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March 30, 2007
forumoxford event: The Google session ..
Hello
As we come to three major events I am speaking in April, I am going to blog about them and if you are attending any of these, please email me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com and I shall be happy to catch up with you
The three events are
a) ForumOxford: Future Technologies Conference 2007 - This is organised by me along with Oxford University. A must attend event(but then I am biased) .. but on a serious note - with speakers from Google, Vodafone, Symbian, Three etc .. I truly believe this will be a great event.
b) O Reilly web 2.0 expo - I am speaking on Mobile Web 2.0 along with Tony Fish and
c) IMS 2.0 event in Monaco. I am conducting a workshop on Mobile Web 2.0 and IMS
Now for our Oxford event
Attend this event if you can .. and here is why .. . I think this will be truly useful to the audience since 'How can we work with Google' is a question which almost anyone would want to answer!
Adrian Blair: Strategic Partner Development, Google will be the keynote speaker speaking on the topic : Bringing the World's Information to Any Device, Anywhere: Google, and what used to be called the mobile phone
- What are Google's core strategic assets?
- How do we apply these to mobile?
- Why are partnerships critical?
- What do Google's partners gain?
About Adrian Blair:
Adrian Blair is responsible for Google's partnerships with mobile players in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He joined Google's California headquarters in 2004, and has since forged relationships with many of the leading names in the industry. Prior to Google, Adrian taught Economics at Harvard University, and was Head of European Business Development for Ask Jeeves, where he led Ask's entry into the paid search and mobile content businesses. He holds a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Posted by ajit at 5:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
My impressions of Visiongain's fixed to mobile convergence conference
Note: We are still having problems with Move able type - apologies for that. But the text of the blog should still be readable.
Earlier this week, I was a part of a panel on the Visiongain – fixed to Mobile convergence conference.
Although not a very large conference (reflecting the nature of the topic perhaps), this was a truly useful conference and I learnt a lot from it. Both the quality of the speakers and the attendees was very high (mostly Operators, device manufacturers etc)
Here is my synopsis of this session and the key learnings and impressions from my notes
Firstly, in relation to my session: I was a part of a panel with Jari Hämäläinen, Director Strategic Technologies, Multimedia Strategy and Technology - Nokia and Bill Leslie, Chief Technology Officer, LongBoard – discussing ‘Readiness, availability and cost of converged services ‘
The biggest surprise for me was this:
Traditionally, my views don’t conform to the industry convention (Open Gardens, fixed rate pricing, VOIP, Naked SIP etc etc) .. However, I found an industry almost accepting some of these ideas as inevitable. Thus, I think we may well see a lot of change to the current status quo – which is a good thing!
The four key ideas I expressed in my panel discussion were(and these are reflected in my blog in general)
a) If a FMC salesman came calling, what would he say?
b) Most likely, it would be a ‘cost reduction’ proposition. That’s a big problem. The customers don’t believe it and its not a good business proposition
c) What’s the motivation for us, as an industry, to pursue FMC? In most western countries, there is 100% market penetration for both fixed and mobile devices. So, the only way to expand is for the fixed guys to poach mobile customers and vice versa. This explains the mating games between Fixed and Mobile Operators. This is in the industry’s interest – but is it in the consumer’s interest? Do they care what the industry’s problems are?
d) Finally, we all talk of IMS. All IP etc etc. But do we realise that the ethos of the Net leans to the Dumb pipe i.e. the value shifts to the periphery and the network becomes less intelligent?
This generated some interesting discussion. Most interesting for me was the views from Jari(Nokia) – which were very similar to my own. As was Jari’s presentation later on in the day. I have been always optimistic about Nokia and Jari’s vision was very interesting
Also, Luis Angel Galindo Sánchez, Senior Technology Strategy Expert, Telefonica España gave a presentation earlier in the day, which also reflected the same themes. Coming from an Operator, that was also very refreshing.
Besides Jari and Luis’s presentation, here are some other thoughts
a) FMC is still largely about Voice!
b) Enterprise apps may have many of the early gains
c) Avaya is certainly a disruptive solution and I suspect it is eating the Operator’s lunch with a simple, cost saving value proposition at the corporate level(single number, cheap calls from anywhere in the world routed through a single voice gateway)
d) Oddly enough, the Avaya service had no SMS – just voice! Odd!
e) IBM’s Jeanette Carlsson’s presentation(The impact of convergence on traditional business models: opportunities for the future) was one of the most comprehensive I have seen. It covered the full Quad play(including IPTV and Cable) and one of it’s key messages was the impact of the advertising model – something I agree to as well. I hope to blog more about Jeanette’s presentation when I get the softcopy because there was so much to cover and many interesting insights
f) Finally, Filip Lindell, Senior Manager Wireless Strategies, Ericsson gave a fantastic presentation from the device perspective – very technical and very comprehensive. Loved it! Also the topic of more than one future blogs
Amongst the attendees, were Dr Mun Geon Kyeong – Principal member of Technical Staff – Mobile Telecommunications Research Division ETRI(Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute) – South Korea(same class of research institute as MIT )
We had a fascinating discussion on the potential of Software radio - something I must read up a bit more on
Many thanks to conference producer Dr Richard Walledge and his team at Visiongain (Shona McPartland,Shiobhan O'Shea and Andrew Beales) for this excellent conference and for inviting me on the panel and to Marina Gibbs Partner - Spectrum Strategy Consultants for chairing the session
Posted by ajit at 12:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 29, 2007
We are having some problems due to a movable type plug-in
We are having some problems due to a movable type plug-in .. Hopefully we will fix it tomorrow. Apologies for the inconvenience caused. If you are a new blogger, Go for wordpress not movable type!
Posted by ajit at 8:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
We are having some problems due to a movable type plugin ..
We are having some problems due to a movable type plug-in .. Hopefully we will fix it tomorrow. Apologies for the inconvenience caused. If you are a new blogger, Go for wordpress not movable type!
Posted by ajit at 8:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
We are having some problems due to a movable type plugin ..
We are having some problems due to a movable type plug-in .. Hopefully we will fix it tomorrow. Apologies for the inconvenience caused. If you are a new blogger, Go for wordpress not movable type!
Posted by ajit at 8:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A note on comments on this blog ..
Hello
I have currently disabled comments on this blog due to excessive SPAM. We are working on a Movable type plugin and hopefully that will work. Movable type's own spam protection mechanism is indeed very poor. (My own comments end up as 'junk' and many other people have lost comments on this blog)
Hopefully the plugin should fix this
Thanks for your feedback and if you do have a comment, please email me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com and I shall post it manually.
Posted by ajit at 11:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 28, 2007
SEO: How to use blogs for Search engine optimization and to improve your Google ranking/Alexa rating
Here is a simple method to use blogs to increase Google rankings/alexa ratings. I thought I should share it with you since I have rarely seen people use it and it worked very well for me.
The idea is to install Wordpress or movabletype(or equivalent) on your server instead of blogging at generic sites like blogger.com, blogspot etc etc. This is not technically too difficult to do and not too expensive.
Having done that, then you create the blog as a sub domain or a subdirectory of your main site. For instance, my blog is www.opengardensblog.futuretext.com which is a sub domain of www.futuretext.com
Thus, when people link to your blog, they automatically link to your site. This has the advantage of boosting up your Google rankings and Alexa ratings for your whole site
Oddly enough, I have never seen any SEO person recommend this technique – but it works great from my experience
Some notes
a) This would work only if you are a truly committed blogger and are blogging things which people want to link to. It does not work if the content on your blog is fundamentally not useful to an audience(and therefore not linkable)
b) I think subdirectories work better than sub domains from an SEO standpoint. I use sub domains because our site uses subdomainis in general. I dont want to change my whole site just for that!
c) It requires long term commitment to blogging
But it works!
Posted by ajit at 11:05 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Carnival of the mobilists ..
The 66th Carnival of the mobilists is at All about Symbian. Well worth a read as usual!
Posted by ajit at 7:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 27, 2007
Incredible! O2 offers fixed rate pricing ONLY if you threaten to leave!
This is an incredible story! I am interested if you can verify it.
Please email me on ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com
Apparently, O2 will offer a fixed rate tariff – only if you threaten to leave (especially to join the Three network which is fixed rate tariff).
In other words, only the retentions team offers this tariff. The rest of the suckers (oops customers!) pay the ‘normal’ tariff(and new subscribers are still being charged anything from £48 to £225 for the same level of access) .
This is the first impact of Three’s fixed rate pricing – and in fact, another Operator spoke to me at an event and said that they are also planning fixed rate!
The story is posted by blogger Ewan Mc Leod.
When I heard that name, I thought – not the same Ewan who I knew for a while?
Yep, it’s Ewan from Neoone. Ewan and Hetty got a lot of traction at neoone. Not caught up with Ewan for a while for their latest awards and accolades.
A good guy and pretty clued on – now blogging on smstextnews
So, for my money, this is a reliable source!
Over to O2!!
See the full story HERE
Posted by ajit at 10:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In support of Kathy Sierra and the Scobles
A brief post to express support for blogger Kathy Sierra and also Robert and Maryam Scoble.
I think Robert Scoble sums it up very well when he says
It’s this culture of attacking women that has especially got to stop. I really don’t care if you attack me. I take those attacks in stride. But, whenever I post a video of a female technologist there invariably are snide remarks about body parts and other things that simply wouldn’t happen if the interviewee were a man.
It makes me realize just how ascerbic this industry and culture are toward women. This just makes me ill.
I have never met Kathy Sierra but I believe that the physical and sexual threats against her are deplorable. Robert and Maryam Scoble are people who I regard as personal friends. They are wonderful people and it’s sad to see them threatened.
You can read more about it on Robert’s post
Posted by ajit at 8:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 25, 2007
Carnival of the mobilists No 65 at Golden Swamp
Bit delayed due to my travels last week, but the Carnival of the mobilists is at Judy's blog Golden Swamp. Judy is great as ever!
Posted by ajit at 6:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 24, 2007
Of OpenGardens, Walled Gardens, Tim Wu, Net Neutrality, Carterfone and IMS
Probably my longest article on this blog. I am preparing a pdf version as well!
Introduction
As many of you know Columbia University Professor Tim Wu has written a fascinating article called: Wireless Net Neutrality: Cellular Carterfone on Mobile Networks . If you have not read it already, I very much recommend that you do!
With a blog called ‘OpenGardens’, this topic is clearly of deep interest to me.
However, after reading the article, I have mixed views. The paper does a great job of highlighting the issues we face today, but I also believe that it mistaken on many other issues - and I find my selves taking a stance which is much more neutral.
This article outlines my thoughts on this document.
All comments welcome to ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com.
Particularly, I welcome feedback from Operators – since many in Europe I know are thinking of Opening up the network in some way.
Synopsis of my thinking• Tim Wu’s document does a great job of highlighting the issues. It does an excellent job about raising consumer awareness and I truly hope it drives some thinking at Government and at Operator levels.
• The USA is clearly losing out due to the practises highlighted in the document. However, these practises are not a global trend. Even within the USA, there is a range of behaviour exhibited by Operators. Legislation may not be the only option here – and indeed may not be the best option.
• The whole document is primarily based on the application of Carterfone principle to the Mobile Operators. I believe that the Carterphone principle can be applied to voice but not to data unless certain other conditions are fulfilled first – which I explain below. Thus, it is not a simple case of applying the Carterphone principle to the Mobile Network Operator as is implied
• Oddly enough, the document does not talk of IMS . IMS is a huge buzzword in the industry and addresses the very same issues that are outlined here. I discuss some implications of IMS below.
• In fact, if IMS were to be considered, Skype would be one of the ‘walled gardens’ (since it does not use the SIP protocol – which means it is not Open).
• It is ironic that the Carterphone principle (opening up the Mobile network as envisaged in the document), would benefit the two closest walled gardens – Skype and iPhone. (My previous caveats about applying the Carterphone principle to voice apply in this case)
• The issues highlighted are not ONLY due to the Operator in all cases. For instance, for Mobile Video, the government is an important player(and cause) of the delay in deployment.
• The document does not address net neutrality as I understand it. Thus, net neutrality seems to be a keyword designed to gain some emotional currency
• I totally agree on the discussions about Disclosure. There may be a case for legislation in this sector only i.e. enforcing greater disclosure
• Cooperation and not competition is the key!! In that sense, unless America does some fundamental rethink, it may well lose out in the end because of it’s culture of competing vs. collaborating
My core belief (and potential solution to the issues outlined by Tim) is :
In a consumption driven world, competition is the driving force. In a creation driven world(User generated content, Web 2.0, Mobile Web 2.0 etc), cooperation is the driving force. For reasons I explain below, we have no choice but to accept a diverse ecosystem in the West and legislation is not a good option. Instead, we should look at cooperation and try to identify the dimensions of the stack where we can get critical mass.
Analysis
Verizon: Firstly, let us acknowledge that Verizon is an exception. Much of what they do will be severely limiting in a Web 2.0/Social networking world - simply because Version customers will want to interact with other people (and not just other Verizon customers). Like AOL, Verizon will find out that it can’t maintain a walled garden for ever. Now, having got the issue of Verizon out of the way, let us look at a wider picture
Skype and iPhone: The irony here is – Opening up the network in this way, would benefit two of the closest gardens : i.e. Skype and iPhone
No IMS?: Surprisingly, Tim Wu’s document does not mention IMS at all. This is strange, since IMS is such a huge buzzword in the industry today. IMS also plays directly on the net neutrality issue in the sense either you can view it as a walled garden (at the packet level) or you can consider the disruptive potential of naked SIP (SIP sans IMS). Or, like I do, think that IMS has some unique and powerful features and depending on how IMS is implemented - this can be truly beneficial to the industry.
In any case, what you can't do is - ignore IMS!
SIP and Skype : If IMS were to be included, Skype does not look that good – because it does not follow an open protocol(SIP).
The Carterfone principle: The whole document is primarily based on the application of Carterfone principle to the Mobile Operators. In my view, The Carterphone principle can be applied to voice but not to data unless the Operator creates APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) first. Carterfone without APIs is practically useless.
We can illustrate this by considering the example of Visual voicemail in iPhones. As a consumer, I love the idea of Visual voicemail. That’s EXACTLY what I want .. I hate trawling through old voicemail(and worse still – remembering keys to go next voicemail etc etc!). So, it’s fantastic to have visual voicemail .. BUT guess what? Supporting visual voicemail implies that the two (device and Carrier) are intimately in bed! Else, it is not possible to provide such a service(because the voicemail is stored on the network and not the device) .
Thus, in a Voice scenario, Carterfone may work - but in a data scenario it will not because to make a useful service(like Visual voicemail), the device needs the network to be abstracted(i.e. API enabled).
Tim Wu’s document misses this critical point.
An API enabled Mobile Operator actually is a very powerful proposition – something which I have been speaking of for some time as in Mobile web 20: Re-engineering the digital ecosystem with converged digital processes in a Post IMS/Quad play world and in The Long tail and Mobile Web 2.0
Thus, it’s certainly not a case of directly applying the Carterfone principle (i.e. Plug and Play) to Mobile Data scenarios.
Carterfone, APIs and Pipes: Note that in the above API enabled scenario, the Operator is still the hub(and not the dumb pipe). The Operator still retains leverage in this situation by managing the APIs
The iPhone : Tim says: >>> Most importantly, to the surprise of many, the iPhone only works on the network of a single carrier, AT&T Wireless. The hundreds of millions of consumers who are not AT&T Wireless customers cannot make use of the iPhone unless they become AT&T customers. The question is, why? Why can’t you just buy a cell phone and use it on any network, like a normal phone? <<<
No No No .. I was not surprised. See my longish post saying ..
In fact, as I said before, the iPhone CANNOT work with multiple Operators with ease because it needs to be in bed with the Operator to give that unique user experience. The client alone cannot deliver that user experience and I use the case of Visual voicemail to indicate why
Locked phones? In light of the above, locked phones are not such a big issue.
Qualcomm/ BREW : One must also not ignore the role of Qualcomm/BREW in this - i.e. Qualcomm by definition leads to a certain ecosystem biased towards a walled garden at all levels(network, apps and so on). Outside that scenario, the Mobile world is a lot more open place.
Mobile TV and Video: Mobile TV and Video is hobbled not by the Operators – but due to a range of other factors(including broadcast spectrum allocations in Europe). Thus, it’s a much more complex issue – with standards wars at technology/broadcast level – not a pure Operator scenario
Developers: When the article talks of developers, the implicit assumption in the document is : you need to be on the carrier portal/deck. However, Operators were never good at marketing mobile applications. In other words, even if you did end up on the deck, it may not translate to sales(excluding simple content such as games etc).
The Operator Portal also degrades the brand of the content/application owner. They are not the destination site. If they were strong or innovative enough, they would not want to be eclipsed by the Operator’s brand and instead would want to promote their own brand. Clearly, the off portal market in the USA is not mature (and this is the real problem i.e. short codes need to be viable and interoperable). In the UK, companies like Yell Mobile , which have good content, are primarily taking the off portal route rather than the Operator route.
Thus, if the service is compelling enough, I would not recommend the Portal route. As a corollary, I think the off portal market in the US needs to improve. That’s a real issue
WAP vs. Full browsers : Yes, WAP was a crippled version of the Web. That’s true. But, in the early days (low bandwidth, low CPU etc), was there an option? i.e. could we have really been able to run full web browsers on mobile devices? Today, as we increasingly see the uptake of full web browsers on Mobile devices from companies such as Nokia and Opera, these vendors are redefining the landscape(and I include Widgets amongst browser technology). This will lead to applications that span the Web and the Mobile Web using technologies like Mobile Ajax, Mobile Widgets and WICD () – making long tail applications possible.
Openmoko : Openmoko has been on my radar. It is interesting. Time will tell. It still needs a network though and I am not sure how that works.
Net neutrality: Defining net neutrality primarily in terms of terms of the Carterphone principle sounds limiting to me?
The mobile network is different and the Mobile network operator is not anonymous : Mobile network operator is not anonymous. In fact they are a (longish!) phone call away. But accessible none the less. Which means – they can be sued. I don’t think this fact can be ignored. For instance, if you get Spam on the Web, there is not a lot you can do. However, if you get Spam on the Mobile web – who do you call? Your Operator. In practise, this fact cant be ignored.
The security risks are also higher due to the personal nature of the device. For example, a child may be using a PC(which may be also be used by an adult). But in case of the child’s phone, it is always being used by the child – hence more risk.
The point of these arguments is: there are genuine reasons to be cautious.
Why change and why now?
In the last few years since I have been tracking this space, why is the idea of opening up Telecoms networks suddenly of interest?
Here is the reason in my view.
Telecoms is a mature industry. Voice revenues still drive a lot of the business. Data revenues are small, indeed non existent. However, Voice revenues are under threat from VOIP - and that’s a universal phenomenon – on both fixed and mobile networks. (albeit on mobile networks today, it is still mainly voice over WiFi).
Also, in most places in the West, the markets are saturated. Thus, growth prospects for voice alone are limited. In contrast to the Web companies, especially with the uptake of Web 2.0, Telecoms is not an attractive investment proposition in light of the (lack of) future growth.
Hence, witness the interest in Fixed to Mobile convergence (fixed operators trying to poach customers from mobile operators and vice versa) and acquisitions in fast growing markets like India. And also an interest in Mobile data for the same reason.
Hence, market forces will drive the change in many part of the world. Other factors also help. Better devices, mature networks, better browser technology etc.
Case for Government intervention?
Tim Wu’s article concludes: “At some point, I think Americans are going to put their foot down and say, ‘We won't tolerate this anymore.’”
That’s true
The real question is: What could be done and should the government intervene?
In fact, a government mandated environment leading to fantastic rates of growth and innovation does exist today. It’s in South Korea where the Ministry of Information and Communication (South Korea) or MIC Korea plays the overseer role.
But is that the best way? Is that the optimal path in the West?
Think about this, Korea and Japan have made great strides internally but have struggled (and will continue to struggle in my view) to export their Mobile/communications services globally. That’s the dark side of government mandated standards – high internal growth – low global growth.
Thus, excessive government intervention is the wrong thing in my view.
See my blog Should you be thinking of Vegas on your next flight to Tokyo or Seoul? .
Speaking of Governments, ours(UK) did intervene in the dot com boom and reaped a windfall through the 3G spectrum auctions . By saddling the Operators with debt, I believe the British government squashed a golden opportunity for British companies to take a lead in the Wireless space. We definitely don’t want more of that – Thank You!
The Web itself is not exactly free of monopolies. Take the case of Microsoft. However, with my Randian / free market view, I would oppose any regulation on a company like Microsoft. After all, if customers truly hated it, they could change(nothing prevents them from making that choice – much as the same with leaving a specific Operator). With Google applications , that may well happen – but the changes will be market driven and not regulatory.
The search for disruptive elements
The problem with the Mobile industry is: It’s still very arrogant. We talk of concepts like Mobile Youth – but the IPTV industry does not talk of ‘IPTV Youth’ or the fixed line industry of ‘Fixed line youth’.
Once we accept that there are only ‘people’ and they want to communicate irrespective of transport mechanisms – then we have to ask ourselves the question : Where can we get critical mass?
In my view, no single Operator can gain critical mass because the Operator’s subscriber base is fragmented along many dimensions, for instance devices, Pre pay-Post Pay etc.
So, disruptive elements can arise if we unify the stack across Operators along some dimension
At the application level, I believe that Web technologies will do this (especially full web browsers, widgets etc). At a network level, the combination of devices and WiFi/WiMax is the key.
These will happen organically – and we will always have to get used to working in a diverse ecosystem.
Co-operation as a solution
To recap, I believe that :
In a consumption driven world, competition is the driving force. In a creation driven world(User generated content, Web 2.0, Mobile Web 2.0 ), cooperation is the driving force. For reasons I explain previously, we have no choice but to accept a diverse ecosystem in the West and sweeping legislation is not a good option.
In that sense, unless America does some fundamental rethink, it may well lose out in the end because of it’s culture of competing vs. collaborating. In contrast, the European / GSM approach is more collaborative and suited for future growth
To conclude
1) We will continue to live in a diverse ecosystem and that is good
2) Operators will end up with Open APIs and that’s not a Pipe.
3) As we go from a consumption driven ecosystem to a creation driven ecosystem, cooperation will be a driving force and not competition. The need to communicate will overcome outdated business models.
4) Market forces are the main drivers to opening up in Europe(the need to show growth to the investment community for example)
5) In my view, government regulation is the wrong step(except in cases like Disclosure). A combination of Web enabled devices, devices supporting WiFi etc will drive disruptive applications.
PS: In an ironic twist, the March 26 issue of Business week’s best performers – has Google in the top spot. But guess who is on No 7? Yes, Verizon communications!. It indicates to me, that if customers want to leave a service, they will – but they don’t at the moment because they are primarily consuming content.
However, I believe that the future will belong to those Operators who open up because the creation driven ecosystem will demand that (in contrast to the current consumption driven ecosystem)
Image source: Image shack
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/5388/internet3yc.gif
A note on comments:
I have been having a lot of problems with Spam. Hence, comments are disabled. Please email me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com and I shall be happy to post your comments
Posted by ajit at 3:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 22, 2007
What is the relationship between Mobile Ajax and Mobile Widgets?
This is a part of the Mobile Ajax FAQ which I, Rocco and Bryan are working on .. Due to my travel last week at MIT and Ajaxworld, that’s been a bit delayed but we hope to release it this week.
Meanwhile, I am putting out a few questions from the FAQ so we get ongoing feedback
Here is one ..
What is the relationship between Mobile Ajax and Mobile Widgets?
In its entirety, Ajax comprises of XMLHTTPReq + DOM Scripting + XHTML/CSS. Functionally, two things are happening here: Data is being fetched asynchronously and the information thus fetched is being rendered on the client through Javascript.
Most widget engines are using the asynchronous part uniformly but are making their own changes to the rendering(display) part. While this leads to fragmentation of Widget technology, the fact still remains that Ajax i.e. Asynchronous I/O and visual rendering are the core technologies underpinning widgets
From simple beginnings, Widgets(powered by Ajax), are taking a life of their own(for example Widgets calling other widgets).
When it comes to the mobile environment, we are seeing the same phenomenon i.e. we see Mobile Widgets powered by Mobile Ajax and also some fragmentation
Also, we are seeing the first attempts of standardization from the W3C
The significance of Mobile Widgets lies in two factors
a) As full web browsers become the norm on mobile devices(by that we mean a browser supporting Web technologies like Javascipt, CSS etc), Widgets can span the Web and the Mobile Web. This is very significant because Long Tail applications are now possible and we will now have the Web as a mechanism to distribute mobile applications(widgets). With Widgets calling other widgets, we could soon see an entire Widget framework leading to Long Tail applications powered by Widgets
Opera is already doing this with their Widget platform and we expect Apple dashboard widgets may also appear in the iPhone
b) Offline widgets are an interesting variant. For offline widgets to work, we need an API which allows the widget to work offline and then resync/transfer data when the connection is available again
Thus, Mobile Ajax powers Mobile Widgets and Mobile Widgets are significant because they span the Web and the Mobile Web(for instance Apple dashboard widgets). By doing so, they enable Long Tail mobile applications(because the Web now acts as a distribution platform for Mobile Widgets)
Posted by ajit at 10:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 20, 2007
My talk at Ajaxworld: A brief summary of main ideas covered..
Yesterday, I spoke at Ajaxworld in New York on Deploying Web-Based Applications to Mobile Devices Using AJAX Techniques.
This is my third Ajax world(after New York and Santa Clara last year) and I am pleasantly surprised as to how many people turned up this year for my talk!
Ajax on Mobile devices is a subsidiary topic from the main conference (i.e. Rich Internet Applications on the Web) – and hence to see so many people attending what was in effect, the last session for the day, is great. In fact the room was full – and there were some people outside the Hudson Suite – where I spoke.
I can think of three reasons for this uptake:
a) RIA (Rich Internet Applications) is becoming mainstream – be they Ajax or Flex. For instance, for the first time, Oracle was an attendee and also a sponsor
b) Mobile Ajax is unexpectedly in the news thanks to iPhone and Mobile Widgets(The Mobile Widgets I predicted more than a year ago, iPhone was unexpected to all and will be significant for Mobile Ajax as I spoke yesterday – especially if Dashboard widgets make it to the iPhone)
c) And finally, there is widespread support from almost all browser vendors. Here in Europe, we focus on Nokia and Opera – but there were a number of questions about Windows Mobile – something I need to clearly brush up on a bit more!
Here is a slide summarising the top five things to take away from the talk
Some notes
a) By three musketeers, I mean the trio of technologies : Mobile Ajax, Mobile Widgets and WICD
b) The quickest benefits for Mobile Ajax are based on accessing the Web / enterprise data(because these applications don’t need access to device APIs). The best example of this type of service is Soonr
c) Mobile Ajax is more than a pretty face! See an article which I wrote a while ago elaborating this i.e. look beyond the UI to the broader architecture
d) Long tail applications and Widgets!! .. Mobile Ajax is the foundation of Mobile Widgets and Widgets span the Web and the Mobile Web(thereby enabling Long Tail applications)
Thanks to team at sys-con . Someone at sys-con said I am almost part of the family :) and they always help me out since I am one of the few regular European speakers. Thanks to Jeremy, Faut, Dion, Laurie and Megan for all your help.
Look out for our Mobile Ajax FAQ (I , Rocco and Bryan are writing)
Three musketeers image source: http://www.dead-fish.com/Pictures/PC%20Build%20042%20thumb.jpg
Posted by ajit at 1:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 18, 2007
Feedback from MIT Sloan re my talk ..
Furthur to my talk at MIT Sloan on Web 2.0, Mobile Web 2.0, Convergence and changing business processes , Aaron and Maya sent me this nice note
"We created MoMIT (the Mobile, Media, and Internet Club) to keep MIT/Sloan at the forefront of the converging Mobile/Media/Internet space. Our club members really benefited from Ajit's company-neutral position, and we look forward to an ongoing dialogue with Futuretext."
Thanks Aaron and Maya. Like I said in my talk, the goal of futuretext and my talk at MIT was to share ideas i.e. to talk about our vision and ideas(OpenGardens, Convergence, Communities etc). So, I am glad I could contribute to the knowledge base
Posted by ajit at 12:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 17, 2007
Project View: Mobile penpals - Stanford RDVP program
Last year, I spoke at Stanford University’s Digital Visions program. Since then, I have been keeping in touch with Karen Coppock (Director, Industry Collaboration - Stanford RDVP program) and her team at Stanford.
The Reuters Digital Vision Program (RDVP) is a Stanford centre for social entrepreneurship that applies the principles of high-tech innovation to create product and service concepts that empower communities worldwide. This resonates with my personal vision of the power of Mobile technology to make a wider, global impact on society and affect the lives of people (The mobile Internet will do more for Africa than live 8!)
So, I am always happy to blog about the interesting work Karen and her team are doing - since it has the potential to make a difference in the lives of so many people worldwide.
Here are two programs I think are interesting
John Kuner is working on Project VIEW. When I was young, I had a ‘pen friend’. Today, the same idea can be enriched by mobile technology. Project View explores the use of camera phones and digital storytelling for cross-cultural connections between students in the United States and students in the developing world. Although lack of access to computer technology is a common problem in the developing world, mobile phones are ubiquitous. Camera phones combined with non-verbal communications like movement and digital storytelling allow young people to establish meaningful connections with each other across geographic and cultural boundaries. The video exchanges are a cross between websites like MySpace and Facebook, traditional penpal programs and distance learning.
The components of Project View include:
Classes (teaching students how to use their own voice with basic technology to create a short video piece)
Technology (websites, social networking, video uploading, mobile browsing)
Cultural Exchange (by exploring and refining their own viewpoint, then experiencing perspectives from other cultures, students get an early exposure to a broader, global perspective breaking down barriers and assumptions, and fostering tolerance and understanding)
John did the field work in Sri Lanka in Jan 2007. Sri Lanka is a relatively poor country for the average citizen. According to the CIA world factbook, the per capita GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is $4,600, compared to the $43,500 for the United States. (CIA Factbook, 2006). However, it is an excellent place for internet and particularly mobile phone-based projects. Over 4 of the 20 million citizens have cell phones, with a higher concentration in urban areas.
People are tech savvy. A young woman John spoke with was very familiar with cell phones, including prices of phones and services. She had plans with two operators and switched her SIM card (effectively changing her number but keeping the same phone) to take advantage of text messaging promotions for both operators, first using all of her '50 free weekend text messages' on one, then using 'free messaging within the network' on the other.
The young in Sri Lanka absorb the technology quickly and are hard working and eager to learn – and project View helps them to form relationships with friends worldwide – just like traditional pen pals did.
The second project I found very interesting was by Saori Fotenos which is based on the idea of citizen’s journalism. There is a talk about : Citizen Journalism: A Look at How Blogging is Changing the Media Landscape from the Congo to Korea”, hosted by Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.
And of course, I follow my friend Adam Tolnay’s project on Y-Fi (Youth Financial Literacy)
Posted by ajit at 8:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 16, 2007
Mobile Social software and (multiple) community affiliations?
Yesterday, I spoke at MIT Sloan about Web 2.0, Mobile Web 2.0, Convergence and changing business processes - which was a great experience. Thanks to Maya Rand and Aaron Rackoff of MIT Sloan for facilitating this talk.
As usual, I get many insights from discussions at such talks - especially with the clued on folk at MIT :)
Here is one. It’s a question - I don’t have an answer yet!
I believe that future mobile services are leaning towards the Long Tail principle. An example of this is an MVNO in a box. In my talk today, I gave an example of an MVNO in a box i.e. a Mobile Virtual Network Operator - that could be created for small groups of people (small communities). Depending how strongly you identify with the community, you would want to 'show off' a phone (mobile of fixed line) affiliated with that community.
This is a contrast to the heavy, top-down approach to MVNOs we see today in the industry (hence I called it MVNO in a box). In itself, I think the idea of small communities having their own networks (be they fixed, mobile or a combination thereof) is interesting
But this leads to a wider question
Each of us identify with more than one community - and at any point, we may want a specific affiliation to be dominant
Here is an example.
Currently, the Cricket world cup is being played in the West Indies. India has a strong cricketing history. But .. With the proliferation of cable TV in India, India now also has a sizeable population who follow the English Premier league(soccer) - and by extension, soccer in general.
There is a proverbial story of the 'Indian' Brazilian fan who is a part of the Brazilian contingent in the soccer cup - happy with his 'new' affiliation. Of course, this person could also be a 'cricket' fan but at a specific time, he happily 'belongs' to his 'new' tribe supporting Brazil.
So, this leads me to think :
What does it mean from a marketing perspective when we belong to more than one community? Is there a primary affiliation(A cricket fan who also happens to be a Brazil supporter) or many affiliations which we may adopt at a given time(personas)?
If you consider my example: The obvious primary affiliations could be Mobile, Innovation, UK.
But there are many smaller affiliations which are also of great personal interest to me!
For instance: ZZ top, Sopranos, David Attenborough, Tom and Jerry, Tintin, Snoopy(Charles Schulz) - because I am fan of all of these.
These become almost like keywords(as in describe yourselves in 50 keywords)
Once you accept that we belong to multiple communities, then knowing our affiliations, we have to consider two related questions
a) Degree of affinity : How can we find members of our own tribe when they are loosely affiliated and
b) Degree of communication : Having found them - how can we communicate
And more interestingly, can we dynamically identify such tribes using a mechanism like Tags, Bluetooth, Location (leading to the idea of Mobile Social Software - the topic of my talk at the Digital Visions program in Stanford last year )
Note that this is more than segmentation(a much more familiar concept to the Telecoms industry). These ideas relate to using community affiliations dynamically to create adhoc tribes in P2P mode
So, the questions are: when we have more than one affiliation(identities),
a) How do we know which mode we are in(dominant identity)
b) How do we dynamically find others who are in that same mode (degree of affinity)
c) How do we communicate with them?
d) What is the social/marketing/communications impact of the same?
Thoughts?
Posted by ajit at 1:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 15, 2007
Do you want to write an FAQ on the OpenGardens blog?
Hello
Alongwith Rocco Georgi and Bryan Rieger , I am working on a Mobile Ajax Faq in line with my presentation at Ajaxworld in New York. I am now thinking of extending this idea more to other topics. Would you be interesting in writing an FAQ which we would publish on this blog?
It will be a living document and hopefully would be great for your personal profile as well.
If so, please contact me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com
Posted by ajit at 3:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
futuretxt (not futuretext)
In the spirit of helping the industry .. I got a note from Christopher Rhodes, Creative Director
of Msgme, who wants to launch a service called futuretxt(and not futuretext i.e. my company!).
Chris wanted to know if I thought there was a conflict of interest - and I think not - and I even promised to blog about futuretxt because it's simple but useful
So, here we are!
Presenting futuretxt (and not futuretext :)
It is based on their flagship product which is a text messaging call/response platform called Msgme. The futuretxt service is based on Msgme and provides a scheduled text messaging alert system. I know many calendar based systems would also do this - but I like simple, monolithic applications i.e. an application that does one thing very well - so I think this service may be useful
Posted by ajit at 10:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 12, 2007
Podcast: Håkon Wium Lie CTO of Opera software - Significance of Widgets - Web and Mobile
Yesterday, we launched our second video podcast - an interview with Håkon Wium Lie CTO of Opera software on the significance of Widgets (Web and Mobile). I have been a great fan of Widgets and Opera is a world leader in this space having a footprint on both the Web and Mobile Web. This is a first of a series of three podcasts.
You can see Håkon at the Horizon Channel
We welcome feedback on ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com.
Posted by ajit at 2:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Carnival of the mobilists - at Rudy's blog ..
One of the best carnivals - and they all have such great quality. I think Rudy is right in saying that everyone is a winner!
Carnival of the mobilists no 64
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March 11, 2007
Oliver Starr's new blog at Guidewire connection ..
I meant to post this a while ago .. but better late than never! In case you dont know, Oliver Starr who used to blog at Mobile Crunch is now blogging at guidewire connection. This is Oliver Starr's new blog. I have always followed Oliver's insights and I recommend that you have a look at his new digital home!
Posted by ajit at 10:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sunrise in Switzerland offers fixed rate pricing ..
I believe Sunrise (the second Operator in Switzerland) offsers a fixed rate pricing(all you can eat for a day). If you know about this, please email me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com and I shall be happy to blog about it
Posted by ajit at 9:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
More about Mobile Ajax Frameworks ..
Furthur to my previous entry about Mobile Ajax Frameworks, I got this email from Bryan Rieger of Yiibu. Bryan and Steph are doing some great work at Yiibu and you should definitely check out their site (They just moved over to the UK as well – Scotland – and are just settling in – so say Hi to them if you are based in UK/Europe/Scotland)
In relation to Mobile Ajax frameworks, the Opera platform is a clear bet and a leader due to their position on Mobile Ajax but Bryan sent me the following
Notes below from Bryan
As long as the browser actually supports (not just press releases) these 'basics' (DOM/CSS/XMLReq/ECMAScript) it should be possible to develop mobile ajax applications.(I absolutely agree! Stick to the basics and stick to the standards)
There are a few hopefuls however:
jQuery - A fairly compact (<20kb compressed) library with minimal essential functionality (send/receive/parse/query/etc) included - along with a few nice UI touches (show/hide/fade/etc) built in. Ideally, I'd like to get this lib stripped down a few more kb (it's ~55kb uncompressed) and possibly develop a mobile specific variant.
MooTools - Again, quite compact and the basic library (http://moofx.mad4milk.net/) comes in around 3kb (also requires prototype variant so there's another chunk on top of that...) - but it does look like there is something to work with there on the mobile side of things. Not as nice as jQuery IMHO... but definitely has potential.
I found these of interest after going through Yahoo! UI, Prototype, Rico, OpenLaszlo, Dojo, MochiKit and a bunch of others that by and large tend to throw the kitchen sink into their 'platforms'. Having to download a 200kb+ library onto a device and expecting it to run within a mobile browser is simply beyond hopeful. Truth be told, I'm wondering if in many ways it would simply be easier on mobile platforms to simply use the base XMLHTTPRequest object along with simple DOM Scripting to develop mobile ajax apps/content at this stage. As long as the browser actually supports (not just press releases) these 'basics' (DOM/CSS/XMLReq/ECMAScript) it should be possible to develop mobile ajax applications.
The other problem is having a decent reference browser with which to test all of this. NetFront, OpenWave/MIDAS, Opera, Minimo, Nokia's WebKit, Internet Explorer Mobile, etc are all quite varied in terms of ajax support at the moment.
Currently we're using Opera mobile (not mini) as our reference platform moving forward. Hopefully the other browser manufacturers catch up in the wild (not press releases) so we can begin testing beyond Opera.
One thing that would be really helpful in dealing with ajax on mobile devices is some sort of memory consumption guide - ie: how much memory do certain objects/function require and where are you likely to run into problems, as this is a much more common problem on memory constrained devices than desktops/laptops.
Mind you, I think that's a tool that all developers working with AJAX could use.
Thanks Bryan!
Posted by ajit at 8:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 9, 2007
Zoovision - feedback of the new Nokia Ad service ..
ZooVision is a mobile video 3gp / Windows Media streaming content aggregator that is changing the way people use their wireless phones and access entertainment. They stream on-demand videos and audio customized to the mobile experience.
Sean Berner of zoovision was kind enough to share his experiences of the Nokia Ad Service with me and I have reproduced it below with Sean’s permission.
First we are joining their network as a publisher. Since the ZooVision site is free and ad supported it's a natural fit for us. Also the fact that we don't have a European ad partner yet will also benefit us so we can target ads for those markets.
Second we are going to run ads on Nokia service to help drive more traffic to the landing pages which will in turn increase the page views for all of the pages and thus more ad revenue.
The test that we ran last week was a banner ad to UK n73 handsets driving traffic directly to our mobile site. Overall the numbers were amazing with page views up 400% from our normal daily traffic. The other item that was really high was the click through rate which was almost 20% from the Nokia site!
As a company we have an on portal and off portal strategy and we have been looking for something like this to take our off portal offering to the next level. So to say the least we are very excited about the offering.
Watch this space .. Thanks Sean
Posted by ajit at 6:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Do any mobile ajax frameworks exist?
Rocco Georgi says : A mobile AJAX framework (for mobile web browsers) would be a real helper, but does not exist yet.
Yes, I agree.
Does anyone know of any mobile ajax frameworks in development? Happy to refer them to my ajaxworld presentation
Please contact me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com
Posted by ajit at 8:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 8, 2007
Communities are not Web20 because talk is cheap!
I believe that communities are not web20 because talk is cheap!
I see this concept in many guises. It starts off something like this:
At a conference, after I speak, someone will approach me about the next great web 20 start-up they are working on. (To clarify, I welcome this of course - and will happily blog about it if it’s truly useful to the readers)
They outline their idea or show me a demo. At which point - I often tell them that this is just a community – it’s not Web20
They try to be polite. But generally respond by saying 'what do I mean it’s just a community?
Let me explain
Offline Communities have been around for millennia. Online communities are relatively new - but even today - 20 or 30 years old.
Web20 has been around only for about three years. It includes communities as a subset - but it is more than a traditional community.
By the way, there is nothing wrong in being a community and communities have a lot of value especially in areas like viral marketing.
But they are not Web20
Try this acid test ...
Fast forward your site or idea by three years.
What do you see?
If all you see is conversation(threads) then you have a community and not web 20
Why
Because you don't have any metadata.
In fact, the users must implicitly contribute to that metadata and then you must have some form of 'algorithm' for the lack of a better word, i.e. harnessing collective intelligence.
But first, to harness collective intelligence, you need metadata.
The 'harnessing' of collective intelligence can take many forms - Google page rank, Amazon book ratings, tag clouds etc etc.
But without metadata, all you have my friend is talk - and talk is cheap - as is sadly the perception of the concept outlined(i.e. it will never become a digital asset – it will always remain a conversation)
The same principles apply to Mobile Web 2.0 as well i.e. harnessing collective intelligence is a core principle of Web 2.0/Mobile Web 2.0
Thoughts?
Thus, we need to think of an evolution of Digital communities over time and think of what it should be after a time window. Once you incorporate metadata, you can add other elements based on that metadata(for instance greater personalization/better customer service etc etc)
Posted by ajit at 9:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
We have contact
By Dr Paddy Byers
I’m putting more and more of my personal information and life into the hands of web providers. It’s been a gradual and unsystematic process, partly triggered by becoming detached from corporate infrastructure, and partly stimulated by the arrival of new (and free) web services that make it worthwhile. So, the most recent target was the ridiculous mess of address books and odd bits of paper that constituted our domestic contacts database.
Rather than turn again to Google I decided to try something new and opened a BigContacts database. This is a very new, beta stage service, which provides a 500-entry database for free, has a nice ajaxy web front end and, as it happens, also has a mobile (XHTML) web client.
Now, when I decided to migrate to the web-based service, it didn’t really occur to me that I might want to access the data from my mobile. However, now the data is there and mobile access is possible, I find that the mobile service is convenient and – I suspect – it will become such a matter of routine that I’ll wonder how I managed without it.
So, a few thoughts about this experience and how it relates to mobile web apps in general.
First, on the relative merits of a web application as compared to a resident application.
We’ve been through most of these issues many times on this blog. Remember that this data belongs to the family and not to an individual, and therefore having it reside on a personal machine (my laptop, for example) doesn’t make sense. We don’t have a single “family” PC, but a number of personal PCs and a business Mac. A web-based app happens to be a much better fit for this situation.
The other well-known issue is the lack of a user install cycle – each day the service can be improved without me having to upgrade any software. For a contacts application, the reality is that the functionality of the archetypal PC app was fixed 5 years ago by Outlook, and issues with installed base, file compatibility, simultaneous migration of multiple clients etc mean that the core functionality can only now evolve very slowly, if at all.
So, do these benefits transfer to the mobile version? Obviously the conventional approach on the mobile is to have the contacts data resident, and synchronised to the phone periodically. But what if my contacts app represents data in a way that’s not compatible with my phone’s database? (It does, in this case, because there is useful added functionality that can’t be supported by the phone’s simpler schema.) What if I don’t want that dataset taking up space permanently on my phone when I only access it occasionally?
Of course there are also all of the counter-arguments in favour of resident apps. By my main point here is that none of this was done just in order to make a phone application. Rather, all of these benefits are incidental, in that a great mobile service was created as a by-product of the creation of a web-based app for the desktop.
So, this is more of a “long tail” application (on mobile at least), which is made possible on the mobile web by virtue of the small incremental cost of development.
Second, on the integration of web applications and the technologies that will enable it.
If you track the development of desktop personal information apps (ie contacts, calendar, agenda, todo, email), they have been required to share more and more of their data as functionality is added (eg email addressees and contacts, calendar events and contacts, todo deadlines, etc). All eventually reach the point, as has happened with Outlook, where each is just a facet of a single, integrated and monolithic application. The data interchange needs mean that the functionality becomes merged.
So, does the same thing apply to my web contacts application? How can it provide sufficient functionality as a standalone app? Shouldn’t I use an application from a provider that also has web calendar, mail and other relevant apps? Or is there something different about how web apps are constructed that separately provided apps can be interoperable without becoming inseparable?
Certainly I’d prefer to be in the situation of being able to choose applications on their individual merits, or how well their functionality meets my particular requirements. Secondly, even if I get a set of apps from a single provider, there will always be a boundary between that suite of apps and the rest of the universe – and I will often want those apps to work with other apps whose functionality is not in the suite. Suppose I want my data to link to a social networking app, or a bookmarking app, or I want to get directions to their address?
It’s true that no applications will interoperate unless explicitly designed to do so. But we’re seeing a set of technologies emerge on the web that fundamentally enable integration of services from multiple providers in way that was previously never feasible or commercially viable. Moreover, the web ecosystem is positively encouraging the use of these and their associated architectural principles in a way that never happened before. For example, separation of presentation, data, and functionality via distribution-transparent web interfaces; the use semantic data interchange formats such as microformats; the use of federated ID management through OpenID. (Forget the fact that the screen is small and communication is slow; what’s the biggest usability problem with many (otherwise great) mobile webservices? It’s logging on. OpenID can solve that but also ensure that access can be revoked if the phone is stolen.)
I keep coming back to what Chris Hoffman (Minimo) said when he described the Minimo Google maps derivative site. (I described the approach here – it is a dedicated mobile site that uses the Google Maps API to provide its implementation.) I realise it’s not quite on-message for the “one web” crowd, but it tells you that there’s something very powerful about the API interface when this is the most effective way of creating a mobile experience with essentially the same look and feel and identical functionality to the regular site.
So, for me, my address database another accidental success for the mobile web. It’s also a pointer to the technologies that will enable us to do serious business using the infrastructure out there. So, the photo: the cloud is the new virtual machine coming to mobile.
Posted by ajit at 6:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 6, 2007
An update to the Nokia ad service launch post ..
I have got a few comments to my post about the launch of the Nokia Ad service - so here are some more thoughts
a) .mobi - Nokia chooses to call the service '.mobi'. That’s why it legitimises the .mobi concept in my view i.e. they could easily have chosen to call it something else
b) One of my very frist blogs was about the fragmentation in the mobile data industry , we need some form of aggregation to achieve critical mass (especially from an advertiser perspective)
There are a number of ways we could do this
a) A web based player like Google spanning to mobile
b) A web to mobile ecosystem (driven by the Mobile Operator)
c) A broader convergence strategy driven by a service oriented architecture across network types and across geographies
d) A player like Nokia aggregating the market around devices
Is this possible On portal?
Yes and no.
If it were successful, why did we not have this already? think about it.
Why don’t we have bodies like the Mobile Data association telling us about increasing numbers of Ad impressions on Operator portals?
So, I believe - on a functional scale - it is possible - but in practise, it is not viable i.e. not financially viable on portal
Portals face the same problem which everyone else is facing - poor customer segmentation, fragmented technology stack etc – so you need some form of aggregation across Operators to make a financially viable proposition to advertisers
In fact, the success of admob et al shows that - firstly, a market exists and secondly, to be viable, it must be cross operator/cross geography(i.e. other than Japanese and Korean opertors - I doubt if a single Operator portal can show such high numbers of ad impressions - happy to be proven wrong with some stats - if any exist)
Of course, with phones like N95 (Wifi enabled and GPS enabled), the possibilities are endless when combined with the Nokia ad service.
Posted by ajit at 8:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Nokia ad service is launched! A potentially revolutionary milestone for Mobile advertising..
Today Nokia launched Nokia Ad service
The Nokia Adservice may well be one of the most significant announcements this year and I believe, it will transform the industry.
Here is my analysis on the Nokia ad service.
To understand why this is a seminal announcement, we need to understand that the advertisement model is very significant. It is the main driver on the Web (web 20) (and that includes all forms of advertising like video).
I believe that the Ad model will also be a major driver to the Mobile Web as I indicate in my book Mobile Web 2.0.
But there is a problem.
The good news is: we have billions of devices - more than PCs
The bad news is: that they have nothing in common except Voice and SMS.
For most part, neither of these are programmable.
To make matters worse, the device stack is fragmented and brittle. By fragmented, I mean, a Wintel like situation does not exist on mobile devices. And by brittle I mean that layers in the stack are too tightly coupled - making introduction of new elements very difficult
For advertisers, this is bad because
a) It is almost impossible to target advertising to customer profiles
b) The target audience is fragmented
Clearly, an appetite for advertising exists with the success of both Admob and screentonic, both of whom have reported a billion ad impressions.
But the impressions themselves cannot be targeted because very little USER information is available to the third party (advertiser). Some limited device information is available through mechanisms like UAprof but that means, ads cannot be targeted to customers (using the equivalent of cookies on the Web).
The other end of the spectrum are the Operators. Traditionally, they have always thought of themselves being the key players in leveraging advertising. For third parties, dealing with Operators is very difficult.
Further more, Operators in the West do not have the leverage on the actual device stack (much as they would like to have).
The result is: Advertising, as I envisage in Mobile Web 2.0 has not taken off so far ..
The Nokia ad service provides a very interesting alternative to third parties because it is an Off portal initiative across all Nokia handsets globally.
This truly changes the game from an advertiser perspective because:
a) They deal with one entity(Nokia)
b) They potentially access ALL Nokia devices ACROSS operators globally
c) They can target the customer base because the Web/Mobile gateways are run by Nokia (off portal)
From a third party advertiser perspective, working with a company like Nokia would be far more preferable than working with the many Operators globally and not getting anywhere.
In fact, a while ago, one Operator told me that:
'The whole problem we have in the West is - Operators have no control over device manufacturers. In Japan, DoCoMo writes the (device manufacturer's) f*****g catalogue - and here in the UK - we are like 'Argos' - we just browse'
Note: Argos is a shopping catalogue service in the UK. What this comment means is - NTT DoCoMo in Japan tells device manufacturers exactly what to build - and thus controls the device totally. In the West, that does not happen. Their point being, if all the devices would only come in line (under control of the Operator) - all would be well (for the Operator of course!)
This does not affect 'On Portal' - but on portal initiatives are really not taking off for most people
Hence, I believe that
a) The Nokia ad service will revolutionise the Ad serving market for mobile devices
b) It would help many companies to actually reach global customers(all Nokia devices) and also target global customers(since much more about the customer is known in this scenario)
c) .mobi is also a beneficiary - this may legitimise the .mobi market
d) The impact on companies like admob and screentonic is probably negative because they cannot hope to achieve the reach and the targeting of customers as Nokia is doing. But on the flip side, they will get a lot of interest because of the impact on Mobile advertising
With both the Snake game and Ringtones, Nokia has created two industry segments. This may well be the third
I would be blogging about this a lot more. Watch this space!
Well done Nokia!
Some notes below from the Nokia site:
>>>>>>>>
Nokia Ad Service provides a worldwide reach to advertisers through its network. Nokia.mobi, one of the largest mobile portals with over 100 million monthly visits in 120 countries, has already joined the network.
Campaign messages can be customized to any mobile phone in many countries. Advertisers can optimize their spend by delivering specific ads to target groups.
Planning campaigns
Targeting: ads reach the right consumer based on categories and profiles through our ad platform.
Creative management: artwork is delivered in various formats - including text links and banner advertisements- to match consumers? mobile phone capabilities.
Campaign preferences: Nokia Ad Service builds a campaign for maximum flexibility. Advertisers can adapt their strategy based on performance whilst running campaigns. They can use service options such as frequency capping and time-based sequencing to deliver advertising messages effectively.
Run your campaign
Trafficking. You are able to closely monitor the traffic at any time during the campaign.
Reporting. The results of your campaign are available immediately, at any time, via a secured internet site.
Running campaigns
Real time reporting: advertisers can closely monitor the traffic at any time during the campaign through user-friendly traffic reporting formats and measurement visualizations.
Optimizing: Nokia Ad Service campaign managers continuously monitor campaigns to maximize the return on investment.
Learning from campaigns
Understanding: Nokia Ad Service helps advertisers learn more about consumers' response during their campaign with online monitoring and reporting tools.
Reporting: campaign results are available immediately via a secured internet site. Nokia Ad Service customers can personalize their reports by time, by publishers, by creative elements, etc. A simple, effective, and transparent service. The opportunity to reach a wider audience.
Our mobile ad server delivers sophisticated campaigns. Publishers can capitalize on the following:
Categorization in Nokia ad network to receive relevant ads
Flexible setup of any mobile publishing service
New source of ad revenue without deploying ad sales and operations
Full technical support to help with implementation
Detailed user profile while respecting users' privacy
Users' data is secure, protected and maintained in our ad platform
The implementation of the service is a 3-step-process:
Step 1: create the order form to outline different formats of advertising,
Step 2: receive ad tags from Nokia Ad Service and place them in the desired location throughout your mobile internet service,
Step 3: access full reports 24 hours a day. Metrics are available on a flexible set of cross relational rules.
Posted by ajit at 11:11 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 5, 2007
Meeting in Boston/MIT
Hello,
I am Boston next week. I am speaking at MIT Sloan on the 15th of March(with some audience from MIT media labs I believe as well). I am in Boston for about three days at the Marriot in Cambridge (almost directly outside MIT).
Would be happy to meet up. Not very good at driving at the right(wrong from my perspective!) side of the road and I don’t think they have stopped digging in Boston :) So, ideally can meet at the Marriott on the 15th or the 16th
The address is
Marriott Cambridge
2 Cambridge Center Broadway At 3rd St
Cambridge, MA 02142
USA
By strange co-incidence, Alan Moore is also speaking at MIT media labs on the same day! (Alan is the co-author of Communities Dominate Brands - published by my company - futuretext) . He is speaking on :
How communities, culture, connectivity & commerce are changing markets, society and politics. Here is an interview of Alan with Prof Henry Jenkins
Please contact me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com if you want to meet up
Posted by ajit at 11:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
US Wireless Data Market Update - 2006
By
US Wireless Data Market update – 4Q06 and 2006
US wireless data market continued its rapid growth in 2006. Wireless data service revenues jumped almost 84% to approximately $15.8B (from $8.6B in 2005). The service data revenues are likely to top $27B in 2007.
The average data ARPU climbed 50% while the average voice ARPU declined 7% since EOY 2005. Overall ARPU declined 1% from 2005 levels.
The strongest growth was experienced by Verizon which more than doubled its data revenues, up 101%, followed by Sprint up 69%, T-Mobile up 66% and AT&T (old Cingular) was up 62%. Except for Sprint, rest of the top 4 maintained a double digit growth rate Q-over-Q for the entire year (Sprint’s growth rate was marginally down to single digits in Q2 and Q3 but made up for the loss with a 19% increase in Q4).
The top three carriers again garnered over $1B/quarter in data revenues for the second straight quarter, with Verizon coming out on top with $1.4B followed by AT&T at $1.3B.
The US market added approximately 23M new subscribers or 1.92M subs/month. This puts the market at approx. 78% penetration. We will start to see the decline in market growth from here on.
For the FY2006, Verizon’s data revenues were at $4.4B, AT&T at $4.25B, Sprint Nextel at $4B and TMO US finished the year at $1.6B.
Verizon continued to dominate the 2006 ARPU sweepstakes with approximately 16% of its revenue coming from data services followed by Sprint and AT&T at 14.6%, and TMO US close behind at 13%. The average data ARPU is no at 14.5%. Sprint maintained its leadership in terms of raw data ARPU at $8.75. In fact, its CDMA data ARPU topped $12.
Verizon gained the most number of customers in 2006 with 7.7M net adds followed by AT&T at 6.9M and TMO at 3.3M. Sprint at 1.6M, and Alltel with 1.56M rounded up the top 5.
US 3G subscriber base continues to grow – primarily due to strong showing by Verizon and Sprint Nextel’s aggressive push. AT&T also covered significant ground while TMO is expected to join the fray by EOY 2007. As discussed in our 2005 paper, 2007 is priming to be the inflection year for 3G in US (and Europe). At the end of 2006, 3G penetration stood at approximately 10%.
US Off-net revenues for the year exceeded $750M.
In 2006, Data ARPU of CDMA/EV-DO carriers was 21% higher than GSM/WCDMA carriers.
Several high-profile MVNOs were launched over the course of last year and the overall results haven’t been favorable primarily due to poor execution, instant crowding effect, and competition from big 4. Mobile ESPN was first to bow out. Helio and Amp’D have boasted $100 ARPU and 100K subscriber base but the burn rate and Cost of Customer Acquisition remains quite high.
US wireless carriers maintained their strong showing vis-à-vis their peers worldwide. Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint maintained their ranking # 4, 5, and 6 respectively, amongst the top 10 operators worldwide in terms of total wireless data revenue generated for 2006. US is the only country with 3 operators who generated $4B or more in data revenues in 2006 and are going over $1B/quarter now.
For the second straight quarter- TMO US outperformed its parent TMO Germany
Though mobile enterprise data growth doesn’t make headlines, there has been steady growth in deployments and revenues generated for carriers and product vendors. Verizon alone reported over 33% of its data revenues or $462M from the enterprise users in 4Q06.
In terms of wireless investments, over $6.4B was invested in wireless related companies/startups in 2006. Source: Rutberg. Mobile TV/Video, Mobile Personalization, Mobile Search and Advertising, Semiconductor, Carrier infrastructure, Device design and development are hot areas. M&A activity also picked up quite significantly.
For the year 2006, mobile shipments eclipsed 1B mark for the first time with Nokia leading the way at over 347M in phone sales.
Smartphone penetration increased into double digits and is slowly approaching the inflection point.
2006 started the realignment for "quad-play" and "quintuple play" positioning in the market. Clearly, bundling enhances life value of the customer and lowers churn but do you do it through partnership or investment is the question on the table.
Global update (more details in our worldwide data market update coming out soon)
The worldwide markets ended with approximately 2.6B connections and are going to top 3B by end of 2007. Significant growth is coming from India and China with India registering an astounding 7M net adds every month now. China is close behind at 6M/month. Overall, the world market is slowly approaching 50% penetration (should reach the target in first half of 2008) with approx. 41% penetration at the end of 2006.
· NTT DoCoMo became the first carrier to cross $10B/yr in data revenues for a given calendar year. It was followed by China Mobile at $8.6B.
· Worldwide Handset market share 2006: Nokia maintained its number one position with 36% market share. Motorola increased its market share by 4 percentage points to 23%, Samsung dropped a point to 11%. Sony Ericsson edged past LG