Mobile & Wireless Roundup - Innovation & Industry News

I recently read an excellent article about sending gifts via text messages.
Its a very simple idea that has shown to be very popular and is now a multi-million dollar industry in South Korea.
The main reason for its popularity is that it breaks down social barriers and enables people to show their affection for someone without doing so face to face.
In my opinion this service should be extended for the Valentines period, where the message can be sent anonymously if desired.

SK Telecom’s mobile coupon service, dubbed “Gifti-con”, saw an year-over-year growth of 700% from 2006 to 2007.

The full article can be found here:
http://www.web20asia.com/212

Quote from telecomskorea.com

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Tags: SouthKorea, Mobile Internet

QR codes have been in use in Japan for many years now, and have started to gain popularity elsewhere. They can be found everywhere in Tokyo, from the Subway adverisments, business cards, and even entry stamps in passports.

http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/qrfeature-e.html

As you can see QR can contain a substantial amount of information, however, this information is static, and relies upon having a QR reader.

In Korea, an alternative approach has been widely adopted to utilise the high average phone capabilities, and also the takeup rate for new mobile services. Using standard 1 dimensional barcodes, which can be read by standard barcode readers, an entire user profile can be called.

While in Korea, my girlfriend used her phone on many occasions for this purpose. Full purchasing of cinema tickets and ski lift passes are common, and the payment is added to the users airtime bill. These barcodesare then scanned at the checkout desks to confirm payment, and swap for the voucher. In addition to full payment, subscriptions to discount schemes prove to be popular too. A code is sent to the users device allowing them discount on a variety of services.

Eventually we should start to see such systems in the UK, and the rest of the world, but the take up of new technologies is slow.

An interesting article was published by the Korea Herald discussing the reasons behind the poor take up of mobile internet browisng in Korea.

The main points raised are:

1. Manufacturers developing Internet phones for export market
2. Usability - 5 Clicks to reach search engine
3. Free web browsing using other devices (Wi-Fi, PC, laptop, etc.)

The author (Kim Yoon-mi) predicts that the usage of mobile internet will grow in conjunciton with the growth of 3G and HSDPA.

Via: Korea Herald

In my opinion, the reason that Google and mobile Internet has been “semi” successful in Europe is down to the transcoding abilities of the search engines of Yahoo and Google. Trimming down websites and images to fit to the users mobile device. I’m unaware of Naver’s ability to do this, and I would be interested to learn what mobile solution they do offer.
I do feel however, that the attitude to the mobile Internet is currently flawed. Mobile devices are currently seen as an extension to a PC, with fewer capabilities and so the content must be scaled and represented differently. This is W3C’s view. My view is that services for mobile devices should be designed away from the current PC concept, and a radical approach should be taken. Looking at what a mobile phone is used for, where it is used, and its limitations and enhancements over the PC environment.
Some examples include location aware, premium content, ability to integrate phone features (calls, SMS), and the main feature of portability.
In Japan, the success of QR codes has realized the importance of portability, and so allow users to access content and information regardless of their current location. A typical case study that I’ve seen the usage for QR is throughout museums or zoo’s where next to the exhibit, a QR code is placed to allow the customer to view interactive content through the mobile web, such as related videos or wallpaper download of the artists work.

Services such as videos do require a reasonable amount of bandwidth, and yes, with the onset of HSDPA, the usage of data is set to increase. However, many services now can be created using widget based technologies, supplying simple XML feeds to generate rich applications for mobile using the web. Bandwidth should then not be a cause for concern, as its a matter of kilobytes instead of megabytes.

So to conclude, full Internet browsing should not been approached as the way forward, indeed to some extent it will be needed to convert existing sites, but companied should be prepared to invest in targeting mobile if they wish to be successful on the 3rd screen, and in billions of peoples pockets wherever they are, whatever they happen to be engaged in.