CoM # 119 is up at mobilejones. Dont miss some great insights at the carnival at Debi Jones’s blog

I am in the New York times this monday. Thanks to Peter Holland and others who pointed this out to me.

Carnival of the mobilists No 118 at Mobile Point of View by Paul Ruppert. Great read as usual.

I wonder if I am the exception here ..

Like many people I am addicted to gmail and love it

so much so that I use it on my blackberry(as a downloadable app or in browser mode)

Is this an exception?

What does it say for mobile applications? i.e. if I have an excellent web application .. people will want to use it on the phone .. rather than get a phone specific app

Having said that, gmail interface on the phone is excellent .. so thats another indication .. maybe online apps will need lots of ui people for mobile?

I was also intrigued by the fact that I am ignoring the best function of the blackberry (push email) in favour of gmail and using the device as a glorified keyboard. This does favour the SAAS theory(software as a service which is supported by Cloud computing and is device agnostic)

PS: William Volk says that he also uses GMail via the iPod Touch email app, also gets his corporate mail (POP) this way.

So, I dont feel so wierd any more!

Interesting to see any other views ..

Human rights ‘apply to UK troops’. This is good news. Whats sad is .. its been debated and Ministers are appealing against the ruling.

Hello all

I co-chair this event every year alongwith Tomi Ahonen and like last year, this year should be great as well.

The ForumOxford conference is on Friday 18 April 2008. Cost to attend is £195 (approx €245 / $380), which includes lunch, refreshments and post-conference drinks.

Conference details are at Forumoxford future technologies conference

Secure online payment and registration at – Forumoxford future technologies conference payment and registration

Confirmed speakers (running order to be announced):

* Mark Selby – Nokia

* Social Marketing Intelligence, the Black Gold of the 21st Century – Alan Moore, Xtract

* Mobile Social Networking – Antonio Vince Stabyl, CEO, ItsMY

* Youth and Mobile and Music and TV – Luciana Pavan, MTV

* iPhone Applications – William Volk, CEO, MyNuMo

* User-generated Mobile Advertising – Jonathan MacDonald, Blyk

* Mobile Initiated Financial Services in the Developing World – Simon Cavill, Director, Mi-Pay Ltd

* How to Integrate Facebook with IMS – Niklas Blum, Fraunhofer FOKUS

* Browser Extensions (DOM extensions) and Accessing Device APIs – Ajit Jaokar, OpenAjax Alliance and David Pollington, Vodafone

* Delivering a Global Mobile Service – Cameron Doherty, CEO, Mobile Concierge

* Dawn of a New Mobility – Casual Computing: Thoughts on the Future of Mobiles, Service and Their Adoption – Christian Lindholm, Fjord

* An Example of Mobile Search in Poland, the Implementation of Google Search Appliance on Plus.pl – Krzysztof Proczka, Brand Manager, Polkomtel

Hope to see you in Oxford on 18 April.

Regards

Peter Holland, Technology Programme, University of Oxford

Conference sponors:

This is a fascinating article from the BBC

Some quotes:

Mr Gunter: network guy

“The question is about whether we invest in extra capacity or go to the consumer and ask them to pay a BBC tax,” he said.

“Inflammatory comments about blacklisting ISPs do not help. There seems to be a lack of understanding about how networks are built. Either we are not explaining it properly or it is falling on deaf ears,” he added.

Mr Highfield: content guy

told the BBC’s Today programme such “inflammatory” comments were not helpful.

“The success of the iPlayer should be of benefit to the whole UK broadband industry, increasing those who want to take up broadband,” he said.

“It may be putting extra strain on the network but it would be a bit odd for the BBC to fund such an upgrade,” he said.

In his BBC blog last week Mr Highfield laid out a 19-point plan of action for ISPs, and warned they should not try to charge content providers.

“Content providers, if they find their content being specifically squeezed, shaped, or capped, could start to indicate on their sites which ISPs their content works best on (and which to avoid).”

In an ironic twist, the BBC is state funded and the networks are not!!

See : article on the BBC

Now where have I heard these arguements before?

In my previous blog, Personalization is not a substitute for critical mass – from Zagme to Blyk, I talked about the importance of critical mass.

Here is why I think it’s critical to get to high volumes – and only then is personalization relevant. The model draws from memory with Zagme and also may apply in a similar context to newer players like Blyk and also Operators who are attempting similar strategies

PS: As I write this, Sonpoia shuts down and also I note that dotmobile is in administration

Too early to say why .. but we have friends in both places .. so sad news ..

Coming back to the question ..

The question is – Why do we need critical mass and why do we say that critical mass is a prerequisite to personalization

Assume a total audience of 100,000 people (Zagme was 85,000 and Blyk aims to get to 100,000 later this year)

Assume 20p/MMS which advertiser pays

With 100,000 – campaign costs = 20,000 GBP (hypothetical case of hitting all 100,000)

With 10% response 10,000 people respond

Assume that 5% buy from within 10,000 – so we get 500 sales

Assume cost of each ‘shoe’ (or whatever the campaign is selling) is 12 GBP

Hence, sales = 6,000 GBP

Against campaign costs of 20,000 GBP

That can never work? Unless you have volume!

Also, the retail price of the shoe is £12, but you’d have to factor in costs – manufacturing, postage, returns etc to end up with a margin.

The model will not work even for Starbucks and SMS since the same principles apply there.

From a marketing standpoint, Reach (critical mass) has always been important. This may be because of high fixed costs historically, which need to be amortised over high volumes. Obviously, that’s not the case with a Google AdWords or AdMob – but still the equation needs Reach as I indicate above.

Thus the very factor which makes the medium attractive (targeting/personalization etc) – becomes its undoing since the numbers are ‘back of the envelope’ calculations and they don’t add up at lower volumes especially when you co-relate to sales/fulfillment.

Consequently, I say that critical mass is a pre-requisite to personalization and one could argue that even the Operators lack critical mass when it comes to advertising. The players who are gaining the biggest traction have critical mass or are addressing the problem. For instance, Admob, itsmy, flirtomatic and others have got critical mass by virtue of their strategy/cross operator vision. Nokia ad service is another significant player for the same reason (all Nokia devices). So is Android potentially (unites the stack) and the iPhone (combines the Web and the Mobile Web)

However, no matter how you look at this – I believe that critical mass must come first and only then is personalization relevant

This may well be one of my contrarian viewpoints .. Similar to Mobile Youth is a myth .. But here goes ..

Personalization is a big word in our industry .. If you want to really understand the taxonomy of personalization in detail, then an excellent description of context / personalization is provided by one of the industry’s most respected techies .. C Enrique Ortiz. If you have not read his white paper on context, well worth a read here white paper on mobile context/ personalization

It is a (mobile) marketer’s dream/holy grail to be able to provide personalized content over the phone. To do this, we need a detailed understanding of context and the ability to personalize content based on the context ..

However, although personalization is important, it is not the traditional (i.e. non mobile) marketer’s first objective. The conventional wisdom says that the first goal of marketing is to reach critical mass(eyeballs) and only then is personalization relevant

Let’s take a step back.

From the earliest days of the mobile data industry, we have been able to personalise content.

Even that dreaded application ‘sending a text message when you pass close to a coffee shop giving 10% off your next cup of coffee’ – has always been technically possible. As early as 2002, Operators in the UK(like O2 – then called BT cellnet) were able to provide location APIs.

However, it has always been at the expense of critical mass.

And therein lies the problem

It seems that we, as an industry, take the (wishful thinking )viewpoint that because we don’t have critical mass yet .. we can somehow charge a premium for a smaller subset of the audience provided we can personalise the message to them

In my view, that’s wishful thinking – because at that point – the application is no longer cost effective and it has violated the first principle of marketing (critical mass) with the forlorn hope that it may compensate for that violation by a providing a more personalised message.

The trick is not only to manage context .. but to do so with critical mass

Managing context alone is easy! It can be done given the technology and the budget

Ironically, the biggest successes of the industry have cracked that problem by addressing critical mass first(admob, itsmy and others) and then adding personalization to that mix(not the other way round)

Some others understand this as well. Google with Android, the iPhone, Nokia with its Internet strategy among others are all aiming to get critical mass by spanning the Web and the Mobile Web and / or unifying the stack

The problem is as old as the time I have been involved in the industry .. starting with Zagme back in 2000(Now closed down, so no site exists). The Zagme model was highly personalised .. (In a nutshell – sending personalised SMS messages to kids in shopping malls) but not scaleable (because acquiring more customers meant signing up shopping malls .. a process that does not scale).

Fast forward 10 years and we have Blyk .. we all watch it with great interest and indeed it is too early to say where it will all go .. but the perennial questions still remain as raised in Blyk’s math still does not add up . On a personal note ofcouse, I want Blyk to succeed but wearing an analyst hat on – I say that the jury is still out

Having said that, there are signs that we are beginning to change .. and it’s a good thing. While I don’t know enough yet re this initiative, payforit is a step in the right direction.

Why are we obsessed with getting personalization right at the cost of critical mass?

As an engineer working on a PhD, I am not the best people to ask this question .. however .. maybe marketing as a profession has been tarred (with some justification!) with SPAM and other related ills. Maybe marketers dream of being ‘good’ – doing the right thing, engaging with the audience, entertaining the audience, sending the right messages which the audience will like to receive etc etc ..

All this is well and good ..

But can we achieve personalization at the expense of critical mass? I don’t think so!

Also See Critical mass (reach) is a prerequisite to personalization

Hello all

I co-chair this event every year and like last year, this year should be great as well.

The ForumOxford conference is on Friday 18 April 2008. Cost to attend is £195 (approx €245 / $380), which includes lunch, refreshments and post-conference drinks.

Conference details are at Forumoxford future technologies conference

Secure online payment and registration at – Forumoxford future technologies conference payment and registration

Confirmed speakers (running order to be announced):

* Mark Selby – Nokia

* Social Marketing Intelligence, the Black Gold of the 21st Century – Alan Moore, Xtract

* Mobile Social Networking – Antonio Vince Stabyl, CEO, ItsMY

* Youth and Mobile and Music and TV – Luciana Pavan, MTV

* iPhone Applications – William Volk, CEO, MyNuMo

* User-generated Mobile Advertising – Jonathan MacDonald, Blyk

* Mobile Initiated Financial Services in the Developing World – Simon Cavill, Director, Mi-Pay Ltd

* How to Integrate Facebook with IMS – Niklas Blum, Fraunhofer FOKUS

* Browser Extensions (DOM extensions) and Accessing Device APIs – Ajit Jaokar, OpenAjax Alliance and David Pollington, Vodafone

* Delivering a Global Mobile Service – Cameron Doherty, CEO, Mobile Concierge

* Dawn of a New Mobility – Casual Computing: Thoughts on the Future of Mobiles, Service and Their Adoption – Christian Lindholm, Fjord

* An Example of Mobile Search in Poland, the Implementation of Google Search Appliance on Plus.pl – Krzysztof Proczka, Brand Manager, Polkomtel

Hope to see you in Oxford on 18 April.

Regards

Peter Holland, Technology Programme, University of Oxford

Conference sponors: