View from the Coalface

On a roll

2011-12-15T06:16:00.000-08:00

No post for two years and then two in a day.

The text and video here of Hillary Clinton's presentation in the Netherlands this week describing US policy and ambition for an open internet. She is very impressive and the speech to my ear is compelling both because of the quality of the arguments made and because I agree with them.

What makes this horribly confusing then is that she speaks as if for the US and yet the same US (through Congress) is pushing for SOPA which will destroy the ambition for the internet that she describes.

Though she is Secretary of State, the actions of Congress do make it seem as though her speaking for the US is too much of a reach on this particular issue.

Talking of cleft sticks.......

2011-12-14T07:14:00.001-08:00

I have been fascinated by the events over the past week concerning Britain's participation, or lack of, in Europe. I have worked pretty hard to understand what is going on and read extensively across the media to try and form a view as to what Cameron's veto actually means. I do not think I am there yet, but here is a list of things which I believe to be true based on that reading.

(i) Cameron outmatched

It seems obvious that when it comes to politicking Cameron is still in short trousers compared to the mastery displayed by Sarkozy. Sarkozy did not want a rewriting of the treaty that Merkel proposed but was able to sidestep it thanks to Cameron, upon whom he could easily pour all the blame. That Cameron insisted that his demands were trivial matters not at all; it was easy for Sarkozy to turn them into requests which did not meet the prevailing mood in the room to put national interests aside for the sake of the EU. Chapeau!

How did that come to pass? Largely through lack of preparation, though one has to wonder whether the Conservatives also fancied themselves a little too much in terms of negotiation and political maneuvering. The last time they were in such a position was in negotiating a coalition with the LibDems. In that case, it was the Lib Dems who turned up with knives to a gunfight. In that case though the LibDems were outmatched but did not have any time to prepare. Cameron has no such excuse: both he and his Euro-connected Deputy should have recognised that weakness and worked doubly hard to compensate for it. Cameron came too late and was easily beaten. It was his own fault.

(ii) This is not the right end point

This cannot be the final outcome. It is not sustainable for Britain to remain at the fringes for its own sake. It is naive to suppose that 26 members will not evolve positions on key topics and then spend time waiting for Britain to catch up when it joins for main plenary. See above and see the multiple references to Lyndon B Johnson's earthy refrain: better [to have him] in the tent pissing out than outside pissing in. Cameron's demands and subsequent veto give further credence to the observation that Britain is too dependent on the Services sector (and particularly banking), and therefore it cannot now be out of discussion by its own volition which will look to shape how that business is conducted in Europe. So, if this is not an outcome which Britain can sustain how do we change it?

I can see three outs:

First, the Euro may collapse. If it does, I dare say we'll hear about the prescience of Cameron from his own PR team. There will be a moment then to rejoin the conversation and look to how a single market is rebuilt. There may be some initial reluctance from Germany and others to warm to Britain but in the chaos bygones will have to be bygones and even the most ardent anglophobe would be hardpressed to suggest that it was Britain's fault.

Second, the Government fails. I do not think that the math supports this. I am sure Clegg has been tempted to consider throwing his lot in with Labour but the thought can only be fleeting. The LibDems and Labour do not have enough to carry Parliament and the Conservatives one suspects would actually welcome an attempt to govern alone. Instead, the LibDems are put to the sword and ask whether they wish to be in or outside of the tent. Then, there is also the issue of how electable Ed Milliband is. At this precise moment in time I imagine every Labour supporter is bemoaning that his brother David did not win the Leadership contest: he has the proven chops on the diplomatic stage. Something which is sorely needed now.

Third, Cameron finds a path to renegotiate. The door is left ajar here: everyone appreciates that a Euro solution would be stronger with everyone in the boat; Germany-France would probably welcome a sharing of the load; the long tail would welcome not being quite so overwhelmed by France and Germany. To every player there is a story with which the UK can re-enter. If the lack of preparation was the principle cause for the need to veto, then use this window now while the markets are clearly still jittery to find the face saving solution that allows Cameron to claim victory while not taking it away from others (notably Merkel and Sarkozy). Naive? Possibly, but isn't that what negotiation and politics is about - finding a path to keep all stakeholders happy. Nobody is that happy at the moment, not even Sarkozy one suspects when the adrenalin of having got one over on Cameron begins to fade. I'd note also that this has to be the only path open to Clegg as a constructive way forward: I think the LibDems as a political force is an issue in the balance at the moment.

(iii) This was not intended

The lack of Government spin, the lack of communication, the lack of a coherent plan of what next, gives you all the indication you need that this was not intended despite Cameron's statements that he would take this path if he had to. Bluster in advance to satisfy the skeptics then provided a trapdoor of his own making at the negotiating table. I imagine that there has been a lot of handwringing going on as the core team tries to work out what next. I actually take as a good sign Nick Clegg not being present for the session yesterday; it lets me imagine that this was a deliberate and agreed act in order to provide room to leverage the open doors I speak about above. Or perhaps that is wishful thinking.

(iv) How hard you have to work to understand the topic

This is a complicated event to understand both politically and economically but the newspapers try too hard sometimes, and too early, to put their spin on things before it is clear what is or has actually happened. The stock of the Financial Times and The Economist has risen for me through this process as both papers appear to have had real insight into the discussions; I have found the New York Times independent view to be useful as well as its use of guest editorials; The Guardian has had very good coverage, though you need to decode everything for its pre-determined view against Cameron; The Telegraph falls marginally behind in terms of completeness compared to The Guardian and has had less bias perhaps due to the uncertainty. The majority of my reading has been online, so I cannot comment on The Times coverage (due to the paywall) and the only print copy I saw was The Daily Mail which was as unsubtle as ever in telling me what I ought to be thinking.

The BBC has been a confusion of coverage, covering the event like it does its football with a healthy smattering of what people around the country think via twitter, email and text. It really should focus on promoting the thoughts and opinions of its own well connected correspondents. Tweets from Joe Public as entertaining byplay during football commentary has its place; in the midst of the largest political moment in recent history it strikes an odd tone.

The Bagehot Diaries in The Economist from where you can also visit more extensive coverage.
Any number of articles from the FT such as this one which exposed the lack of preparation or this guest editorial offering a view from France.
The New York Times is following events here and its guest editorials/commentaries are insightful, but beware they all come with a strong view e.g. here.
The Guardian's coverage is also complete and can be found here.

Cultivating entrepreneurs

2010-07-30T04:55:00.001-07:00

I often dip into Ted.com for insight or inspiration into any number of topics. I enjoyed this speech below on Entrepreneurship - a topic dear to my heart.

I once met Steve Ballmer in a small forum when I was CEO of my own start-up (the Accel funded Mippin) and the thing that impressed me most about him - aside from the fact that he was completely different from the persona I expected - was his passion to encourage his children to innovate and experiment with technology.

As I have written before, we miss this spirit in the UK. We are too straight-laced and fearful of failure. I hope to inspire my children to innovate (fighting my cultural inheritances that they might fail in the process).

Customer service shenanigans

2010-07-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

An astute piece on Apple's recent iPhone customer service forays from John Naughton, one of my favourite tech writers. There are not many companies that could have carried this off and even in this case there is no guarantee that it will in the long term - it may yet bite back.

Crazy British Entrepreneurs = An Oxymoron

2010-07-05T23:46:00.000-07:00

You'll always find an exception to the rule, but I think you'll be hard pressed to prove that the UK has the right cultural backdrop to create and sustain a vibrant hi-tech start-up community.

When I first announced to my family and group of friends that I was going to quit my "high-flying" job to try and create a company with no guaranteed funding, my parents took a long deep breath and my friends all looked at me quizzically as if I had lost my mind. In their minds, and in the minds of most, to embrace something which has such a strong chance of failure is seen as potentially suicidal from a career perspective.

I think that we British lack a little of the 'devil may care' attitude that our early heroes showed: the Mallory's, the Gordon's, the Scott's - coincidentally all famous for their catastrophic failures and yet wildly lauded for their heroic acts. Whether we are led by the media or the media is a mirror image of our values and social code is another matter, but what is undeniable is that we are surrounded by often vitriolic headlines for people's failing at something, often after we have put them on a pedestal. This is a reflection of life at large. We are too constrained by fear of failure as a result.

The truth is that failure in a start-up is a wonderful thing. It is a true MBA - one founded on experience rather than text book learning, providing opportunities for dabbling in many things which would not occur in a large company environment. From my time in a start-up I can look on real experience gained in: Product Management, Engineering, Leadership, Marketing, CRM, Customer Care, Recruitment etc etc etc. Where else would you gain such an insight?

I'd do it again - with the right idea. But even then I would be constrained by providing security for the family and a change in work:life balance which means that I like spending time with my family which would be less hours ploughed into an early stage business. In other words, I am too old now. I would be uncompetitive with other start-ups fuelled by young entrepreneurs fresh from college, used to living on a few $ per week.

Not all of the US is different from the UK but Silicon Valley is a place where a CV is not a CV without a failed start-up on it. The value of the experience is understood and counts as a positive rather than a stigma. I remember once having the pleasure of seeing Steve Ballmer speak in a small intimate setting (I recall being taken aback by how different he was from his brash public persona), he spoke eloquently about how he'd love his daughters to play around with technology and try a few different things out. He'd encourage them to fail as a valid part of finding the right path.

In the UK, I think we are too uptight for that and too afraid to fail. (Do you not see this in the England team at the current World Cup?)

Trigger points for this post:

This article with Eric Schmidt saying Europe has to find a way to embrace entrepreneurs; and, this extraordinary letter to employees from the CEO of Woot! It is inconceivable to me that I could find someone in the UK that would write such a letter and even more unbelievable to me that I would say that we need some of this DNA in the UK. But we do.

Kids of Today

2009-11-27T04:20:00.000-08:00

I have been to a few conferences in recent years which have included a panel of teenagers sharing their experiences of the web and impression of different brands. I always find these sessions insightful and amusing.

I received this email from a colleague and loved the comment on Twitter in particular.

A VC-buddy of mine went to this event this week in Menlo Park. He was amused by the ever-popular teen-panel, where about 10 kids between 12 and 14 were asked about their consumption of media and use of technoloigy, with the following summary:

Two services they could not live without are: GMail and Facebook
When asked whether they would continue using their essential services if they had to pay $5 a month, they said no and that they would just switch to free service and friends will follow
"Twitter is for Journalists and old people"
Linear broadcast TV is not used; several mentioned that TVs have been disconnected in their houses
In trade off between watching TV on e.g. a 42" plasma or a low-resolution laptop, the latter wins because of non-linear programme choice and lack of parental supervision
Which would you rather have - iPhone or Droid? One third each plus one third don't know what Android is or whichever is cheapest?
Might consider paying for music for a band they really like, but unlikely

AdMob: building step by step

2009-08-28T01:29:00.000-07:00

I noticed on GigaOm that AdMob announced its purchase of AdWhirl. It is an intelligent move from a growing company from whom we have come to expect little else. AdMob proliferated initially from a low value but hugely scaleable ecosystem which basically created an efficient clearing house for advertisers and publishers eager to explore the mobile space.

In reality these advertisers were those already active in the mobile space, arbitraging buying traffic from AdMob and monetising their inventory through various means including AdMob ads. Several businesses were built in similar vein on the desktop through Google. Quality was not high and eCPMs seldom cleared $1 but the poster children of AdMob's early evolution were social networks like Peperonity who had never seen higher than that anyway.

With the advent of the iPhone, AdMob saw (before anyone else) the opportunity for a new type of mobile ad which most people more commonly know as display - though I do not remember AdMob ever referring to them as such. The problem with display, even on a single platform, is that it is not as scaleable a business. Creative types get in the mix, agencies start to muddy the waters and all of a sudden there is a lot of grit in the wheels. AdMob needed to work a lot harder for its money and, as the market grew and people saw the opportunity, the market also fragments.

Now, AdMob has done three smart things all in one. One, it has bought in a dedicated Ad Aggregator and being 'in' means that there is no bridge between the user and AdMob, it will have the data it needs to target its ads more effectively. Two, it has bought a company specialised in creating an exchange of different ad networks (very similar to Google's model in the desktop space) and now can focus on providing the right kind of targeting information to those networks to maximise benefit for Advertiser and Publisher; it can focus on the day job again of being an efficient clearing house rather than a sales house. Three, by making it open source it is basically saying - he is an efficient ad exchange for mobile - it's free, feel free to use it - the more the merrier.

Each time I think AdMob has run out of steam, it makes another intelligent step and may yet make the mobile space its own.

HMV: a lament

2009-08-03T02:33:00.000-07:00

I happened to walk into an HMV for the first time this year on Sunday and thought to myself 'Woolworths'. Isn't HMV another dinosaur one step away from the retail dustbin?

In diversifying away from the ever-declining sales of CDs, HMV has struck upon the idea of selling DVDs and Games in exactly the same way, eventhough both of these areas are subject to the same digital competetion as CDs have been.

This store format needs a revolution.

The world has gone digital, except HMV and others of its ilk. At the moment it is engaged in lazy retailing where it can continue to churn the handle for a number of years with a pretty much predictable result until such time as some catalytic event wakes people up to the fact that it is simply no longer relevant.

It should of course be investing in ensuring that it is the dominant internet destination for music, games, films purchases rather than iTunes and Amazon but here it is anonymous.

But, more than that, a little imagination in-store can be used to make sure that HMV realises the benefit of its physical presence in a way that Amazon and iTunes cannot. Let's steal ideas from Apple:

- in house 'geniuses': DJs/mixers who can interpret your tastes to recommend new artists, create a mixed bag for you, author a new tune with a suggested sample track specifically for you
- listening stations where I can interact and talk/IM about what I am listening to with other listeners not just in store but across the HMV network
- take a leaf out of the MTV era (it's been around for ever FFS) and make some visual displays, make them interactive, full of soundbites with clear offers

Your mission: make purchasing online seem like a souless and friendless experience. Music (in particular) is a social meme. Nobody likes to go to a concert on their own.

Shake it up a bit. Fire some people. Take some acid. Whatever. Just take up the fight before you become another Woolworth's flogging what's left for pennies.

Not all doom and gloom

2009-01-08T02:11:00.000-08:00

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?

2008-12-04T01:21:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-03T10:16:00.000-08:00

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......

2008-12-03T10:12:00.000-08:00

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)

Mary Meeker Presentation

2008-11-06T00:50:00.001-08:00

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

2008-10-31T02:30:00.000-07:00

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.

You can follow me here.

New World: Old World

2008-10-31T01:55:00.000-07:00

A short post to make note of an interesting paradox.

Here we are in the nascent and emerging world of web 2.0 where - we are told - that the community rules; that the days of broadcasting are over; and, that brands must engage in interaction and communication with their audience to make their way.

A brave new world? Perhaps. But take a look at these leading examples from Twitter (which has me hooked) which, by general early adopter consent, is at the vanguard of all that web2.0 represents.

These are four examples of people using Twitter with large followings. When they speak their words create waves in the twitter community (ok, so I exaggerate a little in the case of Jemima but I wanted a UK example and she is great). But the key point is not the number of followers but the proportion of followers to those that they choose to follow in return. Without the 'follow' back there is no return leg and no chance of conversation.

I'd argue that in these cases, either the 'publisher' or the audience at large has re-created the existing publishing world paradigm where "I talk and you listen" or perhaps "I want to hear you talk". In this instance, Twitter is nothing more than any other distribution channel or a place where the audience can gather to listen. Not very web2.0.

If this is worrying for you then you should know that the profile in the bottom left is the Founder and CEO of Twitter!

This is the paradox that I mentioned above. Of course, I could leave the post there and leave you with the impression that all tweeters are like this but here are some examples of people who are either champions of the community movement or are applying its principles.

Let's hope this bodes well for Barack Obama's Presidency (fingers crossed) that in the twitter world he proactively seeks out conversation with others (he has fewer followers than those he is following).

British Customer Service

2008-10-23T05:23:00.001-07:00

British Customer Service? An oxymoron? Possibly.

Even in cases where politeness appears it is only on a qualified basis.

I caught this snap in a traffic jam on Monday. I was amused by the word 'frequently' on the back of this truck.

"Frequently any inconvenience is regretted"

Only in England would the word frequently be used. It allows for all scenarios from 'sorry' to 'piss off'!

I am hot on this topic after a recent two week trip to the States, where eye contact and just general interest in well being (for as long as you're being served) are standard. I have only come across two instances of good service since I returned (in Starbucks in Fulham and Fat Face in Richmond). More often as not one is met with aggression, complete disinterest or lack of attention. Excuse me now while I get into my Victor Meldrew outfit.....

Financial Armageddon: Fasten the seatbelts

2008-10-08T06:25:00.001-07:00

With the economic crisis sending shockwaves around the world and no-one yet knowing where the bottom is, it is difficult to know what the final impact will be on the mobile industry and start-ups like ourselves.

Below we explore some of the themes that we are likely to experience and what this means (Note: if you leave this post before the end it will seem unbelievably depressing but there is a significant ray of hope at the end):

Industry Impacts
- Operators focus in on churn management. Margins get squeezed. Enabling mobile data takes a back seat.

In such a tough economic environment, the end consumers are going to look to make savings wherever they can and one of the most regular bills are those from the operators. Accordingly, there is going to be a huge effort from the operators to retain customers. This will take the strategic focus off development of the right conditions for the mobile web (e.g. all you can eat data plans) and introduce a slow down ramp to its development.

Financing Impacts
- VCs have trouble exiting. Have more difficulty raising funds than usually the case. Keep cash in house rather than invest in uncertain times.

That the number of VC exits this year is already significantly down on last year is no surprise given that 2007 was a record year for some firms, but even so it is abundantly clear now that selling into a freefalling NASDAQ is not on. Without that measurable return on funds, VCs become a little more cautious. Given that the industry works in a kind of "if you're interested, I'm interested" fashion, the nervousness will be infectious. The implication for start-ups is to tighten the belts and make money last longer.

Revenue Impacts
- The advertising industry begins to slow. Mobile advertising money reigned back. Less cash coming in for those relying on advertising.

You need only look at the front of Premier Football League shirts to see that the advertising industry will be taking a hit - high profile spenders such as Northern Rock, AIG, XL are in financial trouble. In addition, consumer spending is down so there is less value to be marketing into. A higher proportion of spending will be in sustaining/creating brand value and a lower overall sum will be invested in trying to grow the overall market (why spend money now trying to persuade someone to buy a new car when you know it is the last thing on their mind?).

Though 2008 could arguably be the year we look back on as the year that mobile came of age and become part of integrated campaigns within advertisers - or at least a firm part of the agenda in planning - its hold on that spending budget is just too new. As spending overall is reigned back, mobile will be viewed as a discretionary piece that can be easily sacraficed. There will still be some spending and experimentation but it will be less than before.

- Consumers look again at their discretionary spending. Ringtone subscriptions the first to fall.

So, if those with a mobile advertising models are going to find it tough, then those with subscription models are really going to struggle. Consumers are going to look to cut meaningful discretionary spending and subscriptions or payments which are large enough to register on the radar are likely to be cut. Mobile subscription providers beware.

Behavioural Impacts
- Start-ups renowned innovation is tested. New models and cash preservation key. Those with positive cashflow breathe sigh of relief.

It is in such an environment that the ability of a start up to innovate is put to the test, not so much in being able to drive new technologies but in how brilliantly they can shape themselves to the environment and survive. Expect to see new models, subtle changes of direction, more conservative growth plans and some innovative guerrilla marketing. Very few new faces will emerge and some will join the deadpool.

- Start-up resolve is tested. Has what is important changed?
It is important to stay true to the things that you believe give you an edge in the first place. In the last cycle similar to this (2001-2002) I saw a number of companies fly to the apparent safety of mobile subscriptions or sacrafice staff to save costs and in doing so compromising their quality. Staying true to your beliefs in the long term. If you begin to compromise that by focusing on other areas you'll lose part of yourselves, our focus and from there, a large number of your customers along the way.

Through all of this, there is great opportunity.

For those that survive:
there will be less competition around;
your brand will have been in the market with less competition for a significant period;
you'll have reduced dependence on VCs;
you'll have more learnings about the user and the market to act upon;
you'll be well placed for any larger players that wish to play catch-up;
you'll be even more convicted on what it is that you bring to the market
and so on

The key through this difficult times is to stay involved. Good luck!

UPDATE: Good post from TheEquityKicker.

Tighten the belts

2008-10-02T00:22:00.000-07:00

Techcrunch published a story yesterday which Techcrunch UK followed up on today about the financial fallout and which start-ups might be best placed to weather the storm. The current situation is arguably more serious than the bursting of the bubble during 2000 and 2001. At that time we were in a period of resetting of valuation expectations. This time we are faced with a situation where venture capitalists will find an exit far more challenging (particularly tough after a record 2007). In addition, those at a point in the cycle where raising money for new funds is required will also find themselves working harder than normal.

I am taken back to the 3GSM World Congress (as it was called then) in 2002 seeing fewer of the same companies again rather than any new start-ups.

The key for any start-up at this stage becomes survival. If you can capture viral growth and/or have the ability to generate cashflow in excess of your burn (even in the economic downturn) then you are very well placed. If you are in a position where cash breakeven is not immediate then you need to show nimbleness and determination.

I was Chairman of a company called UCP in 2002. It is to the immense credit of the management team (Christian Lutz and Marwan Saba) that they survived this period through a mixture of tight cost control, tough strategic calls and dogged sales conversion. When the gloom lifted a couple of things happened: UCP looked around and saw that it had fewer competitors than before the storm (some had gone bust and had not been replaced with new money) and that larger players were suddenly eager to break into the market.

Their tenacity enabled them to stay in the game and without that the subsequent purchase by QPass and then Amdocs would never have happened.

The message for start-ups is clear: get your planning right and do it right now for how you will balance the books over the next 18 months. It will pay dividends in the long run.

Good luck!

Here is another article from Techcrunch including a memo from a VC called Benchmark highlighting what I said above about survival being everything.

Life Changing Innovations

2008-09-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

I have been pondering technology innovations and the legacy you can leave on the world if you can create something which encourages the mass market to change the way that they live their lives. It sounds fantastic but actually if you think about it, it has been done many times.

Take a look at the list below as my personal reflection. I’d be interested in which you would identify as having changed your life and others that I have clearly missed which are relevant to you. I have tried to steer clear of platform discussion e.g. the internet, the mobile phone but instead focus in on a functionality, design or service which has catalysed the transformation in unexpected ways.

Undoubted Hall of Famers

iPod

One could argue that the iPod only achieved the mobility that the Sony Walkman pioneered in the 1980’s but the integration with iTunes, the sleek design and the cool factor basically made music an integrated part of people’s everyday lives again and certainly in a more pervasive and long lasting way than the Walkman. You never have to not be listening: on a commute, jogging, at home, swimming! For the music labels it has been a lifeline in difficult times (and, if they were smart, a phenomenal distribution channel for alternative business models). It has also been the birth of Podcasts (one of which I am listening to on the plane while I write this), another alternative media channel which enables people to be better informed on any topic, anywhere, at their convenience.

Ultimately, I would be more of an evangelist of the iPod if it were more of an open model. But these two impacts: music in the pocket and the birth of podcasting will mean that even if iPod should die as a brand or a form factor its legacy shall live on. Simply put: podcasts have enhanced my life.

Blackberry

This certainly polarises opinion – called in some circles the Crackberry because of the inability to put it down (although with out the personal hygiene side effects) – but there is no doubt that the advent of the Blackberry changed business behaviour and the use of email within the business environment. It has spawned a lot of copy cats in the form factor which is flattering. But, it is the fact that if someone sends you an email now, they expect that you will have read it if they were to call you on it later in the day. This expectation exists whether you have a Blackberry or not, whether you have ever owned one or not. People expect you to be able to access emails on the road.

It also created a means for team members to correspond within meeting environments in a way not possible previously, and allowed them to do so at least semi-discreetly.

Not as far reaching as the iPod which transcends all levels of society but a definite change agent in business communications.

Skype

Skype was originally marketed to university students. The theory was that downloading a client to be able to use a sub-optimal communication software for free is a bit tedious and, let’s face it, something that the cash constrained will do but nobody else.

However, Skype first exploded in the consumer market amongst the elder generation (Silver Surfers) who all of a sudden found a free and easy-ish way to stay in touch with relatives abroad. The fact that calls were free if you could persuade the receiving party to download the software too created a viral effect which is every marketer’s wet dream.

From there, your definition of cash constrained needs to broaden from the consumer market and we begin to look at the business space. I can ‘hand on heart’ state that Skype will have saved my business thousands of pounds every year based on saved international call charges, particularly on conference calls and particularly when I am roaming.

The benefit of Skype is such that it survives – and flourishes – despite the fact that most calls start with ‘Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Oh good. Yes, I can hear you too’. Though in fairness call quality has become much better and Skype has always excelled in making the download process as easy as possible.

It has transformed the way that cross-border families communicate and the way that small business does business. It is a no-brainer for the life changing hall of fame.

[On a sour note, it has probably done more to raise awareness of Voice over IP traffic than anyone else. This has put the mobile data market back at least four years as operators seek to find ways of protecting their profits from voice calls.]

The Business Class Flat Bed

An odd one, but since working for a start-up, I have come to appreciate the innovation which allows you to lie flat on an overnight journey on a plane (if you are 5’6’’ or less or near flat if not). The point being of course that I always now fly economy which is okay but it would be a big stretch to describe it as a comfortable sleeping experience.

I admire this innovation so much because it was delivered to the market not by an eager start-up but by an industry giant. I have a personal grudge against British Airways (long story, do not ask) but on this topic you can only admire the execution of this particular strategy – wouldn’t it have been easier to ridicule the person that presented it in the first instance, consigning it to the ideas dustbin, than embark on a campaign of refitting aircraft, re-pricing, maintenance training etc etc?

This represented a real step change in long distance plane travel and while it is difficult to justify spending thousands of pounds for a decent night’s sleep, if someone else is paying or you do not have as much equity in the business, why not?

Google

A bit cliché perhaps but if a service works its way into your native tongue’s vocabulary as a verb of its own then you have a very strong indication that the mass market has noticed your presence.

Google does what it set out to do which is make the world’s information easier to find and use in a meaningful way. It transformed the way that we discover new things sinking Yahoo!’s portal model along the way and transforming the way that business would be conducted online (whether through the desktop or through mobile).

Quite apart from behavioural differences in how you find things and quaint games such as Googlewhacking, Google created a model which allowed the user to neatly sidestep paying subscription fees. This is one hell of a contribution to the end user.

Google’s ambition is that the ads that are placed in the content will become as useful and contextual to your needs as the content itself, in which case any small residual resentment about having to stomach advertisements in order to get something for free will disappear completely.

The test of this list is that if the company or the brand were to disappear tomorrow would there be a lasting legacy? Google’s Search, Adwords and Adsense pass the test.

Up and Comers

iPlayer

Cynics bill the iPlayer as ‘Making the Missable Unmissable’ but the use of the iPlayer is more than a video recorder/sky + box. First, a whole catalogue of programmes are available at any time – which as a father of two young children can be a godsend as Bob the Builder, 64 Zoo Lane etc are always available for a swift rescue without planning. Video and Sky + cannot match this.

More than that, BBC has integrated the technology into their online proposition in a way which is breathtaking – it brings a lot more coverage to life, allowing you to create your own TV news programme, especially for you, without fuss.

And then more. It can give access to live events such as in the Olympics – where one could be at work using email in one pane and having the Olympics Live in another at the same time (and why not, it only comes once every four years!).

As a consumer, it has made the online offering of the BBC much more useful, created immense value for me around one live event and made my weekend mornings less stressful. Beyond that, it is potentially a complete IP TV offering which would transform physical architecture within the home if more widely adopted across the industry.

It might be some time before we understand the full benefits but my intuition tells me that this technology will be seen as the forerunner of some pretty fundamental changes in publishing, broadcasting and the way we live.

Nintendo Wii

Tentatively, I’d mention the Nintendo Wii, though my hypothesis requires further development and evolution around a particular theme which would take this device into the mainstream.

Not only did Nintendo create a user interface which made people prance around like demented monkeys with no self-regard whatsoever, its reach has gone beyond simple gaming into people’s broader lifestyle. The advent of Wii Fit might single handedly save Britain from obesity. What do you think?

OK, so this might be over-egging things but one cannot doubt the revolutionary design and the way that the Wii has transformed how games are played on the PC, in some ways potentially a forerunner to more sophisticated role play within an alternative reality. There are many examples of revolutionary design though which would not make this list (e.g. iPhone – see below). What makes this list special are innovations which have changed behaviour or gathered universal appeal – often in areas which were unexpected. I’d argue that Wii fit is potentially one such element.

[Interestingly, brain train puzzles on the gameboy (also Nintendo) might be another example of a technology being used more extensively in a different way to how it was originally conceived.]

Not on the list but close

iPhone

I am nervous about including the iPhone on the list. The design is a step change and has since created many copy cats. Yes, that is certainly true. But what will be its impact on the world at large? It was heralded as defining a new way of dealing with mobile operators, shifting the power balance etc etc. But in essence all it did was cement the importance of device exclusives for operators which is not good for the consumer. You might argue that it has brought internet from your mobile to the masses. Well, it has certainly raised awareness across the industry. But then, so did Vizzavi back in the day but you would not expect them to make the list. I think the jury is out on the iPhone for the time being though it could be a future contender.

Spinvox

You may not have heard of Spinvox. It is a small/mid-sized UK technology company that specialises in converting voice to text. Its most famous implementation is a service which converts voicemail into text. If you were to use it, you would become an advocate of accessing voicemail through text allowing you to read and respond immediately without having to dial into a voicemail number and navigate an IVR menu.

It does change people’s behaviour. Using spinvox, voicemail changed from something I disliked to something I use on a regular basis. I can see a message even if in a meeting and act on it immediately (through text). I also get less of it as people are nervous of leaving a message when a machine is going to convert it and that suits me too. If it is important they’ll call me back.

There are a couple of things stopping Spinvox hitting the mainstream. Its technology still makes too many errors – usually they are amusing and certainly not enough to turn me off the service - but they are frequent. I’d estimate two a message. Names in particular are a bugbear and if the sender does not leave a number this is a pretty important bit of information.

It is also too expensive for the mass market. This frustrates me. This company is sitting on a mass market revolution but has the wrong pricing model to make it happen. It is a potential tragedy in the making.

Toyota Prius

In California the perspective on the Prius might be different. The Prius will always be remembered as the model which introduced hybrid engines to a wider audience and heralded the advent of ‘green’ motoring but I actually believe it will be another model, probably from a different manufacturer, that will steal the show and claim the credit for a green revolution.

Why? Because the Prius is ugly. It is that simple. If Toyota had put the hybrid engine in a VW Golf, in the UK alone, you’d have to imagine the largest single market share for any car. But, the Prius is a terrible design on the outside which makes ownership unpalatable. It works in the US because in California it has become a badge of responsibility (which itself would be odd in the UK). It also works in the US because it possesses the ugliest cars in the world by which standard the Prius is a bit of a looker. ;-)

There will be a clean engine revolution which will grip the mass market – but it’s not here yet. The Prius will be the Walkman to a later iPod.

So, there we go. I hope a decent conversation opener. I must have missed something blindingly obvious. What is it? What would you add?

Bless the BBC

2008-09-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

I dropped the BBC Mobile Controller, Matthew Postgate, in a spot a little at the Westminster Media Forum by describing the likely economics of the iPlayer on mobile to be disastrous for the mobile operators. It was not intentional.

Before he curses me too much I’d like to point out two things - I believe the iPlayer to be the single best investment of license payer’s money in my lifetime (more on this in another post); second, that the BBC is providing a very valuable service here to the user, other publishers and also to the operator’s themselves.

The fact is that you can download significant data volumes without even touching the BBC. I use my device for podcasts (all the time), for video watching (occasionally) and for web surfing (all the time). The amount of traffic I consume is prodigious - compared to most users and fair use policies - and the majority is over 3G without a dongle (if you do not know what that is then I am definitely using more data than you are!). There is probably a committee of people at T-Mobile wondering how they can persuade me and others like me to leave for another operator.

The problem for the operator is one of economics. While true that traffic is nowhere near capacity and the marginal cost for each megabyte is tiny, unlimited bundles or near unlimited bundles will mean diminishing margins for each operator in their role as the ISP. To avoid such a categorisation the operators need to undergo radical change but are hamstrung by doing so through a mixture of shareholder constraints and, more signficantly, simple uncertainty about how to avoid it. I am not unsympathetic but the operators need to get themselves in gear (see for instance Nokia's attempted transformation into an internet company) .

There is a large community of independent mobile players out there awaiting widespread promotion and adoption of broadband pricing on mobile access (all you can eat) and frustrated by the operators failure to move towards that end in a large number of cases. Even in the UK where such deals are becoming more widely known they are not terribly effectively marketed leaving the operators half pregnant.

This stifles the market and forces a slower pace on development and innovation on mobile than is the case, for example, in the online world.

BBC’s proposed use of the iPlayer is a catalyst to force the pace of the discussion. Users want it, the BBC wishes to deliver it, only the operators are hesitant. The BBC provides a focal point for the operators to be able to negotiate with - and a reliable partner to be able to do so with - and in doing so helps solve the issue for all of the smaller players in the market. The responsibility of such a discussion is huge of course and one hopes that the BBC secures a decent arrangement.

Microsoft and Mobile

2008-08-01T05:03:00.000-07:00

Russell Buckley posted this morning a well structured and insightful post on Microsoft and its diminishing influence as a player in the mobile OS space.

Dean Bubley - infamous in Forum Oxford circles for debunking mobile hype at every valid opportunity - weighed in with a good argument as to why Microsoft really doesn't care.

I tried to find the middle ground between them. I think Microsoft should care but needs to find a battlefield where it can fight on its own terms rather than that of others. I really do not know whether the eeePC market has a chance of being a major play in mobile but its best chance is if Microsoft tries to use it tactically. I think this is Microsoft's best chance too.

Read the comments stream to see the flow.

Old world thinking

2008-07-25T06:23:00.000-07:00

Jemima Kiss at the Guardian writes a summary today on the current status of the dispute between Hasbro - the original manufacturer and license owner of Scrabble - Scrabulous, a version of the game designed to be played on Facebook.

Hasbro has sued the owners of Scrabulous for IP infringement and is apparently to demand that the service is withdrawn from Facebook.

Legally I do not think that there is a dispute, it is clear according to the old law books - once you dust them off - that Scrabulous is indeed based on Scrabble and did so without permission. Tut Tut.

But hold on. It is not Scrabulous that should be sent to the dunce's corner but Hasbro. Hasn't Scrabulous injected life into the franchise, and in particular into the more youthful market of Facebook compared to the traditionally more mature user.

You never know what has happened behind the scenes of course. Perhaps Hasbro thought this also and tried to join forces/buy Scrabulous and was turned away and is now pursuing the line to ensure a cheaper acquisition price.

If not then what about this? I do not think there is any doubt that Scrabulous can prove increased interest in Scrabble. Perhaps they can counter sue for a share in the profits? (No, I know that wouldn't work, but it would be fairer).

This brings us back to the old chestnut we have seen before where existing industry players struggle to adjust to the new ecosystems. Increasingly now I find videos erased from YouTube because right's owners have stamped their feet. But all they have done is cut the distribution for their brand.

If you are stock picking, find the older players that have seen the light and leave the dinosaurs behind.

Opportunity in making it work beautifully

2008-07-15T01:24:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed this post from David Cushman at Faster Future. He has an eye for a good photo to reinforce a point and the customer service picture from British Airways is a peach.

The basic premise is that if you answer these questions correctly:

How easy/delightful is it to find out about the product or service?
How easy/delightful is it to buy?
How easy/delightful is it to use (from the box)?

then there is a world of opportunity out there

Serial Entrepreneurship: An advantage?

2008-07-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

Another good post from Nic Brisbourne at TheEquityKicker concerning the advantages or not of backing a serial entrepreneur and the difficulties this poises to the VC community. The impression following deal flow is that VCs back serial entrepreneurs more often than first timers. The nub of this analysis is that the best returns may not back up that strategy and the best VCs may be those that can allow themselves to back the horse without the form guide.

Chasing Rainbows

2008-06-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

I admire Nokia. It is not so much the phones, though I am a real convert to the N95. It is more to do with the power of the corporate and the good sense of their strategy.

For years Nokia has maintained an incredible leadership position in Europe and been far sighted enough to secure sensational market share in the developing world.

More recently, it has read the signs correctly and re-oriented itself (or rather in the process of doing so) into a web company, executing on quite the most awe inspiring internal messaging to keep everybody on message and along for the journey.

It has also exquisitely judged this time - though not in the US and only after prior mistakes - when to launch its own content and media plays to rival and surpass those of the operators.

So, I think they are smart.

Today's announcement on buying out the remainder of Symbian and making it openly available to all is also smart. I'd like to say it is exactly what I would have done if I were Nokia but the truth is I did not see it coming (this time). Despite this long term admiration and applauding this recent move as the right decision I still think it is doomed.

I can see why Nokia has done it (or at least I think I understand some of the reasons) - it is partly in response to Android. Nokia can either promote its preferred platform for all and help embrace external development and interest, or it can watch as the world passes it by and Android and others gather momentum with Nokia forced eventually to pick a winner not-of-its own-choosing and run with it.

The strategy is sound but ultimately I cannot see the catalyst which helps Nokia achieve its goals in this regard. Symbian is still hampered by its complexity - rumours of Nokia being deployed to Siemens to help them launch its Symbian variant were apparently not exaggerated - and, dare I say it, a lack of glamour. Which developer would own up to getting out of bed excited to be developing something for Symbian when he can develop for Google's Android or the iPhone despite the lack of volume. Bragging rights definitely come into the community mentality here. And besides that Symbian (and its Series60 offshoot) is just more complicated - arguably so much so that Nokia needs it to be open source so it can help remove the monopoly it has on any meaningful innovation in the platform.

I am interested to see how Nokia seeks to make this a success. It is the right call with no reasonable alternative but it might just end up chasing rainbows nonetheless.

Updated: A more thorough analysis along the same lines here.

Updated II: Rafe has the definitive guide over on All About Symbian - as you might hope from the title!

Shooting yourself in the foot...

2008-06-18T04:43:00.000-07:00

I have been experimenting at home by migrating entirely to my mobile phone rather than use the fixed line at all.

Generally it works well in the terms of call quality - really not discernable difference to my ear.

I actually use an old and separate SIM so that there is a "family line" - so there is no real actual saving as the line rental of one is equal to the line rental of the other - but it is a first step.

I have noticed two issues:

- first, a number of people and it tends to be the older generation or those that are still nervous about mobile phones, call less or ask you to call them because they are concerned about the cost of calling a mobile. This will gradually disappear but it is certainly a factor at the moment.

- second, I am caught out by the increasing use of 0870, 0845 etc etc numbers by businesses.

On my fixed line account these often had local number status and if not had costs clearly signalled. I had to send my PC away for repair recently and had to use an 0870 line for the initial inevitable trouble shooting and then the subsequent repair arrangements, including another call when things went wrong. This line was flagged as being 35p a minute (which will provoke another rant) but on my mobile of course was going to be higher. In the event, three calls of modest length has cost me over £30 or the equivalent of three month's line rental for a fixed line.

This is unfortunately not something which is going to go away. Indeed, it may get worse as this article suggests. These kind of misjudgements by the operators really make me mad. I know a lot of people working in the operators and they are bright, intelligent people and yet as a mass they operate in such a non-customer focused way. If they were to ensure that the cost to me of these lines would be the same as a fixed line phone they would have even more of my business. By insisting that they are out of bundle and therefore liable for the Dick Turpin treatment, they lose not just my spending on that SIM but also my loyalty and the benefit of my recommendation of them to others. It is appallingly short-sighted. WAKE UP!

Ya-who?

2008-06-17T01:58:00.000-07:00

Some of the recent coverage about increasingly desperate moves by Yahoo! not to be absorbed by Microsoft has been very good indeed.

I think TechCrunch has been on the money with their sceptical view of the tie up with Google and general lack of patience with the Yahoo! management team's increasingly bizarre turns to avoid Microsoft. In the link above, TechCrunch references a New York Times article which delivers a stinging attack on Jerry Yang and his dis-respect for his shareholders.

The main premise is that this stopped being Yang's company when it went public in 1996 and this is a fundamental truth which for over ten years has not mattered as, by and large, Yang's approach has chimed with the majority of his independent shareholders.

There is an interesting schism in Yahoo! between the Engineers who would rather cut their heart out with a rusty teaspoon than be bought by Microsoft and the rest, who could not wait for the payoff that the price represented. This latter group were also representative of the shareholding class for whom the Microsoft deal represented a pretty good out.

I was reflecting the other day on which companies that are household names would still be around in ten or fifteen years when my sons begin to think about the working place - I honestly believe that if I were to mention Yahoo! I would have been flipped a "Ya-who?". All Yang has done has opted for a slower death and a less reumunerative deal for his shareholders.

Being the top dog is a tough job but in this matter heart has ruled the head and he'll come to regret it I think.

A wonderful riposte

2008-06-03T09:18:00.001-07:00

I have a feeling Twitter is like Marmite in that you love it or hate it without a lot in between.... perhaps a few that hate loving it.

The service has been having troubles recently with repeated outtages which in a less addictive service would already see it in many a user's deadpool.

The level of frustration has been high amongst users and among some industry commentators. One example of this was a post on Techcrunch which was a little disdainful and could easily lead to viral panning of the service.

I think the Twitter response was fantastic - playful yet serious, humble yet confident. Well done guys. A wonderful use of your company blog to reassure your users and get people onside again.

The optimal mobile experience

2008-05-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

Here is a brochure from the .mobi crew around designing for an optimal mobile experience. It is a good beginners guide. All of it is common sense aside from the suggestion to use a .mobi domain which I think is a sub-optimal approach to marketing - but I have been there before: you just do not need it - route your servers automatically by recognising the incoming device and save yourself the trouble of trying to promote two domains......

Even with that qualification this is a really helpful starter for advertising agencies and larger publisher brands.

PR Meltdown - Part III

2008-05-14T01:28:00.000-07:00

Great post at Mobhappy about what appears to be a company's bungled attempt to leverage Twitter and the social community around a competitor brand.

Mobile Advertising: A humbling perspective

2008-05-09T06:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Bena Roberts at GoMoNews for noting down this quote:

Coca Cola summed it up really well. It said companies come to us with results that they are so proud of - “you got 30K click through rates with our campaign”.

Coca Cola says “that is terrible - we have billions of Coke consumers”

It is hard to know how to try and deal with that kind of perspective. With that type of mentality one thing is for sure, there will be massive consolidation in the mobile advertising space.

.mobi and mowser... there might be something to it

2008-05-09T04:57:00.000-07:00

Interesting news this morning with .mobi buying mowser. I tweeted my immediate reaction: a Roman Catholic reaching out to buy the local synagogue?

The religious analogy is deliberate. .mobi is an initiative to improve the quality of the available internet on mobile devices. It provides guidelines on site design and structure and proposes exclusive use of a .mobi domain to let users know that it is mobile compliant. Other forms of URL or site structure are actively discouraged (and often disparaged by a zealot-like following).

Mowser is a transcoder. A site designed to take any internet page and re-render it to a mobile device irrespective of domain URL. Transcoders are – and I hope I am forgiven for this – a quick and dirty way of viewing the internet. To the original thinking in the .mobi organisation they are either the devil or a necessary evil before true conversion to the .mobi mantra catches hold in the masses.

That .mobi would buy mowser signals a clear change in strategy. Yes, bringing on board Russell Beattie and Mike Rowehl into any organisation will help increase the drive, energy and mobile knowledge within it but to buy the software too means one of the following, both of which are profound:

- .mobi accepts that not everyone wishes to use its tools or that still after much simplication (and they are excellent) it is not simple enough for the mass market. At least – it figures – if someone uses a transcoder that it controls it can try and ensure that all output adheres to its .mobi guidelines as closely as possible. One should note here therefore that it is extremely likely that .mobi continues aggressively with the mowser publisher acquisition programme where publishers advertise a mowser specific mobile link

- The owners of .mobi – largely the operators – have exerted some influence. Perhaps wanting a little more acceleration of creating a mobile standard and seeing .mobi growing but not quickly enough, the operators are interested in accelerating things through a quickier, dirtier approach. More likely perhaps, with widespread criticism of transcoder deployment from Novarra and Openwave, the operators might figure that to bring on a transcoder into the .mobi fold will allow it to develop a solution with widespread mobile industry support and then deploy something potentially more effective and less contentious at a later stage. It will have been an inexpensive hedging strategy, particularly as it is split several ways.

There are probably other angles to be considered but these are top of mind.

PR Meltdown - Part II

2008-05-08T05:06:00.000-07:00

Also witnessed yesterday a new company being put down before it really ever got out of the stalls.

A few lessons here for World Biz Online. First, if you launch, launch! - at time of writing that link goes to a holding page saying that the site is coming soon. Second, prepare really well in advance. Find someone you trust and potentially someone who knows the press to give you a judgement on whether you are ready for primetime or not. You were not. Your reputation was pulled apart yesterday and you might not have noticed. Twitter was alive with derision. Third lesson, watch all back channels and try and find a constructive way to respond.

I really hope you regroup and make it happen but you have some ground to make up.

Here is an idea of the (amusing) chitter chatter around the presentation. It only got worse from here.

PR Meltdown - Part I

2008-05-08T04:51:00.000-07:00

There is a story that continues to run, though to most it is extremely boring - and worse- it would be very easy to make it go away. I attended a Mobile Monday event last October when Novarra had a wonderful opportunity to turn a lot of bad vibes into a good story by saying something close to "I'm sorry". I wrote about it here.

Well, it seems that the COO of Novarra has stirred the hornets nest again with a pointlessly arrogant interview which the twitter-sphere picked up yesterday.

You see the problem is - it was all forgotten - but now it is alive and well again and worse. Why? Because people have had time to dig out other information which is related but not really relevant and at which point it gets a little nastier.

Novarra has over-exposure to early adopters in their space and their repeated own goals only cement a black reputation in the space which eventually will begin to influence the operator mindset. It is never harmful to build bridges and make friends but for Novarra I think it might be too late to do so.

Mary Meeker Presentation

2008-05-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

A number of very interesting observations from the latest Mary Meeker presentation. Mobile begins to hit the radar a little more, though its strength and potential is a little disguised by the chart showing that China and India are the leading countries for connected PCs. One really needs to view these numbers as a % of the population to really see that the mobile is becoming the de facto entry point to the internet in developing markets.

Blyk Part 3: I finally get it

2008-04-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

I had a eureka moment listening to Jonathan MacDonald last week at Forum Oxford. I don't think he intended it but it happened all the same. I suddenly realised that I had previously viewed Blyk through traditional telco eyes when the trick is to think of it in completely different terms.

You see, I now realise that it is not an MVNO at all. The telecom elements of the proposition are only a hook to hang the proposition on and not the proposition itself. The proposition is actually a discount or coupons club for people of a similar interests - and crucially I think - a particular segment of people who do not like to be missing out on what others are getting.

The first post I wrote on Blyk was quite negative, focusing on the lack of success of MVNOs around the world, the complications of the proposition and a few other sundries for good luck. I am pretty sure now that I was wrong.

Future Technologies Conference

2008-04-21T09:46:00.001-07:00

I attended the Forum Oxford Future Technologies Conference again this year and was again impressed by the quality of the speakers and the eclectic mix of the audience. This is a networking event with a difference: reasonably priced and bringing you into contact with a different mix of industry enthusiasts from other either mass market or London based events. I enjoyed it. (And it is an interesting contrast with the Forum itself which tends to be a little techy for my taste and dominated by too few regular contributors).

Particular highlights this year were:

Mark Selby from Nokia talking about his views of an evolving mobile market. For some of his insights write to him at mark dot selby at nokia dot com requesting the Trendsetter Report. He claimed a figure of 46% of people read news on their mobile phone - this is far more aggressive than anything I have seen from m-metrics to date.

Jonathan MacDonald from Blyk who converted me to a believer (more in subsequent post) despite being too aggressive in believing that his user base would not be interested in mobile data services - something which appeared at odds with his audience's participation in a Sky subscription package worth £12.99 a month and in any case robustly challenged by Mark Curtis from Flirtomatic who was as usual on good form.

Alan Moore was as ever a delight to listen to and working with some mathematical whizzes at Xtract would seem to have reinforced his social marketing theories with hard facts. An extremely potent combination indeed.

A debate between Tomi Ahonen and Dean Bubley was an interesting format which was really well executed about whether mobile will lead internet or internet will lead mobile development in the future. A triumph which would be good see repeated elsewhere.

Christian Lindholm spoke on his view that UPC's will become a significant format in the mobile space and that Nokia will regret its decision to bypass this development. Expect Acer and others to become significant market share holders in the mobile space in the next five years.

Meeting up with Martin Smith from T-Mobile. As ever an enlightened voice of common sense in the space with his finger on the pulse. If only he would blog more!

RIP Mowser

2008-04-15T08:12:00.000-07:00

Russell Beattie announced that his start-up Mowser has reached the end of the road yesterday and is out looking for potential buyers. Russell is something of an institution having been the leading blogger on mobile before blogging was fashionable and as a result always commands a reasonable amount of attention.

In this case though the response to his "It's Over" missive has been a little too extreme on both sides - perhaps strong personalities provoke disproportionate reactions.

First, the "mobile web is over" dramatics from Read Write Web - who really ought to know better.

Then, this condescending post from Mikee Krisher over-reacting to Russ's statements on the state of the mobile web.

As someone in fund raising right now, the statements were certainly not particularly well timed but though there is strong evidence that the mobile web is growing strongly Russ is not a fool. There is never smoke without fire and Russ's assertion that a disproportionate amount of traffic is looking for porn and that it is tough to monetise the mobile channel effectively are true and anyone entering the space needs to have strategies for both.

Good luck to both Russ and Mike Rowehl - both will be re-appearing somewhere shortly.

Fund Raising: Part II

2008-04-15T08:08:00.001-07:00

Here is a link to keep you cheery - the TechCrunch Deadpool - a bit of an institution and receiving new contributions by the day at the moment.

There is no shame to being in this list just a reality of the market at the present time and the nature of venture backed start-ups where in normal circumstances 20-30% go to the wall.... and these are not normal circumstances right now.

The most recent addition is Mowser (see next post), but notable others on this list includes Sonopia run by former Microsoft and Macromedia exec - Juha Christiensen. Juha is certainly worth keeping an eye on to see what comes next.

Fund Raising

2008-04-03T04:33:00.000-07:00

Apart from freak examples anyone who tells you that raising money is easy has a) never been through it or b) talking out of their ****.

This is an excellent post over on TechCrunch from Mike Butcher citing The Funded.com founder Adeo Ressi with a lot of maxims that I have found to be true over the past few years.

Interview Tips

2008-04-02T07:39:00.001-07:00

A bit out of my usual territory, but there are some classic interview no-no's cited in Jennifer Tortorella's blog here which made me smile.

PS For those of you recruiting in the IT Industry on the East Coast you would struggle to do better than work with Jennifer.

Reflections on the Valley

2008-03-19T05:37:00.001-07:00

I was recently in San Francisco - only the third time since we founded our start-up in the UK and again I was struck by the vast differences between the culture in the Valley versus here in Europe.

I met several seasoned entrepreneurs on their fourth, fifth, six start-up who were younger than me - three years into my first at 36.

The scarce commodity in the Valley is coding. If you are a quality coder with an idea then you can invest time and energy in an idea and find a receptive audience to listen to your plans with a view to backing you. The model is that if you then generate traction a management team is drafted in to provide the professional backbone to the company.

That model does not exist in Europe - indeed though increasingly scarce, coders are seldom the most highly paid individuals within a company. Looking at the network operators in the mobile space the order of pay for mid level employees would probably run: strategy, business development, marketing, portal management and then coders. This has much to do with the sourcing of these employees: strategists tend to come from management consultancies with associated salaries versus self made, home made developers.

In the US it is the ingenuity of the developer which is seen as the secret sauce of the company and backed. In Europe, it tends often to be the Management Team even at a seed level and a developer on their own is perceived as less credible.

The best advice I would give to any UK developer with an idea would be to up sticks and go to the Valley for two years. There will be so much opportunity in that time that it would never be a wasted experience.

At one event, I heard Steve Ballmer say that the gift he wants to give to his children is a love of technology and the inquisitiveness to use it to try new things. I can totally understand how his environment and the investment environment in the US fits this answer. In the UK, I think that this would be a less clear cut ambition. Vive la change!

Gaming: how serious are you?

2008-03-06T07:46:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine alerted me to a product from a company called Zeemote which was also featured on CNN during the recent Mobile World Congress (click here for the video which also features a bonus through an unintentionally hilarious introduction to Samsung's iPhone killer).

It is a one hand games console for the mobile phone. Such innovation and innovators make the world a better place without a shadow of a doubt.

Will it work?

Nah. Though I'll willingly eat humble pie if I am wrong.

There are too few people that serious to want to gain this advantage on a mobile game and those that are that serious would rather invest their time at getting better on the Wii or PS rather than the phone. I also think the action of having to hold the phone steady in one hand while using the other is a little impractical – but I am just picturing a crammed tube journey perhaps with the eight people jammed against me thinking I am having a seizure.

A rare insight into T9

2008-03-04T07:53:00.000-08:00

This video is a real gem for those of you that have not seen it at some stage.

I think Vodafone gets it

2008-02-18T04:03:00.000-08:00

Below is an excerpt from a Press Release from Vodafone:

Vodafone Group Plc today announces the creation of Vodafone Internet Services which will lead the development and delivery of Vodafone’s current and future consumer propositions for the internet. Vodafone has appointed Pieter Knook, a senior vice president of Microsoft, to the newly formed role of Director of Internet Services.

I think this is a smart move from Vodafone which again demonstrates its strategic maturity compared to its peers. To be more than a bit pipe it needs to be a portal of choice for the end user. In fact, I would argue for its stock market valuation it needs to be a portal first and an operator second. I think this hire is an excellent statement of intent in this direction as well as bringing top tier resource again into its management structure.

User tenacity: why operators need to shape up

2008-02-14T08:15:00.000-08:00

Some of the team members have returned from the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. There was one anecdote that I found fascinating and another wake-up call to the operators - are they listening?

On T-Mobile the cost of mobile data roaming when abroad is £7.50 per MB - this means the BBC homepage alone costs £2.25!!!! Sensible as they are the guys recognised this as a rip-off and bought local SIM cards to pay local rates while they were there. By the by, this is now standard practice for any sustained trip in our company.

They went further. They downloaded JoikuSpot which allowed one of them to establish their phone as a Wifi hotspot using the local data connection and then routed all other WiFi enabled phones through that.

Granted that these are techy savvy users I will take the point that this will not worry T-Mobile too much. However, what tech savvy users are doing today is test prototype methods for avoiding costs tomorrow for the mass market.

If T-Mobile had charged less then the team would not have gone to such efforts, but their pricing is well above the sweetspot and this behaviour ensued. Remember that SMS evolved only because it was cheaper than voice calls - one can hardly call the interface user friendly.

As a result of their pricing T-Mobile did not receive one cent of revenue from a significant number of high using early adopters.

Danger!

2008-02-12T13:30:00.000-08:00

In the midst of the noisy flurry from this year's annual jaunt to Barcelona for the mobile industry was this announcement concerning the purchase of Danger by Microsoft. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed but I hope that the Danger guys are happy - some of the nicest, happiest and most genuine people I have met in the industry. At times I know it was a hard slog but this would appear to be a great outcome for their efforts. Well done to Hank, James, Jamie and the rest of the team.

Motorola speculation

2008-01-29T07:38:00.000-08:00

Interesting article at Engadget - Motorola may exit handset business. Is this a case of great minds think alike or fools never differ?

Friends Reunited: yesterday's news

2008-01-18T03:09:00.000-08:00

I caught a headline in the Marketing trade journal this week - it was not that hard as it was the main splash on the front page: "ITV prepares rebrand of Friends Reunited portal". My immediate thought was "who cares?", in yoof vernacular isn't Friends Reunited "so over".

What a great pity. Here was a business that was thriving on internet buzz and word of mouth and had found a niche in the social networking space. Now, even myspace is yesterday's news though strong enough to generate another wave, with Facebook currently the channel of choice.

The owners sold out at the right time. Perhaps they had run out of steam creatively but whatever the reason, the ITV acquisition killed it stone dead as a viral success.

For Friends Reunited to succeed it does need a re-birth and clearly to their credit, ITV are on the case but I have strong doubts that such a large corporate organisation can make this succeed even before considering the particular merits of ITV itself.

It is surprising what you can do on your phone

2008-01-14T02:29:00.000-08:00

So, you might not be able to blog successfully from your mobile (see last post) but the list of things that you can do from your phone just grows and grows. See this news reported widely on the news wires over the past week:

An Egyptian woman is seeking clarification from a court on whether her husband's declaration of divorce by text message is legally valid, a state-run newpsaper reported on Thursday. The AFP reports.

"After missing a call from her husband on her mobile phone, Iqbal Abul Nasr received a text message from him saying "I divorce you because you didn't answer your husband," Al-Akhbar said.

It was the third time Abul Nasr, an engineer from Cairo, received a divorce text message from her husband, prompting her to seek a legal decision from the a family court on the status of her marriage.

If the court declares the couple divorced, it would be the first reported case of divorce by SMS in Egypt."

I found this incredible but then I caught the final line:

"The subject of divorce by SMS has been highly debated across the Muslim world and some Islamic countries like Malaysia have banned the practice."

It has already been widely debated and even banned. I am definitely behind the times. Is this amusing or appalling?

Mobile Blogging

2008-01-14T00:32:00.000-08:00

Dan Appelquist has beaten me to the punch on looking at the paucity of mobile blogging tools out there at the moment. It struck me that with the increasing sophistication of phones and the increasing propensity of people to blog and share through any number of networks that mobile blogging would be a no-brainer service to offer. Yet: Blogger, Typepad, Vox and Wordpress are all nowhere. The reality is that it only makes sense for the existing blogging platforms to offer this feature and being both US and web centric means that mobile is not yet high on the radar. A pity. It is one of those things which would increase both quantity and quality of blog posts in a large number of cases.

Rotten apple

2008-01-02T08:20:00.000-08:00

I caught this over Christmas in an article from John Naughton in the Observer - "Apple and Think Secret have settled their lawsuit, reaching an agreement that results in a positive solution for both sides [....] as part of a confidential settlement, Think Secret will no longer be published. Nick Ciarelli, ThinkSecret's publisher said, I'm pleased to have reached this amicable settlement and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits".

So, an independent blogger, in addition to AppleInsider and O'Grady's PowerPage, has had a significant shot fired across the bows by large corporate for daring to guess and review forthcoming product. The bigger issue for Apple has been in stopping its own employees leaking to these sites but it has gone after the publishers using its financial weight and legal clout to stop these guys publishing. There is something dreadfully wrong with that picture - doesn't it contravene or at least abuse constitutional rights in the US?

Apple is setting a lousy example here and adds further grist to the mill which exposes that it is not a "people's champion" as the branding guru's would have us believe. No problem with that but just don't seek to represent that it is the case. As the original article outlined, Apple might appear to wear velvet gloves but they are lined with lead.

Tis the season......

2007-12-20T09:27:00.000-08:00

.... for predictions.

So here are mine

1. One major manufacturer will hit the wall BenQ-style and decide to forgo manufacturing devices (this might be in 2009 but we'll go for the bleeding edge prediction first)

2. Operators will continue to stimmy and stifle the mobile internet; some will flex their muscles and try to use their position as the access point to ensure a significant share of revenue and will continue to breed resentment amongst third parties and users; most will try to catch up with third party requirements and make a genuine attempt to deliver something third parties can reasonably use; one will break the mould and strike out on a more visionary strategy which looks to a more conciliatory model and take the result hit on marginal profit on the basis there will be more of it in total. I continue to be a pessimist as regards the operators opening up despite the current trend to pay lip service to the concept.

3. Android will prove far more complicated to organise than Google thought, there will be inevitable delays but there will be shipments but we need to wait another year to realise the true potential of the scheme.

4. Mobile advertising will still struggle for prime time but trends keep moving in the right direction with more campaigns now including mobile in the planning stages and mobile service providers becoming a little more sophisticated in how they supply ads.

5. Location based services will continue to be hyped but no-one shall succeed until they solve the underlying fundamental issues with the business model (even excluding any cost of location APIs).

6. Mobile Internet will still struggle in 2008 to reach that free wheeling stage where
sensible innovation will be rewarded with scale. The internet brands will continue their creep into this space and more will come to realise that the mobile internet is just the internet. There will be a handful of mobile specialists that are sought and bought by the giants.

7. Roaming backlash - no, I don't believe it either but I continue to hope.

8. Operators and OEMs shall seek to show their environmental credentials in above the line advertising.

Will 8 do?

Bourne Yesterday

2007-12-07T03:41:00.000-08:00

I was on a long haul flight yesterday and happened to catch the Bourne Ultimatum again - a trilogy which I have really enjoyed. So much of these movies depends on the believability of the plot and being able to suspend disbelief at some of the events that take place. I remember long debates on talk shows and in the press for example about whether the use of cameras in Waterloo could be used in such a way to trace suspects and the fact that there was such a debate was a triumph for the movie because the believability added to its suspense.

Now, I noticed something yesterday which I had not before (I do not know why it is usually one of the first things I see): namely that all of the 'assets' (the assasins used by the Government) receive their instructions through their Motorola V3's.

Come on! You can only stretch the truth so far and if I were an 'asset' deep undercover relying on successful mobile communication to function, there is no way I'd entrust my life to a device which has almost single handedly sent mobile data back by a year or more in the US.

More Bourne Yesterday than Bourne Ultimatum

I'm free!

2007-11-29T12:46:00.000-08:00

I have just had the most hilarious recounting of a good friend's experience in unlocking their O2 iPhone: if you buy the device and unlock it you avoid the £35 per month or more for 18 months. Suddenly the iPhone seems like a far less expensive proposition.

It took my (not particularly geeky) friend 4 days worth of reading up of the topic and then four hours of tense, nervous tweeking coupled with a heart stopping moment when for all the world it looked as if the iPhone had just died.

He did it though and not has his existing SIM working perfectly within the phone.

It sheds some interesting light on this article yesterday from the Register which indicates that just 26,500 iPhones have been activated in the UK which compares to first weekend sales estimates of over 100,000.

Surely seventy-five thousand people haven't hacked the iPhone? But then again I was really surprised that my friend had, so who knows...

Opening up?

2007-11-26T05:40:00.000-08:00

This post might be premature but four times in the past two weeks we have been contacted by carriers (on different continents) wanting to list our service on-deck without any pre-empting by us. We have long believed that, for the mobile internet market to be successful, operators must acknowledge that aside from their own activities they must seek to promote the best in class services available to their end user base. They must also do this without punitive revenue share conditions.

Is this the beginning of a brighter future? It would be nice to think so.

Blyk - the case for

2007-11-23T00:12:00.000-08:00

I noticed this piece at We Love Mobile which benefits from a meeting with the team from Blyk. I thought it worth posting because, as Ben writes here, it was perhaps too easy to point out the faultlines in the proposition when, for many reasons, we all fervently hope that this succeeds.

Incredulous

2007-11-22T07:31:00.000-08:00

I was at a dinner last week with a number of CEOs from a variety of different start-up companies, including those in the tech sector. The average age was slightly higher than is normally the case at these start-up events but even so I was taken aback by some of the commentary.

Wine was free flowing and conversation open and I may have responded with slightly more vigour than normal to the assertion from a fellow attendee that the 'social communities on the internet are killing any sense of normal social interaction between today's youth and creating a vacuous generation'.... in fact if memory serves correctly I think I said 'Bollocks' as a reflex before I could bite my tongue.

Honestly. Where do you start in trying to unravel that thinking?

Others may have been able to do so more eloquently but I pointed to the ability of people to connect with others that share their precise interest, how people are sharing more about themselves then previously in order to form these communities, how these online communities are now reinforcing the old community ties that people fondly recall from yesteryear, how these communities are creating a far more mature dialogue on a large number of topics and how these communities begin to reassert themselves in the physical world.

For the latter, here is an amusing example - perhaps does nothing for the audience at that dinner to persuade them of a less vacuous generation but it made me laugh and does I think illustrate a powerful point.

Devil in detail

2007-11-22T02:25:00.000-08:00

The really very useful Mobile Marketing Magazine carries this post today concerning PayforIt, the UK carriers project to phase out PSMS as a payment means for content. There is many a good intention behind this project but at ground level many mutterings from those being forced to use it. Beware the propoganda if you want a balanced view of its success.

First, companies are being told they must use the new system or not have their transactions fulfilled.

Second, effectively cartel pricing has meant that this is no cheaper and often more expensive than premium SMS.

Third, it often requires extra steps in the user flow for payment resulting in two cases known to me of a dramatic reduction in third party revenue.

Great concept but the operators need to work harder at being end consumer focused and on sharing any value with those subscribing to the service. Bango indicate significant savings in customer care: if so, why cannot the operators provide this cheaper than PSMS?

I have another post in draft concerning worrying signs that appear to have their roots in the fact that the operators control too many aspects of the value chain and are either implicitly (in this case) or explicitly in others abusing the position of access control to the end user.

This implicit instance is forgiveable but operators need to listen better to those focused intensely on the user experience.

Android

2007-11-06T00:20:00.000-08:00

If you want a clearly articulated synthesised view of my initial reaction to the Google Android announcement then I recommend you read up this article across on Mobhappy. There are two elements in particular which chime. First:

It would appear that Google’s trying to imply that anything written for Android will run on any Android device — but those of us who have been around a little while will remember how many times that’s been promised in the mobile world, only for different vendors’ implementations of various technologies to break the “write once, run anywhere” promise. One big question for Android is how it will avoid this.

I have been involved in alliances before. I have run alliances before. Trying to sustain progress and ensure that the common sense solution is reached is an enormous challenge and it is difficult to avoid compromises which subsequently leads to a diluting of first principles.

Either Google has worked on a governance to beat all others; has faith that its functionality will not suffer any fragmentation through flexibility or superiority; or, the reverse, that fragmentation will not matter because Android will be such a small base component of what is actually delivered. It will be fascinating to see which.

The second element which chimes with me is:

Looking at the list of OHA members further reinforces my previous assertion that handset vendors and operators are primarily interested in working with Google in this space because of its brand

This is perhaps stating the obvious but how much of the Open Handset Alliance is due to belief in the subject matter or belief that this is the right way to make it succeed? It would appear to me that the true value for companies is basking in the sheen of being associated with Google: hence, the roll call of CEOs at the event yesterday. Google and Apple certainly know how to corral a good story.

When the iPhone came out I think the single biggest impact was actually around bringing thought of mobile internet to end users again irrespective of their device. A secondary impact for the industry was to challenge existing views of user design and interaction which will also have a deep long term impact.

What will Android achieve? At this point, for the mass market it means nothing (aside from a disappointment to mild curiosity of what the Gphone might be). It will be fascinating to see how this unravels and what it catalyses generally within the industry. How do those not involved in the announcement react? Will this create a knee jerk reaction from the industry in general to greater openness?

For the latter, I think not. I must be becoming cynical. I suspect that many incumbents shall wait to see if Google succeeds in its Android ambitions and only then seek to join or respond through an alternative means in due course.

The one thing I have not really been able to fathom is: why announce it now? What was there really to talk about yesterday? Without the tools to get developing, nor the visibility of what devices will be developed or how many will be distributed, what was yesterday aside from a glorified roll call for buddies of Google?

Net Promoter Scores

2007-10-25T05:50:00.001-07:00

I was recommended The Ultimate Question by our investors earlier this year. It is an easy read but not less compelling for being so.

It deals with asking customers - would you recommend the to a friend? A scale of 0-10 is provided and all scores less than or equal to six are deducted from all scores greater than or equal to nine.

The book is originated from a survey undertaken in the US and suggests that the strongest companies would have a net promoter score (the result of the sum above) of 70 or higher. When I initially looked at this number I was a little incredulous but the book includes the survey results. That companies in the US can achieve such a mark I think underlines the importance of customer service in the US and how it is actually rewarded.

The results in the UK are a lot lower. Thanks to Simon Andrews in his Big Picture blog for alerting me to the LSE survey for the UK. The report is excellent. No surprises that the mobile operators (the red bar in the chart) return hopeless scores.

This chart (which is more legible in the report) shows that O2 is the best of a bad bunch with T-Mobile bringing up the rear. This is not really that surprising (though the survey was in 2006 and I observe the laggard getting better and the leader getting worse recently) but I am interested that the sector as a whole is so far off the average for the whole UK.

Returning to a previous theme: if the operator wants to be more than a bitpipe - they need a BIG shake-up. Customers need to love them and they oh-so-clearly do not.

Oh dear! Oh dear! That's Oh! 2

2007-10-19T00:21:00.000-07:00

Take a look a this post at ZDNET and then put your head in your hands as to how the collectively small-minded operators never fail to snatch a PR disaster from something potentially so positive.

So, O2 is to impose a fair use policy of 200MB on the iPhone and a limit of 60 hours per month of Free WiFi.

That latter in particular is a joke. Wasn't free WiFi given as compensation for the fact that the iPhone would be considerably limited by the lack of 3G? And, given that there is a lack of 3G perhaps a limit on data is less relevant or should be waived as compensation for the poorer download times and hence user experience.

What bugs me is that it is all so unnecessary. A tiny minority of users would actually abuse the system, compared with the huge PR and market share gain from launching with the iPhone.

What operators are failing to realise is that they co-exist in a high tech space which is covered and scrutinised daily by a wealth of early influencers, by reverting back to penny pinching ways and not seeing the bigger picture they sustain a relationship with the customer which is one of a necessary evil: not that of day-to-day buddy.

Apple will see it and you can be sure their PR team will be backtracking from this mess and laying the blame squarely at O2's door.

Rant at eBay

2007-10-16T04:36:00.001-07:00

eBay: not really a fan.

It hit me again this week, as I tried to buy tickets for a sporting event from someone who never had the slightest intention of going, that this is just a money making scam for students and stay-at-homes who have the opportunity to block phone lines when tickets become available with the sole aim of turning that into profit.

I guess I'd be doing the same if it were me but surely this is one practice which should be actively discouraged - it is basically touting for the mass market. I thought that was illegal.

Data Protection: Update

2007-10-16T04:31:00.000-07:00

There is an update on Read/Write Web concerning 'GooTube's' (I like it!) first crack at a solution to the data protection issues. I continue to believe that this will turn into nothing. What youtube proposes is reasonable given its business and resources but will not satisfy the data owners. The latter need to evolve to be able to deal with it and turn their minds as to how to make it of benefit.

Transcoding, blah blah

2007-10-10T04:34:00.000-07:00

It seems at the moment that some industry message boards are jammed with comments over transcoding and the apparent hash Novarra and Vodafone have made of their recent implementation. A lot of people have become passionate on the topic and this week's Mobile Monday did not diffuse the situation as many had hoped. This lack of success was nothing to do with the organisers but more to do with the poor presentation given by Novarra who could have simply said:

- we underestimated the impact of this setting in our implementation
- here is the immediate fix
- here is what we are going to do about it long term
- we are on the same side

Job done.

Instead, the team tried to give their credentials. Guys, you missed out. You need to think: what does my audience need to hear?

For the record, I do believe that there is a role for transcoding. Simply put, people will always develop for where they get the most return. For many publishers this will always be the web and they will not develop for mobile. Transcoders can help bring complicated sites to life for the mobile user potentially - though we are at the beginning of the development curve if this is ever going to be more than a stop gap for commerce specific sites for example.

Nonetheless, the conversation is overblown at a higher level. Most sites do not need transcoding!

A huge amount of publishers try to help the user out by saying, "look, here is the meat of my site; all my content in a wrapper". It is called RSS and a service like Mippin cuts to the chase and makes it a mission to dress and monetise these feeds as elegantly as possible. RSS - what a wonderful invention.

I wish I could speak to all the frustrated users out there who are being forced through transcoders and getting frustrated by the results when there is no need. There is a better world. Try Mippin!

The future is Blyk?

2007-10-08T00:44:00.000-07:00

So, Blyk is now live.

I had high hopes for this MVNO when it first became known that someone would attempt to provide a free service on the back of advertising to a targeted base.

I am not the only one and my only fear is that Blyk's future becomes a talisman for the health and potential of mobile advertising.

Of course, this fear is only a problem if Blyk does not succeed; if it blows all growth expectations out of the water then such association is good for all concerned.

But, where is the downside?

We know that mobile is the most intimate of channels which holds a special relationship with the user, increasing its usability with every new phone feature.

We know that there is a tidal wave of advertising money out there looking for a home as TV becomes less and less effective and advertisers look for other channels.

We know that there is a market out there for the 16-24 years olds: if you were to a brand recognition test on Genie in this age group today I think you would still get a reading most brands would kill for.

My fears can be conveyed with a KISS

Keep It Simple, Stupid

I had this drummed into me many times in the past and know from my own experience how I have always tried to justify subconsciously that the inevitable compromises will not matter, that the user will still go through the process because what you are (eventually) offering them is very cool.

My fears for Blyk are: what is free is not that compelling; how to take advantage of the offer is too complicated.

The offer is 217 texts and 43 minutes free each month. This is the communication tagline!

Rather than sounding a lot, it sounds scientific and as if Blyk is counting hard just in case you go over your allocation - operator speak and ethos infects everywhere. Aside from the communication, I am not sure it is even that much for this age group with overrun then at standard Orange pay-as-you-go rates, 10p per text or 15p per minute.

Then for the offer itself, you need to have an unlocked phone or an Orange phone to use the SIM card. You can buy the phones - undiscounted - on the Blyk site if you wish. If you buy a Blyk SIM card to put into your O2 phone - unlucky!

For the mass market, this kind of inconvenience matters and one user who has misunderstood the instructions repeats it to another which kills your viral effect.

This lesson comes from my own experience and leads me to fear for Blyk. Please guys, you have a phenomenal idea: please move mountains to simplify the experience from both a technical and a communications perspective.

Data Protection: Time for Change?

2007-09-28T06:42:00.000-07:00

As a company receiving information about a user of a service there are strict regulations concerning the use of personal data. You are able to use such data in an anonymised way when promoting to users but cannot use data at a personal level to direct a specific promotion to them and in particular cannot share that information with others.

This is to protect the individual from any abuse from advertisers and other parties.

The world is changing though. Our conceptions of what is private information are changing. The younger generation are re-defining the rules as to what is acceptable in this arena and I feel that data protection legislation will be revolutionised in the next five years from an area which sets the boundaries fiercely as to what can and cannot be used and is always seeking to restrict and protect; to an area which is exploring the boundaries of what people want and are prepared to accept.

I am of a generation that is queasy about privacy. I read the press and the images painted that Google, Microsoft and other internet giants know a lot about us. It does lurk at the back of my mind. Creating a facebook profile was a torture for me, it consistently asked me to disclose things openly that I would only offer up to friends.

For the younger generation, there is not this barrier. The internet is full of friends you have not met yet and the youthful are quite prepared to offer up all information in order to find them.

With micro blogging services such as Jaiku and Twitter, users constantly feed each other their activities and presence. Social events can be organised in facebook with people you have not met yet but with whom you already know you share a passion. An email from a five year old relative carries the signature - I like Frogs and Books - already outreaching to people who might like the same.

Press scaremongering around paedophiles in chatrooms or the proliferation of adult content really does do the internet a disservice. It is rebuilding the communities we know miss in everyday life. The youthful community wants to share, embrace, reach out to people of similar interests and if you have something to offer that group which would enrich their lives - then you should feel free to promote it.

Here is manna from heaven for an advertiser. People are willing to give you the information you need to be able to target the people that are most likely to be interested in your product. You can also avoid those that you know are going to take against it or be ambivalent about it.

Data protection should embrace this concept, after all advertising is now the recognised means by which most new media services are offered for free. Protection should be focused on controlling abuse of this trust, but even here the community has shown that when a brand acts irresponsibly it is very capable of defending itself and leaving a very deep bruise. Google 'chevrolet tahoe' for an example of this.

For the first time in a long time, I would dare to say that a Data Protection Lawyer would be a fun thing to be.

Apple wins; consumer loses; O2 ?

2007-09-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of commentary around the iPhone in the UK of course after the O2 announcement yesterday. The carrier had long been out as the worst kept secret in a while but the package has caused a stir.

To be honest I am a little surprised that O2 got the deal: it has the worst mobile data tariffs in the market (though Ewan here gives an insight into what is coming), it has the highest prepay base to whom it has never allowed access to the open internet and has already murdered one i-brand in the UK having recently shut down i-mode. These are quite compelling arguments for the prosecution case.

To its credit, O2 has always been the best marketer of services in the market when given a particular proposition to work with (e.g. messaging, music) and I am sure this played well in discussions with Apple.

What I am absolutely convinced of though is that the defining factor in the Apple discussions was not the maturity of the marketing, nor the pricing of data, nor necessarily brand fit nor customer fit but: just money.

Peter Erskine admitted in a Press Conference that there is revenue share back to Apple from the deal though it was ambiguous as to whether this was the service revenue or the handset revenue. If on the service revenue, it is arguably an industry first, though one could imagine it being packaged as a license fee for the software on the device such as that HTC pays to Microsoft for example which is less revolutionary.

The biggest stir in the press has been on the cost of the package with commentary on the £35 per month for 18 months together with the £269 purchase price adding up to £1000 over that period (a bit of poetic license in the tabloid maths there).

That's not the real scandal however. Dig a little deeper.

Apple has held the operators to ransom over being first to market with the iPhone - as it is able to do in a market where such a device might buy 1-1.5% market share in a market where less than that separates the top three. The net result is that it is not O2 that is paying for the Apple revenue share but YOU!

On any of the operators at the moment I can get any device for free on a £35 18 month contract. The £269 you are paying is O2's way of covering the squeeze applied by Apple. That an operator would take a decision which is sub-optimal for the consumer is really no surprise, I am sure however that Apple, the people's champion, will try and distance themselves as much as possible from this link.

As a post-script and a topic for another post: the UK market is completely screwed by the fact that no operator dominates. Even in this case, O2 is not arguably the winner. Forced now to deploy an EDGE network for this purpose and this purpose only is a large price to pay. All the operators should have turned to Apple and said no until a 3G device was available - I would bet that Vodafone did.

The State of the Union

2007-08-29T03:22:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of discussion on Forum Oxford at the moment concerning the US market and generally represents the perennial view that the US is a long way behind Europe.

In order to correct this view or at least offer up sensible alternative evidence, Russell Buckley from Mobhappy and AdMob comments on the current usage statistics from AdMob which shows that the US generates between 20-25% of global advertising revenue on mobile at the moment.

There are always sceptics, so here is another. During my time in T-Mobile, the US team generated 2.5 times the downloads of the European Team despite having a quarter of the subscribers.

I think there might have been a case for the US being behind on mobile internet penetration previously. US operators only allowed people to use mobile data if they were subscribed to a data package. This meant that the take-up of mobile data was on a similar trajectory to that of phones in the first place (which was slow everywhere but particularly in the US). In fact on the US style pay upfront for a generous package means that people do not subscribe until they are certain it is going to be reasonable value.

As a result, early take-up was better in Europe but people quickly worked out that the cost was high and stopped using the service. Early adopters are now moving back in by getting involved on all you can eat bundles, but even here there is a high discrepancy between markets: the UK is moving this way quickly; Germany is still miles behind.

Current statistics suggested 25% of the mobile population in the UK and US are using mobile internet. It is my very strong hunch that the US, having caught up, shall continue to grow more quickly and that these users are less constrainted by cost fears and thus will be more progressive users.

RIP .mobi?

2007-08-20T05:50:00.000-07:00

Just a quick observation here.

The team at .mobi have done a lot to raise awareness of the need for publishers to take mobile seriously and consider making a separate implementation for the mobile web. One can debate whether the emphasis has been in the right place: is it about technical implementation or about the end user proposition? Perhaps the topic for another post (I'll take a look though - this must have been tackled before).

Nevertheless, I think .mobi has lost the war without hostilities really beginning. The dream that all publishers would have .mobi at the end of a url to denote their mobile version seems irrelevant now. Just trawling mobile internet sites over the past weeks and months, it occurs to me that I have come across less than five instances of a .mobi url but many either re-routing directly from www or pointing me to m..com. This latter looks like becoming the de facto standard without any form of marketing whatsoever.

Voda Live! Review

2007-08-08T04:36:00.000-07:00

The nice chaps at the New Media Age asked me to review Vodafone Live! for this week's publication. I thought I'd drop it in here too. For far more detailed commentary on the transcoding and initial niggles you should check out Forum Oxford which had a very detailed string of commentary from different sources but the below is my take in a strictly monitored 600 words.

Vodafone Live!

There were high hopes for Vodafone’s re-launched mobile offering both in terms of an opening of the walled garden and a fresh approach to pricing to match other unlimited offers in the market. And, while there are things to commend in the new offering, ultimately it fails to fulfil the expectations of a typically well executed and committed advertising campaign that promises “The Internet is now Mobile”.

Access At face value Vodafone Live! combines the best of Live! with email and the open internet. This is an operator offering so every device is configured to take you to the right place as soon as you hit the browser key.

All the pages within Vodafone Live! are free but I was constantly irritated by the reminders when heading ‘off deck’ that I would now be charged – particularly when I have one of the new “unlimited” (not quite) bundles. In fact, I was also instructed to leave the browser completely and re-start if I wanted to enter Live! again. I suspect that Live! is only free as long as you do not make a foray into the open world mid-session. This pricing and presentation structure is a relic of the walled garden environment and really should be discontinued.

Presentation
The presentation within Live! itself is excellent: always clear and amongst the best design we have seen from an operator both in terms of the aesthetic design and in the understanding of user flows.

The use of advertisements is also clear and not over the top and provides a good “best practice” example for others to follow.

In the open web offering, there has been much blog commentary concerning niggles with the new transcoding software and I have to confess that it is not as bad as fear made it. It does depend on the site itself though: at times you have a wonderfully rendered page and at others it looks as though the page has passed through a blender. A hint to Vodafone: I would certainly have chosen better rendered sites than the “Suggested Favourites” to show off the true capabilities of the software.

Usability
Initially, I was nervous on hearing about Vodafone placing its own headers and footers to open web pages. I feared it might be used to place ads rather than provide for extra user functionality. At the moment, it seems, the user comes first and you have several options available to you such as bookmarking, going to the next page etc.

I did find RSS reader frustrating to use. The directory that is there does not need to be termed RSS and can be used to populate the directories elsewhere. It offers the ability to fetch your own but I could not successfully conjure up my own blog or any of my favourite feeds and gave up in the end.

Being the open web I would also expect that I would receive search results from the web first before search results from within Vodafone itself. Another walled garden hangover but a minor quibble.

The bottom line
Live! shows significant advances and is a well-intentioned attempt to allow the user to gain broader access to the web. If I am disappointed it is only because my expectations were high. Vodafone has long been the thought leader in the UK and T-Mobile’s web’n’walk has been out for close to two years now and, aside from some design advantages, it really offers nothing better. Additionally, Vodafone’s own advertising sets the expectation of the “Internet is now Mobile” and the service does struggle to meet that promise.

O2 and i-mode

2007-08-02T08:45:00.000-07:00

I am sorry to post on this a week after the news but I have read yet another article on the abandonment by O2 of i-mode which missed the point.

O2 never gave this a chance. It was possibly the most inept launch of an additional data service in the UK ever. In fairness I should say two things: one, O2 is usually very good at marketing execution; two, there is a lot of competition from other operators for this award and I might have been too hasty.

If O2 were to launch i-mode it should have done it as its exclusive portal not as a possible alternative to O2 Active. To run two side by side is completely perplexing (are you listening T-Mobile with web'n'walk and t-zones? Nobody understands that! - not even your product managers).

If O2 were to launch i-mode it should have done so on the maximum available number of handsets. Not launch it on four devices that looked positively prehistoric to the market, the NECs were an embarrassment which could not handle the incremental traffic that such early adopting customers would want to see. Devices which would laugh out loud if someone even thought about downloading an app to them. Trying to mimic i-mode through using the same handsets was pointless; it is correct that the devices were a defining element of i-mode in Japan but that was only because NTT DoCoMo had the market power to say to suppliers - "you will build devices like this" - and then built them precisely for its market. That was never going to be the case in the UK.

Finally, if O2 were to launch it should have done so with the full support of the management team - the alternative would be not to bother or fire them. What you see here is a classic of a project which was always doomed to fail because the whole team was not behind it - such projects litter large corporate history and particularly operators.

However, O2 did launch i-mode and yet has failed to extend its good points into the rest of the business which is possibly even worse. Fairer business models for partners and all inclusive pricing for the data would considerably improve O2 Active. On the latter it is lagging the market considerably. On the former, i-mode succeeded on a 9% and then a 6% revenue share for the operator and not on the ridiculously outdated 50% that operators persist in asking for.

i-mode had a great brand amongst the early adopter community and could have been a considerable asset in the UK if the operator had been brave enough to shift its existing product into it and make it is mainstay. If I were i-mode I would be extremely annoyed, learn for the future and make sure that if someone destroys my brand in such a way in a key market again that I have cause to sue.

For O2, at least their approach is consistent and it is clear (for now) that the O2 brand is pre-eminent. Remember that it voluntarily shelved Genie - probably the most successful youth mobile brand in history - to focus around O2. Really that i-mode has ended in the dustbin is no surprise, the writing has been on the wall for some time.

iPhone: so what is success?

2007-07-31T02:46:00.000-07:00

I think it would be possible to write a book - or several books - on the iPhone by now. Certainly, there are some important facets of the iPhone story: from the fantastic PR around the launch, to the way that Apple have operators on at least two continents clambouring for the opportunity to sell the device (I still like this Open Gardens blog on this particular topic), to the innovation in the UI design.

Regarding the PR, I think that there are already ample lessons to learn from the Apple machinery from previous launches. But on the last two points around the operator influence and the UI, I think the iPhone will be credited in time with a significant shift in strategies for the major players in the industry though it may not be the biggest beneficiary of this itself.

I have had a play with the iPhone - it's nice and it draws admiring glances and in time, if I were committed to it, I could probably migrate to it from my existing handset (as long as it integrates easily with my Outlook) which is a good sign as I am notoriously fussy. But, I do wonder if it will be a commercial success in its own right, right now.

This blog from Mobile Opportunity outlines the mismatch in statistics from AT&T stating that 146,000 have been enabled and Apple reporting 270,000 subscribers. Now, even allowing for a number of people without i-Tunes accounts saddled with a device they cannot work out how to use, it seems that Apple has left AT&T with a nice working capital management problem. But am I the only one that thinks that this number is not that great?

I think back to the V3 and how that took off - a triumph of style over substance if ever there was one - which gradually became more and more pervasive as it penetrated from the board room into the classroom. Everyone clamoured for it immediately - not just the geeks.

I also recently look back to the N95 which achieved a significant early adopter following and was pushed heavily by a number of network operators.

Both devices exceed the early take-up of the iPhone. From a volume perspective, I'll keep my eyes open but Apple might find that its reliance on deep network integration and its assumption that people want to use their phones for more than voice and messaging limits its commercial success.

Nonetheless, I do believe that the iPhone will create a shift in favour of the user by giving device OEMs the confidence to take control again for solving user interace issues and encouraging them to take riskier UI strategies. I very much look forward to the operator roadmaps for 2008. The GSM show in Barcelona next year should give the manufacturers plenty of time to have given an immediate response and also deep seat the response to the iPhone in the roadmap DNA going forward.

I wish I could like Jaiku

2007-07-26T00:57:00.000-07:00

I am on my third attempt to enamour myself with Jaiku having played with it first on an N80, then an N73 and now my N95 (that sounds as though I am a big Nokia fan but the first two were out of the test cupboard and the current one is an experiment, we'll see how it goes). I still don't get it. Is it a generational thing? Or have I not tried hard enough yet?

I remember being recommended netvibes for the longest time and only after half a dozen attempts having that epiphany where it did something useful for me and from there I have gradually added more functionality and discovered more features at my own pace (and am now an evangelist - if I have not told you, you should try it). I'm still waiting for that a-ha moment for Jaiku.

I know it's popular amongst the uber-geeks of the space - a couple in the office are glowing from being on the latest beta ahead of anyone else - but as far as I can make out it involves letting people know where you are at any moment of the day which seems somewhat at odds with the new media fears of Big Brother following you everywhere. Perhaps this is a generational thing. Whilst having a facebook page - doesn't everyone (even my sister - cripes! that's mass market penetration!) - I am not one of the social networking generation and it feels uncomfortable to me to own up to that information.

Aside from a quibble about how difficult I find it to locate people I know on the service, it seems like a quality implementation, so I'll keep trying and hope for the 'moment' where it all becomes clear.

Mobile - will it ever work?

2007-07-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

"Mobile - will it ever work?" was the title of a short forum held today by the generally excellent Associated Online Press (AOP) and does actually give you an idea of the tone of the event.

Usually one walks into a barrage of scepticism when talking about mobile but this event seemed to bring together the industry's pessimists: I have not heard people be genuinely downbeat about mobile advertising for some time. Perhaps I caught them on an offday?

Some interesting feedback from the event from Informa:

The mobile advertising market is due to increase from $2.2bn to $11.4bn by 2011 - though this will still be just 2.1% of the global advertising market. (My note: surely we can be more positive that this; given the unique characteristics of mobile I would bet anyone this share will be significantly higher).

In Q4 2006, 20% of users were frequent content purchases - where frequent is someone that has used the service in the last 90 days (I wish my investors would believe that generous measure) and a further 30% might make a purchase once a year. For me, this would seem to underline that there is not really a standalone market for content purchases and that this is a model to be used to "top-up" revenues made elsewhere.

The feedback on advertising was interesting and worth consideration. I have seen many surveys recently sponsored by players in the mobile advertising space suggesting that 90% of all users would be accepting of mobile advertising if they were to receive something in return. The Informa numbers paint a completely different picture.

Asked: would you support advertising if you received cheaper or free content?

46% disagreed strongly
14% disagreed
21% were indifferent
12% agreed
7% agreed strongly

One has to believe in Informa as an impartial reporter and as a result I found these results to be a real surprise and potentially a little alarming: 60% of users would be against advertising.

Time will tell but this is indicative of the tone of the event which suggested that mobile advertising is not and will not be a reality and that if you can focus on content purchases then you really should as being the sensible money making play of the next two years.

I think this is too aggressive (which is my polite way of saying "hogwash"). I think I'll post the case for the defense of mobile advertising in another post. There was truth in today's figures but I think that there is a misread of the momentum in the industry right now.

Yell.com

2007-07-13T00:21:00.001-07:00

For those in the UK, I really like the Yell.com service on mobile. Both the client and the WAP service are really well conceived. It is a simple proposition for the end consumer to be sure, but the team has clearly put a lot of thought into the user interaction. I have found it useful on a number of different occasions and would recommend it.

Making a Pig's Ear of Mobile Internet

2007-07-12T09:40:00.001-07:00

It is interesting to see how the operators are approaching opening the mobile web.

T-Mobile started the ball rolling with web'n'walk way back in late 2005 and really did not get the credit it deserved. It was the first all you can eat bundle for open mobile data and for early adopters it was nirvana. Unfortunately, by trying to put a destination site in as the home page, the message became blurred and users were presented with an operator portal under another name as the home page. Really a case of a missed opportunity. T-Mobile was a case of having honourable intentions and open technology but poor promotional execution.

Vodafone by contrast has just launched its (nearly) unlimited web surfing package* with a (mangled) ability to view internet pages, but has done so with an impeccable marketing campaign that shows that from a marketing perspective the operator appears to 'get it'. The technology bugbears I hope are just that, rather than, as I suspect, really an attempt to put and keep Vodafone at the centre of the advertising value chain albeit at the expense of user experience.

T-Mobile had the best proposition but could not get the message across; Vodafone has the communication down but has compromised user experience at many levels.

On the sidelines with a much smaller user base is Three; definitely the people's champion. As good as T-Mobile but with the ability to communicate why people will use the unlimited bundles, rather than just to view what is in their portal. Thus Three, through its X-Series, highlight all of the cool apps and services that you may desire before they plug their own content. A mature view and one that all operators need to adopt if they have any reasonable expectations that they will retain part of the audience attention.

In three years I would guess that only one or two operators will retain any kind of audience in their own portals. The others will be abandoned and these operators will function as a kind of boosted ISP.

* read all exceptions at www.vodafone.com

Factoids from White City

2007-07-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

A small titbit from a couple of different sources which should convince all publishers of the coming of the mobile internet.

The BBC - for whom I have a lot of admiration, continually pushing the envelope and investing in forthcoming technologies - has divulged a couple of interesting facts from the White City fortress.

Fact One: the BBC estimates that 20% of its total new media unique users access their content from mobile only and no other source.

Fact Two: forecast charts within the BBC with a three year time horizon are showing total page impressions from the mobile internet surpassing that of the fixed internet.

I find both a little mind boggling but incredibly illuminating. Reflecting on them confirms the fact that mobile is becoming an incredibly powerful mass media.

Orange Application Shop - chapeau!

2007-07-09T23:55:00.000-07:00

Orange has its application shop up and running after a long period in the think tank. It is the brainchild of the team behind the Partner Programme and has much merit. The team pledges to provide a meaningful interface into the Orange organisation (for any partner which signs up to their programme - which is free and pain-free so do not be put off).

For those that have not worked within an operator, it is worth pointing out that this is a tremendously difficult programme to get off of the ground. It has a lot of doubters: from the front-end marketers who see it as an unnecessary extravangance eating into their budget; to the voice marketing team who think encouraging small, predominantly data services, is a frippery; to the product management team who nervously view innovation as complicating already complicated lives.

The shop is to be run by Cellmania who run T-Mobile's application download service in the US amongst others and have ample experience in delivering something of the required quality.

This is great effort - delivered in the context of an operator where many are sceptical that mobile data services shall ever take off. Congratulations to the team and sincere best wishes that this has continued success for the providers involved.

For further info you should register at: http://www.orangepartner.com

An Enthusiast's Wish List from the 800lb Gorillas

2007-06-29T09:51:00.000-07:00

Some time ago now, I wrote a paper for the GSMA outlining 10 areas where co-operation from the operator community would go far in helping third party application developers get to market.

I hear on the grapevine now that the operators are returning to this topic and being pushed - for the first time - by their marketing teams to be pro-app. It's nice but I think with greater browser functionality and the oncoming mobile widget world, they'll be too late.

In an case, I think the list still stands. Comments welcome.

10 Steps to Mobile Data Profitability

This is a brief for the operator community from the third party world designed to improve the mobile data ecosystem and drive revenues and take-up for all parties. The paper is relevant for a number of purposes but does concentrate on the market for on handset applications.

The principle behind these suggestions is that there is a huge potential for the mobile data market, but, that the potential will only be reached if the operators embrace the off portal community. Off portal to date has been starved of investment and has happened often in spite of the operator rather than with operator aid. To use a familiar analogy, while there are many issues with the ringtone market, there is a core truth that the market is so much larger, including the operator share, for the support given third parties to deliver direct to consumer.

It should be noted that this is a paper to highlight potential roadblocks and raise discussion. It is not intended as a paper to resolve all of those issues.

(1) Blocking installation of 3rd party J2ME applications

Some operators require their own certificates for third party Java applications to be installed on their handsets, or for such applications to access key APIs (e.g. Internet connection, file system access...).

The US GSM carriers seem to have this policy across all their phones, whereas in Europe, this rather randomly implemented on certain operator / handset combinations.

There is typically no way to get the required certification without a lengthy process of developing a commercial relationship with each individual operator concerned.

It would help greatly if applications could be certified with a single third party that would enable the application to be installed on all operator handsets.

There is a piece of work here which is also to set the rules and guidelines for a third party to be allowed the privilege of certification. Any reputable third party application provider would support this mechanism. All are currently suffering from the persistence of fallout from ringtone subscription sales – and yet the operators continue to allow this pricing policy to exist in the market. Stronger controls and guidelines are needed.

(2) Inconsistent Set-Up of Internet Settings on the Device

Some operators are sporadic in their deployment of devices with the correct internet settings (and in addition in the case of Sony Ericsson devices in the deployment of the correct java settings).

Without internet settings on the device connected apps such as multiplayer games cannot establish online connection to the detriment of the user experience. The remedy for this is relatively straightforward. However, it is awkward for the customer and creates a bad impression of the application, device and carrier.

Our estimates indicate that 15% of all shipped devices are deployed without the right settings. In the majority of cases these relate to pre-pay customers but not exclusively.

It would be extremely useful if operators were to ship devices with the correct online and java settings – or even better……

(3) Single APN

End users are confused by the need to configure different APNs for different services. It would be much simpler for subscribers to use a single APN to access all services (whether from the operator or from a third party), and for access to this APN to be provisioned automatically for all SIM cards.

This problem can be exacerbated by operator call centre staff, many of whom still don't understand the difference between WAP and Internet access, and insist that the caller has full Internet access if they can use the WAP browser. It is a simpler brief for the operator internally if there is one simple answer.

This would also help avoid the instance when if one application requires the Internet APN and another requires the WAP APN. Users who want to use both applications must go through a complex manual process for switching between the two APNs.

Equally, if operators were to consistently upgrade to WAP2.0 then there would be no need for third parties to search out a different more suitable http APN; they would simply be able to route through the same WAP gateway as for the operator services.

(4) Realistic Pricing for Internet APN access

Some operators charge very high prices for data connections through their Internet APNs, including minimum fees per connection and exorbitant per-MB data rates.

The cost of uploading a 200 KB photo to the Internet at using ShoZu on Cingular's $0.01 per KB tariff is over €2.
The cost of downloading a 5 MB video on the same tariff would be over $50.
The cost of backing up a contact in the phone's address book when roaming on Movistar in Spain would be over €1 (due to minimum connection fees and high roaming rates), even though less than 1 KB of data is transferred.

These data rates discourage any usage of Internet applications. More reasonable data pricing would lead to much higher levels of usage, which would benefit all parties.

In particular, it is worth pointing out the large disparity between pre-pay and post-pay customer tariffs. Open internet access costs Vodafone UK pre-pay customers £7.50 per MB compared to £2.35 per MB for post-pay, meanwhile, O2 aggressively block their prepay customers from open internet access.

The following recommendations are made/requested:

- same pricing for post pay and pre pay

- the existence of an all you can eat bundle on all networks

- lower per MB data run rates (particularly given an actual cost of 4 cents per MB

- implementation a single wholesale data approach as in point below

(5) Standardised Wholesale Approaches – Part One

There is currently no consistency between operators approaches towards wholesaling data to third parties. If we follow the analogy of the ringtone market: the market did not really explode (and the operators did not make any meaningful money) until third parties were provided the tools to structure their own pricing. One might imagine the same will apply to mobile data.

To take the UK as an example:

- Vodafone will provide data on a rate of £3000/10GB to third parties linking in to a zero rated APN

- Orange will not do this but will provide a zero rated APN if there is a revenue share to be gained from the sale of the content being delivered. Revenue share to be negotiated.

- Other operators are willing to discuss and deliver according to bespoke discussions but do not have a standard model.

This structure makes it impossible for a third party to provide a consistent consumer proposition. In the UK alone there are over 30 different potential price point for the data within a connected application.

The recommended route would be to align around the approach from Vodafone UK (even if the wholesale pricing differs per operator), where the incoming internet IP address is dynamically given a zero rating through the existing APN setting.

A further recommendation would be to ensure that the most reputable aggregators are given the ability to establish themselves and create a market for third parties to connect to the zero rated data.

(6) Off Peak Data Rates

A second approach to be standardised amongst operators would be the creation of an off-peak and on-peak data rate for GPRS traffic, ideally both retail and wholesale. Certain connected applications have the ability to download in the background, overnight when the data usage is less than ordinarily the case. This could be used as a means to download chunky data types such as video clips to avoid network congestion- which, while not an issue in the short term, may come to be so at a later stage.

(7) Standardised 3rd party billing solutions

Several operators have expressed interest in billing for connected application usage on a per-event basis or timed basis, rather than per-MB. This is certainly feasible but there is a challenge in that there is no standard approach to how to integrate into an operator.

Each operator requires a custom per-event billing solution to be designed and built. A standardised approach would allow creation of reusable components, making per-event billing solutions much cheaper to design, build and maintain.

(8) Access to Off Portal Sites

There needs to be a consistent approach by operator to supporting discovery of off-portal applications. If we agree that there is a body/bodies which exist to facilitate certification of a connected service, then there should be no restraint on an operator providing a link to that service for the end user.

Ideally, each operator will have a programme to install a selection of apps at point of manufacture but at the very least provide both a web based and mobile based access to available applications for the user to browse.

Some operators are experimenting with adwords type searching of these off portal applications. This is acceptable but a free directory, classified appropriately should also be available to the user.

(9) Age verification and whitelisting

Despite early positive PR for the age verification systems, third party evidence (from those not involved in the porn industry, whose customers will typically be prepared to make a big effort to access content) is that the user experience of age verification varies widely from operator to operator and is often poor, which of course represents a significant barrier to usage.

In addition the practice of whitelisting/blacklisting wap URLs is also not only inconsistent from operator to operator but inconsistently applied within operators: i.e. it is possible to be on a (agreed with operators) non-adult shortcode for payment/provisioning and yet have blacklisting applied to the wap service.

In addition policies appear to change (or perhaps the application of them) and there is no notification of blacklisting to content owners. Finally, blacklisting for no good reason (eg as applied by a robot content reader) can represent a severe restraint on trade about which content suppliers can do little, currently.

Ideally operators should allow content suppliers to police their own age verification (as long it meets operator standards) and create clear lines of communication for the whitelisting process, i.e.: a) tell sites why and when their listing has been applied b) provide an appeal procedure with third party independent involvement in decision making process.

(10) Rendering on device

There should be a consistent standard across devices and operators to allow users to quickly access a customised top menu, configure start page keys or find quick (two click or less) access to a My Own or My Applications folder. Too frequently client applications are lost by users or fall out of favour because they are not visible. This increases the investment in CRM and reduces the revenue to the operator community.

First Post - Mission Statement

2007-05-30T02:40:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this blog is to a give a view on the growing emergence of the mobile data industry.

The average user is currently using his phone around 15 minutes a day for voice calls and sms. He is currently either unaware or entirely dismissive of a host of incremental features on his device (e.g. radio, mp3 player, navigation) or of a growing list of add-ons provided by third parties.

It is my belief that the average user will grow to use his phone for an hour a day within the next five years with traditional voice and sms accounting for only a small proportion of this growth.

I'd say three years if I were braver but for this to happen a lot has to fall into place - the user has to be persuaded that he can trust the mobile environment, that pricing is supportive of him experimenting and that the applications being promoted to the user are compelling enough for him (without this, there is no chance of the mass market crossing the chasm).

I used to be braver and I am an enthusiast, but my recent activities have underlined to me that this industry and its relationship with the user is still in a nascent stage - very reminiscent of the mid-nineties experience with the internet - where many people were aware that something existed but were not willing to invest too much time to experiment.

You may often disagree with elements written on the blog- and if you do please do comment. You will be reading things from a personal perspective only based on exposure to the mobile industry from the outside looking in (as a financier), from the inside (within an operator) and from the cutting edge (as an innovator).

I have lived the mobile industry since its very beginning and have been a promoter of mobile experiences for the end user for many many years. I remain an enthusiast and you should be aware of that rose tinted view as you read my posts.

View from the Coalface

On a roll

Talking of cleft sticks.......

Cultivating entrepreneurs

Customer service shenanigans

Crazy British Entrepreneurs = An Oxymoron

Kids of Today

AdMob: building step by step

HMV: a lament

Not all doom and gloom

So whose problem is it?

Nokia World - am I the only one disappointed

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

Recommended Reading

Mary Meeker Presentation

Twitter again - at a crossroads

New World: Old World

British Customer Service

Financial Armageddon: Fasten the seatbelts

Tighten the belts

Life Changing Innovations

Bless the BBC

Microsoft and Mobile

Old world thinking

Opportunity in making it work beautifully

Serial Entrepreneurship: An advantage?

Chasing Rainbows

Shooting yourself in the foot...

Ya-who?

A wonderful riposte

The optimal mobile experience

PR Meltdown - Part III

Mobile Advertising: A humbling perspective

.mobi and mowser... there might be something to it

PR Meltdown - Part II

PR Meltdown - Part I

Mary Meeker Presentation

Blyk Part 3: I finally get it

Future Technologies Conference

RIP Mowser

Fund Raising: Part II

Fund Raising

Interview Tips

Reflections on the Valley

Gaming: how serious are you?

A rare insight into T9

I think Vodafone gets it

User tenacity: why operators need to shape up

Danger!

Motorola speculation

Friends Reunited: yesterday's news

It is surprising what you can do on your phone

Mobile Blogging

Rotten apple

Tis the season......

Bourne Yesterday

I'm free!

Opening up?

Blyk - the case for

Incredulous

Devil in detail

Android

Net Promoter Scores

Oh dear! Oh dear! That's Oh! 2

Rant at eBay

Data Protection: Update

Transcoding, blah blah

The future is Blyk?

Data Protection: Time for Change?

Apple wins; consumer loses; O2 ?

The State of the Union

RIP .mobi?

Voda Live! Review

O2 and i-mode

iPhone: so what is success?

I wish I could like Jaiku

Mobile - will it ever work?

Yell.com

Making a Pig's Ear of Mobile Internet

Factoids from White City