Mobile Internet Domains now available.
The .mobi domain for mobile optimised sites is finally, after much hooh hah and delays, open for business.
According to
WSJ on Monday this week selected companies were allowed to register their domains if they were members of "wireless industry associations". Hmmmm? Anyway the rest of us will be allowed to register in June. Anyone know what industry association you need to be a member of to allow registration now?
According to the CEO of the registrar "Dot-mobi makes the Internet work on phones," , would that it were that simple! Nevertheless it is good that they do realise that there is a problem.
In the meantime checkout
http://google.mobi on your handset.
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On further digging I found that only members of:
CTIA, CWTA, GSMA, MEF and MMA can register their mobile internet domains domains in the current period.
Also there is a
style guide that .mobi sites must comply with. Looks very much to be based on W3C guidelines.
John
Mobile Video Interaction with TV
Up to now interaction with TV via the ubiquitous cameraphone has been confined to POSMS (Plain Old SMS). Now however still image MMS (Picture messaging )interaction is just beginning to emerge. Hence it is a good time to think about the possibilities for camera-phone interaction with TV:
·
Static images: Currently deployed by for example weather (Martin King
TV3 here in Ireland) or news (Sky News UK) programmes as an e-mail service. However alatto have developed a system that supports sending content direct from phone to a long or short code.
·
Video Clips: Viewers can create the content for TV by sending a video direct from phone to long or short code.
· Examples where video from cameraphones has been used in TV include:
o In Japan a show called "Syamekke" and the Norwegian NRK TV channel which invited viewers to send in their video-clips shot on mobile phones, broadcast on the specialized TV shows.
o
Tu-Media Korea, the first full-time 24 hour TV channel that broadcasts NOTHING but video-clips by viewers. Thanks to
Tomi Ahonen for pointing out the above two examples.
o Public supply news footage via camera-phone: e.g. London Bombings, flasher on New York subway
· Possible future examples with alatto solution (all below can be revenue generating via premium shortcode)
o Live interactive competitions / voting
o Viewers send in pictures/videos with questions to resident panel experts in particular field such as:
§ Golf: analyse my swing
§ Fashion: analyse my clothes/wardrobe on air
§ Gardening: what disease does this plant have?
§ Pets: Can this dog's behaviour be controlled?
§ Antiques: Value this piece
§ Property: How much is my property worth.
§ Interiors: How can I revamp my living room.
o Traffic: Live images or video from specific junction
o Sports: Local sports events
o Live Video feed from 3G camera-phone to TV broadcast system
In alatto we are not a creative organisation but a technology enabler hence I am sure the creative types will have far more better ideas. However alatto are well placed to enable you to deliver a revenue generating solution because:
· Alatto's "
Memphis" system is already installed as the main picture and video messaging platform within Vodafone and O2 Ireland
·
Alatto were the first to provide picture messaging services to the media industry in Ireland and elsewhere including:
A. Our
Memphis MMS alerts system for
Setanta TV and others live on Vodafone live!
B. Send Picture to Big screen
promotion at 6-nations rugby internationals for Guinness.
C. Budweiser World Cup picture messaging
campaign now live.
D. Alatto as advisers on Jay Leno Tonight Show where viewers sent in pictures and videos to
win a GM car.
Finally
video calling from handsets is also a very powerful interaction mechanism for TV. This is already being deployed in the UK where video shortcodes are available. A
BBC Sports programme enables viewers to send in their comments via video call. The next step will surely be live interaction via the video call.
Budweiser MMS Campaign
Alatto's Memphis and Tribes platforms are the technology behind an innovative MMS campaign currently underway by Budweiser. For full details of the promotion see the
web or
WAP sites.
The mechanic is described in on pack copy. Several more MMS campaigns are in the pipeline using our technology so watch this space. Some will involve participants sending video from their handsets.
The "phonetop"
Very nice high level
video illustrating some of the problems with mobile usability on the ZDNet whiteboard.
I really like this whiteboard video format as a way to get a message across clearly. In this case I don't think the proposed solution from Peter Baldwin, CEO of MSX is necessary the answer. He proposes putting everything on the "phonetop".
Again this analogy between desktop and phonetop illustrates the classic misconception IMHO.
The "tiny screen" on mobiles is not analogous to a PC desktop as the user interaction is totally different. Don't try and shoehorn PC type GUI into this tiny screen but instead use a more revolutionary approach of oneclick browsing as offered by
Tribes.
Orange Portugal Upgrade Tribes
Optimus (i.e. Orange Portugal) have been so impressed by their deployment of Tribes that last week they launched a major upgrade and have now deployed our Mobile Search and Discovery Tool as the main search and discovery tool on their Zones portal. Essentially all top level pages on their portal have a link at the bottom under "More Sites" called "Discover". Discover uses our "Tribes" toolbar to bring each user to relevant sites within each category sorted by community and personal preferences.
You can view it yourself as Optimus have a nice "
emulador"
that shows where our toolbar appears .
Unfortunately the emulator doesn't go down into the "Discover" links but you can see what the Discover toolbar is like from our usual demo
aqui.
I would welcome any comments on this toolbar as we believe we are taking a unique approach to the issue of mobile discovery. We believe mobile browsing is about infotainment and content snacking and not about search or research. Most of the time users don't know what they are looking for. As IDC said at a presentation at CTIA " Supermarkets don't put milk and bread at the front of the store"
What do you think?
