Wish you a Merry Chrismas and greetings for the holiday season
Image source Arnes
Merry Christmas and greetings for the holiday season ..
December 25, 2006 By
I am on the Scoble show this morning!
December 24, 2006 By
What a nice Christmas gift! I am on the Scoble show this morning speaking about Mobile Web 2.0 and Publishing! Better than being on TV in my book!
Considering its my first major media interview – totally unplanned and unrehersed late at night in a London hotel lobby .. its not bad ..
I have always enjoyed meeting Robert Scoble and the last time I met the Scobles, was when they came to London.
Great to be on the show and thanks Robert.
Please have a look at the Scoble show. I have been following Robert’s work for some time now and I learnt a lot from the following videos (among others) at the Scoble show :
Mark Lucovsky(Google), Bill Watkins(Seagate CEO), Betsy Aoki(Microsoft), Adam Gross(Salesforce.com), Eric Billingsley (eBay), Roman Scharf (CEO Jajah), Mark Cuban, Jonathan Schwartz(Sun Microsystems CEO) and Shai Agassi(SAP)
Considering the above folk, it’s great to be in the same company on the Scoble show. Do check it out!
see the link here at the Scoble show
Dean Bubley’s review of Mobile Web 2.0
December 23, 2006 By
Dean Bubley posted a review of my book Mobile Web 2.0 some time back but I had yet to link back to it.
It’s a mixed review but it’s a great to get a review from someone like Dean whose views I truly admire, especially because there are very few people in the industry who understand both the business and the technology aspects of Mobile Web 2.0.
So, many thanks Dean!
An except below but read the full review on Dean’s blog
Overall, the book is a good starting point, and you can use it to generate your own divergent trains of thought. It catalysed my thought process on how mobile mashups could work in reality, for example – if you start with 2 GB of initial mapping data on a memory card, and just “top up” over the network where necessary, and add additional variables generated both locally and through the network.
Bottom line on the book: Read it as a backgrounder, and as a starting point for what what might occur, if awkward realities didn’t get in the way. Don’t buy into the hype around Web 2.0 being the panacea for mobile communications for everyone, but pick & choose which bits you believe are feasible. Then look for niches where the problems don’t matter, or invent solutions to fix the issues raised.
MyStrands: A mobile social networking system for parties ..
December 21, 2006 By
Even in the early days of the ipod, there was a trend among party goers to ‘bring their own music’ to the party (i.e. their music in their own iPod which they wanted to dock in at the event and play it).
With the rise of social networking/mobility, there is the possibility of adding a ‘social network’ element to this activity. In that sense, a service like Partystrands (powered by mystrands ) is a logical extension to this function of bringing your own music. The service seeks to extend the idea of ‘sharing’ music at a party by sending SMS messages about their preferences (and also other messages). These messages are analysed and the playlist is updated based on the aggregated text messages. The screen has other social features like listing names of people at a party, what song is being played, what’s next etc etc.
All this is simple, and frankly pretty mundane.
Mystrands/Partystrands has got some interesting coverage at techcrunch and mobhappy
I am not a ‘party’ person .. So, I am not going to comment on the concept itself.
However, I find this concept interesting for some different reasons ..
Firstly, I am always interested in things that blur the boundary between the Web and the Mobile Web and also the physical and the mobile worlds. Aggregating musical tastes is OK .. but more interesting is the fact that if you are a MyStrands, MySpace, or Last.fm user, you can text your alias in any of these communities, and your music behaviour (as expressed in any of these online communities) will influence the music being played at the bar. This means, you can import your xml profile from last.fm for example into your mystrands profile(knowing your alias), so together this will influence your new profile you’re using.
The second interesting element is it’s mobile component. You can follow the ‘party’ from your mobile browser. This means, you can ‘peek into’ the party from your mobile phone in real time to see if it’s of interest. For instance, what bars are now active, what music is being played, who is at the bar, and what text messages are being sent etc etc ..
You can see this at their mobile site. Choose country, take a venue, see it’s info, a location map, check it’s users, the music
played, pictures uploaded by users, etc… and a demo of the mobile service can be seen at the mystrands blog
A forthcoming Symbian client also allows you to listen to recommendation samples on your mobile through real player or media player…
It is these ‘sharing type’ features which make the famous Tomi Ahonen/Alan Moore discussion about the demise of the iPod (the iPod vs. mobile phone argument) significant. While currently, the iPod provides a superior listening experience, the phone is catching up fast and also the added ability to share immediately would be significant in future.
Some more cool features at their lab site
Many thanks to Rudy De Waele for answering my numerous questions about this service!
Shane Warne ..
December 21, 2006 By
Alan Moore’s talk at Nokia world ..
December 20, 2006 By
Alan Moore gave a keynote speech at Nokia world. Alan is a top notch speaker and makes a great impact in a live presentation (and that’s not just because I am the publisher of Communities Dominate Brands !) . Have a look at his video and other comments at his blog Communities Dominate Brands
I am speaking at 3GSM in Barcelona ..
December 19, 2006 By
I am speaking at 3GSM! – more soon – but if you are attending would be great to meet up.
I will be the moderator and Opening Speaker for a session entitled ‘Technology Breakout Session: Mobile Web 2.0’ speaking on ‘Mobile Web 2.0 – Separating Fact from Fiction’ and then moderating the session
Although it will have a technology focus, I guess we will be covering all aspects of Mobile Web 2.0
Flash Lite is not WICD – But it should be!
December 16, 2006 By
Since I blog a lot about next generation mobile browser applications, a common question I get is: What about Flash Lite ?
Well .. What about it – I say? It’s specific to a company(Adobe) and in my view, that will always be it’s limitation.(i.e. not an Open Standard!)
But more seriously, Flash has got a lot of traction on the Web. Thus, there is reason to believe that Flash Lite may also do well on Mobile devices.
Besides, Adobe is getting a lot of traction for Rich Internet Web Applications on the Web through products like Adobe Flex
But will Flash Lite emulate the success of Flash on the Web?
The crux of Adobe’s Flash strategy on the Web was based on giving the client for free. This led to a whole mass of developers adopting the technology. Adobe made money using developer licences.
If this strategy were mirrored on the Mobile ecosystem , the Flash Lite client would be free and developers would adopt it in significant numbers.
So, is the Flash Lite client free?
Sadly, it is not.
At the moment, Adobe’s entire strategy seems to be focussed towards devices and handsets as opposed to developers and browsers.
In other words, it is NOT the same model which made Flash so successful on the Web since the client is not free and the target ‘customer’ from Adobe’s point of view is not the developer.
So, who is Flash pitched at?
The obvious answer is: the Operator and the Device manufacturer.
This will lead to a slow and a fragmented uptake of Flash Lite (in contrast to the almost global appeal of Flash on the Web)
But in case of Flash Lite, it gets worse: Not only do the Operators and device manufactures have to install Flash(at a considerable cost), Adobe’s entire strategy seems to be pitched towards one specific Operator i.e. Verizon. This is apparent even as you see the Flash Lite site
Sadly, this may end up with the product being defined by it’s first customer
Ofcourse, there is Flash Lite as a browser plug-in – and that’s more interesting and is similar to the Web. However, the browser plug-in approach is not getting a lot of traction from both Adobe and the Web community
Is there an option?
In my view, Yes.
That option is WICD from the W3C.
The potential of WICD has been highlighted by other bloggers like CEO before and while it still has a way to go in terms of traction – it’s basic approach is a lot better.
Its also a lot cheaper, it is an Open Standard and is likely to be adopted by Operators and Device manufacturers for the same reason that they are looking into Linux as an OS now(Open and cost effective).
In my view, a better approach from Adobe would be to focus on the browser plug-in and make the client free.
This would mirror the Web strategy which made Flash so successful.
Both Adobe Flex and Flash Lite are good products. Lets hope that they become successful.
But the only way to do that in my view is by pitching to the developers.
Too many people (including developers themselves) make the mistake of over estimating the UI at the expense of critical mass.
But UI is not the critical factor as I discuss in the article Mobile Ajax: More than just a pretty face and The future is bright – the future is Three! (both of which emphasise features beyond the UI and talk about why UI is not the critical factor in the success of Mobile Applications)
What is needed is a homogeneous marketplace.
Anything that fragments the marketplace is not good.
Anything that encourages a homogeneous market is good.
Thus, the free browser plug-in is a better approach in contrast to the current strategy
Without developer support, it won’t fly and developers need a mass market to succeed.
Thoughts?
Update – based on comments below
Hello Jag, Dalibor
Thanks for your insightful comments.
Re
Actually, the cynic in me says that I *do* think it’s relevant, if it’s an open standard it’s more likey to be designed by a committee that results in the mess that was MIDP 1 and 2. With Flash, as a developer, I know it will work everywhere. With all but the simplest of Java apps that is rarely the case.
With all due respect, it was the Operators that screwed up Java implementations by inconsistently implementing APIs smile and thereby fragmenting Java on Mobile devices! and I agree to your comments that all but the simplest games are possible on Java.
In other words, it was not a failure of Open standards, the problem lay with Operators.
Now coming back to Flash Lite, if Operator A installs it on device B and Operator X installs it on device Y, then you see the problem immediately – a smaller target audience.
The problem is very simple
As an industry, we forget that we are working with consumer applications(which need critical mass).
You can get critical mass in one of two ways
a) The Japanese and Korean model : ‘Managed’ by a strong entity(in case of Korea – the Korean government for instance)
b) The Open Standards way!!
Thats why my emphasis on WICD
Read my book : Mobile Web 2.0
Image source: Mad Lantern
If the US market is fixed price(data) .. why does it not take off?
December 14, 2006 By
At forumoxford, I posted a very simple thought which has generated some great conversation.
The question was:
Just wondering ..
If the US market is fixed price(data) .. why does it not take off?
They have had fixed price data apps for some time .. so why dont we see more US data apps?
thoughts?
There are many insights to this question. Michael Mace posted on his blog - which he cross posted on forum oxford the points below. Not all of them are immediately practical (for example some form of application signing/security certificates is needed and releasing the user’s private data has much more serious implications on a mobile device – nevertheless, its a great list!
In addition to offering flat-rate data, here are the other steps a mobile operator must take in order to make that mobile data ecosystem work:
1. Provide a consistent architecture that works offline. Web applications depend on having a constant connection between the user’s computer and the Internet. That’s not practical for the mobile Web. Even in countries with heavy 2G coverage, there are lots of gaps in the 3G network, and will be for years. Mobile Web apps need to work like RIM’s e-mail client, which stores both the program itself and the user’s data locally and then sends the data to the network when a connection is available.
That means just bundling a browser is not enough. The phones will also need a software architecture installed on-device that can manage applications and data when the user is offline.
2. Kill security certificates. The line between websites and applications is blurring, as Web 2.0 architectures allow much more processing to be done on the client device rather than a server someplace in Mongolia. For example, Skype is mostly an application, not a web site. In the future it will be impossible for a user to tell exactly where an application ends and the Internet begins.
But today the operators treat websites and applications completely differently. The new flat-rate data plans let you browse just about any website you want. But just as we open up the browser, operators are starting to restrcit applications by insisting that they obtain a security certificate before they can be installed. The certification process is slow, inconvenient, and unreasonably expensive for small software companies and those that create a lot of applications.
Can you picture a website paying for certification before it can run on your browser? How many sites would bother? If the operators insist on certificates, they will make the mobile Web a small and uninteresting subset of the real Web, permanently. Certificates have to go.
3. Unlock the user’s data. Many operators (especially in the US) make it very difficult for an application to access the user’s data stored on the device, such as the address book, the dialer, and the user’s current location. But many of the most interesting new mobile applications need to be able to work with this information. The operators are afraid to give access to this data, but they’ll need to adopt the same security model used on the Web — let the user do what they want, and defend the device via security software. It’s ugly, but it worked in the fixed line world.
4. Make it easy to discover new content and services. The mobile data ecosystem will evolve faster if it’s easy for users to find new services and applications. Today the content discovery tools and software stores on mobile devices, if they are installed at all, are often buried under several layers of icons, or are very hard to use. We need the mobile equivalent of an Amazon.com — an online content store that’s easy to find, browse and search, and that makes suggestions to you based on what you’ve used in the past.
And oh by the way, that store needs to offer everything, not just the operator’s ten favorite apps. Do you think Amazon would have succeeded if it had offered only the books that Jeff Bezos thought were cool?
5. Get ready to go to a flat rate for everything. The logical outcome of putting the open web on a mobile device is that voice and data merge under a single flat fee. If a Skype call is free, then eventually all calls need to be free, or the users will just switch everything to Skype. Same thing for SMS messages once they’re directly in conflict with instant messaging. The operators’ old financial model won’t evaporate overnight, but I believe it’s now officially dying. I think the race is now on for full flat-rate mobile pricing. The operator that moves to the new model fastest stands to gain the most customers.
