currently interested in awesomeness and how to create it

Did Google actually arm its enemies with Android?

Interesting article over at HBR – it argues that since Android is open, manufactures might and indeed are sometimes replacing Google with other search providers in their handsets. As a result, “Google will not make a cent on this handset, despite having enabled its creation with Android. All the search revenue will flow to [other providers].”

Could be, but I think we have to consider the typical user approach to smartphone in general and Android in particular, which tends to be exploratory if not outright geeky. That’s very unlike Nokia use case (call & text) indeed.

So render me sceptical. In those markets where Google is the 500 pound gorilla, users WILL ask “Where is my Google?” and download / tweak their handset so that Google is back in play. Because in these markets, Google got there by delivering the best results, period. Users are not that “dumb” as when they simply used the defaults because going beyond defaults was going beyond pain.

Plus, there’s tons of other services (Mail, Maps…) which will continue to be present on these devices for as long as people use them, and through those channels Google will continue making advertising dollars.

I think Google’s main concern has been the oft-mentioned “fragmentation” caused by users having to wait for manufacturers to release OS updates. Once Google figures out how to deliver updates and upgrades with its own mechanism (Market or otherwise), they’re going to be just fine.

November 18, 2010 | Filed Under Mobile, Software | Comments Off 

Mobile 2.0 looks pretty darn sexy

Pretty cool presentation from Rudy de Waele about some of the upcoming trends in Mobile:

Mobile Social Contextual Applications & Services

The future can’t come fast enough.

May 4, 2009 | Filed Under General, Links and Quotes, Mobile, Web | Comments Off 

Advertising – Be relevant to the person, not the medium

I cannot but agree with Russell Buckley that,

brand does not need to be relevant to mobile in order to successfully run a mobile advertising campaign

And I am wondering who says otherwise?

BUT – if the question were, does mobile advertising have to be relevant to its mobile recipient, we should get a different answer alright.

Given that mobile advertising is far from being a settled matter, there is still an opportunity to do it right – this time.

March 24, 2009 | Filed Under Links and Quotes, Mobile | Comments Off 

Should operators support app developers?

There were no app stores not so long ago, and look at how many we have now!

Mobile Monday London

I wish I could have attended this week’s MoMo London event themed “What are Operators Doing to Support Developers and Innovation?” Simon Judge’s report suggests it was noteworthy. Things are definitely evolving for mobile applications; once only for geeks, operators can now push them towards your grandmother smoothly.

The question I am pondering is: is the operator’s store the natural place for apps to converge and descend upon the customers?

YES

It’s a perfect place for the operator’s existing customers – their subsidized handsets can have the app-store placed prominently in the menu, download / install / payment can use the operator’s well-oiled machinery, global reach in some cases, co-promotion, etc. It’s good for developers, too: they get to use some very cool services and APIs.

NO

Operators’ app stores are silos. They are designed to support the operators’ core business – data usage, messaging. Apps that have the potential to disturb said business are unlikely to get very far there (just as Apple is cleansing its store of apps threatening its business).

WHO ELSE?

If the choice is between a platform owner’s app store (Google, Apple, MS) or that of an operator (O2 Litmus, VF Betavine), then the end result shall be similar. What I’d like to see is some sort of P2P infrastructure that would allow app developers to connect directly with mobile customers. Yes there is one – the Web – but we’ll have to wait for phones with rich web experience to reach mainstream for that model to become viable.

PS (Mar 15, 2009): the “walled garden” analogy comes to mind.

March 11, 2009 | Filed Under Mobile | Comments Off 

Moving towards VRM in the Telco space

It seems that the good people at Telco 2.0 (a blog by STL Partners) have caught wind of VRM. Terrific: I’ve touched on VRM at a couple of Telco conferences past year, and it’s generated enough interest for me to conclude the time is right.

Right for what, you might ask. For starters, for turning the telecoms business model towards the customer – as in making money from delivering the customer what he wants as opposed to no matter what he or she wants (think broadband).

But this is not about that, not today. At the very end of the post, this quote:

“[I]s it time to think about IRM, Integrated Relationship Management, the intersection between CRM and VRM?”

No. And the time will never be right. Not because we don’t need to “build bridges” between individuals and organizations; both systems try do to both. But both do it with a different end in mind.

While I am all for “customer-company pacts” and such, parties of any contract naturally guard their own interest and their tools reflect that. CRM profits companies, VRM does (will) profit individuals. Plus, VRM is pushing for dis-intermediation in relationships (in the true web sense), hence I don’t see much sense in any “integration layer” between CRM and VRM. No, let both parties go all the way.

But enough abbreviations for today.

The post calls for some kind of “intelligent call api” if I read it correctly (it’s somehow hard to grasp at 1st reading), and there’s definitely some VRM potential in that. Calling (fixed but mobile, too) is essentially “stupid”; it hasn’t evolved much despite incredible advances in the IP/Internet application sphere. It could start with CDRs; instead of a plain call log (that you pay extra for), how about giving customer access to the “raw” data (how “raw” is a good question) so that they can make sense of it themselves? It’s the customer’s data! For analogy, think health records, financial records, etc. Think Wesabe and Google Health.

I wouldn’t go as far as to call 2009 the Year of Hope and Change in customer relationships, but again, VRM is catching on and that is good indeed. We might see interesting things (or not – how is that for a well-rounded prediction?)

January 13, 2009 | Filed Under CRM, Mobile | Comments Off 

Apple’s way isn’t the only way

Dare Obasanjo made an excellent argument about user experience and the open ecosystem can fail when it doesn’t deliver that. It was particularly painful for me to read and acknowledge. Openness is a virtue but virtue alone doesn’t make a viable business model.

Developers go where the users are. Users go where they can get the best user experience for the right price. Openness of the platform only helps if it improves the user experience, thus attracting more users and reinforcing the virtuous cycle.

He then goes on and compares the Windows Mobile way of installing software versus the iPhone way. Needless to say, Windows gets quite a beating.

As someone who has recently had his WinMo smartphone go nuts to a point it had to be re-flashed, I am not blinds to the faults of the platform. Neither am I turning my head away from the unfulfilled promises of the Linux-based handsets. It’s bad.

Is the Apple model worth following, then? Should Google play their game with Android?

I believe not. Though mobile phones are not PCs (and Windows Mobile fails most when it makes you think differently), they are not iPods either. They fall somewhere in between. So it’s OK if they are married to laptops for the purpose of installing software and/or maintenance – as long as the guy manning the laptop doesn’t have to do much thinking.

It’s the platform’s jobs to make that marriage a success. Everything else can be left to developers. And they will come if that experience makes sense. If Android or any other platform can start making sense, I don’t see why it wouldn’t attract its share of hearts and minds.

September 29, 2008 | Filed Under Mobile, Software | Comments Off 

Low-tech channels aren’t going away

Is Google making us stupid? Probably not, but assuming that Google is the universe, and hence what isn’t there does not exist, that’s pretty stupid alright.

There are still people who are not on the internet. People with dumb enough phone* they won’t use a third of the features their mobile tariff includes. People relying on the physical channels in their day-to-day lives.

Says James Gardner of the BankerVision fame about the iPhone hype:

[I]f people aren’t going to do the Internet, what chance have we got of getting them onto apps on mobile phones? And last time I looked, no traditional bank has 100% adoption of the Internet channel (and though I don’t have numbers in front of me right now, I’d bet that direct banks also have this problem, though to a lesser degree).

But it not the hype over the mobile channel that fascinates me, because there is always some fashionable channel in the news. It is the fact that everyone has fixated so heavily on one particular device.

You could argue how the iPhone is revolutionizing this and that, but no matter how breath-taking it might be, revolutions in the internet age tend to be short-lived. Who knows what Android can do in a year or two?

The point is, there is always going to be low-tech, simply because the high-tech is advancing so rapidly, and the businesses will need to support the low-tech (or no-tech for that matter) for as long as there are late adopters and people without advanced gadgetry.

Is that something marketing / product managers at banks and telcos are actively thinking about? Or are they primarily focused on launching the next big thing that will push the envelope further still?

*no offense, I got one of those as my personal phone :-)

July 14, 2008 | Filed Under CRM, Mobile | Comments Off 

What will it take for mobile advertising to take off?

Ajit over at Open Gardens analyzes the pre-requisites for mobile advertising to succeed. He concludes:

a) Advertising on the Web is expected to take off substantially over the next two years

b) By viewing the Web and the Mobile Web holistically – we could capture some of that new advertising revenue on to mobile devices

c) Specifically, services that are present on the Web can be accessed on mobile devices through subsidization by the ad model – this includes content accessed from RSS feeds, email, IM etc(and I think only the ad model will work for these because people will not pay on the mobile for content which is free on the web)

Can we view the mobile and the web through the same viewfinder? I believe there are some substantial challenges, the primary of which is: your phone display is not a miniature version of your laptop screen. Plus: the use cases for mobile web are different from those for desktop web.

The question shouldn’t be, how do we push advertising to mobile users so that we can deliver them apps for free, but rather, how do we make great apps that users will pay for, and gladly so.

Like they pay for mobile access to their corporate e-mail.

Why pay for mobile Twitter client or mobile Facebook? It’s free on the Web! Anything that can help me right now, right here, when I am out there (be it in the city, on the road, wherever) without my laptop, that’s where the mobile app developers should be headed.

July 1, 2008 | Filed Under Mobile | Comments Off