The Web, Mobile Web, The Internet, The Mobile Internet, Web Standards and Open standards ..

December 20, 2008 By

This blog is an extension of a previous blog ( There is only One Web i.e. Only one thematically consistent Web powered by Web Technologies ..) and incorporates extensive feedback from Luca Passani, Dean Bubley, Jag Minhas, James Pearce and Prof Jeff Sonstein. Many thanks for all these great comments.

The original question was:

What is the Web and What is the Mobile Web?

Is there one Web or a separate Mobile Web?

To this, I add

What is the Internet and

What is the Mobile Internet?

This blog reflects a set of comments which constitute a pragmatic view rather than an idealistic view. This was the intention behind the original blog as well – which talked of Microformats as a standardization process.

While the questions themselves sound like silly questions, they are not. Many people view the Web as ‘Online’ – however, with Offline browsing, technologies like Gears etc, that is not the case i.e. the Web can be offline

So, Is the Web primarily about the browser?

The browser itself has evolved and with technologies like browser plugins and widgets – the browser becomes a different software object than the one it started off as.

Things get MUCH more interesting if we go to the Mobile Web.

.

What is the ‘Mobile Web’?

Again, we have some technological grey areas.

Widgets can be based on web technologies but are not necessarily invoked from a browser. Similarly, we are likely to have offline browsing on mobile devices

Hence, to come back to the basic question:

How do we define the Web and the Mobile Web?

And

Is there a separate Mobile Web or is there only One Web?

But first we ask ourselves

What is the Internet and

What is the Mobile Internet?

Acknowledgements to Dean Bubley for this section:

Firstly, there is no mobile Internet, just The Internet on mobile” It’s specifically the interconnected network of networks that’s accessible via standard IP addresses.

Anything walled-garden or behind a NAT or needing a separate DNS (eg the GSMA IPX) is an IP network, maybe even an internetwork (eg military), but it’s not The Internet.

The second question is to distinguish the The Internet accessed from a mobile phone vs. The Internet accessed from another device (PC, MID etc), connected via the mobile network

A “mobile phone” is something that is (a) voice-optimised, and (b) small enough that you can also hold it to your ear.

So, what is the Web? (acknowledgements to Prof Jeff Sonstein for this section)

The Web is built on top of the Internet and uses HTTP (the HyperText Transport Protocol)

to transmit requests and responses. The Web itself does not mandate that a resource be

in any particular format (like the HyperText Markup Language or HTML) just that requests and responses flow using HTTP

When the Web was first invented HTTP (the hypertext transport protocol) was used to access HTML (hypertext mark-up language) documents only. This is not the case any more

and has not been so since very early on. Many kinds of resources are available on the Web

image files (GIFs and PNGs and so on) archive files (zip and gzip, for example) sound files

etc etc

Indeed the original term “URL” (Uniform Resource Locator) has been deprecated for a long time

in favour of “URI” (Universal Resource Indicator) simply because the Web rapidly became populated with resources which could be obtained over the Web (obtained using HTTP)

but might or might not actually be *located* at that address (see for example the discussion of REST at Wikipedia)

Anything which can be asked for via HTTP is a part of the Web and these things need not be in HTML form

The Web is largely based on Open standards.

Open standards are standards driven by consensus and created by a consortium with some form of community/committee process. The term “Open” is usually restricted to royalty-free technologies while the term “standard” is sometimes restricted to technologies approved by formalized committees that are open to participation by all interested parties and operate on a consensus basis. Protocols like BIND are examples of Open standards

Thematic consistency

The Web as seen by W3C(world wide web consortium) is more than ‘browsing’ but rather it is based on the usage of Web technologies which are open and not controlled by anyone(hence are interoperable)

The W3C see the Web to be beyond a ‘web of documents’ and believes in the idea of the One Web which means going from a web of documents to a One web of Data and Services on Everything for Everyone … where Web technologies provide the means of accessing and interacting with content via and between all devices (computing, communications, PIM, entertainment, embedded, transportation, industrial, health care, etc.) … worldwide.

Many people struggle with the idea of One Web because they view One Web in context of browsing whereas it is to be viewed more like Powered by Web technologies – at which point it makes a lot of sense of course.

From a user perspective, the vision of One Web is to make access to the Web on mobile devices as – seamless, reliable, cost-effective and useful as desktop / laptop Web access unfragmented by devices, browsers, operators, content providers …

When we talk of One Web from a user interface perspective, again there is considerable debate since people assume that it means you must serve exactly the same page format for mobile as for desktop use.

Of course, that would be silly ..

What One Web really means is Thematic consistency – a topic explained by Jo Rabin in this very insightful blog One Web – Why does this stir up such emotion?

The key is Thematic consistency (as per Jo’s blog above)

A key point here is that One Web doesn’t say that you must serve exactly the same page format for mobile as for desktop use. That would not be sensible. What it does say is that when you serve content it should the thematically similar – i.e. that a page served from a particular URI should be about the same thing, even if the format or the exact expression is not the same on different devices.

In practise, this means following the Best practices guidelines and Device description technologies

A few caveats:

a) I am a fan of Open technologies and agree to the idea of One Web as described above. However, other ‘LITE’ open technologies can also complement Web standards

b) Specifically, I am a fan of microformats,

http://microformats.org/wiki/what-are-microformats

http://microformats.org/wiki/get-started

http://microformats.org/wiki/faq

c) And also of technologies like Wurfl from Luca Passani

d) Is there a space for proprietary technologies? In my view – yes. Technologies like Flash are clearly useful and they drive YouTube and much of the Web content. However, I see the role of proprietary technologies in consumption oriented situations rather than communication oriented scenarios.

e) Open source can also have a place in the standardization process – Open source vs. Open standards – cooperating vs. competing

Now some more additional caveats and practical comments – all from Luca Passani as per below

Should One Web be mandated by the W3C

So, what is One Web? it’s an elusive concept, so let’s start with W3C’s explanation:

http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/#THEMATIC_CONSISTENCY

——————————————–

“[THEMATIC_CONSISTENCY] Ensure that content provided by accessing a URI yields a thematically coherent experience when accessed from different devices.”

5.1.1.1 What it means

This is a realization of the One Web (see 3.1 One Web) principle, whereby content should be accessible on a range of devices irrespective of differences in presentation capabilities and access mechanism. Web sites may paginate their content in various ways corresponding to differences in device characteristics; therefore the navigation structure of the site, and possibly its technical realization, may vary according to the device class that is being served. (See also [WebArch] Section 3.5.1).

A bookmark captured on one device should be usable on another, different type of device even if it does not yield exactly the same experience. If the page that was bookmarked is not appropriate for the device that is now using it, an alternative that is suitable should be provided.

URIs may be decorated to provide session or other information. If a URI is decorated with session information that is no longer current, then the user should be directed to a point in the navigation hierarchy that is appropriate to their device, in order to establish appropriate session and other parameters.

——————————————–

Now, to me this definition is a pendulum, in the sense that it can be interpreted in very different ways. One extreme is that, because of the lack of “consistency metrics”, there are no practical implications for developers and content owners. Let’s say that my mobile site lets you download ringtones, and the web site, apart from having the same logo, tells you how many wonderful ringtones you can download if you access my mobile site. Do I fulfil the requirements for Thematic Consistency? some will say yes. Some will say no. Nobody can tell for sure. There is no metrics.

The other extreme is the case where you need to make exactly the same content available. And even make sure that the content is available from the same URL. In that case, very few real mobile sites would be thematically consistent with their web counterparts. What all practitioners in mobile development know is that only a fraction of the functions available on a web site make sense to a mobile users. Because of this, content owners should make sure that the mobile UI is not cluttered with links and buttons which introduce features users are unlikely to use anyway.

But there is more: the part of the W3C definitions which ventures into giving recommendations for bookmarks always annoyed me. It shows that the W3C crowd who created BP never really built real mobile apps. Even assuming I have a unique entry point for web and mobile (by telling web clients and mobile clients apart), the most natural implementation is to redirect to different URL groups (wap.*, m*, *.mobi, /mobile/ VS. www.*, typically) and handle each class of users in the best way. Once the user is on one of those URLs and they bookmark it, the bookmark will typically be either web or mobile. Of course, there often are technical ways to redirect web users to web also from a mobile URL, and the other way around. But this is typically a lot of extra work (both wrt development and system performance) with very little added value (automatically redirecting a user to a different resource which may not even be what the user wants!).

In short, no matter how you look at this, One Web does not make any practical sense at all. It is simply a distraction from other more serious development tasks.

Why do we talk about One Web then?

I have my own explanation. Back in 2004, W3C figured that money was in mobile. Until that day, mobile had been the son of a lesser god for W3C. Until that day, W3C used to make web standards, while the mobile web was the domain of the OMA/WAP Forum crowd, which would go out of their way to stay complaint with whatever W3C produced without much attention to mobile.

FFW to 2004, How could W3C put a foot in mobile? One Web was obviously the answer: just postulate that the “web is one” and off you go: W3C is entitled to create specs for mobile. How sad.

Paradoxically, W3C has been the main responsible for the separation of web on one side and mobile on the other. This has happened as a side effect of the introduction of XHTML 1.0.

XHTML was supposed to be the evolution of HTML. The problem is that the totality of web content today is HTML. Even those who believe they are doing XHTML, are still doing HTML, because web browsers would revert to quirk mode (the tag-soup parser) whenever the HTML MIME type or transitional DTD is found. To add to that, real XHTML (MIME Type + DTD) would mean the “save as…” dialog on MSIE and endless catastrophic errors on Opera, Firefox and WebKit. Nobody uses XHTML on the web. A total failure of W3C here.

With mobile though, things are different. One can theoretically use HTML for mobile content too. But few do that for a simple reason: you have even less control on the actual rendering of your pages than with XHTML MP.

Now, let’s take one step back. XHTML MP (an OMA standard) is XHTML basic (W3C standard) + a few tags and custom CSS properties.

XHTML Basic is an abridged version of XHTML 1.0 (W3C, standard, but not practice).

In order to create mobile content, XHTML MP is the most solid mark-up there is today (which does not mean it is solid enough, but still the most solid). The overwhelming majority of mobile sites today use XHTML MP. It’s the best bet for developers.

In short, One Web is not happening. Separation is mark-up deep and W3C, the main one-web promoter, is the main responsible for this.

So, is XHTML MP is the way to go (and that’s an OMA standard)?

believe it or not, this is a complicated question.

Short Answer: Yes, it is.

Long Answer: for the time being XHTML MP is certainly the best option if you aim at building one simple “mobile web” application accessible to as many users as possible (someone might argue that WML is better than XHTML-MP fopr that, but I think I can push back on that notion in 2008. It would have been different just 2 or 3 years back).

Will XHTML MP still be the best solution 3 years from now? hard to say. Probably yes, but there are a few things to consider:

- OMA and W3C have agreed to make XHTML Basic 1.1 the common “convergent” mark-up of the mobile web.

- XHTML MP will be supported for backward compatibility for a long time to come

- XHTML Basic 1.1 adds the script tag (needed for mobile Ajax)

- XHTML Basic 1.1 deprecates the style attribute (I tried to fight that, to no avail. Anyway, deprecation means that @style is still there).

In practice, this means that developers will need to multiserve their mobile apps in the future. Even more than they are doing today already. By multiserve, I mean to serve different applications to different classes of devices in order to better exploit device capabilities and better work around device deficiencies.

So, thematic consistency is the only way to go from a customer standpoint

It is obvious that, for many sites, it makes sense to provide (in whole or in part) the same web functions to mobile users.

I would argue that this cannot be mandated, while this is exactly what W3C has been trying to do (purely for political reasons, IMO).

A company may have a web only presence, a mobile only presence, both with great overlap of functions, both with little or no overlap of functions. These are all legitimate configurations and decisions about these should be up to each company, based on their respective business model or whatever goal they happen to have.

Also (from Ajit)

Of course the issue of One Web, Open source and Open systems stretches beyond the technology. It is also a business model issue(free vs. ARPU), Uniqueness of Mobile issue(what can mobile do uniquely which the Web cannot) , at what level of the stack can the functionality be implemented The search for the IMS/NGN application: A multimedia version of Kindle (Amazon book reader) the usage of web services on mobile devices – driven by the Web or by Mobile? (Am I the only one who uses gmail on my blackberry and what does it say about Mobile applications ), Closed vs. open, Application distribution(appstores), Enablers(ex payment), Access to device APIs from the Mobile Web, Access to network APIs from the mobile Web(GSMA third party network access initiative ) and finally the meaning of the ‘network’ itself i.e. extending the cellular network to WiFi, Wimax, Bluetooth etc. Add to this issues of Context, Security and Identity and we have a complex ecosystem

Filed Under: OPEN SYSTEMS

metatxt getting traction ..

December 14, 2008 By

I first heard about metatxt from Bena Roberts. It is getting considerable traction with mobile advertising providers as per metatxt’s announcement at Macau last month.

I have added it to my Mobile Web Megatrends watch

19th November 2008, Macau: Today ten of the most innovative mobile companies are partnering to drive the metaTXT standard. metaTXT is the world’s first mobile search engine optimisation (SEO) standard. metaTXT will enable search engines to index mobile sites at ease regardless of their technology domains whether they are m.name.com, wap.name.com, name.com/mobile or a .mobi.

The metaTXT standard is a pioneering enhancement for mobile search by allowing all mobile sites to be discovered regardless of URL, giving brands better and more consistent mobile internet awareness. The group has a strong Asian presence, working with Asian search engine www.MCN-inc.com to leverage its mobile capabilities to its 15 million users.

Leading mobile advertising providers and search engines including Abphone, Bango, JumpTap, Taptu, MCN, Medio Systems, Mobilytics, Nubiq, RingRing Media and founder visibility mobile are working group partners.

Already one thousand mobile sites are using metaTXT when the standard is deployed by the working group – reach will be near 200 million.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

WiTricity

December 14, 2008 By

I was reading about WiTricity

Thats fascinating ..

I like esp the bbc article link which says

“There is nothing in this that would have prevented them inventing this 10 or even 20 years ago,” commented Professor Sir John Pendry of Imperial College London who has seen the experiments.

“But I think there is an issue of time. In the last few years we have seen an exponential growth of mobile devices that need power. The power cable is the last wire to be cut in a wireless connection.”

WiTricity, a portmanteau for wireless electricity, is a term coined initially by Dave Gerding in 2005 and used by an MIT research team led by Prof. Marin Soljačić in 2007,[1][2] to describe the ability to provide electrical energy to remote objects without wires. WiTricity is based on strong coupling between electromagnetic resonant objects to transfer energy wirelessly between them. The system consists of WiTricity transmitters and receivers that contain magnetic loop antennas critically tuned to the same frequency. As WiTricity operates in the electromagnetic near-field, the receiving devices must be no more than about a quarter wavelength from the transmitter (which is a few meters at the frequency used by the example system). In their first paper, the group also simulated GHz dielectric resonators.

more

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6725955.stm

and

http://plooms.com/?p=50

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Participating in the State of the Net conference in Washington DC …

December 14, 2008 By

state of the net.JPG

I am pleased to be invited to participate in the State of the Net conference in Washington DC on Jan 14

I had the pleasure of meeting Tim Lordon -Director of the Internet Education foundation – who are organisers of the State of the net conferences. Tim met me when I spoke at the EIF event in the European parliament in Brussels and it was nice to be invited to attend an equivalent conference in Washington DC.

This conference takes a significant meaning in light of the inauguration of President Barack Obama on Jan 20 especially since Barack Obama has said that the Internet is key to economic recovery

My personal belief is – (as I spoke at the European parliament event) – the recession provides greater opportunity for government and policy makers to create key enablers to kick start the economy – A ‘new new deal’ – so to speak.

Specifically, the initiatives I have been following in this context: are: Cloud computing, The Internet of Things, Mobile/sensor based interaction and the EU vision of Web 3.0 . This vision is not very far fetched considering the proliferation of non phone wireless devices(like Amazon Kindle), Cloud computing, RFID, LTE, Wimax, next generation SIM cards, Broadband and other technologies – coupled with a recession and active involvement from bodies like the EU, we can makes a difference ..

I am very much looking forward to sharing ideas and learning from the State of the net conference. I will also be blogging details of this conference and incorporating some of these ideas in the forthcoming book Beyond Mobile web 2.0 – Web 3.0 and the Internet of things. We may also see an Internet of things strategy with Android in future – so the vision is not as far fetched as we may think

About the state of the net conference:

The State of the Net Conference is the largest information technology

policy conference in the US, attracting over 550 attendees in 2008.

This year the conference frame the policy debates that will challenge

the new Administration and the new Congress. This year with a new

administration, the dialogue and discussion surrounding the tech

policy issues the new administration will be at front and center.

State of the Net is the only tech policy conference routinely

recognized for its balanced blend of academics, consumer groups,

industry and government (over 50% of 2008 attendees were government

policy staff).

Filed Under: EVENTS

There is only One Web i.e. Only one thematically consistent Web powered by Web Technologies ..

December 13, 2008 By

What is the Web and What is the Mobile Web?

Is there one Web or a separate Mobile Web?

While these sound like silly questions – they are not.

Many people view the Web as ‘Online’ – however, with Offline browsing, technologies like Gears etc, that is not the case i.e. the Web can be offline

So, Is the Web primarily about the browser?

The browser itself has evolved and with technologies like browser plugins and widgets – the browser becomes a different software object than the one it started off as.

Things get MUCH more interesting if we go to the Mobile Web.

.

What is the ‘Mobile Web’?

Again, we have some technological grey areas.

Widgets can be based on web technologies but are not necessarily invoked from a browser. Similarly, we are likely to have offline browsing (for example Gears on mobile being mainstream)

Hence, to come back to the basic question:

How do we define the Web and the Mobile Web?

And

Is there a separate Mobile Web or is there only One Web?

Firstly, the definition of the Web

The Web as seen by W3C(world wide web consortium) is more than ‘browsing’ but rather it is based on the usage of Web technologies which are open and not controlled by anyone(hence are interoperable)

The W3C see the Web to be beyond a ‘web of documents’ and believes in the idea of the One Web which means going from a web of documents to a One web of Data and Services on Everything for Everyone … where Web technologies provide the means of accessing and interacting with content via and between all devices (computing, communications, PIM, entertainment, embedded, transportation, industrial, health care, etc.) … worldwide.

Many people struggle with the idea of One Web because they view One Web in context of browsing whereas it is to be viewed more like Powered by Web technologies – at which point it makes a lot of sense of course.

From a user perspective, the vision of One Web is to make access to the Web on mobile devices as – seamless, reliable, cost-effective and useful as desktop / laptop Web access unfragmented by devices, browsers, operators, content providers …

When we talk of One Web from a user interface perspective, again there is considerable debate since people assume that it means you must serve exactly the same page format for mobile as for desktop use.

Of course, that would be silly ..

What One Web really means is Thematic consistency – a topic explained by Jo Rabin in this very insightful blog One Web – Why does this stir up such emotion?

The key is Thematic consistency (as per Jo’s blog above)

A key point here is that One Web doesn’t say that you must serve exactly the same page format for mobile as for desktop use. That would not be sensible. What it does say is that when you serve content it should the thematically similar – i.e. that a page served from a particular URI should be about the same thing, even if the format or the exact expression is not the same on different devices.

In practise, this means following the Best practices guidelines and Device description technologies

A few caveats:

a) I am a fan of Open technologies and agree to the idea of One Web as described above. However, other ‘LITE’ open technologies can also complement Web standards

b) Specifically, I am a fan of microformats,

http://microformats.org/wiki/what-are-microformats

http://microformats.org/wiki/get-started

http://microformats.org/wiki/faq

c) And also of technologies like Wurfl from Luca Passani

d) Is there a space for proprietary technologies? In my view – yes. Technologies like Flash are clearly useful and they drive YouTube and much of the Web content. However, I see the role of proprietary technologies in consumption oriented situations rather than communication oriented scenarios.

e) Open source can also have a place in the standardization process – Open source vs. Open standards – cooperating vs. competing

Of course the issue of One Web, Open source and Open systems stretches beyond the technology. It is also a business model issue(free vs. ARPU), Uniqueness of Mobile issue(what can mobile do uniquely which the Web cannot) , at what level of the stack can the functionality be implemented The search for the IMS/NGN application: A multimedia version of Kindle (Amazon book reader) the usage of web services on mobile devices – driven by the Web or by Mobile? (Am I the only one who uses gmail on my blackberry and what does it say about Mobile applications ), Closed vs. open, Application distribution(appstores), Enablers(ex payment), Access to device APIs from the Mobile Web, Access to network APIs from the mobile Web(GSMA third party network access initiative ) and finally the meaning of the ‘network’ itself i.e. extending the cellular network to WiFi, Wimax, Bluetooth etc. Add to this issues of Context, Security and Identity and we have a complex ecosystem

But nevertheless, there is still only One Web and by that I mean – Only one thematically consistent Web powered by Web Technologies

Filed Under: Uncategorized

MIT students build mobile applications in 13 weeks

December 13, 2008 By

Considering my last post, Lessons from Trutap: Part two – Do we need a Zopa like funding model for the Mobile data industry? Here is an interesting reason why the future is bright .. This is the way to go and why there will be loads of money and great mobile entrepreneurs in the near future MIT students build mobile applications in 13 weeks

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Bounce trap iPhone game from Playscreen ..

December 12, 2008 By

bouncetap.JPG

Playscreen launches a new iPhone game called Bounce trap.

As per the review on appcraver

Bounce Trap’s objective is to fill and remove all the round holes on the screen without running out of balls.

The balls are released from the top of the screen and are dropped through a tap. Once a ball hits a hole it is filled and if another ball of the same color hits it, the hole will disappear. If balls of different colors hit the filled hole three times it will also vanish.

Furthermore, the player can make holes disappear by filling three holes in a row with the same color. Fifty balls are released in each of Bounce Trap’s 35 levels and any unused balls rollover to the next level. Obstacles in between the balls will function as bouncers (much like in a pinball game) and can trigger special effects.

Video below. They have a free and a paid version

By the way, I am not into iPhone games but I know William Volk(creator of playscreen) for years and he is one of the best known guys in the mobile games industry and now his company seems to be doing some very interesting work on the iPhone ..

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Lessons from Trutap: Part two – Do we need a Zopa like funding model for the Mobile data industry?

December 12, 2008 By

Much has been said of my post about Trutap (Why Trutap was decimated and what can we learn from it ..) . The reaction reminds me somewhat of the song Hotel California – in the sense that people see what they want to see in the lyrics of that song – (You can check out any time you like – but you can never leave! – can apply to a relationship, a long winded project, materialism or other things which stretch on with no end in sight ..).

So too, with this post.

The Java programmers latch on to Java, Trutap talks of market conditions etc etc.

However, it is nice to see that many people agree with at least some aspects of the post. Thanks for all feedback. Thanks also to many private emails on this post expressing support/viewpoints

The main objective of the post was to talk of VC funding – especially in relation to social mobile applications

If we took a step back – maybe we could take a different approach which does more for fostering grassroots entrepreneurship in our sector.

Perhaps the recession will lead us to question many of the existing financial models – and VC funding could be one of them ..

As you can guess by now, I don’t equate VC funding to entrepreneurship. In the sense that – many good entrepreneurs are never funded and conversely, many who the VCs fund, are funded for the wrong reasons.

Let us not forget that the sacrosanct market models we take for granted today are only about 10 years old.

Indeed VC funding existed well before that – but the model was different

In the Pre-Web era – ideally, you developed a product for a client. At that point, the product was working, it had a customer who paid for it. The VC investment went towards productising a bespoke system which already had a real customer(making money)

This is good.

However, the dot com changed all that

You did not need a customer. All you needed was a proverbial land grab of many people. For this you needed lots of (VC) money.

The people(we cannot call them ‘customers’ since they don’t pay), got something for free. In spite of drawbacks, this model DID produce some companies who gained large audiences – a portion of which they subsequently monetised.

Now we come to mobile

The problem arises in applying the ‘Web VC’ model( for the lack of a better word) with its limitations, to mobile.

The Web at least is homogenous, globally standardised and open.

Which means that potentially you have a chance to succeed with that land grab depending on when you entered that sector on the Web and how much money you(more to the point – your investors ..) had. In other words, potentially VC money could translate into an audience which in turn could perhaps translate into cash at some time in the future.

But that does not happen with mobile due to the nature of the industry structure itself. More so, when your business has a community/social component which needs viral growth to make it viable in the first place.

In other words, there are very few areas where we see network effects/viral effects in the mobile industry , which the ‘Web’ land grab so critically relied on. And although I used the example of the Mobile Web – and I have always been ‘pro’ the Web, we all know that even with the mobile web, there are some severe limitations to getting global traction and network effects.

The mistaken belief is: throwing money into an ecosystem like mobile WILL get viral effects.

This is not to say that a mobile business model does not exist since it is possible to make money even on niche audiences – but it is not a model which is attractive to the existing investment mindset

So, is there hope?

I think – yes.

Which means I am optimistic about the industry as a whole and here’s why.

In general, the costs of product development have decreased(open source software, better hosting deals, outsourcing /offshoring etc) have reduced the cost of product development.

On the other hand, various appstores(most notably Apple and Android) have meant that application discovery and monetization are possible

So, consider two entrepreneurs – lets call them John Galt :) and Sally Chen.

John and Sally have great ideas. However, they have MORE than one ideas(they are not ‘focussed’ a cardinal sin from a VC perspective!).

Their mental map is more like a compass then a set of directions to a destination.

Their pitch is as follows:

We have 5 ideas

We want to work on ALL five simultaneously

Because we have no f-ing clue WHICH one will work

We think two will be so-so, two will bomb(but we will stop them when we know that as soon as possible) and ONE will be a spectacular hit.

But we don’t know which is which …

One may ask, why does John and Sally need funding in the first place?

Because they may need to be ‘focussed’ on five ideas initially FULL TIME

With managing niche audiences, appstores, lower product development costs etc etc – one would expect that if John and Sally are good, they will start making money quickly. They will live frugally and thereby will be asking for a smaller amount of money.

All this will mitigate the risk and at the same time add real value

Qs is: How can this be funded?

I think maybe we need a peer to peer industry financing model like Zopa? Any other suggestions welcome!

In any case, this will fund real grassroots entrepreneurs.

It also means that the VC model will work with companies based on real systems (which need VC funding for productization of a system that has a proven aka paid customer) – but for social mobile applications we probably need a different approach.

None of what I have said in either of the posts is particularly new or radical and I do believe that the future is bright .. and here is why ..

This is the way to go and why there will be loads of money and great mobile entrepreneurs in the near future MIT students build mobile applications in 13 weeks

Filed Under: INNOVATION

How to make money from niche audiences in Mobile data ..

December 12, 2008 By

In a previous post, I said that we may need a niche strategy for the mobile data industry and we need to find a way in making money from relatively smaller audiences.

First, let us see the problems of small audiences.

Consider an MMS campign

Assume a total audience of 100,000 people

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 ie a low value product ) is 12 GBP

Hence, sales = 6,000 GBP

Against campaign costs of 20,000 GBP

That can never work – Unless you have larger audience size OR you have a high value product

Now, let us replace ‘shoes’ by BMW tires but still keep the audience size small

BMW sent an offer via MMS to those BMW customers who bought a new BMW in the summer months (when no winter tyres are needed). Then when the first snow fell in Germany, they had a campaign ready to run. The campaign used a customized view of the car model and make that the BMW owner had bought, in the right colour, and onto it, they had fitted (virtually) the recommended winter tyre. Then the BMW owner was invited to hit a link on the phone, to visit the BMW site to see what alternate tyres were available. The results were that 30% of those who got the MMS, actually bought winter tyres (and often also new rims) at BMW dealers.

The value proposition works out as follows:

Cost of winter tyres c. $700

Cost of tyres & rims c. $2500

Approximate average sale $1300

Total sales of BMW in summer 2008: 297k

Those sold to hire/fleet: 180k

Total potential customers: 117k

30% response rate = 35,000 customersHence, 35,000 customers spending $1300 each = $45,500,000

Given that the cost of the campaign was approximately $60,000 – at German MMS rates, for each MMS sent, the average return on investment was 758 dollars.

The second example works with an audience of a similar size because the value of the product being sold is higher

Source for BMW ad campaign : Tomi Ahonen – Communities dominate brands, mobiadnews and Romi Parmar

Filed Under: INNOVATION

LG Develops World’s First LTE Handset Modem Chip

December 12, 2008 By

This development has been making some traction and I am sure will be a discussion point at MWC this year.

The full press release is as per HERE

My analysis, the two statements which are significant are as below. The wireless computer market is already proven and expected to grow. So, this will be a significant development to watch

1) LTE technology would also allow consumers to simultaneously stream four HD movies without any buffering.

2) In addition to this handset modem, LG is also developing the first preliminary LTE-based data card, which can replace the wireless cards currently used in computers.

Seoul, Korea, December 9, 2008 — LG Electronics (LG), a worldwide technology and design leader in mobile communications, announced today that it has independently developed the first handset (user equipment) modem chip based on 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE)technology standards. The modem chip can theoretically support wireless download speeds of 100Mbps (megabits per second) and upload speeds of 50Mbps. This represents a significant step toward creating a market-ready 4G phone.

The Modem Chip is the most crucial component required to create a viable 4G handset with LTE technology, the leading candidate to become the fourth generation mobile phone technology standard.

LG demonstrated the chip today at its Mobile Communication Technology Research Lab in Anyang, Korea, achieving wireless download speeds of 60 Mbps and upload speeds of 20 Mbps. The fastest phones currently on the market use HSDPA technology and download at a maximum speed of 7.6 Mbps.

Higher download speeds are becoming more and more important as people are increasingly using their mobile phones to watch movies, listen to music and browse the internet. With LTE technology, users can download a 700 MB movie file in less than one minute at speeds of 100 Mbps. LTE technology would also allow consumers to simultaneously stream four HD movies without any buffering.

For the past three years, LG have been pursuing 3GPP LTE standardization, working to develop and test commercially viable LTE technology with approximately 250 of R&D staffs. The result is a 13 by 13 mm modem chip, perfectly sized for the next generation of slim-yet-powerful handsets. For its demonstration today, LG used a test terminal running Windows Mobile to play back high quality, on-demand video. In addition to this handset modem, LG is also developing the first preliminary LTE-based data card, which can replace the wireless cards currently used in computers.

“Now that LG has developed and tested the first 4G handset modem, a commercially viable LTE handset is on the horizon,” said Dr. Woo Hyun Paik, CTO of LG Electronics. “This latest breakthrough gives us a strong technology advantage that we will use to bolster our industry leadership.”

Most of the major mobile operators are pursuing LTE-based 4G technology. Because it is based on the existing WCDMA technology evolutionary path, 85 percent of WCDMA service-provided carriers will be able to upgrade their networks to LTE with far less cost than building a new network based on a different technology.

According to market research company Strategy Analytics, the global LTE handset market will double from 70 million sales units in 2012 to 150 million sales units by 2013.

Dr. Paik added, “Our successful development of this LTE handset modem signals the start of the 4G mobile communications market. LG will continue to advance this technology and develop further technologies to maintain global leadership.”

Mobile phone carriers have now built LTE test networks and are currently working on early stage handsets. The first LTE mobile phones will likely reach the market in 2010.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
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