On Technology and the Future: Education, IoT, AI, Mobility, Games

Tag: mobile web Page 9 of 10

More Fragmentation: Android & Motorola’s Motoblur

By

On 12/10/2009

In 1, OEM

A new round of fragmentation looms. It is something I have been fearing for a while now: that OEM (and carriers) would make use of the open source of the likes of Android and LiMo to produce their very own flavour of apps. So after Vodafone’s 360 announcement (with customized LiMo storefronts, etc), Motorola announced so-called “signature apps” from a number of developers that are all delivered through Motorola’s new “Motoblur” user interface, which

is based on the Google-backed Android platform for mobile systems. Motorola [will] offer an additional SDK for its APIs beyond what is available for Android.

And then it said that

Over a period of time–we’re not there yet–we’ll allow the APIs to be available so people can develop many more applications than we can think of ourselves, but it’ll take us a little bit of time to mature ourselves to a place that we could open up APIs.

Ouch. An additional SDK. Which is not yet there yet. Whilst the Motoblur UI looks actually quite nice, this sounds suspiciously like another round of walled gardens, onerous internal and external QA, fragmentation and pretty much a fall back into the traps of the J2ME uber-customized world where one needs to support hundreds of devices for a commercial roll-out (with the trouble of course being that, all too often, that work meant that it would no longer be commercially very sensible). Oh dear…

It makes one want to call out for a quick advancement of HTML5 with Gears and all, so that one won’t need apps after all. The issue of connectivity and usability, etc would of course still be there. Such despair…

Global Telecoms and Broadband Stats: Mobile Broadband outstrips Fixed-Line

By

On 07/10/2009

In 1

The United Nations’ agency for telecoms, ITU, has released a set of numbers on mobile and broadband penetration globally. There have been many times more mobile phones than fixed-line telephones on the planet for a while now but now this also applies to broadband connections: by the end of 2009, the ITU expects 600m mobile broadband subscriptions globally compared to only 500m for fixed-line equivalents.

This is not to say that all is good already. The divide between the so-called first and third worlds is immense: the broadband penetration in Europe is 20%, in Africa only 0.1%. And it is the latter where the exponential further growth of mobile (telephony and broadband) will lie then: the competition mobile networks have from fixed lines is much lower in territories with less legacy networks built. And in rural parts of Africa (and elsewhere), the cost of putting up the respective infrastructure makes the installation of fixed line networks simply untenable.

The cost of ICT spend represent a whopping 41% of an African average monthly income. In the Americas (average of North and South), this is c. 7% and in Europe just over 1%.

Here’s some other bits from the ITU’s facts and figures:

  • 4.6bn estimated mobile subscribers by end of 2009.
  • 25% of the world’s population uses the Internet.
  • China has overtaken the US as the country with the biggest broadband subscriber base (but still has “only” 6.2% penetration rate on a subscription (as opposed to household) basis.
  • Of the world’s population (6.9bn), 70.8% (or 4.9bn) have access to a TV at home (not equal to number of TV sets) and 27.3% (1.9bn) have access to a PC at home. By number of households, this looks as follows: 1.7bn households globally, 1.3bn of which have a TV and 600m a PC. The gap is expected to narrow quickly due to declining prices and ongoing convergence.
  • The US accounts for 82.6% of all mobile broadband subscriptions in the Americas (North and South). In Asia and the Pacific, 70% of such subscriptions are in Japan and South Korea.
  • The top 5 most highly developed ICT economies (listen up, Mr Scoble) are:
  1. Sweden,
  2. South Korea,
  3. Denmark,
  4. Netherlands, and
  5. Iceland

Japan ranks on # 12, the US ranks on # 17, Canada on # 19 and Russia on # 50.

The ITU provides some reports as downloads: The World in 2009 [PDF] as well as a  statistical profile on the state of the information society in Africa [PDF].

Enter One-Click on Mobile – Amazon & Handmark

By

On 07/10/2009

In 1

Here’s a nice deal: smartphone content specialist Handmark integrates Amazon’s new mobile payments service into its mobile content stores. This includes, most notably, also the famed (and sometimes damned) 1-Click functionality whereby users can (just like on iTunes; Apple licenses the 1-Click patent) buy content with just one click. The store will then use whichever credit card they have previously entered. To mobile users, bruised and tired of multiple clicks and onerous navigation to purchase a single piece of content, this is a true piece of added value (and one that was often hailed on Apple’s benchmark app store).

From what I can see, Apple still leads in the fewest number of clicks but Amazon’s offering comes relatively close. Amazon’s service seems to offer a wider range of functions though: a user can pay, reserve, settle, run refunds, cancel, etc, etc, and, last but not least, a fairly established and recognized dispute resolution system, all through the Amazon API. Rather neat indeed! The transaction fees then are a dream for every mobile content provider: in the ranges customary for mobile content ($0.99-9.99), the fees range from 1.5%+$0.01 for Amazon Payments balance transfers to 5%+$0.05 for credit card payments. This, dear carriers, equates to a revenue share to the provider of 90-95%!

We will arguably see a whole range of app store providers taking this model up, in particular amongst those without a prior billing relationship. Carriers might be tempted to license the model, too, in order to facilitate the order flow (although I doubt that they will adapt the revenue shares, too): I would be surprised if Amazon could not adapt the back-end to integrate with a carrier’s billing module (although those commercial discussions would surely be interesting…).

It is a compelling case of transferring an existing brand with proven ease of use to the mobile web (where it will thrive first) and app stores the world over.

Carnival of the Mobilists #194

By

On 05/10/2009

In 1, Carnival of the Mobilists

Ahead of CTIA later this week, this edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists is being hosted by Tsahi Levent-Levi on his VoIP Survivor blog. This week brings an incredible line-up of topics and contributors: A couple of posts on mobile advertising (including mine pleading for engagement as a crucial factor of ad success), the ideal app store, mobile learning and a whole host on the use of mobile apps in the workplace (including one with a Blackberry in a bakery!) and corporate environment in general plus a look on service and feature requirements for mobile phones in the developing world.

All very good indeed! So head over and set aside a good hour to read! You’ll find it here.

Mobile Browser-Based Flash Games?

By

On 29/09/2009

In 1

Today, I read a press release from UK firm MoMac who announced the launch of a browser-based games platform, which uses Flash Lite. I had been looking at the use of Flash Lite for mobile gaming quite a while ago (2 years back in fact; see here and here). The front-runners on this (not browser-based but downloadable) was Mobitween, a French company that was bought by Zed last year. Back in 2008, the estimated install base of Flash Lite on mobile phones was already approaching half a billion, so just ever so slightly more than there are e.g. iPhones. In principle, all good.

But where did it go from there? uGenGames, the company’s original user-generated games site, seems to be stuck where it was back then. There is still the showcase of mobiGamz, a Flash-Lite-based gaming portal on Verizon Wireless. But otherwise? Nothing much…

So MoMac will do it in the browser then. I don’t think it makes that much of a difference but, given my early enthusiasm, wondered where the pitfalls (of which there apparently are some; otherwise it would have taken off more forcefully) might be. So where then?

I have argued in the interim the advantages of applications vs mobile web, and this still stands: apps often will give better usability and navigation tailored to the input constraints of (small) handsets when compared to browser-based solutions.

Discoverability might be another – albeit perhaps short-term – constraint: people are not (yet!?) used to looking for games (or other “applications”) on the web. That is arguably one reason of the huge success of the app store: it does what it says on the tin and it is very easy to discover.

Billing would be the third big differentiator: Apple managed what probably only a brand of Apple’s power can command, namely that people happily and without second thoughts sign up with credit cards and all via iTunes. To replicate this somewhere on the open seas of the wide web is almost certainly wishful thinking at best. The only other companies who have as easy a billing interface are the carriers who will almost always be more control-minded than independent service providers might wish for. MoMac claims that

the first casual games portal to go live on major MNO’s in October

and that might change things in this department a little. However, it will arguably take a few of those major MNOs in order to make it worthwhile for developers to address the platform.

A fourth point – and this is following from the above – is content. MoMac seems a little light on this side. It claims the availability of 30 games through its partner Booster Media and, with no disrespect (!), they do not seem to have the most compelling stuff available. This of course is nothing that comes with the concept but perhaps with the (current) offering, the announcement of which I believe might actually have come a little early because of this.

Anyway: the principle is (still) great, and I really wish them all the very best. Keep me up to date, guys; I’d love to publish a retraction of my take here…

The Carnival of the Mobilists #193 is Here

By

On 28/09/2009

In 1, Carnival of the Mobilists

This week it is on me to welcome the world of mobile blogging to my own pastures for this week’s edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists. We have an abundance of variety, showing how incredibly diverse this “little” niche has already become.

We’re having – amongst other things – general market overviews, novel handsets, subscription services, mobile learning, how smartphones will look like, an interview with an old colleague, learnings to be drawn from the airline industry (yes, really!) and, last but not least a take on why mobile is not just another media screen.

So let’s kick off:

Chetan Sharma treats us to one of his wireless market updates and, as usual, it is a feast for the data-hungry. Make sure to go there (and bookmark!) as a future reference point. Very helpful stuff here!

Tsahi Levent-Levi provides us with his thoughts on (what he believes are) the failings of the modular handset-maker Modu‘s approach to boost its offering: he reckons that plugging hardware together won’t do and we should rather look at the cloud to provide impetus to opening the hardware to more uses. He notes that he trusts Flickr more than his own hard drive, which I ask everyone to think about: a lot of truth in that!

Raj Singh casts a critical eye on the state of US subscription services, which he considers broken. He points out that a few class actions hanging over providers’ heads might pose a severe threat to the mobile content industry.

Judy Breck from the Golden Swamp takes inspiration from an iPod touch ad to look at how smart phones are likely to influence the education as well as the games sector: she notes that eBook readers suffer from similar flaws as gaming consoles and that therefore their fate might actually be similar – in the face of evolved mobile devices like the iPhone.

Mark van’t Hooft’s Ubiquitous Thoughts provide us with a round-up on what’s going on in the mobile learning space. He throws a couple of very good pointers for you to read if you want to smarten up on this sector quickly.

Teresa over at WIP Jam has an interview with Lauren Thorpe, a former colleague of mine and now the Sr Director, Developer Relations at Qualcomm. Lauren has a couple of interesting points on the do’s and don’t’s for developers.

The dotMobi guys suggest you have a look at an analys firm’s recent assessment of mobile site capabilities and has some tips on how to avoid falling short of standards (such as all [!] of the US carriers). I am not sure I want to encourage report sales via the Carnival but the top tips listed in the blog are certainly something everyone should look at.

Mark Jaffe then treats us to part 5 of his series “why mobile advertising has not reached its potential”, and his thoughts are very valid indeed. He reckons that the phone is more than only another media screen (and brings some very compelling evidence for that!) and that marketing will therefore fail if advertisers do not realize this. And even worse: mis-reading the power of the medium could actually return serious damage to your brand, so better watch out!

Finally, Ajit Jaokar treats us on his Open Gardens Blog to another sniplet of his wisdom, and a very remarkable one indeed. He draws on the evolution of the airline industry to watch for parallels in the mobile space (both work from a network…). His key finding is that experts from the airline industry seem to have found that the industry’s failures (from incumbents as well as new entrants) were not due to competition or innovation but due to the inability to accurately forecast demand, and – consequently – failure to adapt the business models accordingly. Read it, think about it, think some more… 😉

Post of the week goes to Ajit as the lateral thinking oozing from his post inspired me most A close runner-up is the post by Mark Jaffe (for very similar reasons). Thanks!

Next week’s carnival will be hosted by one of this week’s contributors, namely by Tsahi Levent-Levi on his VoIP Survivor blog. Until then, have an enlightened, inspiring, and successful week!

Image credit: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2509/3733837014_56809f34d9.jpg (Manchester Caribbean Carnival 2009)

App Bonanza or Analyst Bonanza?

By

On 24/09/2009

In 1

In the last two days, two forecasts informed us about the value of the mobile app market in – convenient as ever – the distant future that is 2013. US analyst firm Yankee Group predicts the US app mobile market to be worth $4.2bn by then. Today, British analyst Wireless Expertise (run by former Netsize exec Anuj Kanna) topped this easily by predicting the (global) app market size to be $16.6bn by that time (free copy of the report here).

I can hear your moans…

However, let’s have a look at the numbers then, shall we? At the end of 2008, there were 4.1bn mobile phones in the market. Because apps tend to thrive most on smartphones (and the analysts seem to thrive on them, too), let’s have a look at that sub-sector. I would estimate the smartphone share to being somewhat under 10% (Symbian claims c. 250m devices in market, Apple has some 30-odd million, so RIM, Windows Mobile, Android, Palm, etc should probably be OK with the balance of some 100m). In Europe and the US, the share is much larger but in the big volume markets China and India it is bound to be much smaller, at least for the time being. Global smartphone shipments in 2008 were around 140m.

If we estimate a 20% growth year-on-year for smartphones (vs. 5% for the overall phone market, which seems to be loosely in line with the general dynamic), then we would end up with something like 900m smartphones by 2013. Yankee Group predicts that smartphones in the US will quadruple by then (from 40m to 160m) and does not seem to be very far off. Wireless Expertise thinks the global number will be 1.6bn, which again, might not be that far off.

The question is however if people will really download this much stuff: Yankee Group predicts that the actual value of the market will rise 10-fold and that the average price point of an app will be $2.37. Why that is so, you ask? Well, pay $495 and you will know; I don’t…

Now, the good folks of Wireless Expertise see the thing quadrupling until 2013. They do, however, count “ordinary” mobile games as they are being sold through carriers amongst the apps, which means that their starting point is higher, namely $4.6bn in 2009, so they’re looking at this quadrupling. They raise some smart points on app stores and how they (well, it) changed the way users access and consume content, how carriers will need to look for alternatives to increasingly commoditized voice and messaging propositions, etc. But why there should be a 400% rise in e.g. traditional J2ME mobile games remains – whilst it would be wonderful – pretty much in the dark.

Talking of J2ME and feature phones: I do not know how they are being woven into the equation but there would certainly be a wide field for any self-respecting crystal-ball-reader here: on the one hand, app consumption on such devices has traditionally been fairly shabby but, on the other hand, this could well change if connectivity, bandwidth, UI and the right price plans would come together to offer a compelling mobile web solution. So then apps would need to be translated into widgets or something like that. Would users then pay for them? Don’t know. Or would it be the “Freemium” model according to which “Free gets you to a place where you can ask to paid?”

The challenge of these reports is their “simplified” assumptions: if only one of them fails, you go “oops”, and your prediction is halved (or worse). On Wireless Expertise’s case, this is particularly clear: their assumption is that there will be a dual strategy of (presumably OEM-driven app stores) and mobile web-based widget stores. Now, they further assume that Ovi, Windows Market, etc will all be as successful as Apple’s App Store. By early (anecdotal) data, this could not be further from the truth (see here for what that may mean). Nokia in particular struggles to get its head around a viable and compelling media strategy (cf. here and here). And hence the beautiful hockey stick would actually fall flat on its face.

Now, I am not predicting total doom and gloom, in the contrary. I do think that Apple’s wake-up call has brought a much-needed new wave of innovation and I also believe that this will be successfully incorporated by some carriers and OEMs. But by all of them? Not very likely.

And so we see: the reports are a touch on the optimistic side when it comes to volumes and assumptions. But, hey, that’s their job, I guess, and after all they have at least dropped their masks now: Yankee Group call it fairly openly a “gold rush”. And what happens then we had been shown a long time ago: you end up eating your shoelaces. So maybe this is less of an app bonanza and more of an analyst bonanza then…

Page 9 of 10

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén