I intentionally try to get a wide range of views. As of today, it is 136 feeds. (these span both my mobile and policy work).

I used to go for a few favourites – but for some time now have followed a ‘wide range of feeds’ strategy

thoughts?

Any other numbers?

This is really cool .. The typealyzer analysis of my blog OpenGardens says the below

Hmm … flattering .. and very much in line with the ethos I see for the blog .. I have used the word Gedankenexperiment many many times in this blog and question status quo.. So, interesting analysis

INTJ – The Scientists

The long-range thinking and individualistic type. They are especially good at looking at almost anything and figuring out a way of improving it – often with a highly creative and imaginative touch. They are intellectually curious and daring, but might be physically hesitant to try new things.

The Scientists enjoy theoretical work that allows them to use their strong minds and bold creativity. Since they tend to be so abstract and theoretical in their communication they often have a problem communicating their visions to other people and need to learn patience and use concrete examples. Since they are extremely good at concentrating they often have no trouble working alone.

I have been having an interesting discussion at forumoxford where I said (in context of Twitter) -

The telecom industry never sees a platform until it eats their lunch ..

Let me explain .. and this thinking forms a key part of my strategy/consulting to industry and government

The Telecoms industry never sees a platform until it eats their lunch…

There is an excellent book called ‘What would Google do’

Paul Golding blogged about it and I recommend that we all read it.

Or wait for a new book from me called Open Mobile

Telcoms sees everything in terms of ‘directly making money’

Google (and the web) sees the same thing as a platform

A platform merely enables

It creates (unpredictable) services which have a business model

The platform itself has a transactional business model

Increasingly as services get decoupled from the network, they become abstracted to higher levels of the stack

They become global

They enable services which are also global and are often not as ‘perfect’ as the equivalent ‘telecoms’ system

The telecoms system is costly. It takes a long time to interconnect globally

the equivalent ‘web’ system is free and global. It is not perfect(it is best case)

But once the ‘platform’ emerges – then the provider creates a transactional model on top of it

Think of Cell id databases(decouple location)

Think of appstores(decouple billing)

Think of skype(decouple voice)

Think of Twitter(decouple messaging BUT a lot more as many people have said)

On the telecoms side, the company who understands this best is Nokia

On the Web side, it is Google

Now think of Twitter as a platform

The whole point of a platform is – it does not know what it’s business model is and the edge of the network thinking(which drives the Web) creates new(as yet unknown services) which provide the business model

Which makes me say that the Telecoms industry(sadly) does not see a platform until it is too late.

That’s the same logic which underpins the other thread I posted today

The phone becomes a magic wand to the cloud services: Mobile sensor based interface to the cloud to jump start the Internet of things .. i.e. network layer interconnect is not easy for Internet of things – service layer connectivity is. Although it is imperfect, it will be global.

It’s the same story played out again and again in different scenarios ..

Comments welcome

I have been experimenting with this idea for my keynote at the LUCID project

a) For the Internet of things to take off, we are trying to get network layer connectivity

b) In practice it means RFID, NFC, EPC etc should all talk to each other for Internet of things to be really ubiquitous

c) This does not currently happen and history has shown that network layer connectivity is hard

d) Tim O Reilly had an article about Sensor mobile based interface to the cloud – which I find very interesting

d) Specifically, to extrapolate Tim’s ideas further, it is possible to achieve ‘best case’ i.e. good enough interconnectivity between the various ‘Intelligent objects’ at the Cloud level .. (And not at the network level)

e) In practice, this could mean as a starting point ..

1) Using voice to do Google web search

2) Using accelerometer to trigger applications

3) Recognize the motion of the car and switch to voice dialing

And much much more!!

I used the analogy of a magic want based on a childhood favourite cartoon character Wendy the good little witch to illustrate the idea that interconnect for Internet of things could be achieved via the Cloud by using sensor based mobile devices – kind of like waving the phone as a magic wand to trigger sensors via the cloud which will trigger new services ..

Thoughts?

And THIS is what I meant when I said that a nexus between the media companies trying to influence the communication companies is the worst threat.

The Net Neutrality argument – ‘unsexed up’: Untangling the various threads of the Net neutrality argument

Fortunately Google will not yeild to such stupidity .. As Steve says .. A neutral Google is a good Google – exactly!! The death of traditional media as it stands is a good thing ..

Media companies ask Google to favour their own sites over blogs

I am in Birmingham this thursday giving a keynote at the Lucid project about the Internet of things, mobility and context aware new services. If you are there, we can meet

A brave woman .. and has done a lot to raise awareness of Cancer. A sad loss.

I am happy to announce that on April 20 and 21st, I and Martin Sauter will be conducting a 2 day course on LTE Services at the University of Oxford

Here’s the agenda:

* New services based on enhanced capacity of the network

* IP based business models

* Rich voice applications

* New role of devices to handle rich content and social networks

* Social networks based on rich content like video

* Services unique to LTE and the core network

* Greater role for user generated content and for rich media

* Unified communications and beyond 3G networks

* Fixed mobile integration – leveraging enhanced networks and learning from past mistakes

* Integrated networks and connecting back to home networks

* Network elements: Femtocells vs Wi-Fi in the home gateway and services based on these elements

* Wireless sensor networks at home and their role and opportunity in an overall beyond 3G network

It will be a pleasure to work with Martin – and I have followed his work and blog with great interest over the years. We’ve also put together a questionnaire on LTE services to get more feedback. If you have a minute and are interested, we’d be happy to get your feedback. We’ll share the result with those who leave their e-mail address and of course with all course participants. Needless to say that all responses are treated confidentially.

So, please sign up at the Oxford University web site and we look forward to seeing you there.

Andreas has a fascinating article entitled Why the LiMo Foundation needs to go back to the drawing board

It’s a great article and he concludes with the comments

I would argue that if LiMo wants to be making an impact on tomorrow’s handsets, it needs to refocus its ‘standardisation’ efforts on the browser and service delivery layer; for example, accelerating the development of WebKit-based browsers and browser-based applications (much like WebOS has showed is possible). WebKit is one of the frontiers of the mobile value line (therefore a non-differentiating feature) and can become a common substrate for the delivery of next-gen operator services, with the help of LiMo and its operator backing.

Moreover, by focusing on the service delivery and application development layers, LiMo would effectively reduce the cost and time-to-market for full application suites (what Qtopia struggled with and what Android has addressed so elegantly).

I was a huge fan of LiMo on launch, and I hope I’ll continue to be. But, for its own sake, LiMo needs to go back to the drawing board.

My thoughts

I agree with the insights and the conclusions of the article something I also pointed out a while ago in a different context iphone vs. Symbian vs. Android vs. Limo vs. Ovi : We cannot compare an ecosystem with an operating system i.e. Limo is only an operating system – and an ecosystem will win over an Operating system.

More interesting from Andreas’s blog is the solution i.e. can Limo succeed in deeply integrating into the higher levels of the stack even if they are open source? (like webkit).

This is not quite easy as it sounds since they have different governance models ( Open is the new closed? – Bringing transparency to Open source by separating Open source licensing models and Open source governance models .. ) and the browser will (rightly) see Limo as a commodity

The question for me is: Can Limo do this? i.e. rise above the OS level and integrate into the service level through the browser.

The advice is accurate .. and there are many more who will be in the same battle (ex OMTP) i.e. either you have to see it as a completely ‘non profit’ venture or you have to somehow be a part of the service layer – and as Andreas points out – it will be tough …

Read the article at Why the LiMo Foundation needs to go back to the drawing board

For many of us who have blogged for years now, blogging is a bit of an art form – and the recognition amongst your peers is an honour which we aspire to.

The carnival of the mobilists is one such peer recognition forum which I so love and respect – purely because of the excellent quality of people who are such regular

contributors.

So you know you interact with the best in the world.

Hence, I am especially pleased that my post The Net Neutrality argument – ‘unsexed up’: Untangling the various threads of the Net neutrality argument got the post of the week hosted at Carnival of the Mobilists No 165 at Visionmobile this week

Even by my metanarrative style of blogging – this was a very long and complex post. It was also one of the most difficult posts to write since it meant providing a balanced/neutral standpoint to a complex and emotionally charged issue

So, I am glad to see the kudos it got.

The carnival has other interesting posts especially from Chetan Sharma, Martin Sauter and Andrew Grill. Like Vanessa I particularly enjoyed Chetan’s post.

The link again is Carnival of the Mobilists No 165 at Visionmobile