to read that Blyk have opted to launch a new MVNO with all the hassle and OPEX overhead of SIM distribution, handset subsidisation, customer service provision and marketing. An alternative approach would be to develop a proposition and product to address the ad-funded model and convince existing operators to market this to the appropriate segment. Although most operators have been taking a very close look at this topic, and producing mountains of powerpoint on the opportunity, most are a long way away from launching a proposition. Blyk could harness this opportunity and provide the operators with a one-stop shop solution that addresses the entire value-chain, from advertiser to device.

As I said, the product details are murky, so we shouldn't go jumping to conclusions assuming that every SMS sent will generate a reply from Coca-Cola. Mobile devices and their associated networks can be very clever things, enabling very smart value-add to an advertiser that traditional advertising outlets and even the web have no way of even coming close to. Location, presence, content purchasing history , device type, roaming propensity and so on cumulatively have the potential to explode CPM rates and finally offer the detailed, auditable and accountable trail that all advertisers and media-buyers crave.


Read more in:
Blyk Blog
International Herald Tribune
MobHappy
BusinessWeek
EngadgetMobile

New Mobile Blogs...

Miguel-Angel, a fellow Future Products colleague (and top bloke) in Madrid is blogging about mobile, the web and other topics at Azulares (Spanish), and Katie Lips has started a new mobile innovation blog at NewIdeasInMobile. Both have much more creative and technical dexterity than myself which is clearly visible in the layout, design and general usability of their sites. Check em out....

Motask - mobile To-Do list

Motask is a simple editable to-do list, accessible via the web and your mobile phone. Handy.

iF Design Award, BenQ 2006

"A mobile becomes many things you need: When more functions must be put into a single device; when a mobile phone tries to do everything, the solutions are always too complex. The functionality losses its familiar forms to communicate with users that result in difficult use and compromised experience. Arbitrary interface causes user confusion. The Black Box concept is to recall and respect the classic long-time conventions and real-world experiences of using various common tools and devices; keep only the meaningful and minimal interface elements to fulfill the maximal user desires. Back to classics. Back to basics". Go here for more...

the YouTube deal....what really happened?

Mark Cuban sheds light on what may have really happened at YouTube in the run-up to G-day.

This is a snap I took of the deserted items table at Heathrow airport. Some spurious observations; more people smoke than brush their teeth, more people brush their teeth than use deodorant and finally, buy shares in Colgate and Vittel. I would like to know where all these items end up - i hope not in the bin, could they be handed out free to the homeless?

Rubbish research, Zune v's iPod

A new survey conducted by ABI Research has shown that many prospective MP3 player buyers — even owners of iPods — would be likely to choose Microsoft's Zune player. 1725 teenage and adult US residents were asked whether they planned to buy an MP3 player in the next 12 months. Of those responding that they were likely to do so, 58% of those identifying themselves as existing iPod owners and 59% of those who owned other brands said they would be "somewhat likely" or "extremely likely" to choose a Microsoft Zune player over an iPod or another brand of MP3 player."Our conclusion," says principal analyst Steve Wilson, "is that iPod users don't display the same passionate loyalty to iPods that Macintosh users have historically shown for their Apple products." Only 15% of iPod owners said they were "not very likely" or "not at all likely" to choose Zune. link here

These kind of statements P*ss me off and are completely misleading, but they're everywhere and you have to watch out for them. Firstly, the piece fails to tell us how many respondents actually planned to replace their music player in the next 12 months. Given that iPods retail at $200/300, its not the kind of device I would expect to have a rapid replacement cycle. This data is important to ascertain the significance and value of what comes next.
Secondly, what does "somewhat likely" really mean? I may be somewhat, kind of, possibly likely, maybe if i get a good deal or discount, perhaps almost interested in buying it? I suspect the ratio of "somewhat likely" to "extremely likely" is heavily weighted towards those seated firmly on the fence.
Finally, Mr Wilsons conclusion is flawed. How can you make a statement on iPod loyalty based on showing an audience a picture of a product that hasn't even launched, and that most haven't even heard about.

Friday rant over.