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.

      

Google’s mobile version of AdSense is finally in beta. After months of second hand rumors, these news now seem substantiated as Google has put together a mobile ad FAQ page. Ads are available in 13 countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, China, Ireland, India, Russia and Australia. Advertisers can choose between 12 and 18 characters per ad.

The pricing and clearance processes are similar to the ones already established on the web with one major exception. In the mobile version, the user can actually place a call to the published business. If this doesn’t drive mobile click through price up then I find it hard to know what will.

Will this work? Absolutely! I believe this is exactly what the industry needs to kick-back. Banners are limited and the collective user patience for them is exhausted. Useful, contextual information on the mobile phone can actually add value to the browsing session.

      

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!

      

Stuart O’brien reports that Groove Mobile is launching a direct D2C full track download service. The service will be based on the technology Groove has developed for SonyBMG and Vodafone UK will be the first to offer the service as a channel. Groove is busy recruiting additional labels and operator channels. From what I understand, Groove licenses the music and the operator agrees to put the service “on deck”, meaning that data charges will not be added to the full track purchase price.

This business model is significant in a number of ways.

From a user perspective the new service eliminates the hated hidden costs. As O’Brien reports, “Groove’s agreement with Vodafone means it can wrap the cost of the data up into the price of a £1.29 or £1.50 track, charged using premium SMS.” This is a key parameter; Evidence shows users won’t pay twice - for data and for content - it’s either one or the other.

The second significant factor is the fact Groove is moving up in value chain. From an enabler (Sprint, 3) to a service provider. In a perfect world, this is where companies like Groove should be - between the content provider and the operator, but as a service. This structure is key to user satisfaction, content richness and competitive pricing. Let’s hope other operators follow in the footsteps of Vodafone UK.

      

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.

      

In March DeGardener broke out the scoop about PayPal intentions to launch Mobile Checkout. Now it’s finally formal. Matt Weathers, Moile Group Product Manager in PayPal tells us that PayPal will be formally announcing the availability of PayPal Mobile Checkout at the PayPal Developers Conference in Boston today. This is good news for any provider as premium SMS is complicated, sloppy and somewhat overly expensive. Our own web to mobile service, HooQs, will now be able to offer content providers a new monetizing route. 

According to Weathers, the PayPal Mobile Checkout flow is a two page WAP buyer checkout which is managed by APIs. A buyer can pay by logging in with user name and password or phone and PIN.  There’s no need for credit card info or bank info as the APIs are simplified versions of the existing Express Checkout APIs.  PayPal expects to drive selling of a range of products via mobile phone (tickets, services, hardgoods, donations, transportation cards, etc).  

“PayPal put a lot emphasis on reaching buyers and on solving the discovery challenges and have partnered with a set of design partners for that purpose. The APIs were designed to maximize merchant and developer control over the buyer experience.  Checkout can be plugged into the process regardless of bearer - SMS marketing, search, WAP sites or client.   The merchant sends the product details via the API and then gets a WAP link that can be delivered or displayed in SMS or WAP.  It can also be triggered by J2ME client (on most modern phones), which can present an almost unique option for game and mobile application developers outside the operator deck.”  

PayPal is very well positioned to take leadership of WAP based billing in the United States. This ecosystem takes a lot of presence and committed partners, and a player like PayPal holds a great position for obvious reasons. In Europe, however, PayPal will face quite some competition from quick runner Bango.  [correction: Bango works with PayPal as a channel and therefore they do not compete but collaborate - Thank Matt and Ray for correcting] In any case, these recent development is very good news for all service providers who wish to monetize the mobile channel.

A demonstration of the mobile search is now on PayPal’s WAP home page (https://mobile.paypal.com/) under the link “Buy something”.  Weather stresses that PayPal is definitely not getting into the search business,  “The search demonstration is purely designed to show the potential for mobile commerce”.

      

I spent the week in Monaco at MEM2007. From the personal perspective it was a very exciting show, after all, first time HOOQs was on display. From that perspective we had an excellent show - great feedback and lots of users and leads. We have work cut out for us, but the good news is that the market is HOT! The need for personalized, open, operator independent web to mobile services is all over the place and is welcomed by users, operators, content providers, analysts and bloggers.

MEM2007 is not really a classic exhibition, it’s more of a conference. Participation is nearly exclusive to industry insiders and the tracks, therefore, are very professional. To a start-up-ist, these represent rare opportunities to take a 30,000 feet view and collect some insights that extend beyond the daily challenges. My own personal climax was not a single industry lecture or panel, even though all were very interesting at their own merit. To me, the most insightful session was a focus group with 10 different teenagers. These young adults were gathered from different countries - Australia, England, France, Italy, Finland, Germany - and were all surveyed about their digital lives. Here is some of what they told us:

1. The key elements teenagers look for in their mobile phones is appearance. Then come ability to play music, quality of camera and feature richness. 

2. Nokia is the most popular handset brand. Out of the 10 participants, 5 had Nokias, 2 had Samsungs, 2 had LGs (Chocolate) and 1 had a Sony Ericsson. 7 out of 10 devices were 3G.

3. They don’t do mobile clients - only 1 participant ever downloaded a mobile application. A game. Used it a couple of times and ditched it.

4. Teenagers are smart shoppers. They don’t mind paying for Internet content, but hate buying stuff they can easily find for free. In other words, they will not buy songs for 3 Euros a pop. Contrary to popular belief, they buy a lot of CDs in addition to downloading free music. They know how to manage their music collection and how to get their favorite music on their mobile device.

5. On they other hand, all participants testified they would gladly buy new content if only they could find it easily. All participants agreed that the mobile operator portals are close to impossible to navigate through.

6. On top, the differences between operators and handsets make it impossible for users to share experiences. Not tracks or clips - pure information about where and how to find them!

7. They things they on their handsets are better Internet browsing and memory. They really don’t get why MP3 and Video enabled phones come with such little memory.

8. They don’t mind advertising if it makes content free. They are already used to online ant TV advertising, why object to mobile ads?

9. They all tried Google on their mobile and didn’t like it. The mobile experience does not provide anything close to the internet experience.

10. They don’t do MMS. All of them tried and all of them claim that “it doesn’t work”.

11. If they had to give up their TV, Mobile Phone or PC, 9 out of 10 would give up their TV (the only other answer was PC). None would let go of their mobile phone.

These young adults were not screaming in a vacuum. It was great to hear executives from operators presenting plans to further breakdown their walled gardens and push flat data rates. It seems like it’s only a question of price points now. This is music to the ears of user centric service providers. To me, however, getting the bartenders in front of our booth excited and HooQed was most rewarding than anything!

      

My day job has become my all-around-the-day job lately as you can tell from the lack of recent writing.  Well, the reason why is now out in beta!

HooQs is a user centric web to mobile service. You can search, create, save and share internet media with mobile phones.  Your personal media is aggregated in channels which we call HooQs. HooQs can be saved, managed, sent to mobile phones around the world and of course, enjoyed. Registration is optional, however as a user you get your own internet rich media portal tailored to your own personal taste.

Since the whole idea is to get personal, my own favorite HooQs at the moment are Paris Hilton in Jail, Vintage TV Commercials, Best of Monty Python and Computer Game Nostalgia.  My full HooQ board can be found here.

So get HooQed but be gentle, Beta means Beta! We do promise to do our best to continuously improve and personally I would more than welcome your feedback and comments! 

HooQs is best used on a 3G phone.

      

Before you read this post be so kind as and take our quick test survey on your mobile. Simply surf to:

de.mobiode.mobi

Before pointing out that “this can easily be done on the web, why the hell is he sending me to my mobile?”, bare with me, this has educational value. My only disclaimer is that proper use of the system would also mean receiving the link directly on your phone, but I guess the cost of sending messages was a factor.

What you experienced took me 5 minutes to set up.

Mobiode lets you create a survey and publish it in seconds. This is not new. The neat thing about Mobiode’s service is the following:

The surveys are adapted to WAP and therefore allow you to distribute the survey/poll to any mobile. This way you can reach your customers outside of their usually PC settings.
And on top of this:

1. Its extremely easy to set up the survey
2. There is a basic account that lets you publish one survey at a time for free. Not a money back guarantee. Not a 30 day trial. Free.

If this weren’t simple the whole package would not be worth it. While Mobiode doesn’t look as smooth or schique as 37signals, the execution is just as simple. And it makes all the difference.

I opened an account in seconds. Created a survey. Sent it (to myself first) and then to friends and collected the stats. No hassle, no complications, no ‘read the fine print’ - just did it.

The ability to connect to your users on their mobile and gain feedback in such a simple manner is of high value.

I recommend taking a look.

      

CTIA fueled some significant mobile news this week as Google, Nokia and Yahoo are about to crash helmets over the next mobile killer app.

Google has made a couple of significant steps this week. The more significant announcement came on Monday, as a strategic deal with LG was announced. Mike Evant reports that Google and LG will preinstall Google Maps, Gmail and Blogger on a wide variety of LG phones, making it a no brainer for carriers to ship and for users to try.

In addition, YouTube will be launching a mobile site as soon as the exclusivity period with Verizon Wireless expires. Unlike the Verizon version which is client based, the mobile YouTube will be WAP based. It will be interesting to see how YouTube deals with video streaming issues across different carriers, networks and devices. All in all a “two punch strategy”, Google for text and YouTube for video, could end up being very effective.

Nokia has not kept quiet. Unwired view is telling us about Nokia’s patent bound semantic visual search engine, screen shots and further explanation of the search process is provided. Katie Fehrenbacher speculates about the natural synergy with Nokia’s camera phones and if half the rumors are true, Google will soon have to go back to protecting home turf, at least when it comes to search innovation.

Yahoo has not kept silent and may very well be making the most concrete steps to date. The introduction of Mobile OneSearch is a promising mass market step, taking search to every internet enabled phone. Yahoo already offers Yahoo Go, the full blown Yahoo experience, to the high end, and together with OneSearch a comprehensive strategy seems to be forming. 

These seemingly little steps are very significant for a number of reasons. Such proactive steps by handset manufacturers and web titans take the carriers further out of the “next killer app” equation. In addition, these provide indication that search, rich content discovery and messaging are the areas where the leading players look for the next killer app. Search has never been carrier territory and carriers have struggled with putting together winning propositions around content. On the other hand carriers do make a lot of money from content and tons of money from messaging. The battle over who owns what asset is definitely not over, but this time, I believe, the space is mature enough to focus on the criteria for splitting the larger pie rather than fighting over who gets to burn it.

      

MacNN reports that “iPhone makes rare appearance at CTIA - Apple’s iPhone has surfaced in the public eye after a long absence”. Have we all gone insane? I mean, I wrote a poem about it but even that can be excused as a ‘momentary lapse of reason’ driven by the peer pressure that surrounds the digiworld we live in.

A few months passed and I thought we all kicked our hangovers by now. There are still open issues such as battery power, touch screen usability, price, quality of service (no one really knows) etc.

When you encounter a beautiful craft for the first time you tend to ignore the obvious impediments and focus on the romantic and the fantastic. That’s great. Then we should snap out. That is what separates the “men from the boys”. The responsible adult can get excited but also keep realistic.

I found this hilarious widget on apples website - the sasquatch news tracker. If you haven’t snapped out of it yet I this one is for you. Never miss a public appearance, a mysterious unveiling, a behind the scenes glimpse…ooooh

having said that…I still want one badly

      

GigaOM reports that Symbian is about to announce a significant upgrade to its operating system on Monday at CTIA. According to ABI Research, Symbian held a commanding 73% market share of the loosely defined Smart-phone market in 2006, resulting in about 50 Million shipments. 

Improvements include battery and memory management, camera and multimedia enhancements and the introduction of transparent and automatic roaming between WiFi and 3G. MobHappy brings the full details.

The upgrade is very significant for a number of reasons. Symbian is reaching out of the Smartphone niche. The multimedia boost, for example, is clearly a consumer focus. Push email and Voip are communication apps and not “business apps” anymore. Symbian is slowly but surely building an attractive and real consumer position, realizing that the higher end market would pay a little more for high quality feature phone.

The introduction of transparent WiFi - 3G roaming is even more significant. While full handset OEM support is needed, this has the potential of making operator independent mobile internet actually usable. Very few users actually bother with switching networks on an ongoing basis. Making the switch automatic would not only reduce costs for the end user, it would also break a wide open hole in the walled garden. And this does not only apply to browsing but to the very core - phone calls. Now, I don’t see Mobile VOIP going mainstream very soon, but I definitely see a gradual uptake, mostly by the cream of the crop from an operator point of view - the travelling professionals.  

How will Operators deal with this? Good question. So far everybody’s happy with the containment of Symbian devices as “Smartphones”. It makes it easy for everyone to avoid a clash. Some operators force vendors to take off the WiFi feature for now (Cingular and Nokia E62 for example). Some put a more constructive focus on upgrading their 3G networks. In any case, it’s all a prelude to the unavoidable reshuffle of the mobile universe.

      

PayPal is about to make a strategic entry into mobile web with the launch of Mobile Checkout, a mobile service that will allow anyone with a PayPal account to buy things using their mobile browsers. 

Rumors have been flying around as PayPal apparently has been diligently working on the product for quite some time. In fact, I wouldn’t rule out an announcement next week at CTIA. The product is in beta right now and is planned for release later this year. Once out, PayPal Mobile Checkout will allow people to buy stuff they’re searching for on their mobile phones.

We could not get an official comment from PayPal of course, but a credible and passionate inside source has indeed verified the rumor and was kind enough the leak the following screen shot:

The payment process is the same as PayPal online – you enter your PayPal user name and password. Along the way you can create a pin so that future transactions are much faster. You don’t have to fill out a long web form of addresses and credit card numbers – which is unsafe and a pain on a mobile phone.

The mobile web has been yearning for payment solutions for a while now. Premium SMS is commonly used for mobile payments but mostly for single, micro transactions such as voting, media and alerts. While premium SMS is very intuitive, it is not trouble free. Mobile operators grab roughly 50% of the revenue and there have been quite a few reliability issues. The opportunity for real ”Mobile Payments 2.0″ is definitely there.

PayPal announced last week that it has reached 35 Million subscribers in Europe and about 150 Million subscribers worldwide. It was only expected that the successful web giants would start porting their services to the mobile space and PayPal is apparently the first significant player about to make an entry.

      

My buddy Ofer Kalisky referred me to, Musicovery, a BEAUTIFUL Interactive Music Discovery site. I have no idea who the people behind the company are (the corporate identity is hidden), but the creators seem both smart and fun loving!

Musicovery is an open, web radio service. You begin your journey with a navigation widget that helps you pinpoint your starting point according to genre, mood, and era. The widget itself is beautiful, but the real kick is when you start listening. The interactive music map is really cool and intuitive. I keep on playing with it.

Oh, the business model… It kind of looks simple as well. Referrals to Amazon and iTunes for purchasing.

Is simple beautiful or what?

      

I’ve been to enough trade shows by now to know that it is all in the eye of the beholder. A show is good if it was good for you, and 3GSM treated us very well this year. Our service received great feedback, we got covered by El Pais (English translation here) and in addition have generated very high quality business leads. That’s always a very good feeling. I have also managed to tie some loose ends and come full circle with people I lost touch (or good rhythm) with. I guess that’s what a show is essentially about. There were a few share-worthy notes, though:

1. Content is king, again. From low level switch makers, through middleware providers and all the way end user devices - EVERYBODY is betting on the convergence of content. Music, Video, Games, from the PC, from the Internet, it all seems to be rapidly maturing for mobile.

2. Google, Apple, MSN and MySpace did not make an impact at the show. Whether simply not into mobile or just planning to go solo, I question the outcome of this low-key approach. Yahoo! made an exception by pushing a Yahoo Go! booth right at the entry of Hall 7. Great service, by the way, although too “high end” and therefore limited to dedicated Yahoo! fans only.

3. Chauvinism - Are we all dirty old horny men or does someone in LogicaCMG deserve to get his ass kicked? Naked “booth babes” travelling the halls covered with body paint is not just tasteless, it is degrading. And what the hell do naked women have to do with Operator Middleware? I am no conservative, but this was simply bad PR, “gentlemen”!

4. Feminism - The year is 2007 and still, nearly all executives I met were men. Why? When will this finally change already?

5. Consumer - in, mobile productivity - out! I haven’t seen as many new Smartphones or mobile office suits as before. Every handset manufacturer has showcased at least a couple of new media players of different shapes and flavors. We should see a lot of Video and Music phones coming out this year! Good or bad news for Apple?

6. Nightlife - The parties were good this year, the locations were posh, the people were happy, the houses were full. Barcelona being such a beautiful city didn’t hurt either.

7. Connectivity - Can 3GSM finally get good 3G coverage? How does it look when we pitch the value of “not working so good” 3G for crying out loud?

See you next year!

      

I rad into Roughly Drafted as I was writing the Prada vs. Apple piece. I don’t often dedicate a post to what naturally fits in a blogroll, I always feel like it’s a cheap cheat, but this particular blog is simply worth it.

Roughly drafted is edited by Daniel Eran (we do not know each other). Daniel seems like a Mac fan and the blog is Apple centric, but this doesn’t tell the story. In reality roughly drafted takes a deep and analytical look at the wide landscape of mobile devices, particularly smart-phones. A must read for anyone working in the industry.

A few select pieces:

Apple iPhone vs LG Prada KE850

Smartphones: iPhone and the Big Fat Mobile Industry

Zune vs. iPhone - 5 Phases of Media Coverage

Enjoy!

Aner Ravon

8 Comments

Track with:       

iPhone’s Devil Wearing Prada
by Aner Ravon

Tuesday January 23rd 2007, 6:40 am
Filed under: web 2.0, Convergence, Aner Bio, mobile

Friday Apple got a taste of the love it should expect from the cellphone market. LG made the new Prada device official and as many noted, it looks a lot like the iPhone.  

Check out the following on YouTube. I also found these pics on TechCee, a good gadget comparison blog:

Read a full comparative analysis here and here.  

I never subscribed to the “Apple religion” and do not envision myself buying an iPhone or a Powerbook anytime soon. If was upbeat after Steve Job’s presentation at Mac World, it is refreshing to see that handset manufacturers are not falling behind.

Apple expects a 50% profit margin and substantial penetration into a market that turns around a billion device a year. I don’t see it happening. The main reasons are

(a) Better positioned competitors like LG, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and even Motorola

(b) Deep and new dependency on carrier networks for distribution, a dependency that impacts end user reach, geographical coverage, pricing, service bundles and customization.

(c) Inability to create a real technical advantage (see a good analysis on RedOrbit). Apple does not have real experience in making cellphones and they are going to learn how important that experience is.

Indeed, now that the standing ovation is over, we start seeing great devices and a lot of iPhone backlash. Prada is a fantastic brand and unlike the Nokia Vertu it is expected to be somewhat affordable. The initial end user price point is at $780, higher than the $500 and $600 iPhones but the figure lies and I expect the LG Prada ending up costing much less. LG enjoys economies of scale and can offer a lower overall price point. It also enjoys an 6% or so market share already.

Some argue that the fundamental problem of the iPhone is that it has a split personality. It’s not a Smart phone because Smart Phones are about services and openness. It’s not an MP3 player because it has a better alternative - the good old iPod. It’s not the ultimate accessory because it’s too big. So what exactly is it?

Personally, I prefer to associate myself with Prada than with Apple, but that’s just me. Now let’s see what Sony Ericsson and Nokia come up with.

Or better yet, Gucci and Georgio Armani!

Aner Ravon

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Mobile Realtime Podcasting? Anybody?
by Aner Ravon

Sunday January 21st 2007, 11:43 am
Filed under: web 2.0, Convergence, Aner Bio, fusion, mobile

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.

Aner Ravon

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Design-geneering the iPhone [and a poem]
by Gil Rosen

Thursday January 11th 2007, 10:45 am
Filed under: freedom, business, fusion, Gil Bio, mobile, user experience

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.

Gil Rosen

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iPhone arrives but What Does it Mean?
by Aner Ravon

Wednesday January 10th 2007, 6:00 am
Filed under: web 2.0, Convergence, mobile

Ok, so the iPhone is here (read what Mike Arrington and Scott Karp had to say about it). Gil and I both predicted it (duh!) so the first good news is that one monkey is off or backs.

But what does the iPhone really mean?

The real news is that the iPhone is really an innovative converged device. It has a unique user interface (the back light is sensitive to the holding angle, for example). The interface is not the traditional iPod interface but one much further developed, including a touch screen and a virtual keyboard. Oh yes, the iPhone also comes with a 2.0 megapixel camera and a WiFi connection. A truly converged media device. Wow.

the second good news is that Apple did not co-brand the device with a handset manufacturer. We all remember the Motorola-Apple ROKR disaster although we all wish to forget. The iPhone, in order to really stand out, looks rightfully like a one stop Apple shop.

Now it’s time for the bad news. The iPhone is simply too damn expensive. $499 for 4GB and $599 for 8GB is not a mainstream device. This means that by the time the iPhone will be offered by a wide variety of carriers we will start seeing much more cost effective alternatives. Mike Arrington took a note of it as well, comparing the iPhone to professional handhelds such as the Treo and Blackberry:

“Once again, Apple CEO Steve Jobs wowed the crowds like no one else can. In his 9 am keynote at MacWorld in San Francisco this morning, Jobs announced the new iPhone cell phone. From the description in appears to be a game changing device, and the public markets seem to agree. As of the time of this writing, Apple stock is up over 7% for the day. Competitor Research in Motion (Blackberry) is down over 6%, wiping $2 billion dollars in market cap off the table. Palm, maker of the Treo, is also down, nearly 6%.”

The iPhone is a WiFi powered device but is currently only offered by Cingular. I’m not sure I understand Apple’s strategy by not offering it directly to consumers as well, but I guess Cingular has put some constraints on that for now. If selling mobile devices directly to consumers makes sense, iPhone is the one that should be carrying that flag. 

I haven’t changed my mind about the potential of the iPhone. Apple will be very happy with selling 50 Million a year, but that figure is marginal in the overall mobile device space. I expect the converged media-phone market to be dominated by Nokia et al, but it’s good to see Apple pulling the market forward.

And yes, I want one!

Aner Ravon

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What Start-Up-ists Need
by Aner Ravon

Monday January 08th 2007, 10:29 am
Filed under: web 2.0, freedom, Aner Bio, mobile

I have very recently joined a new start up in the field of personal media. I won’t talk too much about it because it’s still a bit early to talk, but you can check out my updated linkedin profile. I am obviously very excited about it!

As a start-up-ist (”entrepreneur” is so overused…) I really enjoy good guidance and even criticism. There are many blogs that provide good (and free) advice, but very few of them provide first hand case studies.  I keep going back to Nisan Gabbay’s Start-Up Review, an excellent blog and a must read for start-up executives. It features relevant case studies with a lot of insight, as opposed to a “do this and don’t do that” laundry list.

This week the featured piece is about Grouper.com. I have personally been visiting Grouper from time to time but was not aware of their history. Grouper managed to change their technology and business around, compete and win on 2 parallel fronts and score an $65M exit to Sony. Oh, and they have done it all with no more then $4M in total financing. 

True perception of reality, rational analysis and good execution skills make decision making easy. I certainly draw inspiration from the companies Nisan features on his blog.

Aner Ravon

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Mobile TV War Entering New Stage
by Aner Ravon

Thursday January 04th 2007, 9:27 am
Filed under: web 2.0, Convergence, Aner Bio, mobile

Katie Fehrenbacher of GigaOM reports about Modeo going into a “beta commercial launch” in NYC this coming week. Modeo has been hyping their DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld) platform for a while but have suffered a set back when their CEO recently bailed. Still, Modeo represents the “open network” school, working with open platforms and handset manufacturers on a “standard mobile broadcasting” service that will enable operators and MVNOs launch their tailor made audio and video portfolio. Modeo is using radio frequencies, so in theory they can bypass the operators and ISPs altogether by working with handset manufacturers directly. No wonder Nokia has been their primary target.

On the other hand, Qualcomm is launching MediaFLO with Verizon this month. Qualcomm has traditionally equipped CDMA operators with more complete service delivery platforms which enable operators like Verizon build a sustainable advantage. While MediaFLO will probably not allow as much freedom and will be create an operational dependency on Qualcomm, it will relieve the operator of many project, product and operational decisions and challenges.

This is very similar to the “J2ME vs. BREW” debate. While J2ME is open, standards driven, universal and you name it platform, BREW has produced substantially more downloads per subscriber. Neither Nokia nor Vodafone have been able to match the Qualcomm / Verizon GetItNow success. History proves that operators prefer managing a catalog and enjoying economies of scale over building tailor made value add platforms. I don’t see this changing with interactive video and audio, on the contrary.

Aner Ravon

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Camera phones have finally Crossed the convergence Chasm
by Gil Rosen

Wednesday December 27th 2006, 7:45 am
Filed under: web 2.0, Convergence, fusion, Gil Bio, mobile, user experience

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….

Gil Rosen

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OZ Making a Power Move at Mobile Social Networking
by Aner Ravon

Thursday December 07th 2006, 4:14 pm
Filed under: web 2.0, Convergence, Aner Bio, mobile, user experience

Last week I wrote about the future of Mobile Instant Messaging. Montreal based OZ is taking the next step. Following Pete Cashmore’s exclusive yesterday, OZ announced its new product - mobile social networks:

 

“OZ, the leading mobile messaging solution provider, today announced its mobile social networking product. With over 400 million social networking users around the world, this solution will enable consumers to easily access the most popular social networking sites on their mobile phones. …

Apparently, the OZ new product will support Social Networking sites such as Flickr, Bebo, MySpace, YouTube, Blogger. The product will be available to carriers during Q1 of 2007. OZ carrier customers, including Sprint-Nextel, Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile are expected to be the prime beneficiaries.

For OZ this is a great move although not one without hurdles. Mobilizing social networks is the natural next step for mobile IM and Email - two products nearing exhaustion in terms of consumer potential. This is definitely the right direction for OZ in terms of increasing value to existing and new customers.

It does present a few challenges though. For start, having a client is nice but a commercial agreement must be reached between each carrier and each social network before deployment can take place. Having the client provides an edge, but no immediate business.  I certainly hope YouTube, Flickr and Bebo won’t choke the market as AOL, MSN and Yahoo did and that they will grant content and licensing rights to 3rd party developers. This will make OZ a reseller which is what OZ is really aiming at. Still, I imagine MySpace and Flickr will at least try to deal with Cingular, Sprint and T-Mobile directly and therefore limit OZ’s value to deployment only. In addition, I assume their mobile divisions will launch mobile 3rd party programs that will allow other enablers to step in and compete.

The other significant challenge is with the client itself. It will be really challenging to package Flickr, YouTube and MySpace into one Java client and to support video, audio, commenting and so forth. I have a feeling the experience won’t be that good and that a lot of ideals will need to be compromised. The services are very media savvy and require incorporation of too different flows. Unlike IM or Email, there is less of an immediate communication benefit here and less of “rational” incentive to download, so the user experience must rock.

At the bottom line, it’s early and I believe the market is still up for grabs. OZ, however, has taken a crucial first step, not for the first time. They have done it once with Mobile IM, putting a lot of weight on the need for AIM / MSN / Yahoo multiheaded client, a gamble that has paid off big time. Let’s see who else joins the party and how.

Aner Ravon

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Technology and Marketing Views Clash over Video
by Aner Ravon

Thursday December 07th 2006, 9:35 am
Filed under: web 2.0, freedom, Aner Bio, mobile, user experience

I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time now when Gil Dibner forwarded me this excellent post by Michael Parekh. Michael’s philosophy is very easy to subscribe to. His view on Internet technology, if I may humbly try to purify, is that we over complicate it. The particles are more similar then different, it should be priced in a simple way and it should be controlled to the minimum.

Who wouldn’t agree with that? I do too, but I also find it a bit over simplified. I’d like to suggest another point of view to it. I think marketing is well ahead of technology and not, unlike I often hear, the other way around. 

From A marketing perspective, we are there for a long time now. We all imagine converged media on converged devices. We all see the internet as a world wide communication infrastructure, free and open for all. We all see Access as something that should not be priced according to media types but, if anything, according to quantity of usage and quality of service.

From a technology standpoint, there is a huge difference between streaming and download, between Video and Photo, between Browsing and Voice. One that impacts everything. But I’ll get to that later.

Michael looks through the case of web and mobile video. As the case is usually with other technologies, we tend to invent and create categories instead of realizing it’s just more of the same:

“Every new evolution in technology at times is treated as “the next big thing” and a category unto itself. Today’s investor and media fascination with internet video as a separate category is a case in point.

Never mind that video is just an additional data type being made increasingly more mainstream by the on-going adoption of wired and wireless broadband access…. Some of you may be old enough to remember when “Multimedia” on CD-ROMS, was considered a separate technology category unto itself.

As an example, Ted Leonsis, an entrepreneur who focused on this category, successfully sold a company he co-founded called Redgate Communications to a little-known online company called America Online (AOL) in 1993, and ended up on a road to being a billionaire.  Not unlike two young guys recently who managed to sell an “internet video” company to Google for over $1.6 billion.”

The danger with inventing categories is that players then look to reinvent the business and marketing wheels, generating half-ass-ed products and absurd business models:

“The reason I’m getting into all this, is that this tendency causes all kinds of short-term warping of business models, with adverse short-term consequences for mainstream consumer adoption. ”

If we treat video in a similar way to voice, for example, there should be no need to go through a pointless learning curve filled with unnecessary mistakes, such as the one demonstrated by YouTube and Verizon and referred to in another Michael post:

“YouTube is coming to mobile phones — or, to be more precise, a small slice of YouTube is coming to some  Verizon Wireless phones.    

While its explosively popular Web site is free, YouTube’s phone-based version will require a $15-a-month subscription to a Verizon Wireless service called VCast. And instead of choosing what to watch from a vast library of clips, VCast users will be limited to an unspecified number of videos selected and approved by the companies.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. But Michael is overlooking an important point. From a TECHNICAL PERSPECTIVE, Video (and Mobile Video in particular) IS totally new technology. Like mobile browsing was new technology at first and exactly like Multimedia on a a CD ROM was new technology.

And this is key. Video streaming on mobile devices requires a set of new sub-technologies that are not yet fully present - reliable mobile broadband, good quality image processing, image compression, transcoding. Then come usage considerations that require a technical solution - creating the content base, taking care of content filtering, abuse reporting, DRM, performance measuring. following we have quality and integration issues - it must work well on many handsets, it must not crash the phone or the phone line….

I know I may sound like a techie right now, but these are in fact real issues. The marketing has long been figured out but the product is not there yet!

Very few companies have decent mobile video enabling platforms at this very point.  None has standard support for DRM and Content filtering. There is an inevitable process of maturing and standardizing technology. How can one provide Mobile Video as “another multimedia component” when there are no mature, off the shelf, solutions that can create a competitive market and that can be easily bench-marked and integrated?

Finally, and that’s the sad part, comes the user. Figuring out the exact use cases, flow and required position with respect to adjacent products is a long, long, process. An expensive and risky process. This trial and error process is the one that ends up reshaping the industry more than anything else. We should ask ourselves why the user comes last and not first, but market forces dictate this realit. The only real way to push the user to the front is by building open standards and by creating a competitive environment.

This is another reason for why Google will not “just go mobile”. This is why Microsoft has been trying, without much success, to “go mobile” for over 10 years. This is why mobile operators, despite all the obituaries, are still in good control over the mobile user. From a marketing perspective there is “one internet” but from a technology and service perspective there are too many technologies, standards and products.

I see eye to eye with Michael when it comes to pointing fingers at the mistakes mobile operators are doing. It is also very frustrating to see them repeating themselves. Operators try to charge too much for too little and it always backfires. 

I totally agree that the Verizon / YouTube deal creates much more noise then value to the end users. The Operators’ tendency to “nickel and dime” everything is indeed near sited and counter productive. However, it all results from the fact Operators are accountable for operating profit. Much more than VCs, Internet Companies and Content Providers.

As cynical as it sounds, in most cases it still makes sense for operators to try and charge before extending technology for free. Imagine Operators’ life without transactional charging of SMS, for example. Creating the environment took years of time and money. Without marginal transaction charging there would have been no standards, infrastructure companies, integrators, interoperability and wide range device support. There would have been no predictive text, ring tones and voting services. We all would probably have missed THE killer app.

Life is complicated. We tend to think it’s all politics but technology does take time to develop as well. While video maybe another media type, the technology is very much stand alone. Synthesizing technology, marketing and product - this is the challenging and time consuming element.

Aner Ravon

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