Tis the season......

.... 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

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!

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?

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

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

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

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.