Coolest handset in a while- Japan still leads the way.
Check out the new cool handset from KDDI in Japan the
Penck . The people in
Espoo should be worried, very worried. Designed by famous Japanese designer Makoto Saito. Has very much an iPod kinda feel too although word on the street in Japan is that it it doesn't feel physically very solid or robust. Has stero speakers with several differnt wide surround sound settings. Compare this to the
unbelievably poor sound on my Nokia 7610 with its 2 €cent speaker (lit.)!
WAP is Dead Long live WAP!
Good article from Justin Pearse
in the
Feature the other day.The title and subtitle says it all:
Welcome to the Year 2000 : It's been a long road, but WAP is finally living up to its initial hype.We knew this day would come but why did it take so long? That's history but important points from this article include the fact that operators and content providers are
finally coming a round to the idea of letting users browse off portal : to quote: "We do want to do more off-portal. We will always stay on-portal but this is an additional channel," says Sneesby [some content provider type ].
alatto's
Tribes is all about embracing the potential of off portal content. More money for the operators and less frustrated users fed up with generic portal wap crap!
BTW: Justin (they guy with the large paper clip above his left ear above)and author of the
Feature article is organising a story on
Tribes in
NMA (New media Age) this week. Watch this space.
Finnish research on the power of friends recommendation
The independent research organisation
VTT institute in Finland has conducted very interesting
research that tackles the issue where (and I quote from report) "users suffer from ignorance about available mobile services".
If that sounds familiar it is because this is the basic
raison d'etre for our
Tribes product- i.e. The mobile internet is broken!
The research entitled the
Dynamos project investigates how users are usually too lazy to use personalisation profiles properly to enable access to suitable content. Instead the findings indicate that recommendations from a friend are the most powerful method of distributing appropriate and relevant content.
We first came across this research in an
article in the
Feature with the subtitle:
There's no better source of meaningful information than a friend, and some researchers now want to use this principle to offer pertinent services to mobile users.
The irony is this article finishes with the text: "VT plans to field-test Dynamos this year. If it proves useful, it's possible that phone companies could start using something like in the months to come.". BUT it's already here with
Tribes why wait!
MMS Lazarus
Great post this morning on MMS from Ajit Joakar in the mobile applications club at
e-academy.
Best to post the article in full:
************************************************************************
As the mobile applications club reaches 700 members and we aim to reach a
1000 this year - we hope to encourage more discussions on trends in the
industry.
Our focus remains the same as articulated in OpenGardens
(www.opengardens.net)
a) How to make money in the mobile data industry
b) Innovation
c) Disruptive applications and
d) The 'garage' entrepreneur i.e. the start-up/small company wanting
to make a difference.
As the industry grows and matures .. many applications that started out
as 'proof of concept' in the last few years are now becoming more
mainstream
Consider the impact of mobility/MMS on journalism.
The application itself is not new. And as we will see below, is now
evolving into mainstream usage
There are many approaches to using mobility with news/media
The 'mobile alerts' approach is the oldest - with publications like the
FT and BBC leading the way
However, as MMS matures and mobile blogging takes off, there is a logical
trends towards 'community journalism'
Last year saw the first moves away from pure 'mobile alerts' to MMS /
community journalism.
In the simplest case, Mobile Operator Oskarmobile in the Czech republic
takes the more traditional 'MMS magazine' approach
http://www.oskarmobil.cz/en/services/mms/mms.php#6
Meanwhile, in May 2004 in Norway, MMS journalism was tried out by (among
others) by Norwegian journalist Øyvind Woie
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story875.shtml
Closer to home, ITV tried filing news 'on the spot'(June 2004).
http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/June2004/7896.htm
Even our event last week(OpenGardens launch and Tomi's presentation)
attempted 'on the spot reporting' with club member Alfie Dennen's
application http://moblog.co.uk/
However, the biggest successes are seen in South Korea
Oh My News(http://english.ohmynews.com/) is a collaborative online
newspaper with a readership of two million, and more than 26,000
registered citizen journalists. It has played a part in two general
elections in South Korea.
(http://pjnet.org/weblogs/iggers/archives/000184.html + presentation from
Tomi Ahonen)
The mainstream media continues to react predictably. The initial reaction
is 'ignore it' since revenues are too small.
The second reaction is .. 'try to sell content'. Both are missing the
point.
Here are some questions/insights to consider. Seek your views
Insights
a) The lack of easy availability of 'Location' does not seem to have
affected applications like 'on the spot reporting'.
b) Community is the key. The old contact v.s. content debate. That's
why the existing players may not win the game.
c) The problem with content is - people can get it from other sources.
But add interactivity/community and we have a whole new equation
d) Video (and the ability to send video by MMS) are likely to be key
drivers.
e) There are many interesting possibilities
As per http://www.160characters.org/news.php?action=view&nid=1190
It would be possible to generate 'first night reviews' through many small
reviews collected from viewers
What do you think?
Is anyone developing these applications ?
Do you think mainstream media/newspapers will win the game or will new
players take over this space?
It is a classic disruptive application - with the large media players
getting little revenue at the moment and hence perhaps ignoring it - at
their peril?
Kind regards
Ajit
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Regtel Training
Just finished giving two days training to
Regtel. They are the premium rate service regulator in Ireland, essentially equivalent to
ICSTIS in the UK. BTW: ICSTIS is pronounced IXTIS for those in the know.
Regtel have a difficult task trying to control the premium rate mobile service providers. Not least because cooperation from the mobile operators is not always as forthcoming as it could be I feel.
Location Based Search Google and Yahoo!
Russell (are all mobloggers named Russell?) Beattie has a good
review of Yahoo's WAP based location search on his
blog. Nice screen dumps describe how it worked very well.
Also then compares with Google's SMS based search:
While European Operators are offering such location based search facilities - as in all mobile apps- it really boils down to the quality of the data. Both Yahoo and Google's database of (paying!) service suppliers is far superior to anything any MNO in Europe (or US) can offer.
Unfortunately neither Yahoo! nor Google appear to be taking Europe seriously as yet with this kind of data. If anyone knows otherwise please let me know. Otherwise we are in the usual downward cycle of limited MN aggregated data with resulting limited takeup.
When is a Moblogs a REAL MOBlog?
There are lots of blogs out there that claim to be moblogs but in fact are really weblogs with just a few images and text coming directly from a mobile handset. The only real mob.logs of worth we have come across are
Text America and
Phone Bin from the US and Europe respectively.
Text America in particular seems to be huge with thousands of post a day. Of course a major share of the content is "adult" related but then again a lot isn't.
Tribes works very well with both these sites to help users hunt and gather their preffered type of "good" content from the maze of content in moblogs such as these.
The key tests to prove a site is a real moblog are:
1. Bad quality images
2. Lots of pictures taking self using mirrors etc.
3. Very little text in SMSspeak
4. Lots of adult images (Remember mobile content is ALWAYS more downmarket than fixed web!!!)
5. Good WAPsite version available
So came across
Moblogtoday but I am not convinced it is a true Moblog as I can't find a decent mobile browser friendly of the site. Yet. More on this later.
