Mobile & Wireless Roundup - Innovation & Industry News

Tricia Duryee over at MoCo news published an informative article on the two companies strategies for the mobile web.

I’d have to agree more on Yahoo’s strategy on the mobile web, than on Apple’s, which seems to be take the internet as it is, and make it available to consumers. Yahoo’s approach to take elements of the internet, pieces of information that users actually care about when on the move and need quick access to it, and present it in a mobile friendly way. The concern I have about Yahoo’s strategy is that Yahoo! Go is Java based, and therefore suffers from the fragmentation issues that are inherent with J2ME apps.

It would be interesting to see how far their widgets will extend, and hope that we will soon see browser based widgets making the most of the devices capabilities.

Back in October I wrote an article on mobile content agrigation and discovery, and the benefits it would have on the mobile industry.

Full article can be found here

Yesterday, MoCoNews reported that there is a major problem that consumers are unable to find the games they want for their mobile phone.

Today, Zodiac made an announcement that they have developed such a portal which allows content aggregation from multiple content providers. The product is to be name Zodigo  Press Release

When this type of search finally gets mass market appeal, Operators will have to change their strategies in mobile content, and competition between content providers will become fierce. In turn this will drive down prices, increase consumer awareness and willingness to use content, and who knows, maybe more ad sponsored titles will emerge into the market which will appear as *free* in the search result listings, opening the gates to a flood of mobile marketing campaigns.

Volantis have just announced their intention to go open source with their “Volantis Mobility Server” opening the product to the wider development community. The Open Source licence will be released in Q1 2008, but is available for free download now.

Will this create the drive for innovation in the mobile web industry?

Full press release can be found here:
http://www.volantis.com/news/press-releases/20071113.php

Get your free download and developer community account here:
http://community.volantis.com/

Lets get creating innovative products that the industry has been lacking, and really push forward the presence of made for mobile websites instead of relying on transcoding solutions such as Google and Novarra’s Vodafone solution.

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.

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

Nokia has announced beta release of its new mobile content sharing community called MOSH.

MOSH is a content sharing site where community members upload, distribute and manage content to be viewed and enjoyed on mobile devices. With MOSH, anything from applications like mobile games, to videos, blogs, songs or photos are now accessible and distributable on your mobile device.

The idea is simple, and combines the concepts of YouTube, Flickr, and File Sharing into a single mobile site. All the content is currently free, and anyone can upload any content items they wish, and share with the rest of the community.

As its made by Nokia, there is a Nokia Application that can be downloaded to Nokia devices to ease the process of uploading content items from a phone, though ive not been able to test this yet. There is also a PC based website that can be found at mosh.nokia.com which allows the users to download the content item throug, then transfer to their mobile device if they do not have a data plan, or to reduce their data tariff. The mobile site, mosh.nokia.mobi, is just a simplified version of the PC site, but still allows users to upload content items through the mobile browser (if supported).

There are thousands of great content items that can be already downloaded free of charge, but there is currently only 4500 users on the service. But as this is powered and promoted by Nokia, expect the community to rapidly grow in size. This will especially be the case if Nokia preload the software onto their devices before sale, which is highly likely. The downside to this product is that it is not device aware, it serves all content items to all phones, regardless if the device can support it or not. This will cause the user much frustration, as they may be spending a while searching for the “ideal” content item, only to be told it will not work on their device.

From http://mosh.nokia.com/help

DEVICE COMPATIBILITY

Does MOSH only work with Nokia devices?

While the service is optimized for use on Nokia devices, the service is compatible with all mobile handsets, provided they support the kind of content you are downloading and that you are able to access the Internet. Please note that Nokia does not test any compatibility issues.

Will all content work on all phones?

Most content will work on a large number of devices. However, there are always older devices and different capabilities, so MOSH leaves it to users to judge which content will work best on their device. Since there is such a wide variation of device capabilities for applications and games, however, we allow users to search MOSH for application or game content that is compatible for their specific mobile device to ensure that they are accessing content that will work. For more information, consult our special FAQ section devoted to applications and games.

This said, it is beta, so expect many more features, users, and resolution of compatibility issues. We may also see charges being brought into the site, allowing content producers to earn a revenue share from their content. The terms and conditions also state that there is no moderation of content, unless a content item has been reported as abuse or inappropriate.

Yesterday Access made the announcement that they have partnered with Bytemobile to provide a optimised web browsing experience.
Combing the use of Bytemobiles optimisation technologies on server side, the pages can now be delivered up to 4x faster.
So they have joined with Opera and Microsoft in providing such solutions that transcode or optimise using server based technologies.
I see this as being a major issue for the mobile industry. Developers will become reliant on these technologies and create 1 site for all.
Not the best approach since they are then not making full use of the 3rd screen. Mobile web should be treated as a totally seperate entity, and not even be considered on the same level as PC based sites.
As seen with Vodafone and Noverra, it has devastating consequences for existing made for mobile sites, as the transcoder tries to be “clever”, and the user then suffers poor user experience, and the site owner faces poor brand recognition (due to the optimisation algorithms) and perhaps not the same navigation as they had intended for the mobile version.

As seen with Vodafone, it can be switched off, but it relies on the user ignoring their instincts as the message states that the transcoded solution is best, so why would they want to change?
Would a similar solution be available for these browsers? Or is this the end for mobile innovation on the web? And moving back to a 1 for all solution. I hope not!

I’d like to hear your comments..

http://internetcommunications.tmcnet.com/topics/broadband-mobile/articles/8853-access-bytemobile-partner-mobile-solutions.htm

Ubunty 7.10 will come in various flavours. The usual PC editions, but now also an embedded mobile edition. Looking for a release on October 18th, expect devices to start utilizing this popular linux distro

Via: Engadget

An article recently published by iSuppli has identified the growing need for content platform solutions.

A new report by research firm iSuppli said that as mobile phones
migrate from being simple communications devices to becoming computing
and music-playback platforms, consumer demand for content such as
music, video and applications is booming as well

Now this has always been the major focus in my industry, but many businesses have failed to realise the diversity of devices, and assumed that one content item will play on all, or one WAP site suits all.

The publicity of this report should highlight these issues to various companies looking to expand into the wireless industry, supplying a service to its customers that will always be available in their pocket.

The value of this industry is estimated to be at $4.2 billion in 2006 and is expected to rise to $7.1 billion by 2010.

Full article and review can be found here

http://www.telecomseurope.net/article.php?id_article=4044