'Yes' is the only word I want to hear

This great picture caught my eye going through LHR airport recently.

It speaks well to the way I approach challenges, tasks, people, agendas. This is what I expect from myself and from people around me.
Nothing less.

Don't tell me you can't because you can. Think again. I'll use my time to figure out what would motivate you to say yes.

Google Maps on BB Curve

Between figuring out GPS for our trips and why can't my very capable smart beautiful BB Curve combine E-OTD location and its unlimited data to download real time traffic and maps, I was very happy to find that Google Maps has a mobile version. It even uses tower triangulation to (very! ) approx. locate me. This would be real cool when driving long trips and selecting local Panera vs. McDonalds!

The downside, when I downloaded the application OTA from www.google.com/gmm, every time I'd start it, it would freeze my BB. Lots of search and disbelief lead me to delete all application data and that made everything work finally. A slight heart attack in the middle as it will reset the BB settings and you'll have to wait for the operator setup to (automatically) come down OTA and install itself.
Google Maps now works like a charm and I can't wait to test-drive it. It won't be text-to-speech navigation GPS device replacement, but maybe it's a start, and maybe Google will take a location snapshot once every so often when the application is running. that in addition to better accuracy will give it real navigation features.
Bottom line: very cool and impressive, but Google- you got to get that installation bug out of the way, you're no startup.



Next is how to sync Google Calendar with BB. Comments welcome :-)

The future of (Air) travel

I've been reading in Popular Mechanics and recently came across this video about the next generation of public transportation: high speed trains. The technology is amazing, almost out of a Sci-Fi movie, and much, much needed. 581KM/H. The train is called MagLev and I very much recommend watching the video to learn more.




It's been my pleasure to be on several flights recently from Boston to London. And while on these you start thinking of how flight time/speed had advanced in the last decades, given such tremendous advances in green technologies, efficient engines, long haul flights etc. Flight speed has not been one of those advances (see here:)
"In fact, air travel is getting slower. The average speed of the most popular aircraft has fallen sharply in the three decades since Concorde was unveiled - and the world's only surviving supersonic plane is destined for the scrap heap in about 15 years, with no successor in sight. "

Flight time, delays and the involved pain already come to cynical outcomes of it: "Study: Flight delays good for romance"


Practicalities of public transportation will require that Maglev be readily available despite huge infrastructure cost to make a dent into the air travel industry. But if, just if that happened, walking into a Maglev to NY or further out would be a breeze, nothing like driving to the airport.

Let's Get Rid of Non-Compete Agreements

Something healthy is happening in New England. Important people have been looking at key differences in the entrepreneurial scene between here and the west coast. The non-compete is absolutely one of those: the freedom for people to move about the scene with new ideas and ways to build better products, innovate and move forward.

I was in this situation myself, and although in both situations I wasn't signed on any employment letter (that would include a non-compete), I was extremely hesitant and in fact did not pursue the ideas I had. Not to say if this was removed I surely were to follow through, but in those two situations it played a big part.

Well now Bijan of Spark capital, Scott Kirsner and others are pushing it, and I am happy to support them in this.

Check out the new Alliance for Non-Compete Page, including the letter to Governor Patrick and the response.

Everyone should join and support this.

Beautiful

From The Projec.tioni.st, a beautiful creative blog, beautiful intriguing work of art. Definitely on my Google reader :-) Kudos to the creators, enjoy!

It is what it is

(Stuck in LHR waiting for delayed flight home hence wasting time).
When I recently used the term in a new forum, I caused a blast of laughs. As it turns, the term had become an urban legend a collegue had strong opinions whenever the term had been used. And rightfully so, the term's origin is breakage of process or communication channels. There are unfulfilled requirements for which the priorities are misaligned. When someone senior uses the impression, it may sound ironic, cynical, or even worse: indifferent.

As frustrating as it may sound, the truth is quite opposite. "It is what it is", to me, expresses my frustration of achieving the goals I had set to myself in the time I hoped I would. But as a fresh starter, it also means that I have every intention to find the workaround, crack in the wall, back or front to reasses the issue again soon. It is not a defeat, it is regrouping. It is the low gear in optimism.

...To a dear person whose moving on. Be well my friend and best of wishes.
Sent Wirelessly

Heathrow airport showing a finger to trolly believers

Friday afternoon is fun in LHR, always was. But now there's added cream on top which is having to drop your trolly as you can board with one piece only. Right, no more one piece and hand bag trick. As it is still allowed anywhere else it won't affect the suitcase business travel sales so just a nice little pain point. Funny to see the monitor saying "heathrow worlds busiest airport"...who cares?
All's good fun
Sent Wirelessly

Taking the train to Cambridge (UK)

I've forgotten how I enjoy public transportation, especially trains. Combined with how I dislike driving. Sit back, think, reflect, be concerned, smile, laugh, BREATHE.
I wish I could do it more often.
Sent Wirelessly

Panic

I read the latest "AT&T flings cellphone network wide open" PR with a good laugh. This is clearly following "Verizon opens network to more cellphones" earlier PR. Somehow, people are responding to this with some skepticism, as do I.

The good laugh, BTW, comes from an old memory of me walking into an AT&T store 6 years ago (yup, they were called AT&T then) and realizing that already then they were selling Motorola unlocked handsets.
Another reason to a good smile is that, as far as my technical hat goes, no GSM operator has ever attempted to correlate users' IMSI with their sold IMEI at the (in other words, make sure the subscriber is using the handset sold to them) and it would mean more work. The blocking happens at the handset level, which means the vendor has to put it in. why would they if they can push back and sell more?. Anyway, This correlates well with:
"You can use any handset on our network you want," says Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T's wireless business. "We don't prohibit it, or even police it."

As far as Verizon goes, they will still be CDMA (alongside Sprint vs. T-Mobile and AT&T), hence iPhone (for example) will simply not work on their network, will it? in fact, only CDMA phones, traditionally manufactured to Verizon's requirements will pretty much work. Verizon is building a $20 million testing lab but has not provided details about how this process will work. Guess how the testing criteria will look like? Guess how much certification will cost and who will bear those costs?
"In the short term, it's a giant publicity stunt," says wireless analyst Bill Hughes at researcher In-Stat. I agree.

Just to make things more interesting, throw in Amazon's new Kindle device. an EV-DO device that acts like a cool reader. EV-DO means you're married to Sprint or Verizon pretty much (in this case, Sprint), you can't download more content if you're outside the US BTW. Why is Kindle relevant to this discussion? because Sprint branding is nowhere to be seen. there's no sign up and no monthly fee with Sprint. An improvement on their MVNO strategy or a shift in branding awareness?

I read Bijan's interesting post "When did we agree to being locked in?", who also commented on the AT&T announcement by saying:

"Networks need to be open.

Devices need to work everywhere.

Content needs to be distributed anywhere.

Which walled garden is coming down next?"

I agree, utopia or maybe UK reality (on that in a separate post). But that brings me to my main point here. This is all reactionary to Google's Android announcements (dare I say hype? again?). Everyone's crawling under the table in light of the announcements and not being in the "open". So the last Mobile Monday Boston, taken place during the Mobile Internet conference, featured Google's Android as they are obviously local. Here's how it went:

• Is there a GPhone? No there isn't. There is a reference platform built by HTC. Ah...
• Will there be a GPhone? "We are not building a GPhone; we are enabling 1,000 people to build a GPhone". Ah...
• What's the story then? "the open-source strategy would encourage rapid innovation and lower the bar to entry in the highly competitive handset market, where software accounts for an increasing share of the cost of making a phone."

Sounds awfully similar to Savaje ("Savaje falls on hard times"), doesn't it? :-) or :-( ?. A visio diagram filled with boxes you'd expect from any device vendor, mix of open and restricted APIs, J2ME toolkit (ironically, partially based on existing tools), am I missing something?! Oh yeah, backing of Google's deep pockets.

Here's what I think Google can be a game changer at: Their success at building a phone or OS is to be seen, but what Google are great at, is impressions, CPMs, advertising, search, optimization and content. What a single Nokia flag store in NYC didn't do to the operators realization that content, mobile purchasing and advertising is the key to move forward, Google can do.

We'll see where this ball rolls next. interesting times indeed. Operators are certainly reacting, whether through real changes or PR.

UMA vs. IMS/SIP

Cleaning up my Google Reader today after the Pats game (oh yeah...13-0!) I came across this article on the "Tide Changing Between UMA-based and SIP-based FMC Services". I very much agree with what Phil Solis, is indicating: UMA indeed is a cool technology for which the hesitance of operators (to define their faith between a dumb bitpipe and a robust but expensive smart and capable network with services and content) prolongs the window of opportunity. However, all indicators are that between operators and device vendors, this is no more than a temporary, (poorly merchandised) offering: limited handsets, limited services, extremely complex pricing to the subscriber? They are just not serious about it.

Don't get me wrong, many kudos to Mark Powell and his entrepreneurs colleagues at Kineto for creating an ecosystem from scratch, correct technology and all. But in reality, there are too many moving pieces to make it, especially in NA.

No, nobody had fooled themselves that UMA creates an opportunity for operators to help themselves into the subscribers wallet while covering up for a coverage deficiency. However as a service, SIP and the services SIP will drive (Lead by integrated presence capable address book IMO), is truly the longer term vision. The sooner operators and vendors will dump the idle screen and replace it by that presence enabled Skype-like screen with calls to action and an embedded ad, the better.
And SIP is the way to do it.

Reality check: Miss Landmine Angola: Beauty Pageant for Landmine Victims

Sometimes you consider anything and everything in your life in comparison to other peoples lives, in this case a story of reality and heroism:

"Forget silicone, big hair and cheesy smiles; the Miss Landmine Angola competition leaves behind the fakeness for a pageant aimed at finding pride and beauty despite imperfections."

Great pic

I love my wife

Sent Wirelessly

Kudos to Mark of MarksGuide

It's been a long while since I last blogged and I might even get some time to explain the changes that happened since, but as usual, when you get busy it's the reality around you that pushes you to get things done.

So I came across this interview coverage with Mark on XConomy. The title is already inviting: "Boost Your Karma: Check Out MarksGuide".

It's a good piece on the Boston professional networking scene and how it affects startups, entrepreneurship and innovation. Any ecosystem has interesting supporting channels and MarksGuide is part of it: "Doerschlag is the man to know if you want to get the word out about a local networking event in business, technology, finance, media, or the sciences. On any given weekday, his website lists six to a dozen events of interest to Boston-area professionals."

I've already recommended MarksGuide before but let me reiterate how resourceful is MarksGuide in being aware of relevant interesting professional events in the area and if you missed one, there would likely be good coverage somewhere.

Interesting quote on Mark: "Cross Craigslist founder Craig Newmark with Web-networker-par-excellence Joi Ito, add blond hair and blue eyes, and plunk the result down in Boston—and you’d have Mark Doerschlag." Made me smile :-). Mark's a good guy and I'm glad to say a good friend too.

Check out MarksGuide, you'll be sure to bookmark it.

The iUnbrick to my iBricked iPhone

The saga of (unlocked + application loaded + virgin) iPhones getting generously bricked by Apple (my thoughts covered here) continues.

Gizmodo today reports that iPhoneSIMFree, the company that "released the first GUI iPhone SIM unlock, has just provided an updated version of their SimFree unlocker for iPhone".

One thought is that the likes of iPhoneSIMFree are extremely competent people. Their intentions aside, they are quite talented. if I were Apple I would seriously consider hiring them.

Another thought, and call me crazy, but what if all this is an Apple marketing buzz exercise? Wouldn't that be perfect? get everyone talking about iPhone this and iPhone that. Nothing like good controversy to keep product sales going.

The Gizmodo post has some length comments. Here's one guy that commented on this:

"Perhaps it was because Apple did it on purpose!"

Or maybe they tested it!!! Let's see which makes more sense!

Scene 1: Apple tests their new firmware with AnySIM unlocked iPhone -> brick -> warn people of the fact

Scene 2: Apple tests their new firmware with AnySIM unlocked iPhone -> works fantastically -> "Oh SHIT! Let's add code to make sure the firmware bricks these things! Work harder, coder slaves! This is why we pay ya!! We don't care if word gets out about this after we lay one of you guys off, and cause all sorts of backlash and lawsuits in the future, cuz we're stupid! "

Hmm."

Indeed Hmm.

Connected Cars

Have you ever had the feeling: "Hey! Cool, I thought about this!". Perhaps common sense or a combination of technical / market knowledge and life's reality, sometimes you think of something and a while later you hear there's innovation happening there. By someone else, ofcourse :-)

So this is a concept I really like and think could go ways: Intelligent cars. Actually, this is a private case of a larger thread of 'Integration'. And what it is, is that you see smaller consumer gadgets first being introduced in their independent form, and then usually, once the interest and the money equation make sense, they get integrated into larger, existing computing systems.

That trend is true for mobile: take the obvious case of music integration onto the phone: people would buy a certain phone if it has MP3 playing feature integrated instead of buying a separate MP3 player.
It is true for PCs, now having TV connectivity and control modules.
And last, it is definitely true for vehicles, getting all kinds of gadgets on the dashboard that you know, will be integrated into the vehicles capabilities.

So it only makes sense for car manufacturers to "simply throw" an off-the shelve PC onto the car to manage informational data, entertainment center, vehicle condition etc. People can install more applications like in facebook, they can download content, surf the web. Anormal connected PC can be upgraded.

You also want to make sure that PC is completely disconnected from the driving functions that affect safety. I was once told by a product manager at Trimble: "Vehicle manufacturers are used to 100% quality products, and software just isn't there yet. They trust their breaks more than they trust the onboard computer".

So I came across Popular Mechanics 2007 Breakthrough list and one of them is Ford's Sync:

"Ford has elegantly and inexpensively leap-frogged the competition when it comes to in-car infotainment systems. Ford’s $395 Sync is essentially a small computer running the Microsoft Auto operating system that wirelessly integrates all of your mobile gadgets. It enables hands-free phone use and has a universal music player that pulls songs from virtually any MP3 player. The voice-recognition control is simply the best we’ve ever tried. So far, the most impressive trick Sync offers is its ability to receive text messages and then read them to you. And Sync’s flexible software platform means it should be easily upgradable in the future. Sync will be available in 12 models by the end of the year and on nearly all Ford vehicles within two years."

Few comments I'd like to make:

• the term "Microsoft Auto operating system" causes me to shiver...blue screen while driving 60 MPH...
• It's cool that they have thought of the ability to upgrade (don't we do it every day on our PCs? why not on the onboard PC?)
• It's cool that the PC is connected to the wireless networks as well as to mobile devices in its proximity

Here's my addition:

• Allow car (passengers) to connect to each other: you have a connected PC onboard, why not connect cars to each other. Create a "facebook" network of moving cars, sharing real time road information, fun recommendations, people can talk, share content and much more
• Allow seamless web connectivity in the car so that passengers can provide feedback, for example, dictate to their blog or listen to radio and tag/comment/share their interests / play lists etc., just like Bijan in his blog talks about Radio 2.0

Overall, cool stuff. There will be some safety concerns but you know more is coming. Did anyone mention location-aware advertising?

Something funny for a change

Just came across this video of Johann Lippowitz who completely cracked me up. It's a must see.



Here's the same thing but now with the unbelievably hot Natalie Imbruglia joining the gig herself (if you want to see Natalie do the mime fast forward to 1:30):


And here's a couple more:
That's my home and Don't Look back in Anger.

Great laugh, enjoy!

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

Recently the FAA has announced that they will not allow mobile phone calls on flights (read here). There are some sensible people out there after all. Only problem, FAA governs US air space only...

This is one thing I really hope can be avoided.
For a while I knew that there was nothing really stopping cell phone usage from a safety perspective, but the prospect of people making calls in a very intimate space on a red eye into another hectic day was just one step too far for me. It's exactly that kind of technologically-doable service that is a terrible idea.

Also, this is a good time to add, the argument that arises in many situations: "people can make calls on their WiFi enabled PC while on board, so what's the difference?" is a non-argument. This is an annoyance to everyone around you, so there's no point in encouraging it.

Thank you FAA, for demonstrating leadership and sensible thinking: Will airlines outside the US adopt this? PLEASE?

Some really interesting creative work on codes

Stephen Chasey (Depna) is an asset to the mobile code scanning world.

First, he's spent time in Japan, capital of real-life code scanning. He knows first hand what it is, what people think about it, how it's being used and all of that.

Second, he is not biased towards one technology or another, or so it seems from his blog. He seems to be open to what works and makes sense to the audience requirements, independent of marketing spins.
Third, he is well aware of other mobile marketing methods and in fact proposes a good consumer view summary here.

And last, he has some fabulous work done on codes for aesthetic features and use cases. Extremely creative.

Any code scanning player should consider how they could harness his energy!

Market Fragmentation (BMW Mobile code scanning campaign with Semacode in light of the One Austria & Beetagg launch)

A great example of what can make, or break the mobile code scanning market:
Do you remember BMW launching mobile code scanning campaign with Semacode?

As much as I'm happy at the launch of code scanning at One by Beetagg, there is the cost of different symbologies and risk of over fragmentation (please feel free to comment on my LinkedIn question): What is BMW supposed to do now? change symbologies?

It's just worth keeping in mind that at some point, code scanning market players had better start deal with the fragmentation or else...

What's going on with Skype?

Anyone noticed a quality drop in Skype? We've been using Skype quite a bit and it seems that something's changing. Perhaps the load of all users overloads their systems?
Here's some of what I'm seeing:

• After 10 minutes or so of a call the quality would drop into shuttered fragments of voice
• It seems Skype implemented a new algorithm that tries to repair the lost voice frames, so there's a long gap and then the other side is heard in fast-forward mode, making it impossible to understand. That's useless. get it right the first time and if you can't, drop it (and drop this business)
  
• On a number of PCs, I've seen that sometimes Skype loads the processor to 98% and stays there. The PC then starts to crawl in a very visible way. I had to restart it
• On some days calls come in but are only displayed for a fraction of a second before a call disconnects (I know, nobody wants to talk to me)

Hey skype folks, you were good so far and I've been loyal...get back in shape, please.

That's what I'm talking about!

One, an Austrian mobile operator had launched BeeTagg's code scanning solution. Here it is from the operator's site.
Why do I mention this? Because the mobile code scanning market is in need for energy now. More announcements like this to see more operators take on the technology, more innovation happening, more trials, more ENERGY.

One appears to be an early adopter operator that has innovation and services high on the value list. One of the service they seem to launch with Beetagg is 'tag your city', connecting physical locations to digital media. Probably not too dissimilar from Nextcode's Freedom Trail project here in Boston, using ConnexTo technology.

An interesting point, Heike Schultz, a leading mobile and code scanning blogger, seems to think that the service might be offered in German, getting closer to large crowds in EU.

Is Beetagg's solution better? is it good? does it serve the overall MC2 initiative? what's One (the operator) going to actually do with it? I don't know. and I don't care. The market needs this energy, and this is the kind of energy it needs.
Good stuff Beetagg, congrats. Keep it coming.

That's right, let's use the stick

Oh hoh hoh...that's gonna be a hot potato Apple, hope you're ready for some backlash.
Punishing your audience, those willing to take the next step to use your product, that's useful.

Saul Hansell in his NY Times article writes: "There is something futile about the way Apple appears to be fighting some of its most ardent fans, those who want to use the full capabilities of the iPhone."

In the series of recent iPhone related fumbles and weird acts, starting from going operator-exclusive (which I thought Apple could have and should have avoided), recently with the introduction of the next-gen iPhone and $100 exercise and now this...You guys are making headlines.

So people went ahead and hacked your phones to make them available on other networks. Wow. Unlocking phones has been around for ages, and it means only one thing: PEOPLE LIKE THIS PHONE AND WANT TO GET IT AND USE IT MORE!!!

As I read BBC News article on Apple crippling hacked iPhones, every line, every word amazes me:
"Earlier this week Apple said a planned update would leave the device "permanently inoperable...That warning has now proved correct as many owners are reporting their phones no longer work following installation of the update.": Oh right...let's have all those $500 paying people with a brick in their hands. They're not going to be able to complain 'cause they did the hack, so we'll probably not hear from them again

"There are also reports of the update causing issues with unaltered iPhones...Some owners are reporting on technology blogs and Apple's own forums that the update is deleting contacts information, as well as photos and music, on iPhones that have not been modified in any way. ": Oh right, and by the way, even if you didn't unlock your iPhone, our update will nevertheless delete your stuff.

Did hackers anticipate this and have a cure? I hope so.

Regardless, Apple, people may whisper that all of this has been planned, it does not look like it to me at all.

Google, I hope you're watching (I'm actually sure you are). GPhone can and should change the rules of the game, you can make it happen!

Boston VC Blogging

Scott Kirsner had a nice article in the Boston Globe (and here in his blog) on the VC blogging phenomenon with a Boston lens. The point he's making, I think, is that those VCs that use new methods to source entrepreneurial deals and ideas will benefit in the long term. His post got some positive comments from lead VC bloggers: IDG, Spark and others.

Boston is a great place to totally catch the entrepreneurship bug: there's huge energy in terms of experienced entrepreneurs, VCs, technology, talent etc. In the past years its completely got to me and now I can say I am totally contained by it. What impact did it have on me, in reality? Okay, I'm with a startup that provides innovative solution in an emerging market, I'm trying to learn, read, watch, follow, attend events and essentially just be close to that warming energy. But, in my eyes, I'm still a fly hovering above the cake: I've yet to substantially contribute anything to this energy, sadly. As many of us, I would guess, I'm having this endless stream of (probably useless) ideas that I'm considering publishing on this blog. I guess it's also down to having my garage buddy ~11k miles away and not finding a local one (anyone interested?).

My initial introduction to VC was on a Harvard event where Jeff Bussgang told the crowd about 1) his way to the top and 2) his thoughts on location based services. I walked out of the event enchanted, because:

• Here's a guy who made it, and made it big
• He's willing to share his experience how he got there, not in a vain way, but in a 'you too can make it happen' (he was probably thinking of HBS peeps :-))
• He has a lot of interest in mobile (cool!)
• He had offered an invaluable lesson on how VCs look at a market/solution/technology, and specifically at LBS
• He's a great guy (eventually he actually invited me to meet with him, which I really appreciated)

And I'm using Jeff as an example only. I'm lucky to know a couple of VC guys that are very friendly, open and just great guys to consult with and share thoughts.

So it doesn't come as a surprise that Jeff and other VC blokes are writing blogs. Beyond the commercial purposes of doing so, it's just about getting closer to the entrepreneurs, teaching them 'how we see things' and the lingo VCs use. It's about the mutual plane.

Also Jeff's comment on Scott's article is not a surprise ("Why do I blog"):
- Definitely less about deal flow and more about transparency and providing accessibility, humanizing the VC process
- Open dialog helps me keep in touch with entrepreneur’s latest issues and hot buttons
- Provides sense of accountability to the entrepreneur community
- Helps me understand social networking, community, blogging, and many other Web 2.0 phenomenon from a practical standpoint as a practitioner, not theoretical

I'm reading Jeff's, Bijan's and David's blogs, yet to use any of it in practice but I know, if ever get there, those would be invaluable. Guys: thank you for writing, it's more useful than any text book.

Simplicity vs. Awareness

A while back I was facing a dilemma how to make users aware of an issue we found on our application on specific phones. The issue made it look pretty bad: it made the phone stall (if I recall correctly) if people ran the application immediately after download.

You know people aren't reading stuff, presenting them with extra text screens (especially on mobile web) will make you loose some. But if you don't make them aware, those people will become real unhappy. In today's blogsphere, an unhappy user can have a lot of "signal strength".

you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. Pick your poison.

(going techy now, bus peeps please skip:) on some high-resolution, low-memory phones, imagine you have just downloaded the application, so presumably the browser is still open (hence memory implications), some temporary memory allocated to the downloaded app, and installer may still be running. you are being prompted: "do you want to run the application?" (that's kind of a given, ain't it?). if you go yes, the code scanning application will attempt to show a viewfinder, and then if you try to take a scan, the phone will attempt to allocate memory for the image. Well that brought the phone to its knees.

(non-techys safe to read from here). So I had two options: when people try to download with this phone, force them through an extra "don't say I didn't tell you" page (and loose people on the way) or let them find it out. I chose the first because I felt people at least need to know and would be bitter if they didn't.

why am I telling you this?

Because a couple days ago I got an invitation to a new service through from someone I know and respect (explanation later but important to say: HE PROBABLY DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THIS INVITE).

It was for a service that allows you to call your Skype friends from your mobile for a local call (isn't this market saturated enough?) and no, it wasn't iSkoot's client. I knew this friend was an expert in the space and looking at technologies and solutions, so I thought why not, try it out myself. So I sign up and the things works nicely. I can see my Skype contacts in there so nice integration into Skype....typical web 2.0 expected convenience. You could even argue that inviting your friends to the service would be an obvious service.
Obvious, but not automatic.
It's just that I don't recall any prompt or any authorization asking me to go ahead and do so! before I know it, invitations were sent from my Skype account to all my contacts to join the service. Or maybe some of them, I don't know!

Anyways, I'm a bit upset about this and wanted to apologize to whoever got this invitation from me...I'm definitely not going to use the service anymore.

Ad-based UK Mobile Operator Blyk launch service

I am very excited about this. In my scale of innovation, leadership and entrepreneurship, this is as good as it gets.

For a while now I've been telling stories about a mobile operator who is basing their business model on advertising, Blyk. Well these guys have announced the launch of their service in the UK.

The reason this is very exciting is because (A)- it puts to test the notion that mobile advertising can energize a mobile operator to have a compelling service and take away a lot of the monthly subscriber fees and (B)- you know Google is watching this very closely. Blyk are a virtual operator, based on Orange UK, targeting a specific age group, 16-24 (does this sound similar to T-Mobile USA's sidekick target crowd, who just announced the deal with MySpace?). They have interesting concepts and learnings they've accumulated during their pre-launch research:

(Blyk's About Page:) "Blyk has built a service around what young people want and need – free communication, ease of use and relevant messages from brands. Blyk has developed its offer by finding out what its members consider most valuable – this will evolve over time as their needs do."

(from the press release:)
“We found that what is 90% familiar and 10% new leads to the best user experience. So, the Blyk communications formats are based on the most dominant and most familiar pattern among 16-24s: Getting a message and responding to it. Both picture and text.”

"Our free offer is 217 texts and 43 minutes every month and this could mean no more phone bills for up to 4.5 million young people in the UK - with no contract. We have the brands that want to speak to them too, with more than 40 already signed up for the launch. This group represents almost every industry sector there is.” "

"For brands, Blyk is an innovative, new media channel, providing direct access to the 16-24 year old market; enabling them to create awareness, build relationships and drive sales to this hard to reach audience. "

This can truly change the way we think of the operator-vendor-subscriber game. it would introduce new forces into the game, with a lot of energy. this is all very exciting.

GOOD LUCK folks!!!

10 things I like about Facebook (9 really)

Roughly 2 weeks into Facebook (FB for short), I have to say that I enjoy every minute playing with it (honeymoon effect?). As part of a little research I'm doing, I've joined several social networks, and some I already was a member of: LinkedIn, Plaxo, Upcoming, twitter etc. even Last.FM.
And one of the things that attract me to FB is that its so much more than I expected it to be, so here's my 7+2 surprises from FB:

1. Sure, I'm 15-20 years older than the peak of the average FB user, but I'm totally not alone: found quite a few known faces there. It's not a network "for teens only".
2. The integration to 3rd party applications is great. I can see my friends, my interests, my events and much more here. you can control everything from FB interface so no need to leave.
   
3. Reviving and enjoying connections is not a mantra: here you can truly get in touch with old friends, see what they're up to and what's happening in their lives.
4. There's a face to that name (kind of an emphasis to the last point): one of the things about networking is that it is so much more 'human' when there's a face attached to the name. It makes a huge difference, I think. Also, people can express themselves in yet another dimension, not to mention the date seekers :-)
   
5. It's truly a "personal network", in that people are encouraged to express their own "profiles" to their taste and personality. It seems that FB's structure has not been as appealing to bands (as MySpace has), for example, and even their advertising is not so 'in your face'. It feels very comfortable and "clean" experience.
6. There's enough to make you stay longer: The richness of applications and network features invites you to 'stay and play'. There's something for everyone because it's the people's network, with infinite dimensions to it.
7. An iPhone-equipped friend let me see her FB profile on her iPhone. Awesome. No extra words needed.
   
8. (Suggestion:) One thing Facebook could help me with is to consolidate all of my various address books into one place. Frankly I don't care if they are FB users or not, but it would just help me so much. And then be able to sync these with a mobile device or export to other APIs.
9. (Weird:) FB doesn't allow (to my best knowledge) outsiders to have a peek (or test drive) at what's inside before signing up. Sure, signing up is free but still people may find it strange to sign up for something they know nothing of. In that, FB bets on the word-of-mouth to be powerful enough to make people sign nevertheless. I think FB would have done good for themselves if they had something more compelling on their front page for new users.
   

Here's a useful site that compares social sites features...looks like they have MySpace setting the tone. Anyway, they both are a lot of fun, and it will get better. I recommend giving FB a try it if you have the time.

A lesson on great market spin

Let me start by a confession: I'm a cheapo. I check out a certain deal site daily to find stuff in bargain prices. Maybe a behavior disorder, maybe the fact that no rich relative had landed a pack on me (yet).

So I'm looking through the site and it takes me to ARC Wireless Freedom Antenna:
"The ARC Freedom Antenna is a cell phone booster antenna that is designed to increase your cell phone reception 8X! Using its patented technology the Freedom Antenna eliminates dropped calls and dead spots and enhances voice clarity. The Freedom Antenna is essential for sales people & executives, remote workers, or anyone frustrated by dropped calls and poor reception. For use in home, office, hotel, car or truck. The patented Freedom Antenna really WORKS!"


Yes!!! for $31.99 I can get the quality of wireless service that I was hoping for when I bought my phone!
Wait a minute...

Don't get me wrong: I am totally for an industry that has identified a real gap and is set to provide solutions there. I'm actually a big supporter of these solutions like UMA (Kineto Wireless), Femtocell (from various vendors like LGCWireless) and other solutions like the one I mentioned. One reason, beyond pure entrepreneurship, is that my coverage at home is so poor!


So the next step is for wireless operators to offer the medicine: Sprint's femtocell AIRAVE (read more) service and T-Mobile's UMA Hotspot @ Home solution will make it all better. (Have you noticed the UMA buzz in the wireless community lately?). (Side comment: I wish some of the service offerings felt more confident in their phone selection, simple vs. complex charging model and simple vs. complex service story).
Take my advice: read all the details about what are the savings and the extra charges in the service. If you think you got it, let me know. Here's a self quiz: if you start the call outside home and then come home to your 'local' network, what's your bill going to look like?

It might be me, but it strikes me that, year 2007, a workaround for a coverage problem is promoted as a cool new service that you actually got to pay for, sounds to me like one great market spin.

Biometrics Go Mobile: An industry whose time has come?

In recent years there had been significant advances in the solutions and technologies that provide biometric sensing solutions. The technology is now offered from vendors to OEMs to embed into laptops, security systems, law enforcement agencies etc. It also offers different methods to authenticate the user based on finger-scan, iris-scan, facial-scan, voice-scan, signature-scan and more.

Introducing biometric readers into mobile phones isn't a new thing: back in 2004 Pantech's GI100 had a biometric fingerprint reader that used remote algorithms to authenticate the user. Further, there were 10 fingerprint 'stores' that would allow speed dialing to a number based on which finger was identified. Also, the phone saved no log of any phone call made from a registered signature, making it very confidential.

When it comes to mobile, it seems like this industry had suffered from what many early solutions see, which is not enough maturity to substantiate a 'pull' for a commercial solutions. In the past, for example, with voice calls and some messaging being at the core of the mobile experience, there was limited motivation for theft and fraud (and hence creating security applications).

Good news, the horizon of applications and services coming to mobile handsets have changed dramatically:

• Protecting personal digital assets: increasingly people will be encouraged to use the phone's computational power, connectivity and storage to turn their phone into a truly 'PDA': from their complete address book, personalization of their phone, blogging about their personal life through to their credit card data, downloading (and sharing) content, and much more. They will want to protect that.
  
• Protecting business digital assets: Whether a sales person on the road with all of his company's prospects in his phone's address book, an investor with sensitive financial data or planning on an excel sheet, a military or secret service agent carrying sensitive data on their PDA...(high end) phones can now carry documents, emails, and addresses that could all be extremely sensitive. Several companies identified the need to identify when the device is indeed lost, secure the data once the device is lost, and then how to retrieve the data. Once the device is lost, do you use the device connectivity to connect to the operator and locate it, do you lock down the device to guard it against remote or local hackers...A lost device is a pain
  
• Protecting e-commerce transactions: this is perhaps the most energetic change that is coming to mobile these days. Mobile banking, payments, promotions, loyalty, coupons, name it. They all require an identity, security, tied into financial information and/or transaction. It is a promise of increased transactions of connected people on the move. BUT- it requires the audience faith in a secure system. This is a promise that has tsunami forces driving it, and will be very attractive to hackers
• Multiple user accounts or 'speed actions': as phones get more capable and centralized to people's lives, people may want to set up separate 'home:work' profiles, set speed actions, separate accounts, all of which can be activated in one quick fingerprint scan
• Device recovery: users can 'unlock' locked devices whether intentionally or if the device got lost. Biometric authentication is a perfect solution to help the right user to recover their phone and otherwise lock the phone from hackers
  

Passwords on mobile are clearly a problem: if it wasn't annoying enough to memorize your bank of passwords, now try typing it on that 12-key keypad. Good luck!.
From Authentec's motivation page: "Passwords, once perceived as a simple security solution, have become cumbersome, vulnerable, expensive and prone to misuse. On average, individuals have to remember 30 passwords and companies often spend $25 to $100 annually per employee to resolve password problems."

SecurePhone is one company that not only attempts to authenticate the user with biometric measures, but they look to provide authenticity 'signing' to the content of a voice call:
"The aim is to enable users to exchange information that can't be disputed afterward. That could be a voice recording that is authenticated to eliminate any doubt about who the speaker is, what they actually said and prove that it has not been manipulated,...To achieve that it is necessary to digitally sign the data and to ensure that only the legitimate user can perform the signing."

A description of SecurePhone's solution reveals 3-level authentication, that requires no hardware addition to the phone:
"The system, which is designed primarily for PDA-phones but could also be used in new generation smart phones and WiFi-enabled PDAs, offers three methods of biometric identification. One employs the (1) digital cameras that have become commonplace in mobile devices along with a face recognition application to identify the user based on their facial features. Another uses (2) voice recognition software – also detecting any asynchrony between speech and lip movements - and the third verifies the (3) handwritten signature of the user on the device's touch screen. The three methods are used in combination to enhance the overall levels of security and reliability, and most importantly they require no hardware additions to mobile devices"

The technology for biometric sensors has hugely matured and sophisticated in recent years. Handset vendors can now accomplish biometric user authentication by utilizing existing components or by adding dedicated hardware sensors from vendors like Authentec and others.
The market need for robust user authentication is mature, and biometric user authentication is an ideal solution to accomplish that.

I think a lot will happen in this space soon, I'm going to watch this space...

On Personalization of Mobile Advertising

According to Sydney Morning Herald, The mobile advertising market is expected to be worth $11B by 2011. But its down to creating the right channels and formats, getting to the right consumer, the right way.

In recent years the efficiency and optimization of web assets has become a huge industry: from learning how to reach the desired audience, to maximizing the opportunity once you have that audience at your page. Efficient advertising makes a world of difference in the outcome of lead generation and sales.
From the eyes of a non-web guru, two key factors stand out when trying to optimize web content and advertising:

• Awareness to the viewer's context: content can be made relevant to samples from the viewers context. for example, Location-aware advertising, based on the user's IP address can suggest local culinary options for the tourist. Geography and Time-aware advertising can display relevant entertainment events. These parameters and others are typically available in the HTTP header of every PC browser request.
  


• Personalization: highly efficient advertising could be trying predict what might YOU want to buy next. Keeping track of ones web purchasing history, visited web content etc. could help in that. There are obvious "big brother" implications but when there's enough value presented, users may opt-in. Amazon, for example, tracks the user's recent interest and purchasing history to generate 'you may like this too' offerings, not to mention the one-click checkout

Take the leap back to the mobile world, where players today are trying to figure out today how to introduce mobile content, advertising, coupons, loyalty etc.
Quick comment: In a MIT conference perhaps two years ago, T-Mobile CTO, Hamid Akhavan commented that the initiatives that will succeed in mobile had better learn from their "non-mobile" parallels (where applicable) and get better. (He's not use that exact language, so excuse the interpretation).

Introducing relevant mobile web content is quite challenging: the physical dimensions, data plans, usability are all factors playing against this initiative. But keeping optimistic and hoping that all users one day will have data plans and usable web accessible devices, let's take another look at the two factors we mentioned:

• Mobile context awareness: Interestingly enough, beyond just optimizing the ad to the content served, "mobile" encapsulates more interesting dimensions to the 'viewer context'. for the most part, since the user is on the move, they will be out of their familiar home and their search could become much more effective. For example, local culinary web advertising might be far more effective out of home than at home: you already know the restaurants you like close to home. On the other hand, getting the user's location (from their IP address) is not as trivial on mobile as it would be on the web. Here's an interesting snapshot of mobile search: (from MobHappy:) m-spatial provide white label local search for the likes of Orange, O2 and Vodafone, as well as personal navigation devices. They’ve just announced a list of the terms users are most frequently searching for on their mobiles.


• Personalization: I believe that personalizing ads on mobile is far more important than on PC, because the users would be less tolerant of irrelevant spam. However, awareness of the mobile user's identity is more difficult. Identity tokens on PC browsing (For example, when you launch GMail, you get right into your inbox and not being asked to login again) is generally managed by cookies and Javascript. Technologies that are just being introduced to mobile browsers. Another ad-hoc way to identify the 'static' consumer is their IP address. You would be surprised how much information can be extracted and monitored over time by just using your IP address. That's all good, but when you think mobile, mobile IP addresses are dynamically allocated: every time you connect to the mobile web your phone is allocated a new IP address by the wireless service provider. So, assuming no cookies and Javascript, being unable to track activity by IP address...what can be done to identify mobile users and personalize content for them?


• Add the user identity to the HTTP headers on the mobile browser: Phone vendors could have identifiers (IMEI, IMSI, ESN,...) added to the mobile browser, but they would risk a consumer "big brother" backlash. Mobile application developers (especially community builders) could have their subscribers pre-register and link their phone to their account, then transmit identifiers to the web. This approach would definitely require user opt-in


• IPV6: I'm no expert on this one, but I understand that in the days of IPV6 there will be no shortage of IP addresses so mobile users could have 'static' IP addresses, which would make them similar to the non-mobile users: an IP address could identify a user over time. I also understand that deployment of IPV6 technology across wireless infrastructure and phones will take some time.
  


• Looking at the Operators' WAP Gateway: when users launch their web browser they get through a series of components in the wireless operators' architecture that, amongst other things, authenticate the subscriber, make sure that are allowed to access the web (they have a data plan etc.) and monitor their activity (mainly for billing purposes. for convenience, let me call this set of components 'WAP Gateway'. The point is, when the subscriber hits the web on their phone, the operator knows exactly who they are and what are they looking at. Bang!. But- hold your horses: operators can't, and won't expose this information: there are privacy issues, and also, this database, used in the right hands, is worth piles of money. So what's the alternative? become the "inside man". Operators are well aware of this potential, but have different opinions on the effort they are willing to make to create sufficient infrastructure for advertising. Teaming up with the likes of Comverse, who provide the infrastructure and have a hand at all the components, would mean that operators can enable advertising, and advertisers can become mobile.
  

Optimizing mobile advertising to the context and identity is required. Not only would it increase its effectiveness on advertising, without it users would become very unhappy. Creating the alliances with the players in the ecosystem is critical to unleash a very profitable future for mobile.

Thanks for reading!

GoLoCo go Mobile?

I've attended Web Innovators meeting last night, which was a great event (amazing turnout!). One of the presenters was Robin Chase from GoLoCo. A community ride-sharing Facebook application:

"Members fill out profiles that now seem very familiar. In the manner of sites like Facebook or Friendster, people list interests, languages, musical preferences and a network of friends or contacts.

After a trip, members are asked whether they would personally ride with their fellow passengers again, building a reliable first-hand database of feedback.

GoLoco not only helps members find a driver or more passengers but automatically divvies up the costs (and carbon-dioxide emissions) between the riders. Money is transferred via online accounts, to avoid awkwardness in the car."

It's all very timely: social networking, Facebook application (including payment solution), supporting ride sharing to stop global warming, all the right words. They've built a really cool rich application, including payment solution to compensate the driver. this is all very cool and you should check it out.

I then asked Robin about the potential in extending the ride sharing experience to mobile: Phones today have location capabilities, people can predefine their set of destinations, and so the whole experience can also be enabled on an ad-hoc basis: I'm here, I'd like a ride to there in the next 30 minutes, whose on my way?

I really think this could be a meaningful extension to the web experience that would maybe double the transactions by people on the move. I'm guessing GoLoCo are on top of it :-)

BTW, Robin previously founded Zipcar, a highly innovative and successful idea in itself: "Founded in June 2000, Zipcar has been doubling in size year by year, and now has more than 100,000 members in 10 cities across the country". It was very enjoyable hearing her speak. Do I sound like a fan?

Next week Mobile Monday Boston is having a very interesting event on Mobile Social Networking. check it out here.

Iceman vs. Batman: Who would you like next to you?

I'm having a blast time now with sports events (not that its helping my own fitness a whole lot): in the last week's evenings you could open the TV and flip between the US Open and Red Sox games (The Red Sox are having a great year, hopefully they'll win the title), and just a few weeks ago, the NE Patriots started blasting on the weekends...heaven.

Has anyone seen the (tennis) game between Roger Federer and Andy Roddic on Wednesday night? One of the most interesting matches in this tournament between #1 (Federer) and #5 (Roddic) in the world. Although Federer played better tennis, Roddic game him a good fight for the first two sets taking them to the tie breakers (BTW, Federer eventually won 6-7, 6-7, 6-2).
Federer reminded me of the comics 'Iceman': He was dominant in the game; he plays perfect tennis and some think that he might be the best player in the game ever. His movements are perfect and he (almost) has no weak points. But what's amazing about him, is that he is as cool as ice, almost inhuman: plays perfect, never gets mad (well, at least not in the games I've seen), some limited reaction when winning a point, and that's it. Hell, he almost didn't seem to sweat!


Roddic reminded me of Batman, in that he's truly one of the best players today. He's inferior (IMHO) to Federer in the after-serve game, but- he has the perfect serve, which landed him numerous aces during the game. (Let me take it back, his game closer to the net is also better than Federer's, but that's not the point). The point being, that Roddic knows he has an advantage there and he 'engages' that weapon well. But what is very different about Roddic, is that he is totally 'human': he expresses his emotions very clearly and one can easily see the correlation between the results and the emotional state, and vice versa. (A little like Batman: powerful, but human: see that human lower half of his face exposed?) Further, it seems that, perhaps because he's American, or because he is so emotionally human, or because he came to the match as an underdog, the crowd seemed to engage him more.

Sharp turn to professional life (and focus in on startups): You have two candidates for a role at your new venture, or you want to shape your own professional figure...what figure would you like to see as your next: self/employee/colleague/boss?
Perfect, almost inhuman, emotionless, utterly professional, 'it's all business' Iceman OR
Very strong, very dedicated, crosses boundaries, emotional and human (incl. it's flaws) Batman?

I find myself pondering that question, be interested in your thoughts.

Ego play in Startups

I've just read this new post on Guy Kawasaki's Blog titled: "Are You an Egomaniac? Ten Questions with Steven Smith". Steven had written a book he co-authored with David Marcum called egonomics: What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (or Most Expensive Liability). For those of you who have been reading my Blog you would know that I'm a big fan of Guy's work and blog.

To start, let's play a little with related definitions:
Confidence: "confidence that doesn’t have to exert itself to “prove” it’s confidence" (Steven Smith)
Humility: "modest opinion or estimate of one's own importance." (Dictionary.com)
Ambition: "an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment" (Dictionary.com)
Ego: "an inflated feeling of pride in your superiority to others" (WordNet)

Here's my thinking on this:

EGO IS STARTUPS KILLER

My definition of ego would be: "Overgrown self sense of one's superiority over others". In other words, regardless of whether true or not, helpful or not, you think you're better and thus you shouldn't care.

It begins at going into broadcast mode: one starts to broadcast their opinions on literally everything, whether they know something about it, vaguely, or none. This is the first killing: when one is broadcasting, they are not listening. Not listening to customers, not listening to the market, (and worse, IMHO), not listening to your staff.

By not listening to the outside world, the market data is non-existent, or irrelevant, so the product and technology might be irrelevant too. Existing customers and potential prospects will not be impressed by this relationship and you'll have a hard time selling. The good news, there may be other people in the organization that might actually be more receptive to the market and be able to provide that balance back.

By not listening to your staff you immediately invalidate any chance of correcting the flawed scheme of creating product in vacuum. But there's a far higher price tag on becoming oblivious the team's input: IT WILL DRIVE THE TEAM AWAY. What made them join a high risk, high toll exercise in the first place? exciting workplace, innovation, creativity, being able to participate and contribute to the decision making process. They did not join for the non-existent 401k!

Another way to look at it is that the true capital of startups comes from the synergies between members of the team. How come? imagine every team member would be raising their hands as their motivation is higher. The overall covered ground resembles the knowledge and innovation capital. Healthy startups have motivated employees whose synergies cover a lot of ground. The alternative is having de-motivated spearheads who cover almost no ground and the innovation is weak. in big organizations many spearheads may still cover a lot of ground but in a startup it is immediately visible that a lot of ground is uncovered.

(Quote from the post:)

Question: What should you do if you work for an egotist?

Answer: Run to the nearest exit and find somewhere else to work

Allow me a quick look at an interesting post made by Announce Mobile's CEO, Jeff Mould (the blog seems to be down but hopefully will come back): His post speaks about why should they consider a partnership request from this startup whose employees aren't productive (spending too much time on the web).
That post caught my eye: forget for a minute how would an outsider know that the other startup employees are being non-productive etc., but what's really happening here: why would employees become non-productive at a startup??? Did they join to become non-productive web addicts?
Here's my advice Jeff: this startup's management has frustrated their talented entrepreneurial people: go get them, get the talent that's been deprived and make it flourish. Go after the IP, too, if appropriate, but the main point here: there's human capital there waiting to be salvaged.

Another comment that's extremely important for me to make: "How-to become an entrepreneur" guides have the tendency of promoting the 'believe in yourself' theme, but sometimes I get the feel as I'm reading through these things that the authors are taking it a bit too far. Perhaps to the ego turf. I strongly agree that ambition is crucial in the game, humility, especially to those who you should be receptive to, is no less important.

To wrap up, here's a quote from one of the comments to Guy's post, by Michael Sporer:
"the ones that accomplish the most, are those who can keep ego at the door. Big egos lead to closed minds; closed minds hurt organizations."

Thanks for reading, interested in your thoughts

New Mobile Tech Reviews & tidbits

A couple of interesting posts reviewing new mobile technologies:

• (From MobHappy) Strand Consulting is one of the analysts who really get mobile, so it was interesting to read over at 160 Characters their take on the current 7 most overhyped mobile technologies. I found the comments on UMA, mobile advertising, mobile interenet really interesting. Further isn't it interesting that IMS didn't make it to the list? is it not overhyped anymore or was it never overhyped (back in 2004?) :-)
  

• Check out this LinkedIn survey on "The next 'Killer App' in the Cellular World". It is by no means a comprehensive survey, but many people there think that location aware services are a good candidate. I personally think that like UMA and other services it is still too complex for developers and subscribers and people would still rather get the dashboard GPS unit than figure out the on-phone service
  

• Throwing tidbits, I was really happy for RIM with this recent ABI Research that reported RIM's Blackberry Smartphone market share increased to 44%. To those who were quick a year or so ago to call the Blackjack, Moto Q and others 'Blackberry killers', I said (and still do): the Canadian folks are just so talented, they will leave everyone else in the dust. Just think of the recent devices: the dual-mode 8830 that does so well to the US operators with business users who so far had to exchange phones on travel; the WiFi enabled consumer-features-loaded 8820, and soon to come Pearl 2 ('Komet')...BTW, knowing RIM from when their stock was in the one-digit range, I can only congratulate my friends over there on the unbelievable stock performance

Mobile Code Scanning stuff:

• Gregory Ng, writer of iPhone Matters, has an interesting post on iPhone Mobile Code Scanning. I wonder where this could go: iPhone does not exactly follow all other vendors rules in that it could set the tone for which technology to use, and what might be good use cases. I suppose Apple started receiving emails from code scanning players :-) Good luck Apple!
  

• Last tidbit, the pondering primate reports a new player in the mobile code scanning scene named Mova Media. It wasn't apparent immediately what is the symbology they've chosen to use (I admit I've not spent too much time researching) but what I like about their approach is that it seems to be services-oriented rather than technology oriented. I very much support the approach that useful, valuable services drive adoption as opposed to technology
  

Mobile Code Scanning: Planning (an operator) launch

I've now written a number of posts on mobile code scanning, explaining the factors that make a difference as one is planning their preferred solution.
In this post, probably the last in the series, I will make a couple of points that I think are important to keep in mind as an operator is readying to launch their code scanning campaign.

BTW, if anyone thinks there's a topic or question that you would like some coverage on, let me know and if I can, I'll be happy to take a shot at it.

So looking at the launch, here are a few factors that I'd recommend keeping in mind as you ready to launch the service:

• Demonstrate Value: The one most critical factor is what will drive people to try this new service. In most cases (see later) people will need to go as far as getting the reader application onto their phones. Make sure the offering is compelling and is NOT code scanning in itself ("nobody wakes up in the morning to scan codes"). Whether it's linking to a cool youTube video, participating in a contest or whatever, make it compelling
• Surprise, don't overwhelm: You will want to demonstrate how code scanning is easy and useful. That's what will drive future compelling use cases. But for now, keep it simple: choose a service everyone is familiar with (for example: consuming content using short code SMS) and demonstrate how easy it is to do with code scanning. Alternatively, choose an "obvious" use case: connecting to content on the web ("would you type that URL otherwise?") and use that. The greatness of simplicity
• Large audience: Make sure you enable as many people as you can on launch. Every user who will see their friends using it and won't be able to might not be as friendly anymore. Perhaps they will upgrade their phone but don't count on that being the common case. If possible, provide an alternative to the unsupported audience so you can keep them as your allies. The large community feel about it has its positive implications
• Make it easily available: Especially on the days of the launch, increase the code reader distribution efforts: enable short codes, have an effective WAP distribution site, remove barriers to get the reader. if possible have representatives (in events, see later) helping people get the reader and get to use it
• Promote it: This one is not code scanning specific, but every new service justifies good PR, putting together the web site that promotes the service (and people can create their own codes), 'tipping' press about it beforehand, a very important feature is to create a high-profile event to launch the service etc.
  

I think that keeping these factors in mind will help subscribers understand, get excited and adopt code scanning as means to connect to services and content. Hopefully there will be so many code scanning programs that we will not remember how life was before it, that the web will be present on our mobile phones (in a positive way) ubiquitously.

I hope you found reading this post useful, thanks for reading and I await your comments.

Mobile Codes Motivation

The email briefs on wireless are reported today that Sprint will spend $5B on WiMAX "buildout"($2.5B in '08!).
Hearing such a number I halt for a second: $5B... Not that it is so dissimilar from other infrastructure investments like IMS, 3G, LBS and many more, but still an impressive number. Specifically in this case, they are building the wireless IP network for services and content, which will require further development and marketing budgets. You would find all over the web different quotes on the (lack of) returns on wireless IP network investments because there weren't enough compelling services and content to drive subscriber adoption: "The Current State Of The Mobile Internet Is Disappointing For All Stakeholders" (Source).
(As a side, with a promise of "Sprint has stated that it intends to deliver service at 2 Mbps to 4 Mbps to its customers with Mobile WiMAX." (Source), we can begin thinking of WVOIP, but lets leave that aside, I can't believe Sprint are making the investment based on WVOIP alone).

So the network will be available, the pipes will be wide enough, and the NFL games will just be waiting to be seen. What would motivate subscribers to actually consume the services? or rather, what would change things from the subscriber standpoint??
I suggest that what could change is the accessibility to those services and content, simplified by mobile code scanning. These can bring the returns on the investment this time around. Let people connect in a click to content, to their bank account, to mobile purchasing, coupons, loyalty, ticketing, networking its all doable. Make code scanning happen and it will show the returns you were hoping for. Here's a great article that speaks to the potential of mobile advertising and state of things.

Mobile Codes Blogsphere

In addition to the great market news and vendor list provided by the pondering primate, Jump! Mobile in his blog has a post with all the blogs that discuss mobile code scanning. there are vendors, marketers, mobile social networkers and much more. Excellent stuff from Jump! Mobile.

Let me quickly repeat the list of mobile code blogs for convenience (from Jump! Mobile):
Rex's blah blah blah (Chinese) - One of the most informative introductions to 2D barcodes and with great industry insight.

The Pondering Primate - Probably the blog that coined the term "physical world connection", always up to date on the latest developments on mobile barcodes.

QR Code Blog (Japanese) - Though discontinued, the blog's attempt at blogging with QR Codes is still quite interesting to see.

All About Mobile Life - Kaywa expert's blog always has something nice to share.

Bar code Insight (Chinese) - Observes the mobile barcode developments happening in Mainland China.

Tommi's S60 applications blog - Developer at Nokia shares views on mobile barcode applications.

GSMBLOG.net - Has an in depth review and comparison of various 2D barcode readers.

David Harper's Different Things - WinkSite founder introduces QR Codes.

BeeTagg Mobile Tagging Blog (Swiss) - BeeTagg's official blog.

streetstylz - NeoMedia's official blog, I think.

Make a Difference - Blog by NextCode's director of product management .

ShotCode Blog - ShotCode's official blog.

http://semacode.org/weblog/ - Semacode blog

http://www.semapedia.org/wordpress/ - Semapedia blog

http://barcode20.blogspot.com/ - Olivier Attia blog - Founder of Scanbuy

http://blog.announcemobile.com/ - Jeff Mould blog - Founder of Announce Mobile


Enjoy!

On Mobile Codes Standardization

I am being asked about how can vendors contribute to the standardization initiative, the new Mobile Code Consortium (MC2) .

For starters, I believe everyone identifies the threat, being that the market becomes fragmented by numerous code formats. Recognizing that brands and advertisers will drive this market, that fragmenting this market by code formats would prevent them from engaging this space is essential. Anything other than a ubiquitous user experience, regardless of codes and hardware will be unacceptable. I strongly recommend reading through Publicis presentation here.

Let me add a quick note here that I will avoid the discussion of whether MC2 is appropriate or not (as can be found in numerous places on the web).

In consensus that the MC2 initiative is essential and everyone in the space should support it,
the question becomes (IMHO): what are the issues that are realistic & appropriate for discussion and agreement in this context? Reading through the Mission Statement and the Standards Discussion here are the 3 issues MC2 is proposing to deal with:

• Visual and Encoding Aspects (essentially dealing with the code format)
• Data Aspects: Formatting the code content
• Behavioral Aspects (The code reader UI behavior)

I would suggest that at least for now, the symbology itself should not be on this list. The reason being is that there has not been enough evidence from the market place as to code-format related factors that drive adoption. The argument that standard codes have reach challenges because of optics issues on out-of-Japan phones is a temporary one. With that in mind, trying to define the new standard symbology will be based on vendors making the case for their proprietary code format based on their vision, experience and ego. That's not very effective. The market needs a prompt definition and there are two appropriate, well defined solutions out there, we should be using them (at least as V1.0).
In the same spirit, I think that the last issue on the MC2 initiative list, dealing with the code reader UI behavior, is to be left to the vendors to design and differentiate. MC2 should be able to define the functional behavior the reader once it scans a particular code but when it comes to UI, vendor should have the freedom to differentiate through a nicer screen and more flexible options menu.

Let me propose a few ideas that I think would be useful for MC2 members to make progress on:

• Ubiquitous standard symbologies support with optional proprietary codes: Agree that the industry needs a standard that every code reader will support. Those codes should be QR, DM or both. No point in arguing the code formats issue. All vendors that want to be considered need to support standard codes, and can add support for more codes, like their own proprietary format and maybe others. Operators and brands can then choose the solutions they prefer. Consumers will have the ability to decode the codes and use them regardless of the code reader they are using
  
• Define templates for the code content: This is, IMHO, the space at which MC2 can contribute the most. Assume a vendor supports QR, there is no definition today to what might be the code content, it could be anything. By defining the templates, MC2 would enable a structure that would provide acceptable, expected user experience, flexible use cases and the grounds for operators and brands to monetize on. MC2 can make this along term initiative such that defines the formatting for new use cases
  
• Data Aspects of more complex usage: This is an advanced discussion of the previous point but equally important: some use cases would require extra control and flexibility, that should be supported by the code content. For example, in the case of direct mobile payments, some fraud detection and prevention data might be embedded into the code and should stay hidden from the user. MC2 can make this happen by defining the structure of those codes generally, and then vendors or operators can go in and refine the details in their specific solution
• Introduce "licensed" codes schemes: one of the bigger issues of using standard codes for B2B, for example, is that anyone can read and reproduce their codes. In similar to IP address allocation, MC2 can take the initiative of allocation certain 'address space' for specific usage such as privately licensed prefixes
• Standard Symbology V2: by the time MC2 was able to facilitate all of the above, there will be as many members and activities in the marketplace to suggest what factors in the symbology drive adoption. At that time MC2 can begin defining future ("V2") symbologies and facilitate standardization process and encouraging vendors to adopt them

In viewing this list, I think that one of the strengths of it is that these all are achievable items in a measurable time frame. There is not much room for subjective arguments in any of them and so the process could be very effective.
By moderating an effective discussion MC2 could become the parallel to other centralized bodies like OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) and in that attract various players from the space to join.

I hope that was useful, thanks for reading.