I’d like to present a different take than proposed by Aner below. When I think of the effectiveness of this new marketing channel I look at the wider perspective of the platform and user habits. To pinpoint the discussion further I’d like to address the action that leads to the ad being served. Google’s definition of a mobile ad is as follows:

“Mobile ads are shorter text-based AdWords ads that appear on mobile websites or when users search Google from a mobile device. When users clicks on your mobile ad, you can send them to your mobile webpage or offer them the option to connect to your business phone.”

The issue that I would like to focus on is the fact that content discovery and search habits are COMPLETELY different when it comes to mobile browsing. As such, I believe ‘copying’ a successful ad model on the ‘pc web’ does not guarantee success in the mobile world.

Mobile web browsing is much more focused. You hardly ever start in one place and ‘wander’ to the next or discover new services and information based on advertising and hyperlinks. Its usually a much more focused action. You are ‘on the go’ you look up ’something’ - news, sports –> these are served via direct links in the Operator’s portal or your own bookmarks - done. There is no (or hardly any) plain search. If there is, its in the context of a use case such as maps, music or video search and that usually happens within a specific service (HooQs ).

In his MEM2007 insights post Aner mentioned (point #9) users tried Google mobile search and didn’t like it. I did too, and didn’t like it. Not because of Google but because content is scarce and the chance of random discovery which is part of the Internet’s main ‘wonders’ doesn’t [yet] exist in the mobile web.

I’m willing to agree Google’s drive is positive. If anyone can start some kind of drive that will motivate mobile content to be created thus leading to an eco-system that is able to sustain ads based on that content…it’s Google. Google’s mobile ads are basically an experiment that will hopefully lead to more mobile content and probably also lead to a change in the ad model.

One of the greatest killer apps for mobile search will be the integration of location based with search. Not on a country level, on the neighborhood level! If I want to buy flowers for my wife - Go to Google, search “Flowers” –> results = near by flower shops, with link to number and a map. That’s effective and thats the kind of “fused” service I am looking when it comes to using my mobile for search.

For now, the level of service is basic. The action is welcomed but execution not focused enough on leveraging mobile use cases.

      

A good friend of mine recently complained to me that there are no good mobile finance solutions. He has a regular consumer mobile (SonyE w800i) “What about Yahoo Finance?“, I asked …”Na..doesn’t work” he quickly dismissed. When I learned about Google Finance for Mobile I quickly ran to compare. Google’s solution includes easy access to financial info on the go through text messaging or mobile browsing - but so does Yahoo so whats the big deal?

The deal is: elegance & simplicity - the atoms of execution. On the surface Yahoo’s solution should even be better. The Finance page is more informative, there is even a cool feature that enables you to send yourself an SMS with the web address instead of typing the address yourself. The problem started when I tried (God forbid) using it - I just couldn’t login. I got the link, tried to add a quote only to get a ‘turn off’ message - “Invalid Yahoo ID or password”. Now remember I got here by sending the SMS, the least you can do for me is let me login…NO. No link to login, “Help” didn’t help and the other roads I tried didn’t lead to Rome (login). So there I was, yet again disappointed of a Yahoo service that beat Google to the mark but missed on execution.

Google’s WAP browsing experience and portfolio management was a breeze to operate, a joy to use and has now become my official on the go stock tool - BAMM…Bookmarked!

Yet again Usability wins the day. I could care less about the tech behind these two platforms - when the execution is seamless and the basics are there, your a step a way from success…or as in Google’s case…swimming in it!

      

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY

Aner’s insights from MEM2007 zoom in on the transitional phase the mobile industry is going through. The company I co-founded (TriPlay) recently launched an internet-mobile service (SyncSpace) with an Israeli operator and if there was one highlight to this whole process is that “westbound” mobile operators are sailing in uncharted territory. Here are a few key points I learned that highlight some challenges I came across (far from the complete list which could fill a book):

1. Target audience - there is no doubt that the market leaders on the demand side for web-mobile service are young people (ages 15-25 and we know that even 15 might not be young enough). They breath mobile services, consume content and eat up data services like no other target group. How is this a problem? Because WE - the mobile/internet start-up’ists, the VC partner, executives at large corporates, ALL of us who define, create, build and fund related companies and services are at least twice that age.

How can we be sure we are creating the right service?

Solution - Talk , talk, talk to them, get feedback, have them involved in your development process. Don’t force your vision on them and expect them to comply. If you don’t expect to find out at launch that you are simply not cool enough, that you have given them far too little credit and that you don’t really cater to their need.

About a year ago I read through a fascinating 200 pages research paper focusing on mobile youth. The ONE sentence I still remember a year later is that “Messaging services that fail to reinforce peer groups offer little beyond their initial novelty value to youth“. This is true for any service - there is tendency to seek technological breakthrough with less thought invested in the real life scenarios it supposed to serve. Bottom line - focus on value first, technology second.

2. Mobile operator corporate culture - analyze the typical headcount at any mobile operator and you will find that most are experienced MOBILE professionals who know a lot about mobile but less about web services, content and entertainment. Yesterday’s mission for the mobile was to ‘connect people’ by voice. Today’s Mission is about connection, voice or data and content. Tomorrow - the mobile will be an ‘IP gateway’ through which the users ‘mobile life’ will be enabled. Where mobility is the focus and not the mobile device.

The mobile device will be the users’ setop-box, entertainment and multimedia device as well as the voice/data communicator. These offerings are not only technologically diversified across platforms but also combine different schools of thought on how to launch new services. The words BETA, rapid development, on the fly, viral and other funky web 2.0ish words contradict mobile operator’s mentality. I don’t believe they need to change their skin but some of the attributes that go hand in hand with creating successful businesses in the web and entertainment industries will have to meld into their corporate culture.

Since this is not an overnight revolution, I expect this to be solved over time. Some interesting times ahead for management, HR units in the mobile operator world as well as their supporting industries. Service providers too will have to go through this metamorphoses. One that will reflect the new role the mobile device has in the future world.

3. beta? Don’t be surprised if you get this reaction. Telco’s are not used to running beta, not to mention the famous Google’s “perpetual beta” mode. Beta mean you are tolerant to bugs, open to user feedback and ready to change requirements if the market says you should. Telco’s heritage is simply different. The good old ‘telco grade’ means that when you pick up the phone (old fixed line phone) you hear a dialing tone - no ifs and buts. Web 2.0 user services launch way before they are fully tested for mass market usage. By definition they are not built for scalability and reliability from day one. They launch in beta, make mistakes, learn, fix and invest in scalability when the market demand forces them do so. When the ‘worlds collide’ this will have to change.

Mobile operators launching web-mobile services will not be able to apply this ‘telco grade’ mentality from day one. If they do they will always lag with services and not be perceived by their users as providing them with ‘edgy’ services. If users find their telco is introducing web- mobile services months and even years after independent players do they will find that the leading target users are already engaged with a different ‘off-deck’ solution. Scalability will not be an issue then since no users will use them to begin with.

Nonetheless they don’t have to be complete 37signals’ type cavaliers and mange their projects on IM chats, no meetings and launch. Somewhere in the middle would do.

4. The handset factor - most of the PC’s in the world are about the same, same OS (windows), same browser (Firefox/Explorer), same keyboard, strong memory, big screen, sit on one network - the PC internet is WWW etc etc. In the mobile world the ball game is totally different. A highly diverse OS environment - J2ME, Symbian, Brew, Windows; Countless different browsers, different screen size, open garden / closed garden (E.G Verizon) etc etc. Therefore creating a smooth, unified, simple, reliable and more important PREDICTABLE mobile experience is a mammoth task. Solution - focus on your initial target audience - what OS are they on? what devices serve them, what are the future devices - don’t try to capture all at once. Define an acceptable experience, aim for the core and spread.

On a more macro level ‘the industry’ better get its act together and start to pin point preferred OS’s, browsers etc. and not let this jungle take over. There is no doubt that when the environment will be more standard, a plethora of new services will evolve.
5. AJAX (Web 2.0) meets WML / XHTML (Mobile 0.5 ) - not a problem! The mobile and PC web experiences are not meant to be the same. Stop raping the mobile phone with overly rich ‘web like experience’. On the mobile it is highly important to focus on simple and fast flows so not having the rich PC environment is not as big disadvantage as you think. A good and simple WAP page, can provide the required experience. In any case just like I mentioned above - focus on value (and now I am adding..) usability first and technology second. All in all exciting times are ahead. The paradigm shift I am seeing is that the mobile device will be my ‘handy’ extension to my mobile life…which can be used and enjoyed on the mobile device but has extensions on the PC and TV as well. As such, when designing such services one needs to think of the three dimensional ‘fused’ world we live in, serving real life / valuable scenarios and NOT focus on connecting two or three technological dots.

      

I’m developing a growing addiction to Podcasting. While blog reading can become tiring, I simply enjoy listening to Podcasts. As a matter of fact, I am listening to Seth Godin articulating about small being the new big as I am writing this particular entry.

I have been looking for a cool mobile app that would let me browse and hear podcasts during rush hour traffic. Podcasts work well with a PC. They are also a natural fit for iPod, but with one HUGE caveat - the requirement for two separate decisions - online (to download) and offline (to listen). Live mobile access to podcasts seems like a natural requirement for me, but so far I haven’t been able to find any good service and would appreciate some good pointers.

Oh yeah, Marketing Voices, Podtech and Entrepreneurship are great podcasting starting points for Web 2.0 Marketers, gadget lovers and Entrepreneuers. Trasncripts are porvided with most of the sessions.

      

iSee thy iphone and iThink
Will my iWallet weather in iBlink

iDream thy iPod iHave will stretch
and into an iPhone will iMiracle create

Hey Steve iHope, iDream thy truth become
iDesire thy iPhone to be my one.

iHope thy wait will be iShort
iPatience can not uphold

Oh thy iPhone what have you done
An iChild and iDiot I have become

When you look at the iPhone, whatever you think about it - one thing can’t be ignored:

THE DESIGN IS NOT JUST THE SURFACE, ITS IN THE TOTALITY OF THE PRODUCT.

Noone can escape that notion. Just like fractals, the closer you look, the more evident the design DNA is.

Take the Motorola razor, the winner of numerous design awards and undoubtedly the phone that saved Motorola. The design of the clam shell is unique, the phone’s dimensions are impressive but when you look beyond the skin its shortcomings are in abundance - Motorola have failed to expand innovative physical design to the other ‘parts’ of the phone. Motorola traditionally deliver one of the worst graphical user interfaces of any mobile phone on the market today. There is a total disconnect between the shell (literally speaking) and the inside.

The revolution that Apple brings to the mobile phone industry is its TOTALITY, and its not ‘clam’ deep.

I sometimes look at the Razor with all its awards and think that Motorola might have fluked it.

Why? because it was inconsistent with anything they did in the past, because ever since they did it, their biggest innovation has been to change its colors, because its all about the clam and not about the GUI. It’s a very good design fluke.

Is the iPhone a fluke?

All of the lame prophets (myself included) of the iPhone imagined an iPod with a keyboard. We took two existing bricks (phone and music player) and imagined how they looked after a head on clash.

Apple’s approach was different. To come up with what we see today there must have been such a revisit to the whole concept of the cell phone, that the WHY’s must have been flying left and right. Why keyboard, why right, left,center key - why, why, why. And when the pieces were put back together (with talent of course) the outcome is as great as the guts it took to do it.

Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and company had more resources and time to focus on phones and yet what we see every year is an iteration on the year before. And when they do come up with something innovative (Razor shape), its good enough for them, they’ll take care of more innovation next year/release/model. They (mostly) treat mobile phones as plastic commodities that need better screen resolution and memory for the next release. in contrast and much like the iTune-iPod symbiotic relationship, iPhone is not only about the inside and out, they planed a whole eco-system.

Apple has yet to prove the iPhone is a big seller, have yet to prove its reliability as a cell phone, have yet to prove their sustainability in the mobile industry - that is in their future. What they have proved is that design and engineering should be and are meant to be one of the same. That separating the two creates less than perfect results.

Design is not king - Design-geneering is.

      

Finally…..

Hey, I think they waited so long, now it needs to come out equipped with a camera also. No multimedia device can be without one …hope that won’t delay the plans to 2008

      

I just returned from a four day trip with the family. That is my family, myself and 2.5 suitcases full of unneeded luggage (the notorious “Dump the Closet” system which sucks in mainly woman - you don’t choose what the kids are going to wear so you just bring their closet).

Anyway, I took my 4mpx Canon and the Nokia N73 equipped with a 3.2mpx camera with me. Before this vacation it the thought of leaving the Canon at home was inconceivable. I used to own a Sony Eriscsson with a 2mpx camera, which was very cool, but not nearly a real camera. Pictures were OK but once less then optimal lighting conditions set in the quality diminished quickly.

Not so with the N73.

When you say “camera phone”, you usually don’t mean a camera but a phone with a cool add-on. With the N73 this is not the case. Equipped with 1G memory card, I took 10’s of photos, a few short videos and came back a happy camper. The Canon didn’t even leave the hotel room. You can always use Picasa or Photoshop to apply your own special touch, but its really not necessary. Look at the below…honestly…does it look like a phone took that photo?

Press photo to see larger version

The N73 and the SonyErricson k800i make an important mark in the age of convergence. A Camera Phone (CP) TURN to Camera and a Phone (CAAP). The AA nuance is not trivial. This means I will probably not upgrade my 4mpx Canon rather prefer an upgraded release of any CAAP that will be equipped with a better lens. True - camera’s are not dead but pocket cameras are dying. For us, casual snappers that fill our Picasa / Flickr web albums with loads of senseless family, friends, you name it moments….a CAAP generation will be the obvious choice.

Now where do I see the regular digital camera market going? First of all it’s about innovation. A wi-fi phone, a super slim phone (that doesn’t hurt lens quality) Anything to make it super cool and worthy of carrying it alongside my CAAP. I can imagine more JV’s in the likes of SonyErricson - A NokiaNikon etc. is not something that would surprise me. In the same way the iPod has to be equipped with a 20G-40G memory for me to consider it over my …once again phone. Here too the manufactures will have to keep on their toes and provide extra value over an above a developing CAAP category.

Whichever way you look at it…the chasm has been crossed. Long live the CAAPs….

      

Many people mistakenly think YouTube is only about bloopers. YouTube is also the best music video station in the world right now. Much better than middle-aging MTV.

Check out YouTube’s results for:

Snoop Doggy Dogg - Drop it Like it Hot

Beck - Cellphone’s Dead

Justin Timberlake - Sexy Back

Pearl Jam - Jeremy

The fact you can find every music video you can think of is cool but anticipated. It’s what you can find IN ADDITION that makes it so exciting.  Acapella versions, live versions, professional and amateur covers, interviews, bloopers, related videos… WOW.

The problem with YouTube as the new MTV is not copyright issues. I am sure Justin Timberlake is happy with the exposure on YouTube just like Eddy Vedder is or the current indie rising star.

The problem with YouTube is still with the poor quality of video streaming. The basic watching experience still sucks. Simply put. Internet technology has not caught up yet with the social habits.

      

Like most Israeli conferences the W.U.D started late. Over the past 10 years, I participated in who knows how many venues and I can’t recall ONE that started, proceeded or ended on time. Anyone in Israel care to rebuttal? Is it unique to this area?Anyway - I am not here to complain. Far from it. The World Usability Day (Israeli Venue) was well organized and educational. One of my colleagues, Amnon Dekel who is the VP User Experience at TriPlay (the company I co-founded) gave a very insightful lecture on the usability of smart phones. Does smart = usable? Good question – u can check out my own experiences in a previous post. Anyway a few worthy notes from the conference:Some great sentence which makes you understand the company is in “usability trouble”: + when the CEO/VP MARKETING etc. says “As a user…” he talks sh#@. We are never the users, we never were, we never will be. For consumer/mass market online services, we (the software development / start-up / u name it) are the most biased group of freaks who represent no one but ourselves. + “Internal testing shows….” – shows what??? That QA liked it?, the engineer who worked on the damn thing for 6 months understands how it works?. Don’t fall into that trap. If you want to know what people think - ask real people.

+ During registration the audience was handed out with 3 color papers – Red, Green and Yellow. These came in handy during an interactive panel discussion in which the audience voiced their opinion using the Green-Red-Yellow papers. Green for AGREE/GOOD; Red for Don’t AGREE/NOT GOOD and yellow being the undecided. We used it to ‘group comment’ on anything from Skype’s user interface to the interface of ticket machines in train stations. Guess what, it works! This is a great way to have large crowds participate without causing a big mess while gaining instant feedback.

+ Usability people (in general) are tormented by the fact that in most companies, the engineers call the shots. Usability people are used to being called in to clean up the mess before launch or after a dreadful release. Otherwise they are usually no more influential then Director level and are way over powered by CIO’s, CTO’s, VP R&D etc. While this is (mostly) true I say stop whining. Its up to us (usability experts…or as in my case, usability advocate) to stir up more mess and punch some sense into the ‘masses’. If we are such usability experts, I’m sure we can find an effective way.

+ Using images such as the below is a great way to drive the ‘usability argument’ home. Look at the two pictures below and think which store you would rather buy your next PC from and have a better experience doing it (leading to up-sale, second time purchase etc.). If its so obvious in retail, why don’t people think the same about online services?

+ Why do social networks work? – who are the idiots that write blogs , contribute to Wikipedia, etc. Why do they do it? what drives them? And most importantly how can we know it’s just not going to all of a sudden…stop? This is an extremely interesting and important subject to understand. Anyone dealing with the web 2.0 / social media world should get a basic grasp of the social participation phenomenon – Prof. Shizaf Refaeli’s gave a speech about his recent research. Check out the “publications” section on his home page - http://sheizaf.rafaeli.net/

+ My own 2 cents - Launching is a very important part of your usability study – you will never gain complete insight before. Thinking that academic, endless usability “due process” will result in flawless delivery is a misconception. Running fast, making mistakes and fixing them is better. If you want to know how to do it – you MUST read Getting Real by 37Signals. Its available for free reading at https://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php That’s it for now. More notes would make this post unusable. I will make a quick update once UPA Israel post the day’s presentations online.

      

I traded in my RAZR V3 and got the Nokia E61 this week. The E61 is heavily promoted by Orange and I couldn’t resist the QWERTY keyboard.

The bottom line is that I love it! I loved the RAZR as well, but the V3 fat boy wasn’t really it, and the Q is not a GSM phone. The E61 is the first REAL smart phone I see from Nokia. The previous Symbian based ones were featured phones, not smart phones. The E61 is WiFi enabled (huge plus!), has a wide QWERTY keyboard (a must!) and despite it’s size fits rather well into a pocket. Email works like a charm, but the real surprise was the browser! Rich HTML, smart mobile centric navigation, escellent screen resolution. Mobile browsing is actually fun and easy! Way to go!

It seems like the PDA days are over. Smart phones have won the battle and that’s good news for Nokia and bad news for Microsoft. As Russel Buckley summarizes well:

“The last bastion for the PDA is the US, with over 50% of worldwide sales. Maybe, that’s why Microsoft think the battle of Palm v Windows is even vaguely relevant to the big picture. As I wrote over a year ago, it’s like two bald, old men, fighting over a comb. Even Palm seem to have realised this today.

Next target for the mobile is the stand alone MP3 player, about to be consigned to a historical curiosity, as one of the fastest product life cycles - from launch to extinction -ever to be launched.”

      

This essay / post is about a theory that has been gathering dust in my drawer for a while. A recent post by Philip Wilkinson in Crowdstorm’s blog “The Feature War in Social Shopping” made some of my crusty memory cells spring to action…yada, yada, yada - I am writing this post. Its still work in progress but I prefer releasing these raw thoughts and creating a discussion rather then to continue to dwell in this with myself. Once completed I believe it may offer a different way to analyze current trends, services, consumer psychology in the digital consumer industry.

What is Digital Zen?

Digital Device:A device that can read, write, store and transmit information

Zen: enlightenment that can be attained through meditation, self-contemplation.

Thus, Digital Zen can be defined as a feeling of calm and satisfaction, attained by using digital devices to help live life. No fuss, complications, frustrations, where is the dam manual?, what format does this support? Need to restart, Its only for Windows, Its not available in this network etc. etc. Rather use the most basic intuition to operate, upgrade and connect.

The Digital Life Scale

The digital life scale is a theoretical map that describes different stages a person my be in vis-a-vis his interaction with digital products and services. Not just one product or service but rather his over all experience, expectation level, satisfaction level and most important digital life journey.

STAGE #1 - Digital Denial
Won’t use digital devices, don’t want to use them, feels the world is too dependent on them and wants to live like ‘it used to be’.

STAGE #2 - Digital Puberty
Start using digital devices and services such as cell phone and email and feel contempt. Some people at this stage are not hungry for more and others, out of positive experiences look to grow their usage.

STAGE #3 Digital Life

A regular consumer / user of digital products and services. From music storage devices, emails, IM’s and PDA’s – the digital life feels connected …yet at times not effective and time consuming.

STAGE# 4 Digital Zen

A state of mind that is NOT possible to achieve today (please write to me if you think otherwise, have experienced it yourself or know someone who does). This is only possible when all devices communicate and allow seamless transfer of information. This is the place where technology should be….a place where it serves you instead of you servicing it. As can be seen by the graph below, digital zen is not a quantum leap from digital life but the delta to get there is the x factor many companies and industries pursue endlessly.

Another benefit of being in the ‘Zen Zone’ is the fact you reached a plateau. There is progress but its not characterized by rapid changes for good or for bad. Its where the digital environment blends flawlessly into a users life.

A change in the technological environment (or just growing old and becoming out of it) may throw you back into a digital imbalance stage (the next downturn level) which, in turn, forces you to climb back again or just give up.

STAGE# 5 Digital Overload

When a good thing turns bad. Too many connections trying to provide services that are not useful and are too complicated and operate. When you spend too much time thinking what to do instead of just doing it. People in this stage often revert back to Digital Puberty because that seems to be the place where they can remain in control OR progress back to ‘regular’ digital life leaving the pursue of Zen to others.

Personally I am currently living a Digital Life with Zen far out of site. Windows, Apple, GSM, CDMA, MP3, WMV are all but in the way. And that is just on the OS/ network side..what about usability and reliability?, still a long way to go.

      

There seems to be a wave of new releases among social networks, putting together yet another serious attempt at positioning competitiveness along the mobile axis. Treemo launched a well built mobile-focused social network. I tried Treemo and it works well, if you excuse the delivery of Video clips to mobile devices via MMS vs. via streaming. I personally don’t find a 6 second truncated video clip very entertaining, and I am still looking for the streaming options to be supported. Right now, the major holdback is with operators open infrastructure, or lack there of, but the evidence from DocoMo, Japan clearly supports this direction.

Wadja is also bankng on mobile features, offering free SMS to members of it’s network. I agree wth Pete Cashmore that this is not enough and that Facebook and MySpace already covered that base.

What I find much more intriguing is the potential for subject oriented, vertical, social networks. A genuine common passion is a much better sticking glue then a feature, any feature, and a start up cannot win a feature war with MySpace. Social networks that successfully aggregate people with a real common interest are verticals that I believe can develop to stay, but they need to be built in fundamentally different way then the horizontal ones.

      

Desktop SMS was the flavor of the month for a brief period in 2002. it’s back! Or is it?

Marshal Kirkpatrick of TechCrunch writes about the new feature from txtDrop - a web based, Myspace plugin, which offers sending SMS to a MySpace user free of charge. Oliver Starr adds more depth in MobileCrunch. There seems to be an inflation of Web based SMS services flying around. Unfortunately I find most of these services very mediocre. Some of these services may score well within a niche, but I personally think Web<-->SMS services must have the following “traits” in order to hit the minimum benchmark required for massive breakthrough:

1. Complete, 2 way, Web to Mobile and back conversations.

2. International, Operator Agnostic delivery (enough with the “limited to US and Canada” disclaimer).

3. Intelligent Routing between Web and Mobile - messages that need to reach the web should reach the web. Messages that need to reach the mobile should reach the mobile. Smart companies will figure out when and how to route each message.

4. Spam and Privacy Protection - At any cost, user data should not be exposed (definitely not “sold”).

5. Reliability - currently, most web based SMS services do not guarantee delivery. In many case, the messages are indeed not delivered. When the service is free most providers tend to excuse themselves. the users don’t.

6. Price - Messages need to be free to the extent possible. When not free, billing should be through an existing billing relationship (phone bill, Paypal, definitely not pulling out the credit card again).

7. Media - web content is rich. Text messages are textual. Routing Media from the web to the mobile could turn out to be a key differentiator. Available technology is still a little raw, but it’s getting there.

(The last one may not be mandatory, but the rest definitely are).

      

When an old clock strikes twelve, all three handles (hour, minute, second) are aligned in perfect symmetrical formation. My father calls this a symbol of perfection. A single moment in time in which several vectors of the same machine, acting individually and paced separately, all come to harmony. During that one second there is simple, undisputable perfection.

But when the minute handle gets stuck in the “quarter to” spot (A.K.A 11:45) then the clock is broken and that ‘perfect’ moment can not be achieved. To describe all those imperfect moments -, machines, human behaviors – my dad coined the term “it’s a quarter to twelve”.

We like to use this metaphor often, it’s a kind of ‘polite curse’. Instead of saying this f@#$ is not working you just say…”arrrr its quarter to twelve”. A “quarter to twelve” is not to be used sparingly. We reserve it to cases where everything is perfect but a single thing that must have fallen off, making the complete picture tainted.

Let me share a classic quarter to twelve with you - I am a proud owner of a Sony Ericson w800i. I love it. I think it is one of the few fusion phones around. A real phone, a real MP3 Player, a radio, a camera…all bundled into one good looking, lightweight machine…great, if not that single “quarter to twelve”.

In order to function as an MP3 player / radio, the w800i comes with custom earphones. At first they seemed awesome. They snuggle in your ear, convey the full range of sounds, have a quick answer button - no more, no less. Basically all an earphones needs. The problem then? the ear covers are detachable.

In some freak design accident, Sony Ericson decided that the comfy earphones need detachable rubber covers in order to function. I’ll say it again, If the rubber comes off – the ear piece can NOT stay within the ear (unless you are a vampire– see picture below). With the classic earphones, when those thin spongy covers fall off, it doesn’t make any difference – they are still ‘plug and play’. But in the case of the “royal” Sony Ericson earphones, if the rubber falls the earphone are rendered totally disabled.

Now I gather this stupidity didn’t go unnoticed all the way through Sony/Ericson design house. When I got the phone it came with extra FOUR pieces. Someone must have noticed this design flaw and decided to mitigate stupidity with WASTE. After the first piece fell off I was pissed but quickly resorted to the pack and replaced it. From then on, I knew the Gods of “quarter to twelve” are on my ass. Its only been a month since then and I have managed to go through the pack and finish all the replacements.

This short story embodies all the characteristics of “quarter to twelve”…it could have been perfect only….now I am left with beautifully designed phone, great MP3 player, great radio….with no way to listen to it 

So what’s your quarter to twelve?

      

[For proper disclosure - I am co-founder of a company that enables extending of rich media to mobile phones. The service, which will launch soon, will involve some overlapping with Phone Sherpa. However, it is significantly different in purpose, technology, model and feature-set so I feel comfortable with my objective view of Phone Sherpa]

I bumped into Seattle based Phone Sherpa by coincidence. Phone Sherpa provides a web based service which let’s you create your own ringtones and wallpapers from your own personal content. The service is available internationally, is well localized (worked very well with my Israeli orange phone) and is supported by a wide array of mobile phones. As a matter of fact, it looks like all you need is support for MP3, SMS and Mobile Internet (WAP).

The ringtone editor is pretty advanced. It let’s you crop and equalize the media file you wish to “ring tone-ify” and review your findings before you actually send them to your phone. It did go through some hiccups on my Firefox, but I don’t think it has anything to do with Phone Sherpa. The Wallpaper editor supports cropping as well and also offers some visual affects. Nicely done.

There are a few shortcomings to the service though. The upload time is pretty long for an average song but I guess that’s inherent to such a web service. You do get sample credits , but very quickly you need to pull out your credit card, a task not so simple when you consider the young age of the target crowd. The credit plans themselves are not that cheap, although Phone sherpa does offer yearly and unlimited plans for the heavy users.

I am a very big believer in the power of personal content. Services like Phone Sherpa that let you extend and make use of your own content are making a nice step forward.

      

The Vision I share with the folks at SharpCast got me blogging in the first place. Delivering fusion – web services and convergence – in a user centric way is where my heart is. Too bad SharpCast doesn’t really deliver on it’s own promise. At least not yet.

I’ve been following SharpCast for a while. They have managed to put together attractive investments - over $16.5 Million - before launching their first alpha application. Very impressive. I was also impressed with Gibu Thomas, their CEO, and his interesting and refreshing view on data synching and common languages. Share and access your data from anywhere at any time –without resorting to “file exchanges” – couldn’t agree with that more.

I was obviously intrigued when I read about their app going public this morning at TechCrunch. I immediately went to their site and downloaded the application. SharpCast chose to go “the client way” – a downloadable Windows client instead of a web based approach. A debatable approach? Maybe. Do we expect much out of 12 Megabytes of downloaded software? Absolutely.

The application itself is very mature technically, definitely for a first run, but not very intuitive. While the interface is simple, clean and even slick, it takes time to found your way to creating a new album and to sharing it. It currently offers two use cases – sharing of photos and of contacts. The contacts sharing option is not really ready yet (no contact collection and filtering, for example, which makes it kind of useless). The photo sharing feature looks like the intended killer penetration use case. It does look nice – classier then Picasa and much better then MSN, but still a bit too much of a “me too”. I opened my first album, imported a few photos and looked to access with my mobile. And here I found the real problem.

I searched and searched and could not find a hint on how to “share with my mobile”. anywhere! After 15 minutes I gave up and backtracked to the online help (I’m a man, I have to try the hell out first). Then it struck me! I must have a mobile client! And SharpCast offers one for – get this – Palm and Windows Mobile only!

Wait a minute! You just created all that noise, raised all that money, got me to download and install 12 Megabytes of software on my aging and moaning laptop…and you leave me hanging with a useless application? As a matter of fact, you offer a mobile solution for the fraction of mobile users that for some reason purchased a Palm or Window Mobile phone? How Not user centric is that?? This ain’t convergence!

So here goes guys – I own a RAZR! None of my friends or family member, or anyone I would like to share photos with, owns a Windows Mobile or a Palm! Check out SoonR – they offer WAP based sharing which WORKs on my phone. Maybe it doesn’t take $16M to build it, maybe it’s not that classy looking, maybe it has shortcomings, but it WORKS. I understand the approach behind a higher end application, but come on! Build a Java client or grant WAP access. Just give me something I can actually USE!

To me that’s a killer right there. I do have other reservations, though. Photo sharing and contact synching are too exhausted and saturated use cases. I wont even start counting the companies I know that offer similar services. It really takes a fresh approach to make it worth it. The client is too heavy and is available only for windows right now. I couldn’t tell if SharpCast is ready to deal with data transcoding – from media files to work documents – a key barrier before going mass market. Right now SharpCast is a niche service for traveling professionals and their applicative message is a bit overused. I’m not sure this is what they have in mind, but that’s where they are right now.

Now I have a lot of respect to the SharpCast fellas. This is also why I expect more. They clearly know how to build a company and how to develop a product, which is why I’ll come back for the next version. At my next visit I hope I’ll see they will have gotten the user centric and marketing angles right too.

      

I attended a Genesis Technology Vision event yesterday and was pleasantly intrigued. It was not the typical, stereo-typed VC day a working bee would expect, but a real, candid discussion about the role of mobile services and technology in a converging world. It did focus, naturally, on the innovation landscape and potential, which got me thinking again about the potential for new communications apps in a converging environment. I have managed to put together pretty substantiated opinions about the limitations of traditional communication apps (Email, IM, SMS, Voip) when it comes to convergence, but have not a clue about mobile blogging. Is it yet another buzz-hype or a real, uncovered need waiting for innovators to solve and prosper?

Let’s think this through for a minute. Blogging is not a trivial mobile app at all. I can actually think of totally different applications - one for writers and one for readers. I trust mobile browsing will become the dominant reading tool and therefore focus on mobile posting. Since the advantages of a PC are so dominant when it comes to “regular” posting, the natural use case would be a value add, complimentary one - basically capturing a spontaneous moment. That particular moment can be described textually, visually or both. It can justify a brand new post, add flavor to an existing post or simply comment on a previous one. Various editing tools seem to be required - Spell checking, tagging, previewing and simple editing of at least a subject line and a descriptive sentence.

Then, as a publisher, I’d like my readers to receive an indication about the mobile origin of a particular entry. After all, my mobile testing and photo capturing skills are not something to brag about.

And I haven’t even touched on the need to manage more then one blog at a time, comment on other people’s blogs, search for blogs, receive RSS alerts and so forth. It seems endless!

Equipped with enthusiasm I googled “mobile blogging applications“. and then “blogging from my mobile“. Nada. A pile of techie stuff. Actually I did find and click a sponsored link, Hblogger, which turned to be mobile blogging software for Palm devices. I took a moment to ponder the business logic behind creating such an application for Palm, and then it was time for help. I turned to my friend Alon who pointed me to three possible solutions - Pico, Shozu, and Flickr moblogging. Pico seemed like a sophisticated mobile posting app. It supposedly works with every XML RPC powered which basically means all modern blogs out there (are we actually supposed to know that term???). However the application is available for Symbian devices only and I own a Motorola RAZR. Ouch. I moved on to Shozu. Posting through Shozu is a bit of a trick since Shozu is a mobile picture sharing application, not mobile blogging. Since Shozu supports uploading to Flickr and since Flickr support direct posting to a blog, there is some transitive sense that according to my friend Alon does the trick. However, Shozu, despite having more clients then Pico do, still do not have an option for my RAZR.

Beat up but undeterred, I moved on to Flickr. Flickr has taken a simple route but one that actually works. If you are technically challenged like I am, here is a “simple” step by step guide:

1. Follow Flickr’s instructions and link your Flickr account to your blog. Cheat #1: don’t forget to add “xmlrtc” to your blog’s web address, 10 minutes of misery right there.

2. Flickr then generates a unique email address for you which will act as a posting proxy. You can receive your unique email address via email.

3. Add a Flickr contact to your mobile address book. Cheat #2: copy and paste the email address to a web sms application and send it to your mobile. Then use the phone to extract the email address from the SMS and save it as a new email contact, preferably a contact that starts with an “A”.

4. From that point on, anything you send to that address will be immediately posted as a new entry. Cheat #3, Flickr will use the picture file name as the entries subject, not very convenient. You need to remember to rename the picture before you post it.

I tried it. Got an entry with a weird subject I had to immediately go online and delete.

Now how ugly is that? Random subject, No editing, no formatting, no reviewing, “straight forward” activation and a very “intuitive” user experience. And we’re talking about the best one out there i could find after a couple of hours of search!

Unacceptable.

The big problem with the current state of mobile blogging is not lack of need. It is with quality. The flaws easily outweigh the benefits. No-one seems to have figured out how to really provide mobile blogging on a mobile device. No-one seems to have figured how users can feel comfortable with the expected results of their mobile actions. Bloggers are regular users, not gadget freaks, and they need to be approached as such. I believe an echo-system will be created, but it will require some fresh approaches and some macro level iterations, at least.

      

Two important contributions to fusion are being noted these days. Interestingly, both are driven directly or indirectly by Skype.

SoonR are adding Skype to their basic service. For those of you who are not familiar with SoonR – Gil Rosen reviewed them as well as other Remote Access Services a while back here in Degardener. The idea behind adding Skype to SoonR is simple and smart. Once you use your mobile phone as a “remote access / remote control” to your PC, it makes all the sense in the world to use it as a Skype extension as well. I haven’t used it yet as it’s not available to the general public (Michael Arrington did), but I imagine the call itself is generated via Skypeout from the PC to both the destination and the callers mobile phone, which means Skypeout credits are required even if you’re calling a Skype user. (more…)

      

I am a bit schizophrenic when it comes to Triple play convergence. Triple play is the most rational conclusion of any long term analysis of the relevant markets. Be it Voice, Pictures, Video and Data or TV, Internet, Landline and Mobile – there is too much sense in their respective consolidation and integration. I, however, don’t see the quantum leap happening any time soon. I do see a long march of small steps that will take quite a few years to reach a critical “Triple Play” mass. Make no mistake, the march is very much on and all players should be in focused of their strategy board. But that’s true at the micro level. In the actual battlefield. The overall transition will take many years.

Here are the top 10 inhibitors I see:

1. User Need and Education – errr…who exactly needs it? Some people think it’s the most significant factor. Advocating the benefits of triple play will take generations in Hi-Tech years. My generation already has a difficult time making use of VOIP. Most of us do not have DVR or VOD, and if we do we use like we used our VCR. Most of us do not have smart phones (they are too clumsy, buggy and expensive), have never downloaded an application to a mobile device and have never looked for IP alternatives when it comes to mobile data or TV broadcasting. Significant early adopters, yes, but we all are still a long way from shore. (more…)

      

The search for the pioneer was up in the air for quite some time and now it is finally here. EQO communications have released a mobile Skype client - a J2ME application which extends your Skype identity from the PC to the Mobile phone (full coverage by EQO). The one liner is straight forward: “Are you a Skype user? Extend it to your mobile phone”. Reality is more complicated but it seems like EQO took the right approach. (more…)

      

I’m sure some of you readers are looking at the title of this post and thinking “Huh? What’s with this? What do these things have to do with one another? It only makes sense that this comes from a guy called Spock”. But there’s a point here, and a story, so bear with me.

Something bothered me while reading Gil’s post about the boat-on-wheels. It took me a few minutes to understand what’s wrong, but finally it hit me:

A boat-on-wheels isn’t that bad of an idea.. (more…)

      

Shozu is a simple, elegant, user centric service. They provide a mobile application which makes mobile picture posting easy. If you use Flickr, Webshots, Buzznet or Text America and if you have a camera phone, Shozu links the two together. Well, almost.

Let’s start with the positive Feedback. Shozu is a user centric service and it shows. Their mobile application is built for end users, does one specific thing and does it in a very insightful way. Their web site is very welcoming and easy to navigate. The help files are simple and effective and the counseling extends beyond the comfortable cocoon of their own application. For example, Shozu provides advise on how to avoid roaming charges and on how to use their application to send picture emails in a very cost effective way. That’s what I call an extra effort that makes a difference. Cool, user centric, effective.

(more…)

      

An interesting new play in the convergence arena are the mobile access companies. The value proposition is focused around on enabling users to access to their PCs using an internet enabled mobile device as long as they are online with their PC at the same time too.

To start with,this is a very welcomed and logical step in the convergence field. If you had told me two years ago that I would be able to surf the net and view my PC content via WAP using my simple mobile phone (Nokia 6230) (…) get out of here!

As it happens, SoonR and Avvenu are companies that are pioneering the way. SoonR got a thorough review on mobilecrunch a few days ago so it got me thinking in the context of our “Fusion” vs. “Boat on Wheels” awards. For the sake of fairness I will focus on Avvenu this time. (more…)

      

We are proud to launch our new campaign. From now on we will do our best to review convergence products and services and give them their share of thumbs up and thumbs down.

For that, we have come up with two distinct certificates – Fusion vs. Boat on Wheels. Fusion is good. It means the product has captured and blended converging elements properly, created synergy and delivered well. Boat on wheels means the product is exactly that – a forced mix of elements that are failing to comprise a stable compound.

We credited Sling Media with a Fusion certificate and have classified MSN TV as a Boat on Wheels. As you can probably tell by now we are opinionated a-holes. This does not mean we are right, only that we have opinions. We’d love to hear yours. Both about products you like us to review or simply about the products themselves.

      

Following up on the recent fusion posting, my first nominee for the annual fusion award is Sling Media, provider of Slingbox, an IP box that enables you to watch your TV programming from wherever you are by turning virtually any Internet-connected PC into your personal TV. Sling harnesses the Internet and helps break the artificial physical boundaries of TV broadcasting. Why do I feel such an urge to nominate Sling? Well, let me tell you the sad story of my NBA watching habits.

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