The first session of Europe in a digital world will be streamed live tomorrow.

On 13 November, from 14:30 to 16:15 (CET time), the link below will be active and you will be able to watch the event in streaming.

http://live.europarl.europa.eu/asx/channel02.asx

(minimum requirement: Windows Media Player 6.409. For optimal vision, Windows Media Player 11.

If you are unable to click on the link, simply copy and paste it into your browser.

kind rgds

Ajit

The wheels come off the telecoms gravy train in Europe does not do justice to the normally good reporting by telecomtv.com

I reproduce a comment from David Harrington below on the original article(I agree with David’s comment). The emphasis is mine. It is sad that telecomtv.com wrote this and as David said, the article might well have been written by Deutsche Telekom or France Telecom, or another of the unreconstructed monopolists in the EU

Martyn – I cant let this go. Your piece might have been written by Deutsche Telekom or France Telecom, or another of the unreconstructed monopolists in the EU. What the Commission was trying to do was to progress the single market in telecoms services, so that EU business consumers can better compete globally with the likes of their US couterparts. For example, Fiat has over 800 contracts throughout the EU in order to run a telecoms service for its external offices and dealerships. A US car manufacturer needs only a handful to do the same thing in its home market. And given that most of the EU incumbents are owned at least in part by their governments, and those same governments appoint and control their regulators, wouldnt it make sense to set up even a quasi-independent regulatory authority to ensure everyone applies and plays by the rules? I think youve overlooked the huge lobbying effort that the entrenched incumbents have been pouring into the Parliament over the past year. Whatever next? – will you be opposing reductions in international roaming rates?

Correction: In the original post, I mistakenly said ‘telecoms.com’ which is incorrect. The site is http://web20.telecomtv.com/. My apologies!

classic

He’sin the white house .. He took his chance .. Now lets see him do Riverdance .. – is my favourite line

In case you dont know Riverdance ..

Considering my previous post Owning the customer vs knowing the customer.. Here is a question ..

a) Can Operators sell aggregated data?

b) If so, what are the guidelines?

c) What are the possible aggregates?(examples)

d) Who has done this successfully?

e) What kind of aggregates are valuable for the end client(buyers of

advertising)

By aggregated data I mean:

The Operator does not sell the individually identifiable data but rather an aggregate derieved from transactional data. Dean Bubley pointed it out to me that banks have been doing this for a while now – which is interesting ..

I have heard JP Rangaswami also refer to similar business models but dont know details ..

Carnival of the mobilists No 148 at the mopocket blog

The OpenGardens blog is supporting this event and it promises to be an interesting one. Full details and press release HERE

The mashup event continues to get traction with Tim O Reilly now giving the keynote. Full agenda HERE

This approach forms a key part of my thinking .. any comments welcome.

The Web is organised around content – for instance, most people start with ‘Search’ – when they interact with the Web. In contrast, the social web is organised around people (particiants in a social network) – and we often start by searching for specific people when we work with the Social Web.

In a nutshell, participants in a social network join the network, publish their profiles, add some content on the profiles (for example – pictures). They then create links to other users. Over time, users with similar interests will form groups where they share content. The social network so formed is a basis for maintaining social relationship, finding more content, finding other uses etc.

With the rise of Facebook, MySpace and other sites, Online social networks have become popular. However, social networks themselves have existed for a long time now (both online and offline) – even before the Web.

In fact, any body of transactional data derived from participants in an electronic conversation can be viewed as a social network (such as email data, telecoms call records, Instant messaging data, forum posts etc)

When viewed in this way, the two common elements which underpin social networks are; The conversation between users and The underlying data. This is especially relevant in a converged scenario (Web, Telecoms/mobile and Media) – where conversations may span platforms.

In fact, a social network can be viewed as an ‘umbrella’ layer on top of any conversational data.

This approach is similar to Overlay networks . An overlay network is a network built on top of another network. Nodes in an overlay network can be seen to have a set of logical (virtual) links between the nodes of the base network. For instance, a Peer to Peer network can be seen as an overlay network created on top of the Internet. Overlay networks reveal new pathways and relationships between the nodes of the base network and are a reflection of the usage of the nodes. Thus, depending on function, multiple overlay networks can be built on top of the base networks – a social network for business, a social network for dating etc etc.

Whichever way we look at this, underlying all the networks lies raw data.

The data and insights derived from popular social networks like Facebook and MySpace has given us many new insights into user behaviour – all of which can be quantified.

This means, we can take a ‘retro’ approach i.e. i.e. we can apply these new insights from social networks to an existing body of conversational data. This approach is universal because every organization has access to such data from the many touch points via which it engages with the customer.

However, social relationships are not always explicitly detectable from data; hence it is more important to derive relationships between nodes from the underlying data rather than depend explicitly on the information provided by the nodes themselves. For instance, profiles are often incomplete and are based on easily entered or default information. In contrast, if a relationship can be derived between two nodes based on transactional information, it is more insightful.

This approach applies to many scenarios(from Telecoms Operators, to social networks to airlines) and it has many uses ranging from managing trust, combating SPAM, viral propagation of content, managing reputation, social media marketing etc.

Despite it’s universal appeal it is based around only two core tenets: Underlying data and the conversations. It is platform agnostic and can apply to any company which has a body of data from customer touchpoints(Telecoms Operators, media companies etc). It is relevant since we can retrospectively apply many new insights from social networks like Facebook to existing body of data

If you are interested in discussing this(even the mathematics behind the approach), then please email me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com

I have been following Barack Obama’s campaign since my first talk at the European parliament in June 2007.

Next week, I again speak at an event in Brussels at the parliament – towards a digital world

One of the themes of our discussion is What is the impact of new technologies (e.g. social networks) on social relations?/society

So, it is a good time to talk about Barack Obama’s campaign again since I believe it is a true victory for democracy and the democratic process – with the Web as a cornerstone.

Like me, many people believe in the grassroots potential of the Web – and especially Social media – to truly transform society. The Obama campaign is a fulfillment of that vision in action.

Simply put, A president like Barack Obama could not have been elected had it not been for social media and the Web.

Here is why ..

If you follow military strategists like Carl von Clausewitz and his book ‘On War’ – then Clausewitz talks of the superiority of numbers

In such an aspect we grant, that the superiority in numbers is the most important factor in the result of a combat, only it must be sufficiently great to be a counterpoise to all the other co-operating circumstances.

In other words, superiority in numbers must be greater by a factor ..

And that’s what Barack Obama achieved through his social networking campaign for fund raising crafted by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes

The BBC says more ..

The money was key. Mr Obama realised during the primary contest that he had developed an extremely broad donor base, which he could keep going back to for money. So, he rejected federal funding for his campaign and the financial limits that came with it. Army of helpers With the help of Facebook founder Chris Hughes – who devised an innovative internet fundraising system – the campaign eventually attracted more than three million donors. They donated about $650m (£403m) – more than both presidential contenders in 2004 combined.

Ofcourse besides the money, the campaign also motivated volunteers.

This is very significant because as far as I know – this is the only time a left leaning(in the US context – Democrats are left leaning) campaign has raised more money than a right leaning campaign.

More significantly – the manner the money has been raised – i.e. with grassroots support giving the people a true voice in the democratic process

Compare this with donations from lobbying bodies and organizations like the National Rifle Association which

Between 1997 and 2006, the NRA spent nearly $16 million on outside lobbying shops that worked alongside its five full-time lobbyists. Between 1990 and 2006, the organization doled out another $16 million in campaign contributions, of which 83 percent went to Republicans.

On the other side, are the trade unions who have also supported campaigns – and can also be seen to be lobbying for influence.

This money from lobbying bodies did not come out of love – that we can be sure of!

So, far better to empower the people .. and create a virtuous cycle in the process .. This is truly a change to society brought about by the Web and social networking .. and it is a positive change ..

Many telecoms network operators persist in this quaint notion of owning the customer

This obsession causes a blind spot because they miss out on the opportunities of knowing the customer

While Operators continue to try to ‘own’ the customer – the web players continue to ‘know’ the customer better.

Since most people will want to centralize their personal information with a few players, the longer Telecoms delays in knowing the customer, the more they will lose out ..

The familiar argument goes ..

We (Telecoms) have a lot of details about our customers ..

Knowing the transactional information in CDRs, we can tell you a lot about the customer ..

But .. so can my bank!!

And if my bank attempts to ‘bundle’ insurance every time I book a flight on the web through my bank card .. most people will (rightly) be annoyed and sue them for lack of privacy ..

So, the notion of customer intimacy on the basis of call data records alone is ambitious at best and litigious at worst ..

But what do we mean by knowing the customer? And how can we do it?

Three things are needed:

a) For starters, the customer needs some free incentive to part with their personal information. This assumes that all privacy guidelines and permissions are adhered to

b) Secondly, we need an open ecosystem / platform and factors like data portability are important i.e. leverage the network effects and get others(third party developers) to do work for you and grow the ecosystem both in terms of content and new users. Again, Google/Android and facebook exploit this strategy best.

c) Finally, we need touch points – i.e. places which the Operator can interact directly with the customer and can deliver the ad. Here again, open systems are important as a place where advertisements can be placed. The call center is a customer touch point, but it is an expensive touch point. Hence, Operators need to make efforts to work with Social networks, develop the mobile web etc

We also need a system to manage all the social media campaigns from an Operator perspective. See more on The ten steps to creating a Social media marketing campaign. CDRs capture very limited information anyway – a lot more information is needed to complement the data captured.

An alternate approach some operators attempt is to track user behaviour at a network level. The problems of Phrom show you why this will be an issue.

The problem with network level tracking of user behaviour (even if you did get permission) is this – most people do not understand networks. And people do not trust what they do not understand.

So, it appears to me that Telecoms network operators should take the view of working at higher levels of the stack rather than at the network level.

They should know the customer and engender their trust rather than attempt to own the customer.

If they delay – then they may find that there is already someone else who is bed with the customer first (think Web players here!)

Image credits: I don’t know! the image is from Google images but I don’t know the source

UK sales of games will outstrip music and video for the first time in 2008 – and yesterday evening I was having a discussion about mobile apps .. The usual questions – what will people pay for and why etc etc etc .. Discussions we have been having now for the last eight years or so ..

But the success of games in the UK reminded me of this techcrunch story .. What Is The Deal With This Stupid Lighter iPhone App?

Here’s why people are going crazy for Sonic Lighter, and are willing to pay $.99. Smule has built in social and viral features that are helping this spread like mad, and they also give this ridiculous but effective incentive to use the app all the time.

You can optionally share your location information with the application, and when you light it you show up on a virtual earth-like globe. France and Japan are going absolutely crazy with users,

Maybe we are taking the whole idea of mobility very seriously .. Maybe people will pay for a fun, engaging application. Contrast this with a real utility based application LBS for £1.79? Vicinity app on the iPhone. What does it say for the Context – location based services business/ revenue model?

If we contrast sonic with vicinity, then many of the business models and revenue projections are just plain wrong because – in my view – it is not possible to create a business model for a ‘game’ or a ‘viral application’ – recession not withstanding ..

Yet, VCs, investors etc want focus, predictability and a straight and narrow path.

If we come back to the spirit of entrepreneurship, then maybe the VCs are all wrong. In their desire for exit and predictability, they are missing something very fundamental .. that there can be no focus when you start a new venture. There will be a number of paths – and a compass .. the actual route may vary .. and maybe we will have a lot more fun along the way with the rise of Android and iPhone i.e. distribution models for mobile applications – and the only people who wont ‘get it’ will be the VCs!

Thoughts?

Image source: techcrunch