Mobile & Wireless Roundup - Innovation & Industry News

A few people have recently questioned the need consider WML when developing mobile web services. As the device market creeps up a few notches since the birth of WAP, traditional PC based web standards have been adopted by mobile browsers in order to make development easier, and compatibility greater.

Mobile technologies are being deployed at a rapid rate, and hence drives users to upgrade their handsets more frequently. With carriers and retail stores offering substantial subsidies. This in turn is driving the “average” technology on the device up.

On this basis, will be see WML become a legacy language? Well this all depends on target audience of your mobile web service. Generally, mobile web sites fit into one of the following categories:

• Information Portal
  • News
  • Sport
  • RSS Feed
  • etc
• Communication
  • Email
  • IM
  • Social Networks
• Entertainment
  • Ringtones and Mobile Content Downloads
  • Streaming Content
• Research
  • Auction Sites
  • Shopping

You will then need to consider the types of users that own the varieties of handsets. Here is a typical case for each handset type:

• Black and White (WML)
  • Older generations who use the phones for emergency purposes. Just to make and receive calls and send occasional text messages

• Basic Colour (WML)
  • Young children who want to use a mobile phone to “fit-in” at school, and show off their ringtones and pictures.

• Advanced Colour (XHTML-MP)
  • Usually used by the age group 16-40, who see their phones as an important means of communication and also as a style accessory.

• Smartphones (HTML/XHTML)
  • Business users and early adopters tend to use this class. Communication, applications and mobile web are the most important features of this phone

From this basis, you can see that the users that are likely to be experimenting with web applications are those that have XHTML capable devices. Using it mainly for “Communications”, “Information Portal” and “Research”. Colour WML devices are in abundance with the younger age group, as they are affordable, and tend to have gimmicks to tempt the users in. In conjunction with this, these users are also more likely to be drawn in and spend their “pocket money” on ringtones, JAVA games, and wallpapers which promote their favorite band, or movie stars. Black and white devices will hardly be used for these services. The user does not expect to see a web solution on their phone, and are more likely to use their PC for email communication and keeping in touch with relatives.

So, to summarise, depending on the type of solution you are providing, WML should be approached in different ways. Information, research and communication type services can provide a basic WML legacy site. This means that the minority of basic devices that will use these services are not rejected. Innovational services should be focused on user groups that will see the benefit. With content delivery solutions, basic colour devices can be seen as the most important user group, and hence WML should be carefully implemented, ensuring that the content is quick and easy to find. That said, the majority of content requests will not come through a WAP portal, bu more likely through an alternative channel such as reverse billed SMS and WAP push of the content item.

It is however, still vitally important not to over estimate the capabilities of mobile browsers. For example, the SonyEricsson T290i and T610, both are capable of XHTML, however, they render it very poorly, and a more compelling user experience can be delivered through WML markup.

This has been based on the mobile market in Europe, USA, Japan and Korea, where mobile communications have flourished. In developing regions, a different approach will need to be angled. See  http://www.wirelessroundup.com/2007/10/06/emerging-markets-how-to-approach/

Not too far in the distant future we will see the lower segment of the device market, improving further, and the need for WML support will diminish further, but in the meantime, its not over just yet.

A follow up to my previous post: Proximity Marketing or Spam?

In response to an article posted on mocoNews.net

In my opinion, Bluetooth marketing, otherwise known as “Proximity Marketing” is only suited to certain situations to take of in a way that will benefit the end user. Banking is not an exciting medium for mobile, as there are few application usages currently for banking using mobile services. Companies that should be embracing proximity marketing are restaurants (only broadcasting their bluetooth messages during eating hours) and entertainment retail stores. The application for bluetooth is much larger, as they can offer money-off coupons as image push, or advertise the latest albums and dvd offers with video and audio clips to get the users attention.

As a follow up to my previous post on the usage of Mobile Barcodes in Korea and Japan there has been a recent article James Quintana Pearce on mocoNews.net describing the increased usage of Flashcodes in magazines. The usage of these barcodes is to promote the usage of the digital magazine, linking the user directly to the mobile web version of the article they are reading. This provides an “in-the-pocket” version of the content that took the customers interest. Thus allowing them to forward the URL to their friends via SMS, and further promoting the magazine.

As discussed in the article, it relies on the consumer having the barcode reading software installed on the device. The manufacturers have been slow to include this on newly produced devices, with exception to Japanese vendors (such as Sharp). But as stated before, Japanese devices have barcode reading applications as standard.

The big stumbling point that we face in Europe at the moment, is determining which standard of barcode to use, and so manufacturers can begin shipping devices with pre-built in applications that meet this standard.

As everyone is trying to predict the next killer application for mobile, I thought i’d throw in my opinion.

At the W2Forum Launch party in Soho, London, I was asked on several occasions what I thought would become the next success in the mobile industry.

The mobile content market is ever evolving, and new pricing strategies, and content services are being exploited on a regular basis, and there currently seems to be no let-up in its growth of innovation and youth attraction. One of the main drivers of content, is the “All you can eat” data packages, which for a set monthly fee, you can download an unlimited (Yeah Right! 250MB on O2 for example) amount of data per month. But even through this “unlimited” offering is always truly unlimited, content should always be “made for mobile” ensuring that the best CODECs and compression ratios are used for the mobile device, therefor reducing the data download requirements.

The mobile content industry has been seen as a very lucrative market, and has had its share of bad press with companies like Jamba offering subscription services when a user tries to download a single ringtone, charging them every week without notice. But recently, this has been cleaned up, and the companies must make it very clear now that they are offering a subscription and not a single download. But none the less, this relatively new revenue stream has attracted thousands of companies to offer premium content to mobile.

Definition - Premium Content: An item that is viewed by the end user after making a payment. This content item can be a Ringtone, Video, Wallpaper, Horoscope, Joke, News Subscription, etc..

As there are so many companies now offering these services to mobile, the user now faces too much choice. Where will the user go to find “Strawberry Fields by the Beatles” as a ringtone? The first place i guess they will look is their carriers portal, and then if they cannot find it there, they will give up.

Solution
A product like Google’s Froogle or Kelkoo, which offers price comparison can be utilised. With a database of all the mobile content storefronts, a user can perform a search for the content item they are looking for, and a list of variants will be returned. This will give the user the chance to find not only the cheapest, but also related content items (wallpaper, or other ringtones), and special offers.

The problem that such a solution will currently face, is the on-portal content that is only available through the carriers network. This, however can have a benefit to the carrier, as it can promote content items to other carriers customers which may encourage the user to switch. Another problem with many mobile storefront solutions is that they perform “on the fly” transcoding, adapting the mobile content to the users device after they have requested it, so the resulting content item can not be guaranteed. The final issue, which I hope will be addressed by store front and CMS solutions, is that they should provide a query feed in RSS or ATOM, that allows search engines to query the content store, and get returned an XML results page.

Benefits
This will provide a way for the content providers to promote their content, and with some business cases, they could also “pay their way” to increase their search rankings.

Affiliation programs will help to create further revenue streams

There is a continual stream of companies getting engaged in the mobile industry around the world, monetising on premium content such as ringtones, wallpapers, videos, jokes, and horoscopes etc. The reason that they were so successful in economically developed countries, is due to the fact that people have disposable income, and mobile is seen as a luxury, and are used to paying for services that can be provided to the device.

A few comparisons:

PC based services (Free)

Messaging - Email, IM

Content - Desktop Wallpapers, News Videos, Comedy Clips, Streaming Audio

Mobile based services (Premium)

Messaging - SMS, MMS (£0.10 - £0.50 per message, or bundled for a charge)

Content - Wallpapers, Ringtones, News Videos (Costs vary per content provider)

It has been noted that this market has started to see a decline in premium content usage, and so the mobile industry is set explore new markets. Many have decided to turn to the Indian or Chinese companies, and pitch their products to them. However, these companies have been struggling to capture the full potential of the mobile content market in the same way that Europe, Japan, Korea and America have.

A new approach is needed

China has a well known issue with piracy, and many software products that are sold are illegal copies. This does not stop at the software industry, why would a consumer in China think it is acceptable to pay up to $5 for a content item such as a small picture for a wallpaper, when they can “rip” them from the web for free. Piracy is not the only issue that faces these markets, but also the income of the people living there.

Content is not the answer

Money can be made from the mobile industry in many ways (apart from premium content), through advertising and deals with corporations that offer services to users. The important thing to note, that emerging markets do not use mobile devices in the same way that economically developed countries do. Mobiles are the only form of communication, as minimal infrastructure is needed, compared to traditional fixed line services, and they consume a low amount of power. This can mean that they do not need a constant supply of electricity to use the services on the device, and they can be charged on a relatively low power source, such as solar, and wind up based chargers. The ability to be “wire-free” enables remote tribes and villages to communicate with each other effectively. This is the key market to utilise.

I feel that one of the next big innovations in the mobile industry, will help to provide an effective communication service for mobile users in developing nations. But they key thing to success, is not to charge the end user for the service.