Not all doom and gloom

I picked up this quality post from Fred Destin (from Atlas) this morning. There is a difference in the VC industry at the moment between those believing that the current environment heralds a significant shake-up in the number of VCs and those that think that this is a temporarily fallow period. I agree with Fred on the former but also with his assertion that entrepreneurs should not feel daunted about getting started in the current environment: it is a great time in terms of talent on the market, (relative) lack of competition and providing focus.

So whose problem is it?

The wonderful thing about Apple and Google moving into the mobile space (how sad that I do not mention Microsoft* in the same breath) is that they approach it without the usual constraints and filters of the existing players.

Example 1: App Stores. Nokia has had Download! for years but needed Apple's fresh take on how it should be done to wake up and realise that its own realisation was poor and out of touch.

Example 2: Apple's iPhone completely transformed the way that phones look and the touch screen with the "pinch" is the most significant innovation in hardware design for many years. Again, no established mobile player could think so out of the box.

Example 3: Nokia makes Symbian open source in response to Android's shake up of the mobile OS layer. Why didn't it do so before? Because it was embroiled in the space and could not think without these limits.

There is an interesting storm brewing at the moment about the roaming costs of the iPhone and Android devices. One thing is that people are using them to browse more than is usually the case but added to that the apps on them are regularly connecting to their servers to report back on usage and to facilitate email download. You are only partially notified that this will happen when you download them and it is easily forgotten. So, you go abroad, barely use your phone and not for data at all because you know it costs you dearly, and still receive bill shock when the next one arrives.

So, whose problem is this?

Well, at the moment it is the consumers but it is interesting to see who will blink first:

The operator view is this is a phone issue and the manufacturer should fix it by allowing complete data disablement.
The web view is that this exposes poor customer value created by the operators and they should fix it.


The web giants are clearly in the right in this case as regards customer value. I suspect that they saw this one coming and clearly strategised that the only way to solve these inefficiencies would be to dump the problem in the operator's lap.

Well, it is being dumped as we speak. Let's see what happens next.


(* The thing with Microsoft is a little ironic. When Microsoft began its move into the mobile space it was still 'the' company to fear from a carrier perspective and so it was dealt with very gingerly and with the utmost caution = slow progress. It also sought to sell to the operators which means that its OS was far more geared to operator requirements than either iPhone or Android. And yet, despite this it has not become a meaningful player. I think that had it started its sales run a few years later (when Google was becoming a perceived threat to the operators) or if it had the vision (requiring a complete philosophical transformation) to create its own Android equivalent it would have made for a different story).

UPDATE: A far more detailed and profound post on this data issue can be found at Disruptive Wireless - here)

Nokia World - am I the only one disappointed

Just a short note.

A couple of years ago Nokia made a big play that it wanted to be an internet play and not a device manufacturer. It undertook a phenomenal effort to transform its business, people and processes to this end. I thought it visionary and absolutely the right call.

This year from Nokia World the headline announcement was the launch of a device - the N97, a potential iPhone killer.

I cannot contain my disappointment. It has nothing to do with the device - it might be brilliant.

But rather to the outsider looking in, the conclusion has to be that rather than Nokia transforming to challenge the established internet giants in a play for the web services layer on mobile, it is sent scurrying back to its home turf because the web giants have beaten it to the punch (with the iPhone and Android).

Nokia is in reactive rather than proactive mode at the moment. It is the best positioned of all the traditional mobile players but even so struggling to prevail.

Everything you wanted to know about Google......

Caught over at Techcrunch - a really interesting presentation about Google written by a French consulting firm, Fabernovel.

All about Google

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: google business)

Recommended Reading

I caught this article by David Wood on his personal blog. It is a transcript of his keynote to Mobile 2.0 this year concerning the role of the mobile operating system, open source and symbian's evolution. It is worth reading. (The wonder of the internet that something like this is so easily shared - you did not have to be in San Francisco to benefit from it).

Mary Meeker Presentation

Here is the latest offering from Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley. Thought provoking as always.

Mary Meeker Web 2.0 Presentation

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: meeker tech)

My main takeaways:

- mobile web really set for mass market adoption (crossing the chasm) from 2010
- this should coincide with recovering advertising spend and technology spend
- Amazon and Google are well placed
- Microsoft and Yahoo! are not
- online ad inventory in over supply; she does not mention mobile but this is the case in mobile too.

Lots to ponder.

Twitter again - at a crossroads

So another post on Twitter. It is a fascinating case study and I am not the only one that thinks so - see Weaverluke's paper.

I think Twitter is at an interesting juncture and its actions in the next three to six months will define whether it becomes a platform, becomes a mass market brand or disappears. All three scenarios are possible.

Plagued by operational difficulties caused by having a intern design the architecture, Twitter has spent the last few months in physiotherapy being coached how to walk again. By and large this has been achieved - with the occasional wobbles we have seen this week.

The interesting element is that Twitter has open APIs to its architecture as all good web2.0 companies should. Or should they?

Gradually, as Twitter's product managers have been sitting on the bench waiting for the engineers to make sure that the court is playable, other companies have made use of that API to create their own Twitter experience. The truth is now obvious. The experience created by the likes of Twhirl and Slandr (the two I use most out of a long long list, even recommended by Twitter) means that you never need go near the Twitter domain again.

So, what now for Twitter? Eventually it will need to make some money. How is it going to do that? You'd have to argue that they need someone commercial on the team at some point - its initial use of SMS was created with the US in mind and would have bankrupted smaller African nations let alone a tech based start-up. Now it is in a situation where it arguably cannot monetise the customer directly. Indeed, others are - only this morning I read of a new initiative for people to place ads in their own tweets to be able to monetise them. (I shall not link to it - it's not my idea of Twitter).

Either:

Twitter needs to be the bitpipe and engage in an interesting play for web2.0 - charge for its APIs (would this be a first? I cannot think of another example from this new world). I actually think at this point it is the smarter play.

Else,

It needs to put the platform issues behind it and build or buy its way to leading the user experience again. Its acquisition track history is not good. It acquired the excellent Summize earlier this year and yet the functionality to the market is less than it was when it was acquired (I miss Labs!!). So, it is now up to Twitter to compete again hundreds of smaller players - already monetising the traffic that Twitter is not.

If it were not for the economic downturn and the fact that these players all rely on the API for their business, I'd say this strategy was doomed to fail.

With a bit of manoevering, judicious use of both strategies could see Twitter emerge as the master of its own genius again. Can they do it? Do they have the team to do so? Time will tell.

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