Carnival of the mobilists 178 at Volker Hirsch’s blog. Pity there are so few entries.

http://www.avrenevents.com/FemtocellsEurope2009/Applications%20Showcase.htm

I am attendin the femtocell applications live event (thanks to Andy Tiller – femtoforum board member) and also Oliver Chapman.

femtocells are an important part of LTE and this event will shocase demos and services for femtocells. The event is invite only but you can ask for an invite through this link femtocell applications live event

some more details below

FEMTOCELL APPLICATIONS Live will bring together the latest examples of femtocell services* from vendors and operators, giving insight into how these services will enhance the ‘digital home’ and enrich the experience of consumers in the future .

Since the early days, the femtocell industry has been discussing the potential for exciting new revenue generating services based around the femtocell. In this context, operators have consistently emphasised how important such services will be to the commercial success of femtocells.

Opera Unite .. first impressions very interesting

Follow me on Twitter @AjitJaokar

I have been thinking of the idea of a twitter phone for some time. The concept of a twitter phone is not new of course .. And INQ1 has already committed to one ..

However, my ideas lean towards how to make a true OpenGardens phone through Twitter and the #cnnfail over the weekend gave me some more ideas

Here, I am talking of taking the idea of a twitter phone to its logical extreme and approaching the idea from first principles. Specifically, Twitter is a co-creation platform and hence a twitter phone must also be a co-creation platform at its core

This means, it needs to be more than the ‘twitter app’ on the phone(and every phone will have one)

It means more than having twitter on the front screen (which Operators will fight)

And It means more than worrying about cannibalising SMS revenue(which will be cannibalised for sure)

Twitter is a combination of many things i.e. Instant messaging, Microblogging, content streaming(RSS like), Real time alert, Real time search, Citizens media, Communication medium and it is open and it’s global. It is not for geeks since twittersphere says that 5 to 10 thousand people join it every day(and there are not that many geeks – that’s mainstream ). Successful companies like Zappos have been built on it and Time magazine put it on its front page this week and techcrunch counts twitter as one of it’s top sources of traffic

So, I am not going to make an attempt to convince the still sceptical segment(especially in the mobile industry) – instead I will focus on how such a phone could be built on first principles

1) Functionally, a twitter phone would make the basics of twitter very simple. This means enabling the basic elements like tweets, replies, follow and so on

2) A twitter phone would also be minimalist – as is twitter itself i.e. it would add very little to twitter

Now, here are features that make it really different

a) I would like to see it as a pure social media, co-creation phone. So, #cnnfail would be more important than CNN itself! since #cnnfail is co-created content. But on a serious note – we want the ability to dynamically choose our own channels(twitter hashtags) and these may not be the CNNs of the world. This would be the ultimate OpenGardens phone! Complete choice to the user

b) A retweet button since retweets are the new social currency of the web

c) A visual interface based on mashups between twitter feeds and maps overlaying twitter feeds on a variety of maps. This has been done already in many ways the UK snow tweet , twitter vision and the UK holidays map as shown above

So, there you go.Thats it. Completely technology agnostic and Open. The key is to make it a pure co-creation phone .. connecting people worldwide

That would be truly open gardens and disruptive

Thoughts?

Some additional thoughts

Here is an update on the twitterphone concept:

1) The history of single service consumption applications has not been great. Ex – espn phone(mvno). Note that here we are speaking of a communication led phone and specifically twitter already offers an existing community. The device manufacturer will not ‘own’ this

community. They will rather leverage – participate in the already vibrant community

B). The twitterphone may be low priced with a data only connection.

C) Shock – horror! It may not even have SMS!

D) Maps – this is an important feature. The visual interface could incorporate an overlay of twitter hashtags on maps. There can be many different types of ‘maps’ – ex a map of the London underground could be one. So the interface would merge(as chosen by the user) a map with

a hashtag from a set of maps and a set of hashtags

Follow me on Twitter @AjitJaokar and also will post under #twitterphone

Image source: http://www.ukholsmap.com/

Could Operators offer QOS (Quality of service) as a service?

Here is the rationale ..

a) As I said in a previous blog, an all IP world, voice interconnect is not very clear

As networks become all IP world through LTE , we realise that the handling of phone calls over IP in the mobile domain is non trivial. Normally, call handling is session based. With IP, that’s not easily achieved(or at least needs more management in the mobile domain). Martin Sauter explains this issue in detail in his blog

There is a (non) standardised solution called VOLGA (Voice over LTE via Generic Access). The current solution is cs-fallback (clunky) (i.e. going to circuit switched for voice and using a packet switched network for data) and the distant solution IMS IMS for all operators – is still a while away

Hence, there is no clear way to do IP interconnect for voice

b) (Mobile) Voice needs QOS (for that matter – any session based service needs QOS)

c) Telecoms interconnect is hard to achieve – web interconnect has already happened and is easier. Skype, Google talk and any more voip services will also interconnect globally and are increasingly being integrated into the device since customers want them

At the moment, Web based VOIP services like Skype are seen as a threat and operators still discriminate against them, (Only users who pay T-Mobile an additional £15 per month for the web ‘n’ walk Max product can legitimately use VoIP).

But, Could this be an Opportunity?

There is a possibility as outlined by Martin Sauter’s article Operator QOS for Skype and co

So, QOS could be a service offered by an Operator i.e. with the Network (bearer) as a platform.

That’s a powerful idea! i.e. Skype(or anyone else) would be able to do deals with network

providers and ensure QOS for voice?

Thoughts?

There are some amazing conversations going on at Twitter and would be great if you can follow me on Twitter. I see a whole different conversation/feedback on my blogs at Twitter and its nice to see. Follow me on Twitter at @AjitJaokar

CNET covers CNN’s lapse as twitter shames CNN into covering the real beaking story ..

This is a fascinating live exercise .. Its a lesson on how old media will be held accountable for .. and twitter is now the new ‘citizen’s journalism’

#cnnfail

CNET coverage HERE

My favourite was @eadvocate who said

eadvocateTo @cnn Thank you 4 following the Twitterverse for breaking news. Submit user-generated reports at iReport for us to review. #Cnnfail

ha ha!

Note that iReport says:

TAKE NOTE:iReport.com is a user-generated site. That means the stories submitted by users are not edited, fact-checked or screened before they post. Only stories marked “On CNN” have been vetted for use in CNN news coverage.

Do we care??

There is something interesting going on at the moment .. While CNN is missing the whole Iran story – twitter is a part of the story itself ..

One more reason to wonder about the future of old media ..

I spent two days at the Open Mobile Summit last week where I chaired two sessions. This was an excellent conference – and a great success inspite of the train strike.

There is a paradoxical undercurrent that spanned the conference: A large portion of the conference was spent talking about a closed platform(Apple) and to a lesser degree also Microsoft

Everyone seemed to be saying If ‘Open is good’ – but then how come we all go to ‘Closed’(iPhone?). This curious paradox underpinned the conference – and the answer to me lies in the distinction between a platform and an ecosystem.

I believe that: A ‘closed platform’ works provided you have an ‘Open ecosystem’ BUT an Open platform (open source and / or open standards) without an ecosystem(open or closed) does not work.

To put this in perspective:

a) In this context, ‘Open’ was largely referred to in terms of ‘Open source’ and ‘Open standards’ for example: Android is Open source; Opera follows open standards; Symbian is now open sourced etc etc etc

b) ‘Ecosystem’ is defined in terms of third party developers as in ‘The iPhone has a vibrant ecosystem since third party developers flock to it’

c) By ‘Ecosystem’, We are referring to a business model i.e. the litmus test is: Can third party developers make money?

It seems that finally, everyone within the Telecoms industry agrees that third party developers are essential to a vibrant ecosystem (something that Google, Microsoft and Apple have known for a long time). In a recession, I think a vibrant, open ecosystem which benefits third parties is a good development and should be encouraged

Here are some observations and contradictions in relation to Open:

a) Vodafone talked about their appstore – but not if revenue share is 70/30(They did say it will be broadly consistent with the industry)

b) Brands prefer closed platform(iPhone) but like the relatively open ecosystem(from Daniel Rosen Managing Director of AKQA

c) The Mozilla Fennec mobile browser was deployed on the Windows mobile platform as were some of the initial HTML5 features

d) Google Chrome is not a W3C standard – but architecturally one of the most innovative browsers

e) All agreed that HTML5 is great and is ‘getting there’ – but I believe that an exception is not a standard. At the moment, HTML5 is a loose conformance and an agreement but yet cannot be called a standard

To conclude my view is:

If we define Open in terms of a vibrant commercially viable ecosystem for third party developers(and that definition makes sense since it is pragmatic in a recession), then I believe that: A ‘closed platform’ works provided you have an ‘Open ecosystem’ BUT an Open platform (open source and / or open standards) without an ecosystem(open or closed) does not work.

A viable third party developer ecosystem may be far more important than other forms of ‘Open’ – specifically Open source or Open standards especially in a recession

Thoughts?