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September 30, 2006
David Cameron launches a blog ..
David Cameron(UK opposition leader - Conservatives) launches a blog today. This is a good development. I especially like the idea of adding a David Cameron widget. Technically, its exactly on the right track as I will indicate in forthcoming post soon about Widgets.
Posted by ajit at 11:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 29, 2006
The dichotomy of one web vs. mobile web
There is a tendency to discuss the 'mobile web' vs. the 'one web' issue in terms of a simplistic dichotomy.
The reality is far more complex as we shall see below.
Barbara Ballard outlines the definitions at forumoxford succinctly when she says:
There are two main camps in the mobile web:
1. One Web. The Internet is the Internet, and sites should run well on all devices. Optimization should be based on CSS and device detection, but should not change site function or content beyond the necessary.
2. Mobile Web. The mobile is a different platform with different capabilities and different user needs. Sites should be optimized for mobile in many (but not all) cases.
Most people will accept a half way viewpoint (which is valid in a sense)
However, we could take a different perspective. I like the perspective of 'starting points' as outlined by Dean Bubley (also at forumoxford)
I like it because it is technology agnostic, it is user centric and is not a simple 'either or' categorisation.
To summarise the concept of 'starting points' (as per Dean's post)
Users could be classed by their prior experience of the web (and the mobile web) and their expectations of what a 'mobile' web is will depend on their accumulated prior experiences and what they want to do (i.e. starting point). Starting points include: regular PC users, intermittent PC users, age, prepay vs. postpay etc. Thus, the user's experience of the mobile web will depend on who they are and what they want to do
In terms of one web vs. mobile web, starting points could include:
B2B Web content: optimise for PCs - most business people will have access to a PC, or a mobile device with a decent browser. Some parts of some sites (eg online airline check-in) should be more mobile friendly, but nobody's going to browse for & buy nuclear power station components on a phone.
B2B Internet communication (esp. email) - mobile devices likely to be of similar importance to PCs, but may well have middleware on device or in the network to render things differently (eg Blackberry)
B2C Web content: depends on target audience and specific site purpose. If it's browsing-heavy or dependent on lots of text entry (eg an estate agent's houses for sale, or a travel booking website) then optimise main site for "One Web" and PCs, but consider that there might be separate bits which could be "mobile-optimised" - eg the estate agent's mapping pages, or the travel site's itinerary lookup. If it's browsing-light (eg blogs) and more oriented to reading/viewing rather than text entry, then perhaps do mobile-optimised at a core level
B2C transaction-oriented - likely to need very separate PC and mobile variants, owing to probable different payment models, security, ability to do things like print receipts / receive notifications etc.
B2C communication-oriented (email, messaging etc) - hugely dependent on "starting point" and demographics of user base, and availability of devices/networks in the relevant geographies at given point in time.
Government - probably needs mobile web versions of pages, as it's likely to have to deal with "lowest common denominator" mobile users (as well as others who don't even have mobiles).
I like Dean's ideas because they put the user and the function in the spotlight. They are much more comprehensive than mobile vs. non mobile, Ajax vs. non Ajax etc. In mobile web 2.0, we took a similarly complex stance especially in terms of mobile devices and user generated content. Hence, I empathise with the 'starting points' methodology and it shall be added to my thoughts from now on!.
Posted by ajit at 6:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 28, 2006
Blogging: Of Tom and Jerry and craving the friction of a human being ..
I have always included Tom and Jerry in my profile.
Indeed, I am a fan of animation in general and ‘Tom and Jerry’ in particular.
But when asked, why was it on my profile, I never had a good answer.
My best attempt was: Blogging is not ‘corporate’. Including personal preferences in my profile was my way of saying : I am an individual and not a conformist in some large company.
Clearly people notice, because I get a lot of comments about the Tom and Jerry, Tintin, Asterix etc .. especially when people meet me at an event face to face for the first time.
Why was something I was doing almost for fun attracting so much attention?
I recently read The world is flat and suddenly on Page 255, it dawned on me why this was so powerful especially in blogosphere.
In that section, Thomas Friedman describes his frustration of a (supposedly friction free) encounter with an automated directory information service and says he ‘craved the friction of another human being’
He goes on to describe the ‘death of a salesman’ where a veteran salesman laments how in the old days, the salesmen would drop by and give their customers a few ‘Vikings’ tickets and consequently that when the world goes ‘flat’ its hard to create a bond with email and streaming Internet
That’s it!
That’s why people remember the Tom and Jerry and the human elements when they meet me almost as much as they know what I write about. Because they know that there is a person at the end of the blog.
In an increasingly automated world, the Tom and Jerry provides them the craving / friction of a real human being!
The image is from the 1945 classic ‘Quiet Please’ One of my favourites!
Quiet Please! was a 1945 Tom and Jerry cartoon which won the 1945 Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons. It was produced by Fred Quimby and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with music by Scott Bradley. The cartoon was animated by Kenneth Muse, Ray Patterson, Irven Spence, and Ed Barge.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet,_Please!)
Posted by ajit at 9:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Is mobile web 2.0 = mobile Ajax?
Thomas seems to think that there is a myth to that effect.
Having written a 300 odd page book on mobile web 2.0, I don't think that mobile web 2.0 = mobile ajax.
web 2.0 is an emotive topic. Hence, we(Tony Fish and I) discuss mobile web 2.0 with great detail (i.e. it would have been easier to piggyback on a buzz word).
Here is an old blog indicating the three characteristics of mobile web 2.0 which give an insight to my thinking
Perhaps Thomas is just being nice and trying to help me sell more books :)
Meanwhile, I am off to speak at the (gulp) Ajax world conference in Santa Clara. If you are attending it, I look forward to meeting you
Posted by ajit at 4:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 27, 2006
Telco 2.0 and Mobile web 2.0
A few weeks ago, I had lunch with Martin Geddes
Martin and I have similar views; as befitting the names of our respective blogs ‘Telepocalypse’ and ‘Open Gardens’. So, it was a fascinating discussion.
Martin (and Chris Barraclough ) of STL partners are setting up an initiative called Telco 2.0 and a Telco 2.0 event
It’s a pity I can’t attend this because I am speaking at Ajaxworldexpo in Santa Clara but it promises to be a fascinating event. Having written the book about Mobile Web 2.0, I was always interested in what Martin meant by Telco 2.0.
Martin gives a number of definitions for Telco 2.0 on his blog but the best way I can describe Telco 2.0 as I understand it is as follows:
I am a fan of Dr Michael Hammer’s work – specifically his book Re engineering the corporation
In that context, I can describe Telco 2.0 as Re engineering the telecoms industry for the (IP) future .
This fits in with Martin’s concise definition as in : ‘“T2-compliant operator = the stock market believes it has long-term sustainable basis for growth in an IP-based world’
The issues addressed by Telco 2.0 are indeed fascinating because they look at all aspects of a telecoms network(including voice, network convergence, IP etc). In Mobile Web 2.0, I approached the issue from the view point of the Web(which was my background prior to being involved with the Mobile Web in 1999). It took 360 odd pages to write Mobile Web 2.0 i.e. considering the issues involved in extending the ‘Web’ to the ‘Mobile Web’. I can only imagine the complexities of extending the whole existing telecoms infrastructure to the IP world
In any case, I think the Telecoms operators are in good hands with the Telco 2.0 initiative!.
Pity I will miss this event. Its on Oct 4 and 5. Details at Telco 2.0 event. Many people I know are there including Tomi Ahonen and Tom Weiss. Forumoxford is also supporting this event.
If you are there, say 'Hi' to these guys!
Posted by ajit at 9:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Software development projects and Ajax
Fellow web 2.0 workgroup member Dion Hinchcliffe has written a very nice blog entitled Seven Things Every Software Project Needs to Know About Ajax
As is typical of Dion, his blogs contain a lot of information in simple bullet point form
Two things strike me about this blog: firstly Ajax is only 18 months old! - and yet it has become so much mainstream. Secondly, as I have said before in the case of SQL, popular web technologies morph into unintended applications i.e. Ajax was never originally meant to do what it is doing now!.
With that extended usage comes complexity and a steep learning curve. This is largely the point of Dion's blog. Expect more of Ajax from both Dion and I since Ajaxworld expo starts at Santa Clara next week - and we are both speaking there! Please email me if you are attending Ajaxworld next week and let’s catch up(ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com )
Meanwhile, have a read of Dion's blog .. here is a snippet from the blog. The full link is HERE
Ajax Is More Involved Than Traditional Web Design and Development. The loss of HTML user interface conventions, the almost limitless potential for hidden or latent functionality, the programmatic creation of page elements instead of declarative, and other intrinsic aspects of the Ajax approach throw out much of what we know about Web design and development. Web designers must much more deeply understand the capabilities of the DOM, Javascript, CSS, and how the browser renders graphics, layouts, and elements. Developers find testing both difficult and tedious. Though tooling is continuing to improve across the board, it will take years for the industry to develop best practices, lore, patterns, and shared knowledge to make Web application development straightforward. Huge kudos to folks like Yahoo!'s Bill Scott for trying to fix many of these problems -- particularly the loss of GUI standards -- by actually moving the state of the art considerably forward with things like the Yahoo! UI Design Patterns library. The bottom line: Ajax development, at least for now, usually takes quite a bit longer than traditional Web development and requires a higher level of skill.
Posted by ajit at 7:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 26, 2006
Carnival of the mobilists : No 46
As the weeks go past, the carnival of the mobilists becomes bigger and better. Its now a regular feature of my weekly blogging and reading.
Matthew Miller - hosts a splendid carnival at his blog The mobile gadgeteer . Don't miss it.
Posted by ajit at 8:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
dont forget your .mobi domain names ...
I am no fan of .mobi names, but my advise is : get the .mobi domain name for your site else some cyber squatter is bound to get hold of it(i.e. get it for defensive reasons). The land grab has already begun ..
Posted by ajit at 7:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Amazon groups Mobile web 2.0 and the Long tail at amazon.com ..
It's nice to know that my book Mobile web 2.0 is grouped together with the Long Tail at Amazon.com
The Long Tail is a great book and it's philosophy is very much what we talk about as well. So, I am indeed happy to see this
Thanks to Nick Hancock ceo of intelli-call for pointing this out to me
Posted by ajit at 3:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Near-Time: An integrated approach for blogs and Wikis
I first noticed Near-Time because Dion Hinchliffe included it in the list of most promising Web 2.0 software of 2006 .
Next month, I am speaking at Tech 2006 conference organised by the Council for Entrepreneurial Development in Raleigh . Since Near-Time CEO Reid Conrad is the Chairman of the Board of the CED, it was a good opportunity to speak to Reid about next generation collaboration systems, blogging and Wikis.
Specifically, I discussed the Near-Time service in context of a knowledge management problem we encountered when a community I run (forumoxford) grew rapidly over the last year.
Near-Time is an interesting service because it fulfils a collaboration need which is only now emerging; as we will discuss below. Once again, like my posting about movietally , there is no mobile component to Near-Time (yet) as far as I can see. However, I still think this analysis would be useful for the readers of the OpenGardens blog because it solves a problem which many bloggers/ web 2.0 sites/companies are likely to encounter soon.
With respect to mobile applications, the caveat is: this post talks of a service where content and context (categories and tags) along with related files travel together across all applications. In this case, we discuss Wikis and blogs. But there is no reason why the same architecture should not extend to any other application or device. Hence, that could well provide a mobile/device angle in view of interoperability of content. I seek views and thoughts about these features
Collaboration is a big theme on the Web (and especially with Web 2.0). Broadly, there are two ways to collaborate on the Web: i.e. Weblogs and Wikis. They work in fundamentally different ways. Blogs (Weblogs) facilitate chronological (time based) organisation /collaboration of ideas and links. Wikis, on the other hand, pertain to a ‘shared workspace’ collaboration.
On first impressions, these two mechanisms (blogs and Wikis) don’t have much in common. They co-exist without much overlap.
However, like me, if you have been involved with both blogging and communities, then a new need emerges. I can explain this more in terms of forumoxford – Oxford University’s next generation mobile applications panel which I chair.
One of the popular threads on that forum which I started was: ‘Mobile TV is like sex in the open air ‘ ..( jolly exciting idea – but not always practical’) (The strap line was originally by Dick Emery – chief executive of UKTV as reported in the Financial times – London Dec 30 2005).
Obviously the title caught a lot of attention (sex sells!).
While it was a popular thread, there were other threads on the theme of Mobile TV. As forumoxford grows (forumoxford hit 1000 members in one year), it became necessary to see all threads on a specific topic (in this case Mobile TV).
Note that this is more than searching for a keyword in a thread.
What we need is the ability to include all such threads linked in from a single page (Wiki) (or a bird’s eye view of related threads). This would enable the group to see at a glance what has been discussed and then update information on the Wiki. Further, the links on the Wiki could be either from within our own forum (our blogs) but also from external sites (thereby keeping the information fresh and relevant). Linking to posts within Near-Time includes their content and context and attached files. Linking to external blog posts is just a link to the post's URL.
Almost any substantial blog, company or community would face this problem as it tries to capture knowledge from discussions(as we face as discussed above). It’s the ability to integrate blogs and Wikis from the start which would make a big difference here (the operative word being from the start – as opposed to retrospectively).
The same concept extends to sharing information out from the system.
A feature like ‘saved search’ enables the creation of an RSS feed which would comprise changes to Wikis as well as blogs (and of course new Wikis and blogs).
Thus, in an open standards, next generation, collaborative world like Near-Time, it does not matter where the information resides. The key advantage is that: content and context (categories and tags) along with related files travel together across all applications (in this case Wikis and blogs but that could extend further to any application). The result is fluid content and application (and device) interoperability.
I can relate to this from my personal experience running forumoxford. Keen to see other view points on next generation collaboration/problems faced in existing collaboration mechanisms etc.
Some screen shots follow: Note the tabs which indicate a common and interrelated interface for blogs, wikis, calendar and files(all of which may be tagged/categorised through a common set of tags/categories)
Posted by ajit at 10:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 25, 2006
few invites to Opera's event in London
Hello
I have a few invites to an Opera event in London. This showcases some of Opera's new browser technology and also has some senior people from Opera plus other speakers(including me).
This is an invite only event and covers all browser technoloy(not just mobile)
If you are interested, please contact me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com. The link for the event and venue is HERE
It would suit technologists, press, bloggers and anyone who follows browser technology/web standards etc (note this is not first come first serve .. but I can think of many readers of this blog who would enjoy attending it)
kind rgds
Ajit
Posted by ajit at 9:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 24, 2006
We have been slashdotted and dugg ..
Strange how the web works .. A story we did about movietally has been picked up by both Slashdot and Digg
The irony is: When Hayden emailed me the request, I felt that we were not the best place for his site since we mainly cover the Mobile data industry / Digital convergence.
So, I thought he would not get much coverage!
While its nice to see the coverage, often comments miss the point that the site has been created by a fifteen year old.
In a nutshell, the post was about a site called 'movietally' which was created by a fifteen year old boy. I thought(for reasons mentioned below) that I should encourage him by posting about his site on my blog. What I did not expect is - it would be one of the most talked about post on blogosphere in the last 48 hrs.
There is a bit of personal history why I put that post ..
I tried to set up my first business at age fifteen which involved sending typed letters to a bunch of people asking them if they were interested in buying a UPS system for their computers. This was in India(Mumbai/Bombay) where people were concerned about power fluctuations to their (then new) computers.
My friend and I were ‘distributors’ of this new system.
I knew about UPS systems because my dad was a banker in India and as a kid I would often work holidays in companies / factories to get some experience (mostly where my dad knew the management from his financial institution)
One of these was a factory making UPS systems
We felt that there was a market need since the guys who sold the computers never realised the risks of fluctuating power supplies in India (until it was too late!) and working in the UPS system factory, I was one of the few people who did.
Hence, the letters to people where we tried to distribute the system after speaking to the owner of the factory.
Oddly enough, it worked (in the sense we sold something/got some replies)
However, it took a looong time to get anything going (In fact, to my horror – by the time we got the first letter in response saying someone was interested, our holidays were over and we were back to school!). Obviously we never told anyone that we were both fifteen – else no one would have taken us seriously
The point is: The Internet now cuts down this time to market dramatically (no letters, no time lag between responses etc).
Thus, a new service can get a lot of exposure where ever it is in the world .. and by who ever ..
That’s why I posted the movietally entry – as a way to encourage someone when I faced the same problem at that age!
The response and coverage just proves this point .. that the world is flat
Posted by ajit at 8:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 23, 2006
Apple bans the use of 'podcasting' ?
How interesting!
I don't cover Apple a lot because its a walled garden.
Now, it seems that Apple is trying to trademark the term podcasting
Maybe Mr Ahonen and Mr Moore were right after all .. Tomi / Alan / Apple story
At least Tim O Reilly made an honest mistake in my view and the circumstances were much more complex .. lets see how the Apple story pans out ..
The timing could'nt been worse for Apple .. both mobile ***casting and zune?casting are here ..
Once again, it seems like they did with the PC world, Apple is pioneering a whole industry segment but failing to execute when that segment crosses the chasm
Posted by ajit at 7:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 21, 2006
I am speaking at Stanford University's Digital Vision program (Oct 5)
I am very happy to be speaking at the Digital Vision program at Stanford University on Oct 5. I will be speaking on MoSoSo (Mobile social software) and its indeed an honour to be invited to speak at Stanford
The Reuters Digital Vision Program (RDVP) is a Stanford center for social entrepreneurship that applies the principles of high-tech innovation to create product and service concepts that empower communities worldwide.
Many thanks to research fellow Dr Adam Tolnay and Karen Coppock, Director, Industry Collaboration for their help in making this happen!
Very much looking forward to this!
Posted by ajit at 11:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 19, 2006
Our thoughts are with people in Thailand ..
Our thoughts are with people and readers in Thailand on account of developments there
A lovely place and great people, where I was on holiday just a few weeks ago.
Hope the situation does not deteriorate further ..
Image source: The BBC
Posted by ajit at 11:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Digital eves: Stories of Pioneering Women in New Media - by Maggie Baldry
Digital Eves: Stories of Pioneering Women in New Media
I am happy to announce our latest book and our newest author : "Digital Eves - Stories of Pioneering Women in New Media." by Maggie Baldry
As the name suggests, Maggie’s book comprises a series of interviews with some very high profile women pioneers in new media. In a nutshell, Maggie’s book is all about role models for women who want to enter the new media sector.
When we first contemplated this idea, I must admit I was not sure if the book is a ‘futuretext’ book since our books are normally much more technical.
But the human angle is fascinating. The chance to make a difference in the lives of many people is too good to let slip. And it fits in with my personal ethos of nurturing individual achievement.
I ran the idea with some women who I know are role models including Dr Rebecca Lingwood , Judy Breck and Susan Mernit.
They all loved the idea and when Maggie offered to write it, I knew we had the makings of a great book!
If you have written for Futuretext, Maggie Baldry is a familiar name. Maggie edits and develops ours books from conception to launch.
She has worked with me since 2003 and helped with the preparation of the original OpenGardens manuscript and then followed on Mobile Strategies and more recently Mobile Web 2.0
On her part, Maggie was thrilled when I asked her to co-ordinate and write Digital eves, as it will combine two of her favourite subjects - development of new media and the success of women in these industries.
She says she is "Very excited about this latest project. Really looking forward to creating a book that will celebrate the achievements of women who are leaders in their professional and creative lives and who are happy to share their journeys and their inspirational stories with the world."
Currently based in the UK(but with dreams of jetting around globally!) , Maggie is a trained technical author with a broad commercial background within Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Data Management.
Maggie's professional career and journey into technology started in 1988 within the R&D department of Flymo, the garden equipment manufacturers, where she helped to develop design office and CAD system procedures.
As her knowledge of new product introduction and technological development expanded, in 1991 Maggie was asked to create a new department to schedule the introduction of product software (instruction manuals, service information, guarantee cards, etc.). This department was also responsible for preparation of translations, proof checking, final edit and pre-print approval.
In 1999, Maggie was given the great opportunity to assist with the management of a global supply network of consumer goods - turnover approx. 15 million US$ per annum - for Electrolux OEM products from Japan, China, Korea, France, Italy and the UK to international clients. She is still in this role today.
Alongside her career in consumer goods manufacturing, in February 2002 Maggie created Virtual-e-perfection VEP a writing support service. VEP grew from Maggie's passion for development of communication and information technologies with her main interests being mobile applications/mobile technology and development of the Web to enhance business, educational and social enterprises. VEP has helped many people with development of their educational, creative and professional writing strategies.
So, with this background and her work with editing many of Futuretext books, Maggie is an ideal author for Digital Eves.
I am very happy to welcome her to Futuretext as an author!
We have some great contributors to this book .. but we are always looking for more ..
If you can recommend anyone who should be in this book, please contact me at ajit.jaokar at Futuretext.com or maggie.baldry at btinternet.com
Watch this space!
Posted by ajit at 10:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The 45th carnival of the mobilists at mobile crunch ..
Oliver Starr at Mobile Crunch posts the 45th Carnival of the mobilists. Oliver is a very clued on, insightful person and its great to his see these thoughts on my post on SoonR/Mobile Ajax
Oliver says ..
A perrenial thought leader, Ajit Jaokar of Open Gardens kicks off with proof positive of another accurate prediction: SoonR or later, Mobile Ajax had to become mainstream ..
From the post:
I had predicted at the beginning of the year that Ajax will lead to a resurgence of mobile browsing applications. It has taken just a few short months to see this vision turned into a live application. This week, SoonR launched the first true Mobile Ajax application. Based on the Opera platform, SoonR’s service truly leverages the power of Mobile Ajax.
I believe Mobile Ajax applications are a new and emerging class of applications, and this service is a trendsetter of a new wave of Mobile Web applications.
Thanks Oliver! Its good to know that my thinking is appreciated by mobile crunch!
Posted by ajit at 8:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Reporting from CTIA
CTIA, MES, and MECCA Show Report
By Chetan Sharma
Los Angeles was the venue for the annual CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment 2006. Pre-show events included Mobile Entertainment Summit (Chetan Sharma Consulting was a research partner) and MECCA. This note summarizes the observations and commentary from the above shows.
First let’s do the numbers. Just before CTIA, M:Metrics released some numbers from their most recent survey. Amongst the western nations, US has just over 5% 3G penetration with UK leading the way at 11.4%. Spain and France are at 8.9% and 7.9% respectively. In the US, Verizon is ahead with over 17% 3G subscriber penetration followed by Sprint at 6%. CTIA also released their survey numbers. 12.5 billion messages in the month of June 2006, up 71% from 7.3 billion messages in June 2005. There was 70% growth in service data revenues. You probably already knew most of the above after reading our research notes here and here, weeks and months ahead of the mainstream media.
MES and MECCA. The central theme from both the shows was community and advertising. The buzz shifted from “Mobile Search”, “Mobile TV”, and “IMS” during the last couple of shows to “Mobile Advertising”. The prospective lifecycle of product development goes like this – build community (whether it is around user generated content, games, artists, bands or other) and monetize the community by advertising. The permutation and combination of the business models are: free application and/or free content, subscription, earn credits for watching ads, more credits for feedback/surveys, etc. Companies who are able to build a large mobile community (at least 5-10M active users) and gather some specific demographic data become hot property of the moment. It is important to note that the mindset for an exit strategy for companies in the social media and user generated content space has changed a bit. Instead of getting acquired by software or computing companies like Google and Yahoo (yes, yes, they are media companies as well) to traditional Media companies like FOX and HBO. This was quite apparent in a number of discussions I had with the executives from new media content companies.
Enterprise focus, Finally!. I have been involved in the mobile enterprise space since 1999 and have been coming to the CTIA for a number of years. The fall show is supposedly about dual personalities of Entertainment and Enterprise. For the first time it felt that the Enterprise side was given its due respect and was on an equal footing to its sibling personality - the glamorous, the attention-seeking “Entertainment”. CTIA started the conference with an Enterprise panel discussion (of course after the surprise Governator keynote). Though the discussion was too high-level to provide any key insights, CIOs confirmed what is well known now that the spending on wireless-data related projects is going up significantly. A surprise revelation was that China’s growth in enterprise solution is among the highest in the world. It is all about productivity and ROI. Companies are also looking to outsource their IT operations related to wireless devices. Handset guys are coming out with Enterprise targeted devices though we are still in the very early stage development of the cycle. Throwing an email client on the device doesn’t make it an enterprise device. Email client is a given in all new handsets now. When will we start seeing embedded enterprise apps? Mobile web services clients and frameworks?
It’s an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad world. Mobile advertising is clearly the buzz of the moment. Everyone wants to build an ad-supported model and also build their own ad network. Currently, most of the talk is around simple rotation of ads or tying ads to the category the user is interacting with. Not much attention on demographics, profiles, or context. That’s where the “big” impact and value will come into play. Currently, carriers sit on goldmine of user data that is begging to be leveraged for enhancing user experience. Unexpectedly, they sit on a big opportunity that will start to change the advertising industry over the course of the next 5 years. To see where things are going, we just need to look at trends in Japan and Korea. It was interesting that in almost all of the mobile advertising discussions, nobody talked about the elephant that was not in the room - Google, trendsetter in monetizing content. Also, missing were the agencies and their perspective. I have looked at this space quite a bit over the last two years and while agencies are excited about the prospect, they are not ready to jump yet. It will be quite entertaining to watch the new-generation media companies compete/collaborate with the carriers. For the next 3 years or so, carriers will still have an upper hand and if they execute it right, could dominate the space for a long time to come. People also talked about different types of ads – IVR, Voice, Interstitials, banner, in-game, before-and-after, etc. Of course, click-to-call or click-to-action are going to be an especially important ingredient of this game. Sprint Nextel and Enpocket announced their mobile advertising program. Amp’D also announced mobile advertising plans with Rhythm New Media. Bango launched its Ad initiative as well. Virgin mobile’s Ad program “Earn Airtime in Your Spare Time” is innovative. They are truly in tune with their subscribers.
FMC. Kyocera had some trial handsets that supported WiFi/VoWiFi. One could theoretically make VoIP calls and download content over WiFi but will carriers allow it and how long will they resist. Non-traditional carriers like the MVNOs and the cable operators are very interested in exploring bundling offers. Sprint also announced EV-DO Rev A data cards that provide data rates up to 400-600kpbs. Cingular announced that they will have a majority of the top 100 markets deployed with UMTS/HSDPA by year-end. However, the choice of handsets is still missing and as such adoption for Cingular is behind schedule.
4G. While, we are just starting with 3G (except Japan and Korea), seven of the wireless industry’s leading carriers have joined forces to “develop a common vision” for the future of mobile networks technology. Members of the Next Generation Mobile Networks initiative include China Mobile, KPN, NTT DoCoMo Inc., Orange, Sprint Nextel Corp., T-Mobile and Vodafone. The group said it has created a set of requirements “for a future wide area mobile broadband network designed to offer enhanced customer benefits by delivering competitive broadband performance alongside high levels of interoperability.” In plainer terms, the NGMN appears to be devising a roadmap for interoperable 4G networks. You can sense the arm-wrestling to come. 4G could end up having some serious IPR issues if all major patent-holders don’t participate. The 3GPP licensing regime has been a failure, industry needs to be proactive, dedicate resources to the problem and get is solved to the extent it can.
Telematics. The number of firms talking about telematics or navigation on the phone or devices for your car increased quite a bit. Navteq, TeleAtlas, TeleNav, Inrix, Pharos, Kore, Teydo, and many others displayed their wares. On the consumer side, navigation is getting embedded into Local search apps which are enhancing the user experience quite a bit. FindIt and Google Maps are two examples. There were enterprise focused solutions from Tierravision, LiveCargo and @Road.
WiMax. Spent sometime with Lars Johnsson, VP at Beceem Communications talking about the prospect of WiMax worldwide. Clearly, Intel and Clearwire’s announcement has reenergized the industry and taken some uncertainty out. Lars is extremely knowledgeable person on everything WiMax. He co-founded Flarion which got sold to Qualcomm last year. It looks like the benefits of 802.16e will render 802.16d useless in short order. “e” provides better link capacity, Forward Error Correction, power efficiencies, and optimization. The cost of building a WiMax modem is lower than the WCDMA counterpart. A number of cable and wireline players are looking for triple-play offerings. Beceem has strong partnerships with OEMs worldwide and is actively involved in several trials in Korea, Taiwan, Japan, India, and US. The biggest challenges are around interoperability (as always) and quick resolution of IPR issues. From an application perspectives, gaming companies are the ones watching it closely. Also, automobile media player vendors are interested in using WiMax for Broadcast video. Tropos believes that Mesh technology will continue to have relevance in a WiMax-enabled world as the practical ranges of base stations won’t exceed 5-10miles.
M&A. Some major M&A news at the show– Real acquiring WiderThan for $365M, Lucent acquiring Mobilitec for undisclosed amount, and FOX acquiring 51% stake in Jamba for $188M. This follows Sybase’s acquisition of Mobile365 last week for $400M. There are several factors at play. Clearly, some segments of the industry that have matured are facing price pressure and hence consolidation. Media companies are also realizing the potential and don’t want to miss out or get behind the curve so acquiring companies that have traction, not necessarily the best technology. Some of the valuations just don’t make sense but I guess some over-exuberance is to be expected at this time.
Handset launches. You might have missed the announcement; there was no Steve Jobs, no iPhone release. Pearl was probably the highlight of the show though plans had been leaked in the media sometime back. RIM has Razresque aspirations from the device. The big three didn’t have anything interesting. Nokia launched E62 (thankfully, taking a cue from Motorola, they are getting rid of their number scheme), however it is missing 3G and WiFi support of its European cousin E61. Kyocera had some interesting devices as discussed above. Sprint launched two EV-DO Rev A data cards from Pantech and Sierra Wireless. Cingular announced a $150 HTC Smartphone. Linux handsets are also on the rise. Obigo/Teleca had some nice tools/products for mobile Linux – Browser, IM, Media and Email client. The user experience was quite nice.
Mobile TV/video. At the last two shows, Mobile video and Mobile TV were all the rage. The solutions seem to have matured though uncertainty of its success remains (primarily around time-horizon to success). There are too many providers in the space offering solutions from individual codecs to end-to-end solutions, do-it-yourself toolkits (Nexage) to user-generated video solutions (ComVu, Juicecaster – ComVu’s one click mobile broadcast capability was pretty good) to niche demographics (Viva Vision is getting good traction in the Latino market). Various pieces of the mobile video puzzle have been commoditized, now, it is all about packaging. There were a number of Mediaflo handsets on display as well. The quality of Broadcast is really good. I saw some Broadcast TV services in Seoul earlier this year and the user experience is pretty good. My partner watched the entire South Korea soccer world cup game on his mobile device as he wasn’t near a TV. Once the market gets seeded with enough phones and service pricing settles to mass-market scale, we can expect good adoption rate for such services. Imagination Technologies out of UK showed some innovative SoC (System on Chip) solutions targeting Mobile Broadcast video. Some new names in the space are QuickPlay, Picsel (nice user experience), and Convisual. Expect some consolidation in this space over the next 12 months.
The ecosystem friction. The mobile data ecosystem tension is bubbling up. Carriers want control (some more than others) so that they can manage user experience and minimize customer support calls. Content companies want to bypass the carrier and go direct to the consumer. This was also evident in the Walt Mossberg’s grilling of the carriers as well as other conversations with participants in the value chain. Things are improving but not at the pace everyone would like it to be. Clearly, ecosystem only proliferates if it is allowed to make money. If certain sections of the chain get strangled, holes start to develop which pollutes the system.
User experience. Didn’t see much progress on the UX front. Saw a cool implementation from FAST for Optus in Australia where they used search technology to populate the Active Screen with user preferred content. Optus has been using this offering to entice users to 3G as it is not available on lower bandwidth network and is apparently having good success. Add context and some multimedia and it becomes very very compelling. It is one area that hasn’t been exploited that much yet. In the US Cingular’s MediaNet implementation uses the same concept but is more browser-based. In different sessions, carriers agonized over limited shelf space and mountain of content. That’s why man invented “mobile search”. The concept of “deck” is very limiting. Content needs to get exposed via search whether it is post-query or pre-populated dashboard based on context and preference.
Test equipment – Whether it is entertainment or enterprise, very little attention is given to testing and monitoring data applications and services. Keynote launched a really useful product offering (Mobile Device Perspective) that enables developers to test their app from distance on a live network and live devices and control it through manual steps or automation. Currently, such testing is done by flying a team of testers, test, and optimize. This offering can reduce the cost of such operations. I took a look at their R&D and test setup and found it quite compelling. TestQuest also showed a product along the same lines though it is more of a platform play than a service offering.
MVNOs. There is a realization that MVNO business is hard. The unrealistic expectations for customer growth are being recalibrated. It is still a viable business model but one has to give time and execute like a carrier. Virgin Mobile noted that it requires at least 2M subs before a nationwide MVNO (in the US) will cross the line from red to black.
IMS. Talked to Lucent and NMS about their pre-IMS solutions. NMS was displaying a technology around P2P mobile video sharing while talking (though the tasks happened in time-slice mode). Lucent had a solution “extensions” which converged PBX and Mobility. An example would be you dial a 4 digit extension on your mobile phone that connects you to the other party as if you dialed it from your desktop phone. BUT, networks aren’t there yet and devices will arrive a bit later. In the interim, companies are looking to stimulate the simulated IMS experience.
Funding news. Several funding news from the show, the one that caught my eye was $10m for Bubble Motion in VoiceSMS (funded by Sequoia Capital). It should be noted that there is prior art in this space and the likelihood that the company is infringing on somebody’s patents are high.
Coolest gadget. MyVu’s media viewer
Coolest booth. Infospace’s Tony Hawk show was probably the most exciting thing happening on the show floor. Watching the masters go swing-swong had the crowd go wild with ooohs and aaahs.
Misc. News.
- Melodeo won a major podcasting deal with Cingular.
- Medio Systems announced the big Verizon deal (mobile search including use of voice as input).
- Hookmobile – Got a preview of the services coming out next week on all four operators. It is around Mobile Trading Community and using content to digitize trading cards, create some exclusivity and hence some viral effect. In future users can create their own trading cards for their social network. Carrier keeps 35% of the subscription fee. Hookmobile gets 27% and rest goes to the content guys. This could be good for the MMS infrastructure that is collecting dust right now. And yes, you guessed it right; there is an Ad model as well.
- New York City is going to use IPWireless technology to build a $500 million network for police, firefighters and other public-safety agencies
- Users of EV-DO data cards were much happy customers than free Wi-Fi users. Though things were better, under load, the free network comes to its knees fairly quickly.
- SpinVox had a simple but useful offering – converting voicemails to text messages. Use case – you are in a meeting, somebody leaves a voice message, can’t go out to listen, peek under the desk to see (the SMS) if it is important.
- SNAPin’s solution is designed to address Carrier’s customer calls. It wouldn’t be a stretch if carrier starts selling “the deck” to other companies especially in the airlines, insurance, and credit-card industry. You dial the number; phone captures it, goes into the system and brings you the answers to the questions you might be most interested in (in a data format).
Your comments are always welcome.
Posted by ajit at 6:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Mobile mashups: The implications of ‘Data is the intelligence’ on mobile software development
By Dr Paddy Byers
Software as a service is one of the main principles of the new web and collaboration is one of the key distinguishing features of how things are now getting done. In this context, by collaboration, we mean the construction of composite applications by combining multiple, independently created, applications or services.
Collaboration itself is not a new idea. It is the result of the standard practice of breaking down complex entities into a number of simpler constituent pieces, and sourcing those pieces independently. It’s what software developers have been doing for years - except that the specific mechanisms for binding the pieces together (ie REST, SOAP) are new.
It was not always like this. What Joel Spolsky tells us is that, in fact, software developers hadn’t been following the collaboration mindset as much as we thought; and that NIH (Not invented here) is not always result of arrogance but a legitimate policy of eliminating dependencies on things that are outside your control.
But now we are seeing widescale reuse of services across the web – often by the hobbyist and experimental sites – but also by real commercial entities. And not just the Bubble 2.0 startups.
So what’s different now that makes it the right thing to do?
It’s not about new technology. Granted, SOAP and REST might make it easier to do certain things but industrial strength distributed systems have been around for a long time.
The answer is that in fact you no longer have a choice. The data is the software; you can’t make the data yourself. It becomes a dependency that you can’t eliminate any longer. .
Does any of this help us predict what will happen in mobile services? Are the drivers different in mobile than the mainstream web?
A key conclusion is this: if the technologies you use to build mobile services aren’t capable of independent modular construction, then you won’t be able to build comparable services to the mainstream web. You don’t necessarily have to use the same technologies as you would in the fixed web – but you do have to be able to build apps that bind to independently defined and provided services.
Java ME for mobile has traditionally lacked this – specifically, there is no means for a Java ME app to link dynamically to any independently provisioned libraries. (This kind of linking mechanism has existed in more functional java configurations but not in the CLDC that MIDP uses.) So there is no ecosystem for third party library (and, by extension, service) development.
JSR172 does provide a mechanism to do this using SOAP and WSDL. But here’s a problem: it is absent from MSA subset which is the next significant functionality target for operators specifying J2ME for their handsets. So MSA missed a key opportunity to reinstate a critical feature that will enable services to be structured by web 2 principles.
So to recap :
- use of third party services now is more the rule than the exception
- web 2/ajax apps do this well
- MSA subset missed an opportunity to allow J2ME to do this
New technologies like Mobile Ajax themselves don’t solve this problem. Web-based apps (that use SOAP or REST) to access web services do this well. However, Mobile Ajax is relevant because it means that those web-based apps have sufficient interactivity to be usable and useful, which wouldn't be the case (typically) if you wrote a conventional HTML/Javascript app without Ajax.
As usual, comments welcome!
Posted by ajit at 12:11 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 16, 2006
SoonR or later, Mobile Ajax had to become mainstream ..
I had predicted at the beginning of the year that Ajax will lead to a resurgence of mobile browsing applications. It has taken just a few short months to see this vision turned into a live application. This week, SoonR launched the first true Mobile Ajax application. Based on the Opera platform, SoonR’s service truly leverages the power of Mobile Ajax.
I believe Mobile Ajax applications are a new and emerging class of applications, and this service is a trendsetter of a new wave of Mobile Web applications.
Here are some of the aspects of the service which showcase the power of this new class of applications:
a) The application is completely browser based – no software to install on the client
b) It uses the power of Ajax to manage data, reducing latency , loading time and increases response time
c) It provides a better user interface using a web application that is closer to a native/PC based application than a typical web application
d) Distribution is via the web (but the application can also be distributed by the carriers)
The application itself provides a simple but useful service. In a nutshell, the SoonR service lets mobile users access their computers from any Internet-connected mobile handset.
A SoonR service runs on the desktop. People can use their Desktop to search and access documents, images, Organizer for email, scheduling, contacts and ‘SoonR Talk’ for mobile VoIP.
The key aspect here is; all this information is available to any mobile client without the need of synchronization or any additional software on the client. Much of this is achieved through the power of Ajax, very much on the lines of Mobile Web 2.0 which I have been talking about in my book.
To recap from the first principles of Mobile Ajax: The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user makes a change. This improves interactivity, speed, and usability and a dramatically better user experience.
Contrast this with the WAP/XHTML.
We have a relatively poor user interface in a WAP application. The disadvantages of a WAP application are:
• Limited style and feedback elements in the UI
• Lengthy lists of menu options
• Slow load times for pages and large pictures
• Lack of screen real-estate for more dynamic menus or help screens
• Incessant blinking as page elements are refreshed
On the other hand, one of WAP's main advantages is: It is browser based.
Hence, unlike Java ME or other similar applications which needs the application to be downloaded to the mobile device (bringing with it all the complexities, compatibility issues etc), WAP offers some advantages.
The power of the Mobile Ajax approach is: it gives the best of both worlds.
Let us explore these ideas in greater detail.
The aesthetics of the interface itself looks slicker i.e. much more ‘native’ with moving menu bars, icons etc.
But the power of the architecture becomes clearer when you move beyond the ‘pretty face’.
With Ajax, the UI is presented and while the data is loading, users get a nice animated indicator. With WAP, until the server responds with all the data requested.
Often there are dozens, if not hundreds of items in the list. The application will display the main interface quickly while the folder list is being populated in the background (just as you would expect an Ajax application to work). During loading, a clear prompt with an animated progress indicator lets the user know that an operation is in process.
When the loading is complete, the information is displayed without a round-trip screen refresh to the web servers. This animated indicator will re-appear in other parts of SoonR as potentially lengthy operations are executed. By presenting the interface first, the user can start to explore and to understand what is available thus minimizing the time lost waiting for data to load.
Now, take the case of loading pictures.
Pictures in your folder can be viewed with transitions and an active menu. Entering the slide show, the selected picture is full screen and a navigation tool appears in the upper right. If the user doesn’t provide any input after a few seconds, the navigation tool will hide itself and the slide show will progress with smooth transitions between the slides. If you see a picture of particular interest, you can choose the “magnifying glass” icon in the navigation tool and get additional functionality for zooming and panning the picture. To the right, we see the picture with a high level of zoom, the zoom and pan control active.
Ajax techniques enable retrieval of the photo in the background for smooth transitions.
There are also other features leveraging Ajax such as ‘live filters’ which also helps to dynamically reduce the size of the list to a more manageable amount.
Similar to a resident application, the list is filtered as the user types. SoonR implements this functionality across three areas:Contacts – In Outlook organizer integration, Talk – for Skype buddies, Search – for live searches across multiple computers supporting Desktop Search applications from Google, Yahoo, X1, Windows, and Spotlight on the Mac.
The SoonR service is mature in terms of user base since it has been tried on over 500 different devices in over 140 countries. However, the Ajax element is new. The user can either get Opera 8.6 downloaded to the phone or the user can also use any other Mobile Web-browser (WAP version > 1.x). If the user is not using Opera 8.6 or above, the user will get a standard XHTML based interface.
Currently SoonR is available free for charge from www.soonr.com
Any comments welcome.
The SoonR service shows a trend which I believe is significant (and one which I have highlighted before) i.e. mobile browsers and rich mobile browsing applications (like the SoonR/Mobile Ajax case above) will be significant drivers of the new Mobile Web.
If there are any more examples/launches of mobile Ajax, I am happy to cover them. Please contact me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com
Thanks to Soonr for responding to my queries on this service
Posted by ajit at 7:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 15, 2006
movietally and understanding web 2.0 design
I often get requests for reviews of web 2.0 sites on the OpenGardens blog. I cant review them all purely due to time pressures .. However, movietally is an exception for two reasons.
The first being, the site is a textbook case of web 2.0 design as referenced by Richard's article on Web 2.0 for designers.
The second being, the founder, 'Hayden', is only fifteen years old and is a crack programmer from what I can see! When I was that age, I was also dreaming of setting up great businesses. The web allows us all to fulfill our dreams, whatever our age and our location. So, it’s my way of encouraging innovation by featuring movietally (and yes I have checked with a guardian!)
But back to the site itself ..
Movietally is a website for indexing, tagging, and sharing movies (note – sharing involves sharing recommendations not ‘movies’ themselves i.e. its not napster like)
In addition to tagging movies, users can choose whether they recommend the movie or not. From these questions, the collaboration effort of movietally emerges. Different tag clouds are generated, some of which display the most popular tags, a user's most popular tags, movietally's most popular tags, movietally's most popular movies, movietally's most recommended movies, and many other types.
In addition, movietally will automatically recommend movies to a specific user with a
matching algorithm involving numerous factors including the user's recommended movies, the user's tags, other user's recommended movies, and other user's tags.
Movietally will also state a list of users which are similar to you. Along with this, users can write reviews for movies and contribute to a wiki-like effort of movie information (directors, producers, cast, etc.). Users can choose to be notified when one of their friends updates their movie catalogue ("subscribe" to another user).
Along with tags, movietally demonstrates other classic web 2.0 features, such as AJAX, which is shown with the live-searching feature of a user searching their catalogue, and the ability for a user to create custom RSS feeds.
The critical feature of movietally is it’s search. Users can enter practically anything into the search, including tags, part of a movie name, directors, producers, cast, etc. and movietally will rank the results to give you the best match for a movie for your criteria
Let us look at web 2.0 design in context of movietally
Of the "six trends that characterize Web 2.0 for designers", the below are the ones that movietally implements:
1. "Writing Semantic Markup: Transition to XML"
Movietally implements RSS, by providing a feed of the 25 most recently added movies. In addition, users can create a custom feed of either the 25 most recently added movies which pertain to specific tags or the 25 most recently added movies by certain users. See rss info for more information.
2. "Remixing Content: About When and What, not Who or Why"
According to the article, this design feature is about how searches can also be mixed with RSS to let people subscribe to content via topic and tag RSS feeds. As described above, movietally implements this in the same way as per (1).
3. "Emergent Navigation and Relevance: Users are in Control"
This section describes how the content is suited to the user's behaviour. This feature is implemented through its recommendations feature. Since the recommendations are based off the movies which the user has chosen to add to his/her catalogue (the user's actions), much of the content provided to a user is based off of what he/she has done. In general, this applies to the whole site ; the site is powered by what the users choose to do, including what movies they choose to add, whether they recommend these movies, the tags they have, etc etc.
4. "Adding Metadata Over Time: Communities Building Social Information"
The purpose of this section is tags. From the article: "On Flickr and Del.icio.us, any user can attach tags to digital media items (files, bookmarks, images). The tagging aspect of these services isn’t the most interesting part of them, though. What are most interesting are the trends we see when we put together everyone’s tags." . Tags are common throughout the site. With the many "tag clouds" on movietally, the service is able to find "the trends we see when we put together everyone’s tags", by not only displaying the more popular tags in a bigger font size, but also allowing users to "request removal" of certain tags. If a certain ratio of "request removals" of a certain tag to the number of times the tag has been added is reached, the tag is removed from movietally's database for the movie to which it applies. In addition, movietally places a larger emphasis on more popular tags when recommending movies to a user.
5. "Shift to Programming: Separation of Structure and Style"
This design feature is about making the content easily readable by computers. With tags displaying on nearly every page of movietally, when a computer (such as a web crawler) reads a page on movietally, it can gather many, many keywords (tags) which pertain to the page.
I hoped to do two things through this post - promote movietally and also use it as a showcase for understanding the principles of web 2.0 design.
As usual, welcome comments.
Posted by ajit at 9:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 14, 2006
Finding mobile entertainment on cell phones is basically a joke right now ...
says News Corp’s COO Peter Chernin
Hear Hear!
I have long been saying the same in this blog ..
The carrier centric view of the industry is seriously f****d up .. (and not just in the US).
The likes of News Corp, flushed with the success of web 2.0 models online(such as MySpace), will now look to Mobile Web 2.0 i.e. extending the same concepts to the mobile world.
This will not be easy but certainly it will be driven by the web .. and not by the mobile data industry .. which is nice ..
Posted by ajit at 8:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 13, 2006
.mobi and Ajax : They don't mix ...
By Dr Paddy Byers
.mobi has been covered recently by C Enrique Ortiz and also Carlo at MobHappy.
Following on from their comments, this blog explores the idea of .mobi in a mobile Ajax world
First, it is assumed that there is a clear divide between mobile sites and non-mobile sites; there isn’t. I have a mobile web browser on my PDA that fully supports DOM-compatible scripting and XMLHttpRequest – but I only have a small screen and only key navigation. And I’d like to be able to navigate sites one-handed if possible. Full desktop sites don’t work well for the obvious reasons – they have large images, they don’t fit well on the screen, they rely on mouseovers, etc – but plain mobile XHTML sites that are AJAX-free also don’t get the best from the platform. Ironically they are less mobile-friendly because they require full page downloads for simple interaction rather than the kind of thing we can do with AJAX. So, ideally I’d like the site to figure out what browser features I have (some mobile-like, some desktop-like) and give me the best experience. I can’t do this now – perhaps the w3c device independence activity will give us what’s needed – but in any event it’s absolutely wrong for those characteristics to be embedded in the domain name.
Note: The UAProf doesn't indicate what scripting capability the browser has, and whether or not the browser supports AJAX. The issue is that AJAX(and other new web technologies) are not formally standardised from a UAProf perspective and in practice site authors need to code to take account of the specific characteristics of each browser. If the phone has a browser that isn't recognised, the UAProf doesn't give sufficient information for the site author to know how to target it most effectively.
Second, the clear trend in AJAX app construction is to migrate to fully symbolic URIs that represent elements of the application’s state. As well as using symbolic URIs to represent some internal state (and then using REST to manipulate that state), these symbolic URIs become the top-level URL for the site at any given time. There’s a good example of how this works in Christian Gross’ book where he gives the example of an airline booking application. For a given booking there’s a URI that references that booking which is representation-independent (ie doesn’t encode any particular view of the booking), lifecycle-independent (ie is valid for that booking at all states of its lifecycle) and is session-independent (ie there is no state that the application relies on in a session cookie or any other browser state). What’s more, the reference is fully device-independent in that the same reference could be entered into a phone browser and it would then take you to the booking application in whatever markup system is relevant to that phone’s browser. In principle, it’s possible to manipulate the same booking from multiple browsers simultaneously, including from the mobile domain.
.mobi, by contrast, foresees islands where these domains do not mix; at least, they don’t mix a the level of the URI. That’s just not where AJAX and mobile web services are going. What’s more, the mobile web apps that are most likely to be successful and make money are precisely the ones that successfully achieve this data convergence.
So where does that leave .mobi?
Posted by ajit at 10:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
mobile web 2.0 book finally ready!
Hello all
After a lot of hard work from me and Tony Fish, our book Mobile web 2.0 is now available.
You can buy it from the futuretext site You can also see table of contents, sample chapters etc
However, If you are a blogger and would like to blog about this book, please contact me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com with a URL of your blog(your blog must be active and relevent to web / mobile applications)
Thanks to everyone who has helped us with the book
Some of the testimonials on the book include:
"If you're looking for the best source of information
currently available on the subject of both Web 2.0 and Mobile Web 2.0, you have to go no further than this book." - Dion Hinchcliffe, Editor-in-Chief of the Web 2.0 Journal and President of Hinchcliffe & Company
" In their latest book, the authors make fresh challenges on the paradigms in mobile data. You are not going to agree with it all, but it will challenge your own thinking" - Jeremy Flynn, Head of Commercial Partnerships, Vodafone UK
"Simply the most comprehensive and easily-accessible book on mobile Web 2.0 and its future potential available to date." - Dr Rebecca Lingwood CEng MIMechE, Director of Continuing Professional Development, University of Oxford"
Posted by ajit at 8:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Ogilvy podcast with Tomi Ahonen and Alan Moore ..
Hello all
I am happy to announce that Tomi Ahonen and Alan Moore will the hosts of a new series of podcasts. The podcasts relate to Tomi and Alan's book Communities Dominate Brands (which is published by futuretext)
We are starting with an interview with Rory Sutherland - Executive Creative Director and Vice-Chairman, OgilvyOne London and Vice-Chairman, Ogilvy Group UK
Qs for you is: what questions would you like to ask Rory? Please post them here and Tomi/Alan will pick them up
kind rgds
Ajit
Posted by ajit at 2:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 12, 2006
How will iPod games affect mobile games?
As Apple launches games on iPod/iTunes - how will this affect 'mobile' games i.e. games run on phones? If Apple goes WiFi in future, then it may well be able to achieve it's dream of combining some mobile phone like features but without going through the telco network
Thanks to William Volk for pointing this article out to me
from pocket gamer
The fifth-generation iPods will be able to play a range of casual games, taking them head-on into competition with your mobile phone as a gaming device. Jobs announced that the games will be sold on the iTunes store for $4.99 each in the US – presumably around a fiver here in the UK, although less if we're lucky.
The first tranche of iPod games for sale on iTunes are as follows:
Bejeweled — The super-popular colour matching game
Tetris — The original and still the best
PAC-MAN — Still scary after all these years
Vortex — A shoot-'em-up
Zuma — Like Bejewelled only this time you slide balls
Texas Hold 'Em — Get into the poker craze
Mini Golf — Holy Apple, it's a golf game
Mahjong — Centuries old tile-matching
Cubis 2 — Another colour matching game, this time with cubes
Anyone want to bet the development environment is 10x better than anything we see on phones?
Posted by ajit at 10:57 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
mobile web 2.0 covered in tech crunch UK ..
Techcrunch UK covers my book mobile web 2.0.
Nice! thanks Sam and Co
Posted by ajit at 10:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Mobile Youth Services Forum summary by Tomi Ahonen
I spoke at the Mobile youth services forum last week.
Conference chair Tomi Ahonen posted this insightful summary on forumoxford. Lots of useful nuggets as might be expected from Tomi
Hi All
Our Ajit Jaokar is running a workshop today at the Mobile Youth Services Forum here in London, and I chaired the first day and delivered the keynote to the event. The annual event by MarcusEvans attracts a very impressive lineup of relevant players to present, consider: MTV, Extreme Mobile, DJuice (Telenor's youth brand), Amp'd Mobile, Firefly, Mobile Youth, SubTV; as well as some of the other leading players innovating in our industry like SK WiderThan, 3 Sweden, ITN, Telefonica, Buongiorno etc.
I found several good tidbits from numerous presenters. I'll review some of my favourite ideas here for us all.
Kyivstar Ukraine (a Telenor affiliate) discussed a clever tool in the battle of the second SIM cards, a Golden SMS. Its such a good idea well beyond the topic of youth and mobile, I'll post about it separately.
Telefonica has introduced the ability to pass on top-up minutes between any subscribers, and its always free. We've had these before ever since first introduced in the Philippines what some five years ago, but mostly it seems to be targetted or possible between parents and kids etc. Now at Telefonica, if you are young, have run out of credits on your prepaid phone, and don't want to ask your parents, you can ask your grandparents. Or your favourite uncle, or your girlfriend/boyfriend, or your best mate, etc. Anyone on the Telefonica network, and both postpaid and prepaid subscribers can do top-ups to prepaid accounts. A clever way to do small loans to friends. You owe me three Euros. No problem, I'll send you a top-up to your phone?
Young people spread celebrity gossip with their phones. American youth-oriented Amp'd Mobile discussed what the youth do with their phones. There is an obsession with celebrity culture (American Idol etc). So there is a kind of hierarchy of expertise, who is in the know. If some celebrity has for example a radical new hairstyle or a new love interest or whatever, that is the topic that friends discuss. If you, then only find out about this a day later, and try to contact your friends and talk about it, they will react with almost contempt, as you are so out of touch, and they won't want to talk about yesterday's news. Unless you are connected and in the know, you won't be able to participate. This increases the value of wanting to share. Which leads to the following finding..
The Amp'd presentation really hit me - considering my personal motto "in a connected age, sharing information is power" and the theme in all of my books that we have shifted from a networked age (PC computer networks) to the connected age (always on always connected via mobile phones and SMS). I've always explained that my motto means it is in OUR interest to share info QUICKLY. It is in digital form, someone will get it to your target anyway. If you want to do it, do it quickly, so you get to be first. But this is the first case where I've seen a kind of independent validation of that, so the youth of today already instinctively value that, who delivers the info first gets the value and benefit, and you are actually "punished" for bringing info too late. But then get this - Amp'd has introduced as its corporate objective "Amp'd makes you somebody people want to talk to" Wow. This is so totally the heart of what Alan and I aim for in our book "Communities Dominate Brands" - this is adopting a corporate goal of engagement marketing. Beautiful. Amp'd helps make the young consumer more appealing to others. Very very clever thinking. I've always said, even if Americans are behind in mobile telecoms, don't count them out, they are brilliant at marketing, and they will become ever stronger.
Incidentially I think all American speakers referenced Helio (the South Korean MVNO entrant into the USA market) as particularly dangerous and creating a huge pressure to perform and consolidate now before Helio has fully established itself into the market.
A telling warning outside of telecoms for us all. Mobile Youth (Wireless World Forum) gave some findings of the Mobile Youth survey of 2006, but the remarkable warning came from youth clothing. Twenty years ago, the two leading youth clothing brands were Levis for jeans and Nike for shoes. Today Nike is still the leading shoe brand, but what happened to Levis? From a global market share of 50% they are down to 9%. The leading jeans brand today is Diesel. So yes for anyone of us who works in the youth segment (and thus the future of our industry), it is possible to maintain leadership (like Nike) but its also possible to utterly fail (like Levis).
MTV by the way, has also launched as an MVNO now in Germany on the E Plus network.
Tre Sweden (Three/Hutchison Group) talked about how they promoted Waiting Tones/Ringback Tones. Again not specifically youth-oriented, so I'll post about it separately. A clever gimmick we can all learn from.
CyWorld - a frequent topic here at Forum Oxford - was discussed by SK WiderThan (the SK Telecom spin-off company that invented Waiting Tones/Ringback Tones and today supplies about half of the world's Waiting Tones services). One of the finer points of insight helped explain why CyWorld sells so much music. They offer what I would call a welcome song service. Whenever you visit a friend's virtual room, when you step into the room, you can be greeted with the welcome song. So you all know me, of course I'd want to have a good James Bond theme as my welcoming song when you entered my room (HatRat's lair ha-ha, outfitted like any true Bond villain's lair). Each time the welcoming song plays, the subscriber is charged about 50 cents. A bit like a modern variant of the old jukebox. Because of this and so many other music innovations, CyWorld sells 6 million songs per month !
While on CyWorld. A bit of an update on CyWorld stats. 90% of Korean youth, 30% of total population are active in Cyworld. 90% of all picture uploads on the web in Korea go to blogs or photo sharing services within CyWorld. 30,000 corporate businesses (Pizza Hut, 7-Eleven etc) have a presense inside CyWorld and over half a million items of virtual properties are already for sale inside CyWorld ! The revenue-sharing deal inside CyWorld for outside brands is 40% to owners of CyWorld, 60% goes to outside content owners.
And best tidbit (I believe this will soon manifest itself in other virtual worlds like Habbo Hotel, and community sites like MySpace etc) - your personal popularity is now a contest of how many visits you have at your room inside CyWorld.
Our Jim O'Reilly of the Korean IT Promotion Agency also presented and while I tend to know much of what he presents as we work together so much, Jim managed to totally surprise me with this interactive TV element from the DMB broadcasters in South Korea. So you like your soap opera starlet? And you think that is a very sexy blouse? Click on the shirt (while the TV show is running) and you can be passed to a page of the clothing maker, and order the blouse for yourself online! Why not? Its digital, interactive. Even if the item is not visible this can be done. The soap opera storyline has the girl loving the after shave of the male star, then on the bottom of the screen it offers you the chance to order the after shave by clicking on the interactive part. We've seen this discussed for many years what interactive TV could be. Now - September 2006 - it is finally live and no longer science fiction. Of course this happens in Korea first ha ha.
The most insightful presentation I think was that of Peter Miles the CEO of university TV broadcaster SubTV here in the UK. Peter was amazing and I can't do justice to all he said. So just a bit of a highlight - in the last three years the university student population mobile phone penetration went from about 85% to 99%. When they enter university they are 80% prepaid, and when they leave they are 80% postpaid. While all have access to online internet of course - and 90% access the web daily (51% access a social networking site at least once per week, wow) - very importantly the university age student is both online and offline. Their lifeline is the mobile phone. 74% say they "would lose their mind" if they lost their phone. Not because of a loss of contact info and stored messages etc. But because they would be out of contact. (reference the Ampd stuff above). As most don't have a fixed landline connection, the phone is the ONLY way to contact them. E-mail and IM instant messenger is not an option. You reach someone via the mobile phone - but you can interact with them with any of a wide range of communication tools from online gaming to myspace to skype etc.
Peter is a passionate believer in SMS and coined the phrase I often quote, that using SMS, the youth is the Borg (of Star Trek Next Generation). But Peter also made the very important observation - the youth is multichannel. Don't limit to mobile phones only!
It was a most insightful event. I'm very happy I stayed till the end.
Tomi Ahonen / HatRat smile
Posted by ajit at 7:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
TIM: This cuckoo flew the other way ..
what's behind TIMs decision NOT to follow the FMC strategy?
Everyone is trying to find a partner in this mating game (fixed / mobile company to complete the FMC gap) - so why let go of one when you have them?
My personal view is FMC is a fad .. a desperate gamble to get growth when all other avenues have been exhausted and operators are following it lemming like .. and thats why this deal interests me since it bucks the trend
thoughts?
from fi