Make a Difference

Quick snippets on Google+

2011-12-14T15:47:00.002-05:00

I've restarted reading the feeds I used to and like before, I come across a lot of interesting short nuggets (like this).

I don't want to clutter this blog, so if you're interested, follow my Google+ roll (it's the easiest tool I know of for now..).

What makes a successful, monetizable mobile app?

2011-12-12T09:16:00.000-05:00

Recently there's been a interesting movements in the mobile payments space. For example, Amazon-Bango mobile payments for Fire, Mastercards' $18M investment in mFoundry and Square's recent $100M D-round (with a rumored valuation of $1B!).

The interesting topic, IMO, is, if I'm a marketer/retailer, what's the best strategy to A- define a realistic mobile success criteria, B- execute, measure and improve. Of course, that's a very broad topic: success criteria could mean uniques, visit depth, cross-channel transactions, bottom line etc. I hope everyone agrees, defining a success criteria is critical to the success of your mobile strategy.
Let's not diverge: I wanted to write about monetizing mobile strategies.

Devin Coldewey has an interesting TechCrunch post on Starbucks mobile revenues as % of total. To summarize (please read the article to get the complete message), the question is: well, mobile Starbucks card reloading in FY11 accounts for $110.5M vs a total of $2.4M global Starbucks card transactions (Source), that's "nice". But minuscule (in his view). Will Starbucks continue using a lone-wolf payment solution or align itself with a more universal payment system like Google Wallet?

Tricky. Starbucks, as I'll discuss shortly, has the means to be very successful in the short term. Does that place them on an island (mobile payment method-wise)? not necessarily. They can add or replace the payment method once one becomes prevalent.

I argue that consolidation and unification of mobile payment solutions is coming, however not tomorrow and not 1-2 years from now. As you can see above: Mastercard believes in NFC. Square believes in their tiny HW add-on. Ebay predicts $5Bn revenues from their mobile shopping app in 2011. Back in my barcode scanning days I witnessed first hand how everyone in the service chain wants a hand on the users and revenues, and can't agree on the %. Dejavu: Verizon just decided to block Google wallet. I rest my case.

So who can make it happen?

Strategically, those who control large pieces of the service chain. Take Google for example: they control devices, have a mobile payment solution, figured out relations with businesses etc. Heck, they could even have their own spectrum. They have the name and $ to do it. They haven't done that so far even though they could (!). Further, IMO Android is still perceived as the less secure platform to do "serious business" on.
Tactically, there are plenty of businesses who control just enough pieces of the chain. They can take ownership of the user and monetize nicely in the short term. That's my main interest in this post.

Back to Starbucks. Love their app, and have been visiting their stores more frequently because the whole experience is so smooth. What drives 26M mobile transactions in 2011 and growing 3M monthly?

Slick experience: controlling the point of sale (PoS) and the application allows incredibly smooth 'checkout' process.
Loyalty program: Combining the loyalty card with freebies etc.
Trusted micro payment solution: The Starbucks card isn't an independent payment solution (like a Sears credit card is, for example) but you can load it once a while (that too is dead simple and slick) and make coffee micro payment. Trusted, slick, awesome.
Brand loyalty: coffee is a great example for brand strength and it's impact on loyalty.
The need to come into a store when you want a sip. Unlike online+physical retailers, Starbucks transactions happen in the store, when you're not in front of your computer. So it's either your wallet or your phone. For Amazon, Sears,..it's a combination. When you're at home, you'll use your PC, not your phone (that's a generalization, but assuming you'd do product search on a PC..).

So now take any number of similar businesses: Panera, any fast-food restaurant with a drive-thru, Larger retailers like Sears (who even have their own credit card). The above principles apply. Mobile monetization made simple.

What does a business like Panera need to do to get to the same level like the Starbucks app:

Loyalty card: check. Already exists, need to drive more awareness. Also, drive adoption via freebies.
Payments: allow loading funds into the card and payments via scanners at the PoS, or right from the app as I'll discuss a little later.
"My food": allow users to define their favorite plates so ordering is made incredibly easy.
Skip the line: That's the one I want to emphasize: You already know I'm in the store. Let me order straight from the app, pay, get a number and go sit. Let me know when my order is ready. Done.

Hope this post is interesting and helpful. As always, interested in feedback and views. Looking forward to see more of these apps, and skip the line! ;)

What's next? Cross-channel monetization

2011-11-18T06:18:00.000-05:00

Hello blog. It's been a while. back for a quick visit, let's see how long this lasts..

Anyway, I'm reading this morning an insightful survey from Limelight. Mobile shoppers expectations, experiences etc. All the good stuff.
What caught my eye and has been on my mind is quantifying the cross-channel revenues topic. according to Limelight:

76% (shoppers) have purchased a product at the store after they have researched the product on their Internet-connected mobile device but did not purchase it on that device
72% have purchased a product on the retailer website on the computer after they have researched the product on their Internet-connected mobile device but did not purchase it on that device

Further, 71% of respondents report using their Internet-connected mobile device to research products while they are physically in the store.

Clearly, mobile has a significant contribution to the overall bottom line in a way that's never been measured before. Most of it, indirect. Why is this critical? in an early ecosystem, many people 'get' the need to have a mobile strategy and are executing on it. But in the lack of clear, quantifiable success metric, your mobile strategy is nothing other than cute.
Perhaps one way to address this is to isolate those online revenues for which the search was 'short' (whatever that means..). That seem far from being accurate.
Figuring this metric out in a way that is transparent to the shopper will help, I believe, many retailers to measure success and further invest in their mobile strategy.

Interested in your thoughts. Maybe I'm behind and someone already figured it out, I'd love to learn about it.

Take Control over your destiny

2010-02-11T09:47:00.000-05:00

I really enjoy reading Bijan's posts. They are very insightful, and, since there are mutual interests (consumer-facing tech, music and mobile) many times the advice or view given in his posts applies directly to me.

This morning's post is a good example: Take Control over your destiny. To summarize (I recommend reading the original post), try to control your dependencies on operators and OEMs on direct consumer plays, as much as you can.

Here's my thoughts on the topic:
I couldn't agree more, wouldn't that be terrific. However in some cases, the operators and OEMs control a critical piece to be worked around. I'm not suggesting employing a full-time BD guy to be in front of operators and OEMs, but you better be able to leverage the assets they own well. Let me give two examples: Mobile Payments and Mobile Enabling Technologies (from barcodes to speech-driven 'activities').

In the case of Mobile payments, the operators *own* the critical bits that allow for acceptable user experience. At least as it comes to mobile web (mobile apps are different). I hate to admit, but the Paypal/Amazon/Google checkout are simply not as friendly as the 1-click WAP checkout button that results in an on-bill transaction, that's been deployed and heavily used in the UK for years now. The UK operators realized the need and potential, and gathered to create a solution called PayForIt. I believe that every startup that wants to see mobile commerce on mobile web has a real problem exactly because of that.

Similarly, mobile enabling technologies have been proven to drive revenues through increased usage, device and plan sales. Enabling technologies, IMO, aren't best positioned on the device as a silo application. They really should be preloaded as an infrastructure background service with APIs to any application: then, let the user search the web using speech browser, play games and dictate. Use barcodes (or google goggles) to scan a real-world item and embed as recommendation to a friend in your FB app. Things like that. Getting preloaded, or embedded as infrastructure layer, as we know, is a pretty complex OEM play.

In some mobile consumer app plays you can provide a good service without heavy dependency on operators and OEMs, but not all. My 2 cents.

What's Square mean to you?

2009-12-15T09:42:00.000-05:00

Image Attribute: Square

In the past few days there's been a lot of buzz about Square, the new mobile-phone credit card swiping solution. Point of Sale to the people, so-to-speak. Few peeps asked me of my thoughts, and how does it affect Adva Mobile, so here it is.
I think Square is a terrific little gadget that, more than it's own independent value to the world, the buzz it brings with it drives more awareness to the things one could do using their mobile phone. The more we can see from that, the better, IMO.
I admire their approach: I think that of the mobile payment solutions, they win on simplicity (to the end user) and reach. (almost) all other mobile payment solutions require pre-registration, which is a killer for the ad-hoc shoppers.
On it's own, I have my healthy skepticism how many people will end up owning and using the device. Requiring extra hardware? We've seen what happened to Zeemote. It will be interesting to find the payout rates, the installation process and other factors. Of those long-tail merchants, you need to find people with the right phone and plan, willing to pay for the gadget, and share their revenues with another party. For those people, Square complements the cash-only sales with cash and credit. I'm trying to think who those people are: Street artist selling paintings? Active musician next to the merch table? Do they really need this? time will tell.
Now if you contrast paying using Square and on a mobile website (with, say, PayPal), then I'd say it's hard to determine how many of the fans would rather use one or the other. Square wins in the consumer side, Paypal (I think) wins on the merchant side.

As far as Adva Mobile is concerned, again, the buzz that Square brings is a blessing. We'd like to see less and less "I didn't know I could do that". As mentioned, Square complements well the financial processing for products that entertainers would like to sell, say, on their merch table. It is important to note, Adva Mobile is a Mobile Marketing Service for entertainers. There are mobile sales tools that come with it, that entertainers can leverage, but our focus has always been helping entertainers acquire new fans and keep them engaged, coming to shows and participating in the "community" you're building.

Overall, Square is certainly an interesting solution that will stir things up for a while. It certainly brings a lot of buzz with it, which is great. I'm looking forward to see what will happen with it as time goes by.

Real World Connection: Finally in the US?

2009-12-07T16:16:00.001-05:00

For the longest time I've been a fan of, working in, and following various attempts at Real World Location technologies. Whether Mobile Barcode Scanning (Nextcode, NeoMedia, Scanbuy and others), real 'things' picture analyzed (mobot, Pongr and others), there were many attempts at getting it right.
No doubt, with the current possibilities through image recognition technologies, a lot can be achieved.

The question, IMO, has always been one of two:

Who has enough power in the marketplace (exp. in the US) to bring together all the players, commercial and customers, to agree on one "Standard" or "Scanning Form" that translates from a real-world "Thing" to digital content, AND
Who has enough images and sufficient search, image recognition power to beef up an end-user acceptable performance

The answer, of course, is Google. For a long time I've been anticipating it, and now it's here: Google Goggles. Watch and enjoy. Good luck to all other players in this market, I think the market just got swept away from under your feet.

"Tell A Friend", Mobile web version OR reverse mobile carrier lookup

2009-12-03T23:09:00.000-05:00

One of the key components to enable word-of-mouth spreading of a good service, is the ability for one user to share the experience with their friend. Duh.
In mobile, how can you enable that? SMS your friend, Email your friend, Twitter, maybe others. Facebook connect has been anticipated for ages on mobile web, but they seem to like only iphone apps, for now.
Trying not to force a behavior change or forcing someone to type in a full email address on their phone, I was looking for a simple, and free way for users to "tell their friends" over SMS.
If you have a service that uses SMS, then you're working with an SMS aggregation, and, for the most part, they need to know the carrier as well as the phone number you're sending the SMS to. But, what if you don't know the carrier?? I mean, the user of the service may know the phone number of their friend, but is it realistic to expect them to know the carrier? No, it's not.
So, you turn to the aggregation and ask them about reverse carrier lookup.
News flash: On top of the $.03 the resulting SMS will cost, the lookup will be additional $.02-$.03 and some 2-3 digit monthly minimum. Right, the US carriers are starving and need to make more money.
Alright, Google search takes you into this terrific FREE White pages feature. You can reverse lookup mobile carriers by phone numbers, and, from my experiments, they have it right!
Next step: sign up for their API. But: the API returns completely different, incorrect results!

I asked their API people for their thoughts on this, and here's what I got back:
"The carrier information available through our free, developer API is the same information we display in our search results on WhitePages. So, in terms of search results for a reverse phone query, the information is the same. However, on WhitePages, we offer an exclusive “Mobile Carrier Lookup” feature. We do not plan on including the mobile carrier information available through the “Mobile Carrier Lookup” feature on WhitePages via the free, developer API."

I'm speechless. This is really valuable information that's available one place and not in the API. Easily fixable, but they don't seem to see the value. ugh.

To DYI or not DYI. That is the question!

2009-11-23T08:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday at MusicHackDay, I was listening to the "Starting a Music Business" panel, and two topics ran in my head:

DYI vs. centralized management service for artists: A discussion started about the value, and load that new 'DYI' tools provide for entertainers. Derek Sivers (whose truly an awesome dude) had a really great way of putting it: "DYI? great! and now there's this tool? oh great, and now 'more information'? oh boy...". He's spot-on, I think.
We at Adva Mobile definitely see how artists check us out and some stay, some move on. There's just so many tools. That's why integrated serices like ArtistData are the right way to go, IMO.
There's just way too many different offerings for artists right now, and consolidation of the really good ones is bound to happen, hopefully soon (Hopefully Adva Mobile will be one of them). The flip side, though, is that many artists who would never get heard or make any money (to make art) would never have been heard by anyone without those DYI tools. So definitely the DYI tools is not for those who aren't prepared to invest in the promotion bit to be successful, and it also depends on how big you are. Hopefully, those issues are handed over to a band manager of sorts when you grow big enough.
The other topic in my head (that was not discussed) was triggered by the inevitable "Now's a great time to start a business in the music space". Sure, Duh. But seriously, without going pessimistic about it, what do you make of the recent iLike and iMeem fire sales? Or Spiral frog shutdown or Qtrax needing add'l $50MM? I mean, these are all players who've been alive for sometime and have been trying to figure "it" out. If iMeem is worth $1MM, I'm asking myself what are we worth? A Grand latte?

Reblogged: Music as the ideal virtual good

2009-11-23T05:52:00.000-05:00

This weekend I was fortunate to attend MusicHackDay organized at Microsoft NERD. I was even more fortunate to ask Nabeel Hyatt about recruiting talent in the music space who will help us geeks find that moonlight on the bridge between technology and entertainment. Anyway..
Nabeels' post "Music as the ideal virtual good" is one to pay attention to, whatever your involvement in the entertainment space is. His illustration of the "music business state of affairs", if you will. is excellent. I recommend walking through his deck. I think the point is, for the creative community as well as the technology, there is a place to make money. It just needs to be found in places it wasn't there before. For Nabeel, it's music inside social games:
"While virtual goods are usually confined to conversations about pixelated clothing and weapons, music is by far the highest grossing digital good. A look at what makes music sell as a virtual good."

My take? If you're an artist, think through your revenue stream. Some of it always will come from straight music sales, no doubt. But people today are much more about the live experience in shows followed by the memorabilia that comes with the experience (that's another way to name your CDs or T-shirt). Of course music creation is the driver for all of it, but on it's own, perhaps is not what's going to get you money.

Chart Courtesy: Nabeel Hyatt

Geeky wishes...

2009-11-17T21:12:00.000-05:00

I wish...

There was a free way to do mobile carrier lookup from a mobile number. That way I could enable people on mobile web pages to share their favorite sites with their friends in a rifle mode (the shotgun approach is easily supported via Twitter). It cost way too much to do a carrier lookup and then send the SMS. Operators should want this more than me, because when I'll send that SMS, I will pay to send it, and the receiver will pay ~$.10 to receive it.
There was a way to find location on mobile web pages for all phone types, not restricted to whether those devices have GPS or not (cellid or wifi router mac address is better than nothing). OEMs should want this more than me, because it opens a sea of marketing opportunities for them.
There was a simple, easy way to bill people off-deck, from an app or mobile web pages. The current on and off-deck billing solutions in the US are unusable. Every time I hear news from the UK about PayForIt I become green with envy. If there's such a successful model, why can't the US replicate it?! *everyone* in the mobile space should want this. This morning GoPayforit announced that it lets vendors set up a payment service for their site by inserting one line of code.

If I got any of the above wrong, feel free to educate me!

Can Freemium Content Model Survive?

2009-11-17T15:19:00.002-05:00

Image Courtesy: HypebotFollowing last weeks' rumors about MySpace starting to charge for streaming and this weeks'MySpace-iMeem possible acquisition rumors, there's a lot of (repeating) talk about the business model of free content. Of particular interest is Wireds' post "Music: Too Expensive to Be Free, Too Free to Be Expensive".

Here's some of my thoughts, and what led me to start Adva Mobile

Licensing Music from the majors is a difficult financial commitment to recover. If you're small and nimble, prove your bus model with the long tail, or at least the smaller players before paying the huge upfront fees. Sure, you gain (if you're lucky) the major's marketing wind behind your back, but when the honeymoon is over, you start paying. Another Wired writer's comment is almost (but not) funny: "In the world of online music, you're nobody until somebody sues you"
"Advertising was supposed to be music’s magic bullet". Not. In all metrics, advertising payouts are dropping fast. Even on mobile, even when you can provide pretty accurate fan profiles, the payouts are way below your operating costs or licensing costs (if you have any).
"Fans don't pay/Expect free". Not (again). As Debbie Chachra explained in her insightful post, fans will pay for relationships with the artists they follow in a number of levels. From tickets, hard goods to funding artist recordings, fans will pay for the experience that comes with the music. You just need to find a way to leverage those.

What's interesting in the entertainment space is that there seem to be no big winners in the game. Big problems = Big opportunities. That's what I'm banking on, anyway.

Economy's turning?

2009-11-06T11:54:00.000-05:00

Tough times these days. With Microsoft dropping 800 peeps, Nokia-Siemens dropping thousands etc. I have a sneaking suspicion that layoffs in the mobile location space are imminent, following Google's launch of the Android full featured free GPS app.

There's no good reason for rehashing all of that other than sharing my feelings about the recent one to bite the dust: Zeemote. To be honest, I was a bit cynical about the use case and liklihood for proliferation of their gadget. But, as we know, the gaming industry has gone places no-one has predicted. In any case, Zeemote was built by a true visionary, Beth Marcus. I cringe when I think of the people who put so much effort in, go home empty handed.

All those talking about the economy turning, and there's no better time like now to start something new, I'm not sure what you're smokin', it sure is great stuff!. Here's my advice to working people: if you have a day job, get some super-glue, and put a lot of it on your chair. And I mean, A LOT!

IODA gets iPhone app for artists from MixMatchMusic

2009-11-04T10:03:00.000-05:00

Image Courtesy: MixMatchMusic

Congratulations to MixMatchmusic and Alan Khalfin for getting IODA on the bandwagon for their artist mobile promotional tool. IODA is a key player in the marketplace and their recognition that promotion on mobile is important, is great.
I found the quote from Adam Rabinovitz (IODA VP Marketing) interesting: "The MobBase iPhone app is an innovative and low-cost solution for independent artists who want to participate in the explosively popular iPhone app market".

We at Adva Mobile asked ourselves the question whether an iPhone app was the way to go initially, or Mobile Web. It was fan reach vs. hype. Admittedly, an iPhone app has far more hype than mobile web. From our little research, it seemed like artists wanted to reach all of their fans in the crowd, using simple and known tools like mobile web and SMS. We ended up deciding that resident iPhone, Android and blackberry app would come second.
The 2nd question I'm asking myself, reading the article, is the economics of providing artists a tailored app. We all know creating and deploying an app is not an insignificant effort. What kind of revenue artists need to make to pay $20+$15/month just for this app. (BTW, the iLike iPhone is not free). What's gonna happen in a year when Android is expected to come close to the iPhone reach? Are artists expected to pay another $15/month or more? An artist who can justify this expense is a household name. Selling out big venues, music and merch. Again, this is a dilemma we've been discussing at Adva Mobile. We ended up deciding that by charging artists that much, you essentially give up a huge chunk of the market. Our service is currently free, and maybe in the future we'll add some premium services.

Overall, I'm delighted to hear these news. It means more people add mobile to the promotion toolbox, and that's good for everyone!

Mobile Location is here (now for real)

2009-10-22T09:31:00.000-05:00

In the last couple weeks I've been playing around with new mobile technology. This time, I came across this nice piece that enables marketers to learn their audience location as they view their mobile web pages.

Mobile location, it seems, has been the talk of the industry forever. Devices that don't come out with GPS chips installed seem to be the minority these days. Many applications have some form of mobile location awareness to them. Even Google has stormed in with Google Latitude, although the availability of that database for commercial purposes remains unclear. Has the real time location awareness made a dent in how marketers think of entering the mobile playground? questionable, I think.

One reason for not making a dent is that the effort associated in creating a mobile application is not insignificant. You need to consider coverage, features, maintenance etc. There's not an obvious easy entry point for marketers to test the ('mobile') water if the options are limited to mobile applications. If users' location were available on the mobile web, then with the development of a small portal, marketers can get huge reach instantly, and figure out the next step.

It seems that the technology is becoming available to create location-aware websites, and more specifically, location-aware mobile websites. I am hoping that this will really open a new path for marketers that wasn't available before, it is certainly an exciting opportunity for innovation!

New England Mobile Sector

2009-10-21T15:05:00.000-05:00

As I read XConomy's post on the top 10 NE Venture deals of Q3'09, all I can do is remember that only this last Monday, at Mobile Monday, I was inside a room full of mobile entrepreneurs, money people, business people and what not, everyone saying: Mobile in Boston is reality, look around you.

Well, maybe we can argue that there are people working in the mobile space in NE, trying to make a difference and make miracles happen, but at the bottom line, money talks:
NE ventures are about science projects, or late-stage successful businesses. Numerous NE VCs are uncomfortable about investing in mobile, as are the early stage angels and independents. They need infrastructure, health, IP, enterprise. That works.

Maybe it's a way to ensure mobile businesses in NE are stronger (whatever that means) because there are fewer who can survive w/o funding. Or otherwise, if you want mobile, go west.

Monetization in Mobile

2009-10-20T09:05:00.001-05:00

Image: TextMovers

Yesterday night's great Boston Mobile Monday had an interesting panel of speakers who were talking about Monetization in Mobile. The panel included a developer, carrier, OEM and a VC, perfect.

Anyway, the question on the table is, to me, a critical question to ask: How to build a profitable business in mobile?

The panel, IMO, went down the obvious path of:

Interesting content and services
Compelling, yet simple engagement
Powerful marketing, discoverability and distribution
Advertising is not it

All true, but, duh.

Duh because the free business model, as successful as it may be (is it?), should be viewed as a pathway to an upsell. That's the critical point people seem to forget. Users have money, and they are willing to spend it. On tickets, goods, experience, less so content but some, etc.

Once we figured that out, we come to the real question of, ok, how do you charge the user

In both scenarios: resident apps and mobile web
In a highly user-friendly way, that does not require you to pre-sign up on the web. Yes, I'm talking about a one-click checkout on-bill transactions. Like they had for years now with PayForIt in the UK.

If developers could answer that question, then the way the US mobile space looks would have been very different. Suddenly the Mobile option would seem like a money generating, obvious decision for marketers, who are today sitting on the fence. It's not to say app stores don't allow charging, and Apple just recently approved on-app follow-on charges. But it's not anywhere near being readily available mainstream technology.

What are the available options to bill the user, in the US, today? (this is my knowledge, please correct me)

Carrier billing
Pros: very simple, user friendly and familiar checkout process. Does not require pre-signup on the user. Support for refunds etc.
Cons: Expansive setup and recurring charges, to the degree that it is prohibitive for startups. Unimaginable transaction % left to the carriers. Service Guidelines (dictated by the carriers) change on a weekly basis (creating a massive engineering effort).

SMS Billing
Pros: Works (almost) cross carrier. Users are comfortable and familiar with the SMS.
Cons: see above.
WAP Billing
Pros: Mobile web one-click Amazon-like experience, beautiful. Money savings (not sending premium SMSs).
Cons: Definitely not cross carrier. Massive efforts required to maintain and add new services to conform with carrier guidelines.

Off-Deck billing
The reason off-deck billing is very interesting is because in the US it has huge potential: In many world countries (the Philippines is a a great example), esp. where people's access to cash and banks isn't as easy, carriers identified the potential and provided mobile solutions for financial transactions, money transfers etc. In the US, there is a growing need for mobile financial solution, but the carriers do not have the silver bullet solution today. That's the definition of a gap that entrepreneurs can fill.
- Pre registration solutions:
  So yeah, Amazon, Paypal, Google and others provide great solutions, with great payout as well. The only downside is that you either need to
  - Be a pre-registered member of the service: an Amazon signed customer, Google checkout, Paypal mobile etc.
  - Own and be willing to enter your full credit card details (including address etc.) on your mobile phone (these days, with an increasing number of phones that have full keyboards, it's not as bad).
  Bottom line: Mobile is about immediacy. If we can't enable real time access to shopping for a first-time user, it's a real limitation.
- On the fly: I'm actually not aware of these solutions (enlighten me). On-the-fly off-deck solutions, to me, is exactly what is needed.

To summarize this long post (sorry), I think there is a gap in the US as far as mobile solutions for recurring user billing transactions. It could come from the carriers in the form of financially and technically reasonable ubiquitous solution (like PayForIt), or it could come from entrepreneurs who can figure it out as a service that plugs into apps and mobile sites.

Y Combinator startup TipJoy shuts down

2009-08-22T06:19:00.001-05:00

"Concurrent with shutting down the site, the two co-founders have moved to the west cost, Ivan Kirigin told Mass High Tech in an email. Early this year, Y Combinator announced plans to close its East Coast program, formerly headquartered in Boston, and focus on incubating West-Coast-based startups."

Read more here.

Say no more. Sigh.

New Ad-supported MVNO: Tomato Plus

2009-05-11T09:46:00.002-05:00

I'm reading this morning about Tomato Plus, a new Ad-supported MVNO in Croatia. Those of you reading my posts know that I'm a believer in a change of the business model to have advertisers pay for targeting information happily provided by subscribers, who get value in return.

"The basic consumer offering is getting 50 free sms and 50 free minutes of calling every month, “in return” for receiving 5 or 6 sms or mms ads per day. I say “in return” because it doesn’t seem as if the consumer feels as if they’re putting up with unwanted ads, as this might imply. Quite the opposite in fact, with research showing that 92% of subscribers are very happy and most ads having high response rates - even higher than Blyk claim, which is already impressive."

our first partnership: ArtistData

2009-05-06T04:22:00.002-05:00

I'm more than excited to announce our first partnership, with ArtistData. Not only because it's big news for Adva Mobile, but also because ArtistData's service is so spot-on: giving musicians a service that enables them to enter shows, news, blogs and other assets once, and automatically aggregate that information to other sites. It's the right approach for musicians, who are already sufferring from lack of time to deal with self-promotion on multiple sites.

This integration will allow musicians to bring their assets from ArtistData automatically to their mobile fan club on Adva Mobile. It will happen automatically daily (you need to set it up on both sites).

I think it's very cool and hope a lot of musicians will benefit from it. Certainly a step in the right direction, for everyone.

You can read more details here.

Reporting content downloads: geeks area

2009-05-06T00:43:00.004-05:00

Hi everyone,

here's a little contribution to the world from yours truly. This time, highly geeky (beware!).

I had a problem where I needed to report content downloads by mobile phones. Most mobile browsers I know do not allow download and redirect, or vice versa, which would have been nice, as I'd report on the download into the database before or after the actual download happens.

Then I turned to the generic reporting service that my hosting provider has. They have two services they use for reporting. One's a fancy service (smartstats), but in my host environment, their API wasn't installed.

The second option was to go to the raw log files. Easy peasy. Well, not that easy:

- The log files live in a hidden system folder

- The logs are zipped, and host (which is shared) doesn't have an unzipping solution installed in their GAC. You need a 3rd party (ideally free) unzipping utility (I'm using .Net) that can live in the bin folder.

Locating the unzip utility was easy, and I found a great one (kudos!) here. I didn't deal with the documentation and went right for the 'reduced' dll version since I figured if I'm only unzipping a file, that would be sufficient. looks like it worked.

The next piece was to grab the zip files somehow. That was a pain and a waste of time. I tried to go for FTP, but counldn't figure it out. Eventually I found this 3-line piece which did the trick.

Here's a snippet of the relevant pieces of the code for your convenience (below). It's missing one important thing: clean up the files once you're done.

Enjoy! (Hope this will save you some time if you're having similar challenges)

public static processZipFile()

{

string zipFileName = "ex"+ t.AddDays(-1).ToString("yyMMdd"),

// temporary folder the zip file has been saved at

tempPath = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + "templog\\";

try

{

// get the zip file from the hidden folder on the server

copyOver(zipFileName);

// open the file for unzipping

Ionic.Zip.ZipFile zip = ZipFile.Read(tempPath + zipFileName + ".zip");

foreach (ZipEntry e in zip)

{

// unzip the file

e.Extract(tempPath, true);

// do what you need to do with the file

}

...

}

// get the zip file from the remote server and copy it to a temporary folder

public static void copyOver(string fileName)

{

WebClient wc = new WebClient();

wc.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("username", "password");

wc.DownloadFile("ftp://ftp.sample.com/httplog/"+fileName+".zip", AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + "templog/"+fileName+".zip");

}

Trent (NIN) head butting Apple over iPhone app rejected: Can he make a dent?

2009-05-04T08:06:00.009-05:00

(read here)

Finally someone with enough marketing power and following goes through what we've been seeing for at least half a decade: the senseless censorship that is mandated in the mobile world. It's unheard of and unbelievable for traditional web marketers. I've seen this for a while now, specifically in the independant music world: almost every band has some content that doesn't match exactly the rules. is the answer not to serve them, or even worse, their audience?!. As Rich Miner said recently: "Nobody protects me when I'm browsing on my PC, why are they protecting me when I'm mobile-browsing?".

The answer is that this is a problem that operators, specifically US ones, have created themselves. The notion of educating subscribers that they can, and should call in whenever something goes wrong and they're just unhappy and want to bang someone, led to a gigantic and hungry support system that sucks the budgets underneath the carriers legs. (When was the last time you called Microsoft or Intel because you got the blue screen?!). The next piece for the carriers, then, is to restrict things that could go wrong on phones, resulting with subscribers either hacking phones or unaware of their phones capabilities. In other words, "buy a better monthly subscription, but please don't use it".

The reason I'm relating this Apple story to the operators is that I'm guessing these guidelines came from their marriage to AT&T (I already wrote about how healthy it would have been if Apple went operator-independant and sold unlocked phones. Here again, they would have freedom to do what's right, not what's mandated). What's even more infuriating, and it explains the inconsistency in apple's approval process, is that the guidelines change frequently. And I mean, weekly. Who has the time to read a 100-page "new operator guidelines", adn then implement them every time?

It'd be great if Trent could make a dent in how things work in the mobile space. Make decision makers think about the realities out there and growing volume of diverse content available on mobile, and how to best present it (enable parental controls on phones?). The reality, though, is that this is geat publicity for both sides, NIN & Apple. When the app comes out, there's gonna be more interest and demand. Apple will figure a way to work with NIN, it's worth bringing them through the VIP backdoor. The rest of the musicians will need to see their art scrubbed.

BTW...to clarify, I'm not a fan of any of that language or visual, which is why I haven't posted the link to Mashable, where you could see the language in the comments. I think sometimes musicians use it to express themselves, and that's ok, but I'm unsure it's needed outside that world. Just my 2 cents.

Update:

I've just come across Sue Marek's (Fierce Wireless) post on "Why do distasteful apps sell?". It's well worth reading, she makes very good points. I'd say there's no write or wrong in this push-pull economy. Who keeps creating nuclear weapons, despite the knowledge these are overall bad news for everyone? Why they do it? because there's demand.

I think Sue is just slightly off in her conclusion "I'd like to think that most app developers are more interested in creating clever solutions to practical problems rather than selling distasteful apps". While the statement is true, IMO, developers are after making money, primarily. Everything else follows. Which is why the iFarts of the world will proliferate and drive more buzz than any genuinely useful app will.

Mobile Shopping Taking Off In US

2009-05-03T09:05:00.002-05:00

Mobile Shopping Taking Off In US: A survey of 3,305 online consumers in the US by Pricegrabber.com has found that nearly 58 percent of them own a mobile phone capable of connecting to the web (8 percent own an iPhone). "One in 10 online consumers said they purchase online from their mobile device, 16 percent compare prices and another 16 percent research product details/specifications," writes FierceWireless. Of those in the survey who did makes purchases from their mobile phoens, 58 percent have purchased digital content for their phone, 51 percent have purchased consumer electronics, 37 percent have purchased computers, 36 percent have purchased books, and 31 percent have purchased clothing.

Source: MocoNews

It's coming, finally.

Angel groups requiring entrepreneurs to pay to pitch

2009-04-30T00:34:00.004-05:00

There's no doubt there are a lot of entrepreneurs with ideas that range from incredible to terrible, for the most part seeking seed funding with angel groups, who have to somehow accomodate them all.

Also, a lot can been said about northeastern investors being somewhat more conservative than their west-coast collegues, seeking more 'sciense projects' more than mashups.

Today I've heard of another northeastern angel group requiring startups to pay to pitch. It's not a 5-digit number, but it is a 3 digit number for one, and 4-digit for the other. I'm sure there's a very good reason for it, that I'm not aware of. I'm sure this is not an expense that the average investor group can not self-manage. Is it a tool to filter entrepreneurs? And if so, does this mean that investors think successful entrepreneurs are the ones who can afford handing money over to investors (which sounds to me somewhat reversed)?

It just strikes me that entrepreneurs need to focus on making progress at their business, and put every resource they can into it, including, or perhaps, especially money.

Angels asking entrepreneurs to pay to pitch is, well, beyond me. Sorry.

At the same breath I'd like to mention a highly popular recent thread that's talking about more focus into students who have great ideas (Here's one, two and there's more): (Scott Kirsner) "the biggest way to make Boston more competitive and innovative right now is to do a better job connecting students with our innovation economy"

I've nothing against that, given the incredible things that are coming out of the MIT's of the world. At the same breath, though, there is something to be said about experienced workers seeing something they could do better and pursuing it. One thing that stands for them, at least, is their experience and knowledge.

I don't think it's the one or the other, but the almost-exclusive focus on grads is slightly missing the point IMO.

Please, NO: Inflight Wireless slowly but surely moving down the runway

2009-04-15T08:30:00.003-05:00

ABI Research has a piece today about how onboard wireless access is becoming mainstream. Yay.

I haven't flown in quite a while, however I find the following quote inaccurate and frankly annoying:

"The inflight wireless market that has been trapped by a groundless sense of fear of being stuck next to a perennially chatty person who will not put the phone down. The reality is inflight communications charges will keep all but the very seriously wealthy off the phone for long periods of time."

This is SO wrong. You're right, not everyone and their sister would start jabbing, but the business travellers stuck in economy and able to spend more of the company's budget would love to "get productive". Kids with phones sitting next to their parents who, frankly, would pay for them to get occupied would start jabbing, and the list goes on. So great, you've identified a sector who wouldn't start jabbing, but you opened a world of jabbers for an red eye flight. Tomorrow's gonna be SO productive for you!

The next section is even better:

"In this world of anytime, anywhere communications, it is maddening one cannot send txt messages or browse the internet and check email. Concerns over interfence and security have been shown to be without merit."

Oh, I'm sorry. Wifi anyone? Why do you have to provide a telephone communicaiton system? you can text (and recieve) messages from your PC, without interrupting your neighbors, and get productive. Why isn't Wifi good enough?

It's a poor decision IMO. I hope the airlines will pull it down before there's a passenger backlash. This is an intimate environment where many people have to get along. There's no reason to challenge that, to satisfy a technology looking for a business.

Too good to be true? MMA convinces carriers to merge best-practice playbook

2009-04-03T10:37:00.002-05:00

Reading this morning's Mobile Marketer news from CTIA, MMA seems to think they can get the carriers to sign up for a single playbook. Healthy skepticism, but boy, if they do get the carriers to let go, just for a bit, then it's great news!

Read the article here.

The devil you know

2009-04-01T08:52:00.004-05:00

I'm reading this morning an outstanding productive brief from Mobile Marketer. The very first article is titled "Per-message carrier fees killing SMS marketing: CTIA panel".

Interestingly, the article ends with the right conclusion, which is that meaningful interaction with the audience is the solution to drive higher ROI from mobile marketing campaigns, especially those that require financial investment like SMS.

However, I feel the title of the article and the beginning of it does little justice to the context, the operators and the whole mobile marketing space. (And I'm not a fan of US carriers SMS policies by any stretch of imagination).

At the end of the day you can quarrel all day with the operators over pennies. Reality is, that those pennies actually make SMS still a highly attractive mobile marketing platform for brands as it has still not been invaded by everyone and their wives. Because there's a financial barrier (BTW, if you want to point any fingers, how about those outrageous financial requirements to get a dedicated shortcode by Neustar. $1K/month for what exactly?). If there wasn't one, you'd see growing number of automated and behavioral blocking elements similar to the ones we have today on email and web.

No, the revenue margin needs to come from brands and advertisers who are, in fact, seeking effective access to their audience with new tools like mobile. They have the money to spend, once seeing that this channel works. And so currently the expenditure on mobile advertising, compared to TV, for example, is experimental by nature. I heard someone say recently "I've never heard of anyone in an agency loose their job over spending their budget on TV advertising".

The question then, is whose job is it to bring the advertisers down from the fence their sitting on, show them the value and push this market forward. The answer to that question, of course, is the mobile marketers. HipCricket, iLoop, Adva Mobile and others.

And so it's not helpful to pressure the operators seeking for higher margins, we should create those margins on the other side. If anything, by applying pressure on the operators, we're asking them for a new business model that could be just as bad, if not worse.

Adva Mobile's 1st Newsletter

2009-03-06T15:11:00.004-05:00

Our first newsletter just came out, lot's of advice and insight on how to promote your band in these days where your fans are bombarded with electronic information they can't handle.

A highlight of this newsletter is an insightful interview conducted by Ariel Hyatt (founder of Ariel Publicity) of Helen Keegan on new mobile promotion tools for musicians.

We're featuring McAlister Drive as a leading band this month, who sold 10 tickets to their fans on their mobile phones this week (there's more here).

During March and April we are promoting tickets sales by paying the musicians $1 for every ticket sold through us...read more here.

Thanks to Ariel, Helen, Christoph and John for their help on this newsletter...we better start working on the next one :-)

Kudos to UserVoice

2009-03-06T14:57:00.002-05:00

Ever seen that little feedback tab on the right or left of a page and wanted one? It would take you less than 5 minutes to get it, customize and install it!

Following a post on ArtistData, I turned to UserVoice and found their amazing 5-minute installation, free user feedback forum widget and tool. They really nailed this one: does it's job, easy to install, what a breeze.

Warm recommendation to you, and kudos to UserVoice.

Run Your Life With SMS: 10 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do Via Text

2009-02-27T17:32:00.002-05:00

"Mobile Maven" (indeed!) Helen Andreson has this great post on 10 (useful, for a change) things you can do using text messages. Well worth reading!

Kudos to PayPal

2009-01-31T12:12:00.004-05:00

I've just finished integrating with PayPal. Although one would think it's a given, their developer program is really great. Although I feared from this integration initially (we're talking REAL money here, not some software fluff), their developer program helped me get through it quickly, effectively, and I feel great about it.

Specifically I want to point out their Sandbox program. That's a great tool to demo the whole payment processing without actually spending anyone's money. You can set yourself up as a merchant, setup demo customer accounts (and give them virtual money, yes that past was fun!) etc.

Two topics for improvement, I thought, were:

Documentation(of course) could be arranged much better with description of the APIs and programs, code samples, perhaps ready-made generated code etc. specifically, there are contradictions in the current documentation.
Arrangement of the Sandbox and developer site: arrange the program and materials for each program, for example, or a step-by-step tutorial wizard that takes you and shows you what you need. For example (just to show how short-attention I am) took me ages to figure out there's that PayPalBase dll that provides the required functionality that you need.

Otherwise, kudos to PayPal, the integration with you was easy and clean.

Next time I propose an SMS-based service in the US, slap me!

2009-01-31T11:06:00.003-05:00

This is a rant-post about trying to build an SMS-based service in the US. You may say "Oh, this doesn't apply to me", but the bottom line of this is, whatever you do, if you need approval from the carriers in the US, IT DOES APPLY TO YOU.

To put into perspective, I'm building a "Standard Rate", "Dedicated Shortcode", "Multi-Program" service. (If you are interested in the details, visit the MMA site, they really do a great job at facilitating sanity in the Mobile Marketing space).

We needed to use SMS because we wanted to enable subscribers to interact with the service. to initiate and respond. Mobile email, specifically in the US, has taken off well, considering (avoiding the tangent), even with non-enterprise subscribers. The cost of email is obviosly more attractive than SMS. but not everyone is connected to mobile email, so depending on your target market demographics, you end up needing to use (and pay) SMS.

We've re-discovered that when building an SMS based service, you'll see the following:

Cost of SMS is unreasonable
- You'll pay a few cents/SMS, couple grand/month for the service of the mobile SMS aggregator, and then couple grand more to USShortcodes/Neustar (in case you're using a dedicated shortcode).
- Guess what? it's going to get worse: Verizon already announced their intention to raise the cost of sending an SMS to almost double. Guess what will be the reaction by the rest of the carriers.
- The process of provisioning a dedicated shortcode is, of course, a few months, so plan on paying the above cost for a few months in a row before you can even claim you're live on the 4 tier-1's (Verizon, AT&T, Spring & T-Mobile).

The process of approving an SMS-based program is unreasonable
- It's not a cookie-cutter: You'd think that whatever your program looks like, carriers and SMS aggregators done it a gazillion times. Think again. I don't know if there truly is a daily change in the operator guidelines, a heightened sensitivity or a job security thing. What I know is that my program looks to me like one that I know good and respectable players are using, and I'm surprised to hear new rules and guidelines daily.
- You may need to operate two systems in the process: Do you have the service already running on a shared shortcode and trying to move over? You now need to keep serving your audience, and of course, in parallel, allow the carriers to test your service on the new shortcode.
  Carriers have this two-step certification+provisioning process. Certification means you can send and receive SMSs using the new dedicated shortcode, but please don't go commercial on it. Provisioning means the new dedicated shortcode is approved.
  Practically, you're trying to ramp up a business, so you're saying, I've got only a handful of users, I'll respond to their SMSs through the certified (but not provisioned) dedicated shortcode. That works well until one of the carriers sets a "White list", meaning only certain phones (which you, of course, don't know) will be able to interact with the certified shortcode. Go figure who sent you an SMS from the old shared shortcode (and respond from it) and who sent you an SMS from the certified shortcode, and respond from there. F-U-N!
- The rules are set by the extreme carrier and thus, are unreasonable: Let me take you down one scenario. You have two programs running, involving standard subscription. Let's say there's a fan club for Shakira and a fan club for Aceyalone. A subscriber joins both fan clubs, and maybe more. The reasonable thing to do, is to tell that subscriber: if you want to opt-out of one club, do this, or if you want to opt-out of ALL programs, do that.
  
  That sense didn't work for one of the carriers, who demanded we promote only the word "STOP", which is an opt-out from all command. This obviously led to a waterfall of wrong workarounds. Here's one not-funny one: When the subscriber sends "STOP", send them an SMS back, telling them they're sub'd to several channels, and they need to send either "STOP ALL" or "List" to view their subscriptions. First, this will never fly as this changes the meaning of the fundamental command "STOP". But second, let's say that (poor) subscriber is sub'd to 10 or more programs. In a 160-character SMS, they might get more than a few SMSs back with their subscriptions and instructions. OH THAT MAKES A LOT OF SENSE: You wanted to STOP, and in return you're getting all those SMSs, on your budget. NOT FUNNY.

IMO, the process, cost and issues involved with SMS suggest that it's time has passed. We need to move on to find alternatives (see RIM's BB-to-BB IM solution, works completely independent of carriers and doesn't cost them a cent) for the mass crowds that would make sense to the crowds, the marketers and the carriers.
I'll just mention that I don't think this is unique to the aggregator I'm working with. I've worked with 2 others in the last 3 years, and had seen the exact same issues for US deployments.

Adva Mobile Coverage on Mobile Marketer and Mass High Tech

2009-01-23T19:56:00.001-05:00

We got some nice coverage today with Mobile marketer and with Mass High Tech, check it out:

Music artists tap Adva Mobile’s mobile fan club service

Adva Mobile salutes independent artists with social network app

Adva Mobile Launched

2009-01-05T21:01:00.005-05:00

I'm excited to announce that earlier today Adva Mobile opened the service for musicians to sign up and start creating their mobile fan clubs. In the past two months we had the fan experience working: sending text messages, viewing mobile internet pages, downloading songs to fans' phones, sharing on twitter etc. Now we enable artists to control their messaging, mobile pages, content and more. For those interested, here's the press release.

The beta period was rewarding in that it taught us a lot about what's important to the bands and to the fans. We good great feedback and enthusiasm although we had no marketing budget. It was the power of the promoters, bands and fans to spread the word. THANK YOU FOR THAT!

Now we need to concentrate on the next challenge, and we could use your help: get the word out to as many bands as possible. We could use your help: if you know a band, or your neighbor's kid plays in a band, tell them about us: Adva Mobile, the mobile fan club service: http://www.advamobile.com.

On another note, Adva Mobile now has it's own blog: http://www.advamobile.com/blog. There is also a Twitter account: Twitter.com/advamobile.

Look for Adva Mobile stuff over there. In the mean time, I'll debate where each of my ramblings go, here or there :-)

The Value of Unlicensed Music “Shared” Worldwide on P2P Networks in 2007 was US $69Bn

2008-11-24T11:04:00.004-05:00

Time to think how to create revenue channels from content maybe? (Source)

SMS cost a concern in FB buying Twitter

2008-11-24T10:57:00.003-05:00

imagine FB did buy Twitter and really dig into their mobile strategy. How cool would that be.

Here's one reason it probably would not happen:
"Twitter pays for users' messages to be sent to cellphones. If Facebook were to offer the service to its 120 million members, that could be quite an SMS bill for the social net to deal with" (Source)

We need a new mobile alert solution. SMS is not it.

NYC Mobile Barcamp3 quick notes

2008-11-17T17:15:00.003-05:00

This weekend we attended mobileCampNYC3. A bit of a drive from Boston but boy was it worth it. about 200 peeps showed up. Mind u, these are peeps with real life, jobs and plenty of stuff to do in the w/e. Still they were there. Great to see Dave Harper (taking QR codes the next step), Raul from QTrax, Keith from PadPaw and many other great peeps.

for the most part, geeks are geeks. stick together and feed each other with ideas. So the outstanding session which made my day was by Mike Young and Ted Roden from "The New York Times Company" (what a name eh?).
Simply put, they presented NYT mobile strategy, composed of mobile web pages rendered in 5 different formats, mobile resident application strategy and mobile alerts. It was fascinating to finally listen to someone "from the outside" lay out how they see mobile. For example, I asked about their alerts. They totally see mobile, and alerts specifically, as a valuable service to keep subs happy and grab new ones, despite the cost, which they agree, is high. (BTW, they use mBlox).
Their conversion from a link inside an SMS 'Alert' to a mobile page view is above 40% !!!
In a few months they achieved a couple hundred mobile subs and millions of impressions a month. Not bad.
I'm still waiting to get the ppt from Mike and learn more from it.

Then they presented SHIFD. Shift content between your PC and your device. Read something on your PC, mark where you left off, continue reading on the subway. Not only is it a cool idea, they get to work on it in the NYT lab!

Alexander Besher also brought some 'outsider' spirit to the game. He's an author and he discovered Dave Harpers' QR linking technology, using it in his book "Mangaman". Interesting again.

Perhaps the other session to mention was the moaning in the US about SMS costs and who controls the market as a result (being, the operators, not the services or the marketers). We were examining new methods to deliver SMS-like alert experience without having the operators in the middle of it (cost & control). One idea is to be embedded inside an application. Perhaps unrealistic if you want to have your own (distribution, development,...) but what if you used Facebook alerts for that?? Right, not everyone has Facebook on their phone, but most of those who have mobile internet phones are anyway in the teens or are geeks, and they'd have Facebook installed?. Similarly, a comment was made by Nick Clarey (brilliant brit from Airsource) about using RIM's Blackberry messaging technology (mind you that presents a slight reach problem, now that RIM aren't even 1st in US shipments). It completely works around the carriers and operated by RIM. The interesting comment was: "if the operators can control SMS, could they not have the same control over application messages or RIM's solution?".
I suppose the answer is 'Yes they could'. But there you really go into a power game. No one would shut down RIM, as no one would shut down Facebook. But they could twist Facebook to better control services using their messages to connect to their audience.

Anyway, great day in the big apple. Boston should have one of those too!

My notes on lessons in relations

2008-11-14T01:03:00.004-05:00

One of the most enriching experiences I ever went through was when I became a product manager back at TTPCom. The reason was because it really opened my eyes to the nuances and importance of maintaining relationships. I was jumping to deep water: TTPCom was a company based out of England, I was based out of Boston. My mother tongue is Hebrew, theirs was English, adding Scottish or other accents. And last, I was a first product manager responsible for a rather massive product, in an engineering-oriented company who had the engineers own the products (with pride) from concept to retirement. Luckily, I had two wonderful mentors: my local CEO and my remote boss.

The lessons I learned during those times are invaluable. Here are some of them:

In conflict, remember the other side is shouting/screaming/beating or hurt, because they care. If they didn't care they wouldn't be doing it. If they didn't care, or you made them stop caring, you loose.
Conflicts usually rise from simple misinterpretation of messages. Sometimes from conflict of interest, but that's not the general case as those could be worked out. If one side interprets a message wrongly, the breakage depends on the follow up action. The best way to deal with it is to come there and then and simply ask: "what do you mean by..."?. the very worst way is to go away upset and 'store' it. Because it will burst in unproportional dimensions and usually based on subjective memory that twists the original message. Nobody remembers and so it's just a bad feeling all around. Misunderstandings should be resolved immediately, I think.
Cultural and language barriers are real, especially when comes to local slang or abbreviated messages. Without mutual understanding that the barriers exist and need to be worked out, one can guarantee conflicts will rise from misinterpretation of messages. Those barriers need to be acknowledged and sensitively handled to make it work.
Email is the worst communication medium on this planet. The worst. Few sentences misunderstood without immediate ability to feedback or query as to the meaning easily lead to a lot of frustration and conflict. Emails and documents should be used for directions, descriptions, manuals. Not for human communications.
Human communication should be done talking f2f. That's the best way to struggle, conflict and resolve challenges. That's why I strongly believe in building mutual appreciation and respect and basis for healthy work relations rather than authority-driven relationships. That's why relationships need to be personal, because the other side needs to know you care and motivated to their success as much as yours. Phone is no substitute. If you have to get on a jet, car or bike, do that. The price of not doing will turn much higher.
Focus on what you're trying to solve. If this is a partnership, friendship or whatever, if you busy yourself with the irrelevant details, you will convey the wrong messages. For example, if you are hurt, try to analyze what is it, what caused it, and try to resolve it with yourself or the other side. Throwing irrelevant accusations will only make it worse.
And last, remember why you started this relationship. There was a honeymoon at the beginning. Remember the time when both sides were happy. Remember the time when both sides could see and make the best of one another. Don't focus on the lows of the other side, everyone has those. Try to remember what you liked and see if you can make that happen again. It's about being better people and helping others being better by seeing the better in them.

If you follow my blog you think where this post came from. I may be coming out of a low period, loosing. Two very close people to me conflicted and got badly hurt. It saddens me endlessly. In retrospect it's amazing how one thing spiraled to the next without control. This could have been stopped and handled.

This is dedicated to them. I pray time will heal this. I have a lot of interest in it. But it sure is tough seeing it from here.

PS.
I saw a movie called 'Feast of Love'. Beautiful movie, if you like slow movies about real life. I don't think it ever made it. I highly recommend it.

Dejavu: New Sprint 2D barcode reader paves way for mobile commerce

2008-11-13T05:53:00.004-05:00

MMarketer this morning has the story about Sprint's "New" 2D barcode tech from Scanbuy.

I think this story is interesting and can draw some conclusions because of the following 4 reasons:

If you recall, Sprint announced their 2D code tech about a year or so ago on their website...
Mobile 2D code scanning tech has been around, so it seems, forever. Early adopters of the tech as well, including mobile web and awerness. In other countries Mobile code scanning has flourished way back and they are now into next generations of the tech. Yet here, Sprint are the first (I think) the carrier to announce it, at the end of 2008.
Despite talks in the past that indicated CTIA was making hard efforts to align all carriers, “Sprint is the first and only U.S. carrier to offer direct access to ScanLife from Scanbuy,” said Emmy Anderson, spokeswoman for Sprint. That, to me, means this environment will have a hard time to survive. With exceptions, brands will be hesitant to put codes on their print ads until more carriers have this working.
And even then, there's no mention of Sprint preloading the app. I'm not sure how many people will end up downloading it themselves. I mean, if you compare this announcement to the TV commercials that show TMO's G1 scanning codes, who do you think the public is going to be aware of?
Scanbuy landed $9m series B back in '06. Back then it seemed attached to the Sprint announcement. Timing is everything and whoever gets it right is king. Boy time does fly, doesn't it?

Adva Mobile on Facebook & YouTube

2008-11-11T12:03:00.002-05:00

Check out Adva Mobile's Facebook page as well as our YouTube shout videos. Twitter feed coming :-)

Help yourself to those cuffs

2008-11-01T17:25:00.002-05:00

Those of you who know me or follow this blog, know what I think of US operators and what that means for a US Mobile startup. Let's say I wasn't surprised by IDG giving $12M to mobile IVR player Mobivox.

The following Verizon brief, then, seems only natural. Not that I'm a big Android or T-Mobile fan but I truly think you should highlight your advantages, not play your opponent's downsides. Following that thought, it would be only natural to see Verizon disabling Blackberry Storm's WiFi feature. I could only wish subscribers would start opening their eyes and give power to those who really care about them.

Read my lips: Verizon's 3-cents SMS story is not over.

What do you mean when you say "Open"? (or: On Verizon's 3 cents per MT SMS)

2008-10-24T00:09:00.006-05:00

Whenever a US operator talks about being "Open", or the need to be more "Open", I think of a bank vault, tightly shut. I think of Harry Houdini strapped real tight.

I'm sure many of you have been following the fiasco around Verizon's raise of 3 cents per MT SMS. Today they pulled it back, after the industry stood on its back feet. (BTW- do you think it's gone? I don't!)

When I read Mobile Marketers summary of this chapter and the commentary from SumoText's CEO, I can't help but feel sorry for all of us trying to sensibly operate in the US. I feel sorry because what we're after is not going to come through evolution, we need it to come from a larger force, through revolution. someone has to change the rules of the game.

The point is that, if you want a successful mobile ecosystem you have to make it look inviting to people from the outside, who have deep pockets. and like it or not, those people are uninterested in reading 77-pager documents from each carrier about how to apply for a shortcode program. They are simply not interested, as much as mobile might look attractive. And so the real mission is to make mobile look like other models that they know, like the web, but with far better conversion rates, targeting and measurement, at a comparable cost.

Deals will not get signed if the other side is anxious about a 3rd party in this ecosystem that feels they can raise their hands and force a major change just like that, whatever they like because they control the underlying infrastructure. Millions of dollars will go to IVR technology companies (no offense) because they are rely only on voice channels that can't be touched. Imagine Comcast told Unilever that every time one of their brands show an ad over Comcast network, they need to pay $0.03? that's unacceptable and unheard of.

As long as these are the rule of the game, no serious advertiser will look at the US mobile ecosystem as a strategic investment. I was hoping Nokia would have changed that, they didn't. Then came Apple and married themselves to AT&T. and then came "Open" Google and married themselves with T-Mobile.

I am really fed up with people using the word "open" for nothing.

Update:
This morning Mobile Marketer has this post on "Ensure SMS messages comply with carrier rules".
Let me share a few quotes:
"Ensuring your SMS messages are compliant with carrier rules is not as straightforward as you would think.

The level of inconsistency and mixed interpretation is mainly due to a lack of oversight and standardization in the industry...carriers have attempted to protect themselves, which is ultimately positive for consumers, but a pain for marketers"

great piece.

Another DUH moment

2008-10-23T23:07:00.004-05:00

Textually posted this post titled "Mobile Music Business Sluggish?".
Firstly I'd say, although the title is a legitimate question, it proposes something that clearly ignores the reality of making business in mobile media in the US. Not to mention suggesting that the mobile music as a whole is sluggish based on US survey results...c'mon

Here's a couple of pearls from it:
"...only five percent of U.S. mobile subscribers side load tunes from their computer while less than half of that, two percent, download tracks over the air, despite the emergence of online stores from Nokia, Jamba and MusicStation..."

Why is anyone surprised that in the US, consumers aren't aware or interested in getting multimedia on their phones? that direct-to-consumer initiatives are well behind those in EU, for example (despite large marketing budgets and fantastic technologies) ? have you NOT been reading about Verizon 3 cents-per SMS cost rise stunt just a few days ago (as example)? There's a reason why even established, strong D2C players had not penetrated the US market, and we all know what that reason is.

which leads to the next quote:

"about 66 percent of respondents to a recent survey said nothing would motivate them to listen to music on a mobile."

Oh sure. Spending another $100 or more on a music player when your phone could do the same or better job playing music makes a lot of sense when you're 22 and barely paying your rent.

No. There's a reason for this survey result and it has to do with consumer awareness and expectations.
In a recent local focus group I ran, 6 out of 8 22-year old interviewees did not know they could put music on their phone and listen to it as they please, or faced infinite trouble doing it. They said: "I DIDN'T KNOW I COULD DO THAT" or "I couldn't do it"

It's incredibly difficult for D2C players to raise consumer awareness and expectations, and that's no coincidence. Second, even if the consumer knew how to load music to their phone, they would usually be blocked from doing it, unless they have 5-inch thick geek glasses to figure it out.

Close with this related comment from a different post:
"Whilst MNOs such as Vodafone carry on pushing further into mobile advertising, several major advertising agencies continue to express the significant disconnect between their wish to involve the mobile channel as part of an overall campaign and the technological hurdles involved."

Need I say more?

Why Selling Music Still Matters... and Free Means Paid (Reblogged from Digital Music News)

2008-10-12T06:42:00.003-05:00

Go read this great article by Paul Resnikoff...here's a couple of great snippets:

"...(traditional music revenue channels plummet) This raises the question of whether artists are smarter to give away their recordings, and focus on more lucrative areas of the value chain. Instead of charging 99-cents for an MP3, why not charge $9 for a t-shirt, and $29 for a concert ticket from a stronger flow of fans?"

"Of course, from the non-diversified label perspective, the recording is an all-important component of the business model."

"... (new ways to approach music and music-related "products") Those are ingredients for a deeper, more engaged connection with fans, a critical aspect of successful marketing strategies. Some artists like Radiohead enjoy massively-connected fan relationships, while others are just starting the process. Either way, panelists agreed that artists carrying a strong connection with their fans gain more in the marketplace."

That's exactly what Adva Mobile is all about.

Text McAlister to 70734 and try it yourself.

Adva Mobile tonight @ Church Hear Now Live show

2008-10-11T10:29:00.003-05:00

Tonight on stage...Old Jack, Someday Rome, DPR, Tony Macsata band & Hot Knives...looking fwd to it! Another great HeaNowLive event!

I WANT ONE!!!

2008-10-11T10:25:00.003-05:00

The new RIM Storm: BB features+touch screen & usability...YUM!!

iSkoot/mSkype is OFF MY PHONE!

2008-10-05T22:22:00.002-05:00

Recent family health issues required me to stay in touch with remote family on the go. I figured this is finally a great way to put the iSkoot app (which never really worked before, as I could never login) to work.
As soon as I launched the application I managed to login...yay! few minutes of contacts sync etc., I was a happy bunny. Sometime later, it wanted to download a new version, fair enough. download, install reboot, all's fine.
re launch the application, need to login again...ok, and I get this error message: "You're logged in on a different phone"...WHAT?? I don't have a different phone!

So I wait a few minutes and try again. logged in ok, and contacts resync, ok...now I tried calling a Skype contact. Healthy dial tone...two tones sounds and the Skype operator goes: "Could not connect your call, please try again later"...

So I try dialing through Skype out to another number, thinking "I AM WILLING TO PAY"...same error message. and so on and so on. Couldn't do anything with it.

I did get a spam chat request though from someone offering me a glipmse of her private parts.

whatever this app is called, Skype or iSkoot, it's off my phone for good.
I'm shopping for cheap international call mobile solutions, open for recommendations!

Now on MySpace

2008-09-28T18:07:00.004-05:00

Adva Mobile now has a MySpace page. Feel free to connect to us, and if you're a band, why don't you try our free mobile marketing service...we'll set you up in seconds.

We're looking for Facebook developers to develop a kick-ass Feacebook presence...drop me a line if interested!

Promo for Sep 27th show

2008-09-28T18:02:00.003-05:00

Wow...I didn't even have time to post this. Great show last night, and great turnout from fans requests

Tonight, McAlister Drive's Video show + Lagoon, Club Felt Boston

2008-09-25T10:19:00.003-05:00

They'll be providing unique mobile experience to their fans, with Adva Mobile:

Send to your phone, OR text McAlister to 70734

Send to your phone, OR text mybandLagoon to 70734

stay tuned for Saturday HearNowLive show!!!

New Report on Teens, Cellphones and Music

2008-09-17T23:28:00.003-05:00

It's becoming a habbit to quote Marc Cohen, who voices the 2 key points from this interesting research by Harris Interactive:

Cellphones are an ideal device for ad-supported music
Teens and tweens are the ideal target market for ad-supported music
6/10 teens will provide personal details

Yes yes yes and yes. He's correct. I just hope more people will realize that, soon.

mIndustry success, and failure announcements

2008-09-17T11:04:00.003-05:00

Cleaning up my reader this morning, I've noticed a number of announcements...
Successes (in my mind):

FlyScreen: Perhaps because I'm a bit close to them, this week's announcement of an available download (beta, I think) of FlyScreen to Symbian 3rd Ed. phones. This is a young, ambitious Israeli startup. If they play their cards right, they'll go far
FlixWagon: As much as I'd like to think of them and Qik as simply good timing (I don't want to underplay the technology, but in truth, they grabbed the uplink streaming API of 3G, adding storage and smarts, and added big time marketing on it), they seem to be shooting up. I am still questioning the consumer adoption, but perhaps there is something there. they're now talking white labeled service for operators...$$$
Blackberry: there's talks about the Bold device being expensive, not measurable to iPhone, being forced by AT&T, or the new flip Pearl. I think BBs kick ass, the new flip is a good move, and I bet it's going to be very popular especially with young female workers who will find the form factor appropriate

But perhaps a bit saddening, is the news of people shutting down:

Tira Wirless: Once a mobile porting shop, somewhat didn't keep up with younger, more nimble competition. they're gone
Action Engine's future is in question. An On-Device-Portal company. Too early in Time to market I think
Wippit shuts down. Sigh

Brring

2008-09-16T08:10:00.003-05:00

One of the interesting companies presenting yesterday at Webinno was Brring. Free ringback tones for the crowds.
They got the formula right...music, free, for the crowds, that should work. maybe.

The service (read more on their site, but if you're lazy, here's what I got:) you upload your own tune, cut it to be a ringback length, and select who hears which tunes. (Future feature, community-style transactions (I guess) to share & recommend tunes). You get a number from them and whoever calls that number will hear a 5-10 sec audio ad, and then (and only then) the call will be forwarded to your phone and it will start ringing.

So a couple of thought (Otherwise why would I make this post?).
Here's the stuff I applaud Brring on:

Pretty bold: moving in on the operators (and vendors) ringback market, which although been stable or declining, is a pretty chunky market in a D2C move
Formula's right: Free, D2C, social for the crowds. It's all there. I can see kids rushing to it
Bring a friend and get paid feature: sure, even better. Free is not enough anymore (I see that too in Adva) in audience acquisition. So something for "bring your friend" will ignite a bigger fire
Not married to the carriers: I suppose they found a way to work around the carriers with this "Brring number" they use. Either way, not marrying the carriers is a smart move

Here's what I'm not convinced about:

Maybe most important, the content licensing bit. I've not read through the complete T&C, but briefly it looks like they hand the responsability for content to the fans. That's not gonna fly. If that's the strategy, they better get a good lawyers
You force someone who calls you (on this new number that you need to publish) to listen to the ad before your phone begins to ring. That goes right up the advertising tolerance discussion. hmmm...unsure about that. Good news (I think), you can turn the ads off for selected people (or can you? unsure)

Maybe all of these are issues that can be solved by figuring out the right product definition, but where the real smarts is, is figuring out what would motivate people to forget about the heavy Verizon advertising everywhere (Boy, with that ad budget, I wonder how they maintain their network) and go to their service. The typical D2C challenge.

Good luck guys!

Sincerely, the Management

2008-09-13T12:52:00.004-05:00

Sincerely, the Management were on stage last week, fun band and fun show. They used our mobile service and a few fans checked it out.
Here's their shoutout, sorry it's a bit blurry:

We're on tonight with OldJack, Gardner and Michael Bernier at FestEvolve. Thanks to HearNowLive, we'll be next week at Copperfields and the following week at Church.

Last Weekend for Adva Mobile

2008-09-03T00:40:00.002-05:00

So between crazy weeks and weekends I'll try to make the occasional post about how we're doing at Adva Mobile. I think though that soon I'll start looking for a proper blog for us...recommendations welcome.

So anyway, last Friday we were at another HearNowLive show, at Church, which was a lot of fun and a great show. HearNowLive have a great cover of the show.

We got great feedback from all the artists, they were interested and did the shoutout really well (Someday Rome took it to another level :-))

We estimated a crowd of 120 fans at the peak, and so a collection of close to 15% phone numbers in total, and higher numbers of messages from fans requesting content, that's not a bad stat (for the very limited set of features we already have live).

We're working on the next gigs, and new feautures. Check out McAlister Drive's MySpace page with our new widget, and this Thursday Club d'Elf is at the Lizard Lounge using trying our service.

much more to come...

Boston's Mobile Tourist

2008-09-03T00:33:00.003-05:00

Wondering around Boston this weekend with the family, came across this sign:

Reminded me of the Freedom Trail mCode project (Remember?)

I think I've done well putting that one behind me, but from time to time I can't help but thinking what an unbelivable opportunity we had in our hands.

Tonight @ The Church with HearNowLive!

2008-08-29T16:34:00.003-05:00

I'll let you know how it went :-)

The work of a critic

2008-08-27T07:57:00.003-05:00

Because I'm such a fan of Bijan Sabet's way of thinking, although I've seen this movie a while back, reading his blog this morning about the work of a critic and a truly great quote from Ratatouille (the movie), I'm reblogging.
I'm a sinner in attaching emotions to my professional achievements, and in the entrepreneurship space (maybe in all), it's a risky business. So I will take quotes that put things in perspective in a heartbeat:

“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends” (via IMDB)

That line came from the fictional food critic character, Anton Ego, played by Peter O’Toole.

Bijan said:

"It’s a great quote and something that all of us in the startup world should remember."

I agree

Finally, some results

2008-08-26T23:02:00.003-05:00

One of the best things about getting out there with a product launch, as minor as it may be (feature and exposure-wise), is that you start getting data and learn from it.
And we gained a LOT of knowledge about how to work with the bands, promote the keyword/shortcode to the fans, and much more. It's not to say though that we're clever now about it: we've got lots more learning and homework to do.

Still, between Aug 16th with McAlister Drive and Aug 23rd with the 5-bands HearNowLive Hard Rock Cafe show, over 10% of the fans engaged at the venue with our service, got to the mobile web pages, some downloaded content and browsed more than one page. more fans visited the site after the gig. We're making some progress on promotions etc.
Again, disclaimer language here, but I think this is great news. It is a first evidence that there that relationship between the artists and fans at and after the gig, and that advertisers are interested in that exposure. I'm really happy with it, for this initial stage (we're shooting for higher numbers, but that would come with many more features).

We're going to be hopefully back on stage with the bands this Friday at the Church Boston. And I'm looking for bands to try this out, if you like, write us.

For your enjoyment, here's McAlister Drive's Shoutout:

I'll get back to work now!

For Gen Y, Music is Oxygen

2008-08-25T17:36:00.004-05:00

Great post on YPulse from Larry Weintraub, the CEO of Fanscape, following an interesting survey on Music behavior of Gen Y, both are must-reads.
Due to lack of time, I'll reblog some of the key points from Lirix CEO (and add):

Youth Still Aren't Paying For Music...
Youth Discover New Music Through Social Media
Artwork is important
Concerts Are Cool, When They're Cheap
Music Isn't Mobile...Yet
But understand this, they love music. They consume more music than previous generations.
The takeaway is that these young people have grown up in a generation where recorded music is traded, downloaded, and consumed with very little monetary exchange...

Young people today may not be exchanging much of their money for recorded music but they are giving their time.

This is exactly what Adva Mobile is all about: Figure out this ecosystem where:

There is plenty of creativity (artists)
There is plenty of demand (fans)
Traditional revenue channels need to be replaced

Another Promo

2008-08-24T08:53:00.004-05:00

This Weekend!

2008-08-22T22:21:00.008-05:00

Thanks to amazing Mark from HearNowLive, this weekend again we get to support great artists at the Hard Rock Cafe show on Aug 23rd. We've learned a lot from last week and will try to do better this week.
It's going to be great fun, I'll be there and be happy to meet you!

Michael Bernier & THE UPRISING:

DAGGER OR A DRAM:

Kings of Crisis:

Stem:

The Gardner Shakedown:

Our first (soft) launch: McAlister Drive, tomorrow night

2008-08-15T17:26:00.006-05:00

I'm pretty hyped about this. During the last few months we've been working at Adva Mobile on an exciting new mobile marketing service for emerging artists and advertisers.
A word of background:
Adva Mobile creates highly targeted mobile inventory for advertisers by enabling mobile campaign services for "starving" and passionate artists, who are interested in creating, and growing mobile "mobs" of fan-followers. We will provide the artist with a complete mobile campaign service.
The service is free to the fan, free to the artist.

We've been listening to the advertisers, the artists, the fans and the investment community. They've all been saying: "GET OUT THERE!".
And that's exactly what we're up to.

On Saturday, Christoph Krey, who is an unbelievably talented person and musician, and the leader of a band called McAlister Drive, will perform at Boston's Hard Rock Cafe. During a breather, he's going to shout out:
"If you like my music, you can have it on your phone, right now, FREE. Grab it, set it as your Ringtone, do with it whatever you like. Come back to my gigs for more, bring your friends with you.

Text McAlister to 70734"

Christoph is a typical artist who understands the critical role fans play in his art. He loves his art and if he could, one day he'd like to make this his "day job". What he also knows is that his fans are mobile savvy, they love him and his music, and would like to listen to it continuously on their music phones.
He gets it, and not only that, he knows his mainstream content is available for his fans on MySpace, for example. So he knew that they'd love a new piece straight from the studio, exclusively available for mobile.

Christoph will also have something from his fans from our friends at Nimbit. I've seen it today, it is really cool.

Tomorrow night is a 5 months dream come true. Lots of work and effort has been put into this, and we're going to watch the results closely.
I'd like to give credit to Adva Mobile team, and also to the incredible help and promptness of Noushad and Kang from Textopoly who are facilitating the mobile messaging piece.

If you're outside the US, cross your fingers for us. if you're in the US, text McAlister to 70734.
Are you still waiting?!

Fundraising Survival Guide (Paul Graham from YC)

2008-08-15T08:02:00.004-05:00

Catching up on some reading, I read this morning Paul Graham's must-read article on fund raising. He really nails it and pours the much-needed cold water on the entrepreneur's head. He deals well with the emotional side of it by presenting the numbers and strategies to deal with the downfalls.

If I read it right, entrepreneurs shouldn't assume funding will become available: they have 1 in 500 chances of getting funded. (BTW, I think I heard some statistics that post funding, 1 of 8 startups will live to "expectations"). And yes I do agree that there's a bit of herd mentality as far as the way the investment community acts (if you've been rejected by one, you have a good chance by being rejected by the other, cause a- naturally, they talk and b- your morale deteriorates with every rejection). That one, effectively, is yet another unfair advantage to the investment community: entrepreneurs, specifically first timers or younger ones (which the investment community naturally likes), are suspicious of one another. The innovation that's happening today is far more market and idea driven then IP or technology driven. So the entrepreneurs are less likely to collaborate at these early stages. And frankly, TheFunded may have been a nice little stunt, but I just can't see how other entrepreneurs on there would reveal the kind of sensitive and relevant information that'd be useful to me.

Maybe another peel of the onion, let's see:

"Taking care of business"/"Being independent": bootstrapping isn't the strategy; Consulting is bad. (at least according to one VC who commented: "We try to avoid companies that got bootstrapped with consulting. It creates very bad behaviors/instincts that are hard to erase from a company’s culture." I must assume that they're not the only ones to think that)
Keep expectations low, Don't take rejection personally, stay optimistic: So that's one of those correct, accurate, useful points to make, that probably distinguish outstanding entrepreneurs from others, and present a contradiction in themselves
Keep Working: I really liked that one. There's a natural tendency to bring the "mob" to the meeting, and then the question is: does everyone need to be in every meeting? How does this affect your productivity and momentum?

Perhaps another relevant input from recent learning, is "where the money is" blurb (this may be relevant only to the market I'm looking at, mobile media):

VC are well upstream, deep pockets, 1 of 2-3 thousend chance in getting funded etc. You need to be well established with product, revenues and very happy large set of customers
Angels and their groups moved well upstream, too. This may be specific to this market, but they now seem to be after plays that have product, customers and revenues ("we usually come in to accelerate market and team growth, we don't like to invest in development, for example, because we can't contribute to it with our expertise"). "We don't really do seed". A side comment, the groups I've been dealing with like to see themselves as successful entrepreneurs themselves, execution guys. "Talk to us in operational terms". I think they LOVE to give advice on your product and some of them would just LOVE to see your MySql records, but would simply like to avoid the risk and hassle of the development stage
Moving on...Friends & Family? sure..maybe. I've heard someone say: "would you take your mom's savings if you knew this wasn't enough and couldn't guarantee a follow up?"

Where I am today in my mind is that fund raising is a necessary evil that has to happen because bootstrapping is unlikely to happen or get you there even if you braved it. You're unlikely to get funded and even if you did, it's got so much risk attached to it.

Specifically, I find that investors and others see the mobile channel as highly unique and lucrative, however when it comes to figures or investment attractiveness, they attach web equivalents as far as ease of market entry, profitability and other measures. Perhaps because they are protecting their interests, perhaps because they have no experience to suggest otherwise, or perhaps they are well outside the demographics of users who will easily distinguish between mobile and web.

I wonder if the investment community is comfortable with that view. They probably are: there are so many of us and so few of them. must be very flattering.

How to stop the evolution of an ecosystem

2008-08-14T20:29:00.003-05:00

I thought of a good name for this post, because it just so happens I just read a few blogs talking about the Twitter SMS mess. Frankly, I feel sorry for Tweeter: not that they couldn't handle it better, it's just that I did the math a couple weeks ago:
Each MT SMS is between $0.04-$0.01 for high volumes. Add $1K-$2K "connectivity" and add the fun $500-$1,000/month for shortcodes.
Set your revenue at $5 CPM, maybe $0.1 CPC, and you'll get a nice little equation that in a visit depth of 2 (mobile) pages/visit, you may be loosing $0.03 per message.
Nice.
So I'm sure there's plenty of ways for a web+mobile service to leverage web advertising or sales, however the above equation makes it tough for emerging mobile startups to enter this market, which is good if you're in, bad if you're not.
That's the startup side. what's the operator side? Operators are making $ every time an SMS is being sent by the subscriber, or to the subscriber, from the subscriber. Typically operators would charge subscribers $0.10 - $0.25 per SMS if you don't have it in your plan, or $5-$10 for a package of 200 messages. As mentioned above, operators also make money when a service sends an SMS to the subscriber (MT).
So let's see...the service pays the operator while really the service is a revenue generator for the operator.

To some degree I agree with people saying "kill the SMS" as the 160-chars economics make no sense compared to data plans that will be introduced to the sea of iPhone and Blackberries and the likes.
Give us Email-like economics (and richness) and the immediacy nature of SMS, please.

The good news for now, if you get to the messaging volume that Twitter generates, some operators will pay you to be in business. Until then, sweet dreams...

Ad supported music: MySpace Music vs. imeem

2008-08-14T20:14:00.002-05:00

Fortune published an excellent article about the upcoming competition between imeem and soon-to-be-launched MySpace music.
(Lirix CEO Blogs:) "The piece contains some good information regarding CPM rates at the online ad-supported music services. The author points out the dilemma well known to those in the field - that these rates are quite low.

Ad-supported music will not escape the low ceiling of online display advertising CPMs until it moves from streaming to downloaded tracks."

Beyond this must-read article, what I found interesting are the numbers. imeem CPM=$4? wow, not bad. I'm hearing not to bet on $5 on mobile CPM, knowing location, age and possibly gender.

Crazy week

2008-08-10T22:02:00.003-05:00

Last week was probably one of the most intense weeks I ever had. I was on the top of the world on Monday and Tuesday, and even though I knew odds are low to get the response I was looking to hear on Tuesday, I wasn't prepared to hear anything else.
There's something weird about preparing to hear the answer you don't want to hear. I'm not sure you can ever really be prepared for it, and stay optimistic in the process.
Anyway, the second half went downhill. I didn't get quite the response I wanted to hear. Got me stressed. I then interpreted messages to be personal messages and in return hurt someone who is very dear to me.
Life in a startup is a roller coaster (or maybe New England weather). Perseverance, keep motivated and patience are the game. I hope I'll learn to see it through.

Here's some good reading on the team process that was new to me...

I want one: TMO UK Launches 3G Blackberry Bold

2008-08-10T07:29:00.004-05:00

(3G) UK : T-Mobile announced an expansion of its BlackBerry smartphone portfolio with the launch of the BlackBerry Bold smartphone from Research In Motion (RIM), which will be available in shops and online from September 2008.

The BlackBerry Bold features a premium design and unprecedented performance to increase the ability of T-Mobile customers to work effectively whilst away from the office. As the first BlackBerry smartphone available from T-Mobile to support 3G (HSDPA) networks, the BlackBerry Bold allows business users to download email attachments, stream video or render web pages more quickly than ever before. T-Mobile's 3G network coverage is among the best in the UK and will provide almost complete population coverage by 2009 as a result of the innovative 3G radio access network sharing agreement with 3 UK

For additional high-speed network coverage, the BlackBerry Bold smartphone supports the 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi® standards. It is also the first BlackBerry smartphone to support tri-band HSDPA high-speed networks around the world, including the Far East.

With this powerful new smartphone, users can talk on the phone while sending and receiving email or accessing the web, and the BlackBerry Bold also allows users to download Word, Excel or PowerPoint email attachments and edit them directly on the handset with the preinstalled DataViz® Documents to Go® software suite “ a great advantage for those working on the go. The BlackBerry Bold also comes with a 2 megapixel camera that supports video capture and a media player for taking entertainment on the go. It includes 1 GB of on-board storage memory, as well as a microSD/SDHC memory card slot for additional storage of music, video, pictures and office documents*.

The BlackBerry Bold will be available to all T-Mobile Business 1-Plan customers. The Business 1-Plan tariff enables companies to reap more value from their mobile communications investment by building a truly flexible allowance of voice, data, texts and international calls “ removing the complexity of surrounding costs by providing one simple plan tailored to meet the user's mobile communication needs.

Business 1-Plan includes calls from the UK to Europe and North America as T-Mobile recognises that many business transactions are no longer confined to the UK.

Oliver Chivers, Head of Business Marketing, T-Mobile UK, said: As greater number of businesses recognise the benefits of mobile working, demand for mobile broadband connectivity speeds is escalating rapidly. T-Mobile customers using the BlackBerry Bold smartphone will have access to one of the most innovative mobile business devices on the market supported by a network that independent tests reveal delivers a superior mobile broadband experience. For the business world, this translates into opportunities to extend the boundaries of productivity and efficiency."

The BlackBerry Bold also features integrated GPS with support for location based applications and services such as satellite navigation with local search capabilities, a valuable tool for remote and mobile workers traveling to a meeting at a new venue or for locating the nearest petrol station. It also features Bluetooth® 2.0, with support for hands-free headsets, stereo headsets, car kits and other Bluetooth peripherals

Adding to its wealth of functionality, the BlackBerry Bold provides access to email (including attachment viewing), text and instant messaging, organiser, web and other mobile applications. Chivers adds: We already know that business users are incrediblyenamoured with the capabilities of their BlackBerry smartphones. The BlackBerry Bold from T-Mobile offers all the features they expect, as well as a range of advanced functionality that enhance its business benefits. We are sure it will prove a popular choice with both SME and enterprise customers

Congrats to the RIM & Marvel team!

TMO USA Gets it

2008-08-09T11:26:00.003-05:00

I've been lucky to witness a change in operator's state of mind regarding how they handle content on their portals. One could see the continuum between full control over what's happening on-deck (Orange is a great example with their brand-awareness driven complete portal) and the opposite. The opposite approach is that the operator will choose a handful operator agnostic players in each category, and feature those on their deck.
What's the difference in business models?
In the former, the operator is the customer. They buy/license the content, the technology, and they make the relationship with the vendor work forever, if possible. They are responsible when their revenues drop because people would rather go P2P+Sideload. The operator has an upfront cost (which they would clearly like to avoid) and higher share of the recurring revenues. The vendor may get something upfront, but (specifically in the music busienss) very little in the long run on recurring revenues share.
That business model is not aligned with the win-win strategy which motivates both the operator and vendor to create a healthy long-term service to the fan that would create a solid recurring revenue channel.
The latter, the vendor has the responsibility to create a successful product (they claim they know what they're doing right?) and launch it to their audience. The operator offers access to their subs and exposure on marketing slots, in return to a no-upfront fees and lower share on the recurring revenues.
That works.
No upfront fees, a universal (perhaps white-labeled) product that allows the vendor to launch in multiple context in an economic fashion, and high motivation to create a long term sticky service.
Vodafone UK got it a while back, and now TMO US is announcing something similar.
The real open network.

The Story Behind Sting's Onstage Shave In NYC

2008-08-09T11:08:00.006-05:00

Billboard has the story of Sting's shave during concert, and they say it was a product placement for a NY Men's grooming club. They say no money exchanged hands. I could see how the club would be mighty fine with that arrangement, but why on earth would Sting go through this for free? Sorry, the "desperate to look innovative" story doesn't work for me.
If anyone could enlighten me....

(Added:) I usually look for pictures to make my posts just a bit more fun. couldn't find one I liked so went and watched the video. Apologies to Sting's fans, I am one too. But this made me sick. Talk about advertising intrusiveness.

Music Artist: We need your help!

2008-07-27T07:12:00.004-05:00

If you're a performing music artist, help shape a new service that will enable you to create and grow your fan followers community on their mobile phones.
Please help us shape the service by participating in a 10-question survey (or click here: http://www.tinyurl.com/artsurvey). We will draw a $25 iTunes card for those who leave us their email at the end.

If you're not a performing artist, that's OK, you're still human (in our view). You probably have a kid, nephew, neighbor's kid or someone else you know who is a music artist. Have a think, we're sure you'll come up with one (or ten!).

THANK YOU!

Mark is making it happen

2008-07-27T06:55:00.004-05:00

If you've been reading my blog, you know that I'm a big fan of Mark Doerschlag and his unbelievable useful professional scene networking and event guide named Mark's Guide.
For someone who is constantly snowed under and doesn't have time to search for relevant events, and more specifically, is in need for networking in new fields (recently, mobile advertising), Mark's Guide has been the perfect tool for me. It's in my reader, I check it twice a week, add to my calendar with his great calendaring system and much more.
Mark's Guide has done well in the local Boston scene, but now it seems that Mark is taking it to the next level, and rightfully, getting the appropriate recognition for it. He's now launched in NY, Chicago, Philly, Washington (I bet Silicon Vally's next). He's also been interviewed in the BBJ (see the picture).
I couldn't be happier for Mark: he's really been chippin' away for a while and now seeing success. I'm sure there's much more behind the corner for him.
And I'm so lucky to be his friend!

Reblogged: @ London Calling: Bundled Music Services “Commoditizing” Music?

2008-06-23T07:00:00.004-05:00

Good article covering the London Calling music conference on Thursday. lots of people debating how fans value music and the implications on the music industry, including the mobile world.
Some very relevant comments like:

if giving music away in bundled services—such as Nokia’s Comes With Music--led to its further commoditization, ironically stoking the consumer view that music was something to be had for “free”
Scott Lyons, director of Motorola’s Ecosystem Market Development team: How do you deal with creating this expectation for free music after the 18 months is up?
Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher: there would be a backlash with Nokia’s Comes With Music service, as consumers would not entirely understand why they didn’t own the music though they had bought the handset
Orange’s Head of Music Richard Wheeler: music is being paid for on mobile, but by a higher end demographic. The challenge for operators is reaching the younger, low-spending, usually pay-as-you go customers, who don’t typically pay for music off mobile if they can help it

Highly useful set of notes. Anyone using their eyes can see the elephant in the room: your target audience are exactly those younger, less likely to pay fans. They will not pay for music generally (outside the POS, which BTW, the operator own and can leverage), but at the same time they define themselves by music. They are very sensitive to the "ownership" of music, regardless how they got it.

IMO music, specifically mobile, needs to go D2C, ad supported. It's our job to deliver a service to the advertisers who are looking for healthy user profiles, and pass that revenue to the artists. They are the fuel of this whole thing.

Interested in your thoughts.

Personalized Social Network

2008-06-16T10:48:00.004-05:00

A lot can, and should be said about the value of personalized approach in the web experience, from purchasing (Amazon recommendations) to social networks.
The cynics would talk to the mechanics of it (sure, pulling out your purchasing history or birth date is a mechanic matter of a database query), however, when I opened Facebook earlier I had a moment of "STOP! Reality check" (in this case, a very pleasant one).

Thank you Facebook (and my friends), you made my day.

Two really important pieces re mobile internet and mesaurment

2008-05-27T20:55:00.003-05:00

Two brilliant pieces surfaced today, I thought it was well worth sharing.

The first is an excellent piece on mobile internet by Jason Grigsby:

"I would summarize my presentation this way:

1. The Mobile Web is coming and it is going to be huge.
2. Yes, we've heard this all before, but this time it is true. Look at the numbers.
3. I understand why people are skeptics, but if you were to look at the data from gopher and try to extrapolate the growth of the web before the introduction of mosaic, you would never guess the growth that was to happen. The iPhone is the Mosaic of the Mobile Web. The numbers we're seeing with the iPhone are nothing like what we saw previously.
4. Web Developers have a long ways to go to be prepared for building for the Mobile Web. We've got to learn new constraints and relearn some things--like web site optimization--which we've gotten lazy about.
5. Unfortunately, there is little consistency or data about mobile browsers--particularly factors for optimization--so we have been conducting tests on mobile browsers.
6. Here are the results of our tests and our recommendations based on these results.

The Web Visions conference organizers are supposed to be posting a podcast of the presentations sometime soon. As soon as they do, I'll hook it up to the slides.

For those who are purely interested in where mobile is headed, I recommend my other slideshow as well which I recorded audio for:
http://www.slideshare.net/grigs/mobile-tsunami

For more on web site optimization, here is another presentation and resources:
http://userfirstweb.com/70/speed-matters-presentation-files-and-resources/
"

Here's the first of two brilliant slides:
Here's the second:

And here you can go through the whole pres. it's well worth it.

| View | Upload your own

The second piece I think is groundbreaking: There's been a lot of discussion on the role of proper mobile internet traffic measurement and reporting in the healthy growing of the ecosystem, specifically how it would help marketers understand the effectiveness of mobile advertising and leverage it.
So today Venture Beat reports that M:Metrics is about to be sold for $50-$80M. That's a very healthy sign, I hope, and an indicators of the ones to follow. Everyone should measure what's happening on their sites, especially on mobile sites, so that the ecosystem can grow and expand. It's also another healthy indicator for the mobile internet as a whole. Like Jason said: I understand why people would be skeptic, but mobile internet is coming, and it's going to be huge.

Your new car does not include wheels

2008-05-19T21:04:00.005-05:00

This one's beyond me.
I remember times when products came with the accessories required for them to function. Sure, there are always upgrades, accessories you never need etc., however I clearly recall buying PCs with power cords and ethernet cards, printers with power and USB cords and the required cartridges.
I'm out-of-date.

I just got a new Lexmark printer from Circuit City for my kid who has started showing interest in the computer. Open box, install, everything's great. Oops...where the heck did I put the USB cable? quick look at the box: USB cable not included. Nice. Went to the basement and like a good geek found one. keep going, I say. This printer has a color and Black cartridges. Found and installed the color one, no sweat. Where the black? Deja vu. not included. NICE. We'll buy one when we get to the store tomorrow. In the mean time, let's print something. DOH! can't print unless both cartridges are present. GRRRRR.

Drive to Circuit City next day. Turns out they have an exclusive on these cartridges, at $20 each. And they're out of stock. Sure, you can drive to New Hampshire to get one now, or you can wait a WEEK for your new printer to work.

Is it me or somebody lost it in their greed?! Can you imaging the salesman telling you: "Oh, your new car does not include wheels. they are ours exclusively and we're out of stock. You can get them in 10 business days".

Disclaimer: just checked a few other printer vendors. this seems to be a norm with others too. Another blessed industry move...

Adva Mobile seeking tech lead

2008-05-15T12:40:00.001-05:00

Adva Mobile is a stealth mode startup in the mobile marketing space. Our mission is to enable entertainment artists to promote their art to their fans in new exciting ways and receiving marketers' attention while doing that.

We are currently seeking a technology lead who will help us build this product by defining scalable and flexible architecture, planning and executing it. This person needs to have high level of understanding and knowledge of recent server side and mobile web technologies. This person needs to be comfortable coding as well as managing internal and outsourced resources. This person will participate in the selection and integration with vendors. This person also needs to be comfortable in a startup environment.

This is a great opportunity for the experienced technical team lead who might be seeking new entrepreneurial opportunities.

Requirements

· Experienced building and executing server, mobile web and multimedia architectures

· Knowledge of mobile multimedia delivery technologies

· Knowledge of latest web 2.0 development technologies

· Comfortable developing and managing internal and external resources

· High comfort level operating in a young startup

Please contact jobs@AdvaMobile.com if interested.

Please no recruiters or other third parties.

Who You Are Makes a Difference

2008-05-02T14:06:00.003-05:00

I am humbled and amazed to have seen this fantastic inspiring piece about really making a difference. I highly recommend it...take a moment and watch

"Legal P2P Music", really?

2008-04-13T11:27:00.004-05:00

I've been spending some time recently reading about music "state-of-the-nation", sorry if none of this is news to you.

So as I was having lots of fun at MIDEM in January, hearing a lot about services that recognize and legalize P2P music sharing, I was thinking of those services that have users upload music and share it. I was wondering how does that not clash with the content owners need for revenues: their hook so obviously giving something minimal, limited, as the hook to get you to buy the real thing. usually that hook would be called "preview". the 30-seconds version of the real thing, and a link to a music store.

So in telling the users they can upload and share the music, the name of the game is to remove liability by telling them what content they should not upload...Not sure ho many users read that piece.

So it was interesting to read about WMG suing imeem (I know, water under the bridge), how they settled, and an interesting comment:
"Good news for imeem..but the damage seems to have been done. Most popular songs on there are only in "preview" mode now, which only plays 30 seconds of each song rather than the whole clip..that was the single appeal of the site: full on demand music."
Very true, I think.

Report: 61% of US teens download music illegally

2008-04-11T22:38:00.004-05:00

As I mentioned in my post discussing where consumers get content from, I said: "Don't ignore the P2P elephant: 48% sideloading music from you-know-where is not something one can ignore and pretend its going to go away. I don't even think legislation can make P2P go away but some think so. No, I think we're looking at a vanishing consumer wallet and people will not pay (much, if anything) for music. We need to figure out alternative revenue channels for the operator, content owner, retailer etc."

A new survey shows that 61% of US teens download music illegally. Not a big surprise, frankly. Ask any teen around you whether they pay for music... the answer is no.

The survey noted an overall "discretionary recession" in teen spending, finding a 15% year-over-year decline in spending among young men, and an 11% decline among young women.
This is the dynamics that will make operators focus on networks as the revenues from mobile content require skills, and budget, that brands, advertisers and content owners have, not necessarily operators.

Another interesting comment was: "Six percent of students indicated they own an iPhone -- double the market share found in a fall 2007 survey -- and 9% expect to buy an iPhone in the next six months."

The iPhone UI really does make a difference to the teens. I believe iPhone and the likes will bring teens to use their phones as their music device. This is a huge opportunity for the direct to consumer content business.

Mobile Barcodes Flops With Students-DUH!

2008-04-09T17:25:00.004-05:00

This is so infinitely infuriating. While in the UK I-Nigma is getting down to business and generating mobile barcodes left and right on every magazine and billboard (good on ya!), the US is still mastering at taking a good piece of innovation and making it fail. Miserably. Every vendor and operator has a different view on the symbology, architecture and how the ecosystem should be built.
It's enough to read the comments on this post to understand the level of these discussions are the US.

Why does I-Nigma and their users get it, and we can't get a solution in the US? Why do US companies invest in existing technologies that don't require new ecosystems (evolution vs. revolution)?

Because technologists are making the decisions in the US. And they don't understand that the mobile market needs to be owned by marketing focused people. They need to stop thinking about technology, symbology and patents, and start thinking like Google would think of it. How would ad agencies deal with it.

To read now how barcodes failed at a very-visible Mobile Discovery trial, who did not setup the required arrangements with the operators beforehand, didn't setup the expectations correctly, and then used a topless woman for the promotion...well...what can I say?

End with a very old joke:
The Polish invented the toilet seat. The Americans swept the world with their design, based on the Polish one and adding a hole in the middle.

Good innovation can happen in the US, but the UK folks will succeed with it.

Congrats to Andy Letting, a friend who is moving into the right space in the right time.

A good problem to have

2008-04-09T15:48:00.003-05:00

As an engineer who turned to marketing, I keep coming across situations where you want to promise the sky, but you also know the limits. A good lesson one of my previous CEO taught me was: whenever you think of starting the limitation "BUT...", that's when you put the lid on it.
Because that's how technology moves forward. If customers were buying existing technology there wouldn't be any innovation. This is why you want to keep your sales guys somewhat aware of what the product can (or rather, can't) do, but they and the market are the ones who will pull you forward.

The thing is, sometimes you cheat. You know the product can't deliver to the spec. Do BMW's really make it to the top speed? who knows? whose going to test it? The wisdom is not to get caught, at least not big time.

Because when someone calls the bluff, it can become painful. And I think that's what's lined up for operators with their data network. They were betting on lack of applications that will drive the data network. And they were right for the longest while.
Now, when video is hitting the mobile space, uplink and downlink, it is becoming difficult, and frightening.

So when I read this article about "Researcher warns on flat-rate plans’ effect on carriers", and I read "ABI is also worried that unlimited plans may encourage an increase in unsolicited text messages, instant messaging and picture mail usage.", I think, no, they've got the wrong end of the stick. This is the time to crack the champaign. Because for the longest time mobile geeks complained about people "not getting" picture messaging, Mobile IM, Mobile video etc. "usage/adoption is low" you could hear everywhere.

Well if now people get it, then there could not be better news! That is a good problem to have like my friend Jack always tells me. The operators need to figure out how to keep up the technology and harvest the revenues: making their network perform, and cutting rev share deals with content owners and advertisers.

Mobile D2C content requires leadership, even from Nokia

2008-04-03T17:26:00.002-05:00

I came across this article today in Fierce Wireless, talking about Nokia having to "sweet talk" operators over revenue share concerns.

Focusing on network operations and letting brands promote content D2C for rev share is not common amongst many operators yet.

Mighty Nokia having to walk the line carefully and explain the benefits to all shareholders is just an example for how young the D2C ecosystem is, and that no one is immune from playing ball with the operators, who will not be forced into it.

The good news, Nokia is the kind of player who can plow the way for all those of who will follow.

Flixwagon: A shooting star? (Phones to replace camcorders?)

2008-03-28T10:26:00.006-05:00

Overnight it seems like a new mobile video startup, Flixwagon, had managed to grab a lot of attention. Uplink live video for the community is a real interesting cool proposition. They also seem to have relations in the right places, from VCs to a S60 dude filming his own wedding.

I have my own thoughts on community uplink mobile video. What is the implication for
users and for operators?
(Flixwagon help:) "Since the Flixwagon mobile application uses the internet to broadcast videos, we recommend that users upgrade their mobile plans to unlimited internet access. On average, a minute of broadcast uses up around 1Mb of your data plan. With unlimited access, users will not incur any minute-by-minute charges associated with mobile internet usage."

That's actually great for operators, drives people straight into the stores to get data plans. Finally an application that people want that requires data. No more "operator pushed" data plans. That's smart.

What do operators have for data in their stores?
Vodafone UK will give you monthly 120MB for 7.50 pounds or for 1 pound/day for casual use you'll get up to 15MB. You'll find this "unlimited with fair use" policy everywhere.
Sprint, a good representative of the new US "Simply everything" set of plans from operators, will give you for $99/month "unlimited data", with the small print "Service is not available to use as modem, ..., other systems that drive continuous heavy traffic or data sessions". W/o a data plan, Sprint data will cost you 3c/kB.

So imagine these guys want to go way beyond YouTube (As you have a cell phone in your povket always, whereas PC cam is...well...connected to a PC). Here's some YouTube stats:
200K video uploads daily. Average Video Length slightly below 3 minutes. Average Age of Uploader: 26.57. That's clearly going to change.

Back-of-envelope math: that's 200k*3*1MB/min = 0.6TB of data/day uplink.

... 0.6TB/day...

here's an interesting quote: "YouTube videos take up an estimated 45 terabytes of storage - about 5,000 home computers' worth - and require several million dollars' worth of bandwidth a month to transmit."

Remember how the introduction of iPhone brought AT&T data network to its knees? I wonder what would this do to the operators, technology-wise and commercially.

I think these guys have got their technology and commercial work cut out for them. Good luck to them!

If you're into weddings, watch the video here

Now all that's left is for someone to step on and play the broker between all these feeds and the news, sports, entertainment channels...

D2C mobile content: Consumers obtain content from various sources (ABI Research)

2008-03-20T17:03:00.005-05:00

Just as I was answering a LinkedIn question: "What will it take to create a significant revenue stream from advertising supported products and services on mobile phones and mobile services in a market that is fragmented and tightly controlled by mobile operators?" with the straight answer, Direct to consumer content and services, led by big brands who want to get closer to their audience will drive operator rev share deals, I came to read this post on ABI research's report.

ABI research ran a consumer survey and found pretty compelling D2C findings:
"today’s mobile consumer is more likely to watch a video from YouTube on his or her phone than a video from the carrier’s own service, but is more than twice as likely to get ringtones from the carrier than from any other source."
"(ABI's Michael Wolf:)...despite the strong control most carriers retain over the network, their control over the mobile content ecosystem remains limited. The consumer will see more and more options for obtaining rich media in the future."

Here's several interesting numbers:

Video consumption (13% of all survey)

YouTube 35%
Operator 31%
Other 24%

Music

Sideloaded 48% (Don't ignore the big P2P elephant in the room!)
Operator 35%

"We expect to see increased content acquisition directly to the phone from the Web. And despite a loosening of control over content delivery to consumers, we believe the carriers will ultimately benefit as they open up their networks and handset platforms and look into taking advantage of increased advertising-supported content delivery.”

Wow. I could not have said it better.

Couple of my observations on the numbers above:

YouTube 35%, Operator 31%: That's very compelling. I heard UK kids are hooked on YouTube on mobile, but didn't realize it was now and that big. I relate the video story being bigger success D2C than it is on-deck in that operators can best leverage the introduction of video to let D2C players sweat it, while they harvest the rev share and data plans, and increase user satisfaction on their network
Music stats

Don't ignore the P2P elephant: 48% sideloading music from you-know-where is not something one can ignore and pretend its going to go away. I don't even think legislation can make P2P go away but some think so. No, I think we're looking at a vanishing consumer wallet and people will not pay (much, if anything) for music. We need to figure out alternative revenue channels for the operator, content owner, retailer etc.
Operator 35% means that there's not a huge D2C music play. why? probably because on deck music was first before anyone thought D2C and the operators are heavily promoting their stores. But I think that's going away: operators are beginning to feel the tiny margins grinding them and they will reverse the model. Instead of managing the store themselves (very costly), they will endorse 2-3 D2C players for their "on deck recommendations", allow D2C to happen on their network and harvest the rev share+data plans.

Anyway, I found this ABI research summary very encouraging. Interested in your thoughts.

As a side note, you may know Groove Mobile sold to LiveWire earlier this week. One outcome is that I'm on the market. Feel free to contact me if you have any needs for a wireless guy. I know something about lots of things (codes, content, D2C, LBS,...) and can make coffee :-)

Vision meets Practicality

2008-03-16T22:18:00.009-05:00

Recently I've heard of quite a few mobile startups who decided to be practical about their strategy. Got me thinking of how far do you go believing in a future vision vs. solving a "today" problem.

More and more startups are saying client applications are difficult (dev, QA, distribute, make people aware and use), and so is mobile web. In that kind of environment, why bang your head against the wall? why not use existing well known channels (voice+SMS) to provide the offering? here are a couple of examples:

Mobivox (BTW, Thanks Nitzan for the good talk you gave this W/E) are saying: mobile Skype is difficult. Let's create a mobile voice portal, where people can dial a number to call their friends, email or text, search, shop,...
Kadoink are into experiencing music predominantly using a voice call?
Padpaw are facilitating small social groups using SMS
and Locamoda are saying location oriented interaction could be done in front of an electronic display over SMS

So I think its an interesting trend, which could very well take off and make these guys a lot of money (it better be given the $$ VC put into it). And it's very practical, can't argue with that.

My dilemma as a wireless geek, if you will, is where does that leave the technology, the industry and the consumer.
On one hand it can't be good. Take Mobivox solution for example. A voice portal vision begs the question why do we need WAP portals at all? If they figured out people would rather call a number to search then go to Google's WAP, then that's a very serious point to consider. If people rather make a local call to make a long distance call cheaper, then it begs the question what happened to the hyped "presence (your friend status change) will drive increased traffic"? Reality check: Presence did not take off, nor did IMS, and possibly will never take off. Especially if there's no more business drive behind it.
Why sweat IMS (as example) if nobody cares?

On the other hand it's not so bad news. The "workaround" (sorry if blunt) that uses existing known methods to achieve a functionality could in fact drive the awareness needed to make the case for the "appropriate" solution. For example, some will remember 4-5 years ago there was a discussion of IP vs. CS PoC and IM. Everybody was thinking IP was the way to go. heck, we're talking all-IP networks right? Kodiak's CS solution was treated as the black sheep. well guess whose solution is making strides today. But if users get hooked on PoC, this could eventually drive investment in IP-based PoC.

Anyway, interested in your thoughts re making the "visionary" vs. "practical" strategy direction isn't obvious.

Will D2C drive mass market content consumption?

2008-03-16T13:10:00.004-05:00

Interesting discussion this week over Sue Marek's (from Fierce Wireless) post re D2C (gloomy?) likelihood to drive mobile content revenues:

"(re Motricity)...In its place is a more realistic view of the mobile content marketplace and an acknowledgment that you can't be all things to all people. With that in mind, the company is getting out of the direct-to-consumer business...I think it's time for mobile content firms to take a realistic look at the market and understand what's working and what isn't. It's time to stop investing in things that aren't working (direct to consumer) and focus on the basics."

Is it?

I agree that there are a pile of challenges standing in front of mobile content as a whole, add some that mount on as one goes D2C, and yet, I argue that if any channel is going to become mainstream for mobile content, it is going to be D2C.

It is going to be D2C because of two main reasons:

Technology challenges are going away, opening the playground for big players: sure, there's UI issues, HW (where's my headset?) issue, battery, bandwidth, usability etc etc. but the bottom line is that iPhone UI-likes are here and coming, networks bandwidth is getting better, the recognition that the everyone should be allowed to publish, promote and bill (where appropriate) for their content is there. That means that web-traditional concepts like CPM, CTR and such, analytics etc., are all enabling traditional web (big) players to view mobile as a natural additional channel to have direct relationships with their audience. Mobile is attractive for brands, fan clubs etc.
The D2C commercial model makes sense (or otherwise, the current one doesn't)

Big players can join the game: Brands, artists, fan clubs: To them, mobile now can become just another channel of promoting their brand, product or service. They spend marketing $ cross carrier anyway, right?. they now have the ability to offer content or services to 100% of the addressable audience (vs. from one operator's deck, addressing 20% at best). They fully independently control the experience, do CRM, support, bill etc. It's a no brainer to strap a mobile channel to existing other channels.
Operators: Operators aren't content retailers: they are content enablers. For operators (IMO), the model where they have to fund development for a tailored solution, then they have to spend the marketing, that does not work. The model that would work is referring selected retailers per content type from their deck, and taking a rev share on that content sold on their network. The additional upside is that bigger players will want to become in that on-deck list of recommended D2C retailers, who will spend cross-network marketing $$ anyway.

Last, I want to introduce another comment here. the traditional on deck model is limited also in the type of content and services that operators will license, introduce, market and support. D2C is the way to enable UGC or independant content, they type of content that will bring surprising consumption behaviors.

Interested in comments...I think D2C is new and not easy, but we'll get there, it will take some vision.

PayForWhat?

2008-03-15T13:11:00.009-05:00

Recently I had a chance to gt more familiar with PayForIt, "...the new payment service, supported by all licensed UK mobile operators, designed to make it easy to pay for low cost services on the mobile phone."

Also as an introduction I'll say, couple months ago in Boston TiE Wireless meeting on the subject of Mobile payments, I was thinking "why are US startups reinventing the wheel when there's a live, successful reference across the pond?"

To the benefit of PayForIt I'll say it's a game changing cross carrier play. And everything cross-carrier, IMO, is good. PayForIt specifically allows ANY retailer, small as large, to bill for their content: Brands, bands, artists, developers,.... Awesome.
It's pretty thought through and good UI:
(Source) "PayForIt has almost completely eradicated failed transactions, says Bango research."

Complements done, one fundamental gap is the following (check out the latest scheme rules Section R1.5.1):
"all mobile screens presented to the consumer by Accredited Payment Intermediaries"

Nice.

Consumers visit the retailer page, discover content, then being handed over to this "Accredited Payment Intermediaries" page to pay, and then, well, hopefully, are redirected back to to redeem their paid content.

Image courtesy: MXTelecom

I have two reservations with this model:

Technical: While this may have been an acceptable model in the internet, it is (IMO) unacceptable in the mobile web. What if you enter a tunnel as you just got charged? who knows you paid? does the retailer have an idea you paid? can you redeem the content you just paid for? this has clearly not been thought through
Commercial: This is just asking for a brawl over who owns the customer for support (the retailer, obviously) or for marketing (Oh, now that's different: I can see the operator, billing vendor, retailer and content owner having a blast over this)

Now I can see why the operators and the "Accredited Payment Intermediaries" would put this in place to save them the cheerful chore of trying to police what's happening on their network. I also acknowledge their past bad experience with retailers who offered content with dodgy small print terms.

But there's some sense to be put in as well. The billing transaction could have been completed just as well through a billing web service backend API, and the operators/billing vendors can have alternative ways to police what's presented and enable billing only after their approval.

Handing over the consumer for billing is a bad idea and calls for trouble. The retailer should own the experience end-to-end.

At BosMoCamp

2008-03-15T10:39:00.001-05:00

"After skype" talk, iPhone, location, advertising and much more...this is awsome.
Thanks Keith for putting together
Sent Wirelessly

Mobile Camp Boston March 15th (this W/E)

2008-03-11T12:10:00.005-05:00

Boston's having it's first (I think) mocamp lead by Keith Erskine (good on ya m8!) of Padpaw.
I've been a bit snowed under to promote it at this late stage (and poss its sold out) but still a good chance to complement Keith on the initiative.

I still think mobile people sadly need to consider relo west to find good opportunities but let's make the best of it. (Happy to be proven otherwise)

Looking forward to it!

Interesting pic

2008-03-10T18:29:00.003-05:00

This one's from Guy Kawasaki's Blog...part of his post about a brilliant Green Building at Stanford Just As Smart As People It Houses.

Apologies for selecting this picture of all...not sure how and why but it matches well how I feel today.

Mobile Content and data thoughts

2008-03-10T17:41:00.005-05:00

Been reading today from a couple of corners in my Google Reader about mobile content and data.

The first piece talks about Wi-Fi seems to be loosing to mobile broadband:
My old friend the pondering primate has a piece on Hotspots being phased out and Ericsson predicts demise of hotspots in favor of mobile broadband.
Duh.
Everywhere you go, if you're lucky, you may find a hotspot, and even if you did, they will charge the heck out of you. Good 20pound/day in any London hotel. Then you think: let's hook with a network. Think again: the Boingos ("Monthly Flat Rate wifi plans for frequent travellers") of the world may have sensible roaming agreements (but not in your hotel haha) but wherever you may end up...oh...it's a "premium location" (who cares?) hence an additional $0.12/minute. Has anyone heard of Ad supported???
No. Wifi is complex, it doesn't have decent coverage and is a total steal.

This goes well with the next piece, which is that people had figured out it makes more sense to get 'em 3G dongles: Last week 18K 3G dongles were sold in the UK (50% of that from 3: good on ya!). Here's some more.
You know why they sold? because it's reliable, it's predictable and it's everywhere. It's because even EU roaming charges will become reasonable one day.

The interesting bit about this is that it's another indication that people are thirsty to mobile data: services and content.

Which is why I found this last piece from today's reading interesting: "Carrier executives: Mobile data revenues in trouble".

Check this out:
"flat-rate mobile data tariffs will lead to usage increasing at a far greater rate than operator revenues. This shift will demand the cost of providing mobile data connectivity be driven down if they were to continue to make money."

"usage increasing at a far greater rate than operator revenues...": uh...hello? sorry a bit stunned here.

I recall reading that the operator investment in advanced IP infrastructure was unjustified because the data based services/content takeup was insignificant (in fact yesterday one of the fierce commentary was talking about "why go to 4G") and now the usage increase is an issue?!

Usage increase is a blessing dudes! you should be blessed to see the usage increase! more content, more services and more consumptions all play very nicely into the operators' 40-60% rev share on consumed content. Even the "flat rate" plans are defined as "fare use".

"It is only a matter of time before we lose all profitability on mobile data" said T-Mobile CEO...well I think something's really messed up if finally users access content and T-Mobile can't make money.

Vodafone's Picture Physical World Connection

2008-03-10T17:14:00.003-05:00

If you've been reading my blog you know that I've been working on code scanning and I believe in that technology as one novel solution to genuine handset usability problem. (BTW, Digit Wireless is recently is making a comeback from a couple quiet years with a new CEO)

People on the go are getting the value of retrieving information or content through their phones by scanning codes (esp. in UK), taking pictures of products etc.

That said, I see codes as a cumbersome geeky solution. too difficult, too many formats fragmenting the market, technologies etc. client development, QA and distribution challenges...

Either way, I won't argue the point of taking a picture of the product vs. a code next to it here (people will rightfully argue the probability of getting to the content one wants is not acceptable other than through code scanning), but I do want to say this:

Take a phone, take a picture of the product you're interested in, send it to a good correlation algorithm, use Google's infinite DB of images, send the user an interesting URL back.

That's an interesting proposition. And Vodafone's just launched it. Perhaps not the best performance, but good on them to get going.

This fits right into the Google's marketing expertise. They should be interested in this

How to save money running a startup (17 really good tips)

2008-03-10T11:05:00.002-05:00

Check out this excellent post by Jason Calanis:

The reason I thought this was really good is b/c it promotes the human factor (and others affecting it), trims the rest.

Excellent post Jason.

I think it's real funny (sorry)

2008-02-23T22:25:00.004-05:00

check this out:

Chinese patent office publishes Meizu M8 - iPhone clone gets design patent.

Next the DVDs in the streets in China will become patented :-)

The battle over the idle screen

2008-01-18T17:56:00.000-05:00

I've already made a post on the combination of your favorite feed on your idle screen. Several startups are looking at "non-intrusive" ads on the idle screen:
Celltick’s LiveScreen ‘bypassing operators’ with direct to consumer mobile ads.
what does that do the consumer I'm not sure, to see floating ads on your idle screen. Big yawn me thinks, and rightfully the Ewan writes "I’ve had more than a decade’s worth of experience of dismissing my phone’s standby screen whenever I want to ‘do’ something on it."
BTW, check out Cellogic, who are also in a similar space.

But what if...what if that idle screen had your favorite RSS feed, a mobile version of Google Reader, Facebook feed, including presence/location/mood updates from your contacts in your integrated address book?
There are enough kids out there burning idle time on various occasions between music (hum...publish a playlist from your phone...), games and much more. they would love the trigger from their friends through their social communities on the idle screen.

I think the idle screen is uncharted landscape that will go far. Far beyond advertising for sure.

Mobile Music sideload: Don't fight it, power it

2008-01-18T17:20:00.000-05:00

A couple of interesting mobile music snippets:

Vodafone Claims Largest Seller Of Singles in New Zealand: Vodafone’s sales of single tracks for December reached 106,000, or more than half of all single tracks sold in New Zealand for the month
83 Percent Of Mobile Music Sideloaded: Report
Mobile Gaming Industry Looks To Sort Out Sideloading

Brings some thoughts around the fixation of targeting direct OTA content downloads. The mobile gaming industry is seeking ways to work with users, not against them. The spread of piracy these days just shows that something's wrong in the way content is handled. Sideloading is something that will eventually increase sales and will enable more viral spreading and recommendations for content. It should be encouraged through social community gadgets etc. All channels should be used: direct OTA, dual download, sideload etc.

Good space to be in: remote handset testing

2008-01-18T16:51:00.000-05:00

Every content and game provider knows how frustrating, difficult, cost and efforts consuming it is to deal with every different phone. I've already blogged on how similar J2ME or windows mobile phone is in reality very different, to the degree that if one is interested to ensure an acceptable user experience, they need to hold the phone in their hands.

Well some people aren't sitting on their hands. Device Anywhere from Mobile complete provides a good service that allows people to access various phones on specific networks. The phones seem to be physically in the country you need testing at. in fact, seems like a number of vendors partnered with mobile complete to provide a developer-friendly service. limited devices and network but great and economic service. (Sadly, the locations aren't always ideal in terms of network coverage: hey Mobile complete check your T-Mobile UK coverage!).
Mobile Distillery is also providing a similar service, and I believe so does Nexperience.

Steve Jobs in 60 seconds

2008-01-18T16:33:00.000-05:00

cool. check it out

Fantastic article on the state of music today by David Byrne

2008-01-18T15:16:00.000-05:00

Check out David Byrne's Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars. Excellent reading on state of affairs in the music space.
Combine that with the recent Yankee group study "US mobile music worth 1 billion in 2012" and the prediction that increasingly artist will strive to keep more revenue shares by selling directly to consumers.

Beautiful...and worrying

2008-01-18T14:58:00.000-05:00

6 months ago, as I was in the middle of developing a leading mobile code architecture (or so I thought), I heard that Scanbuy won the US cross carrier code scanning trial agreed by all 4 carriers. Mix of good and bad news really, wasn't happy they won it, but that meant the market was moving and there will be place for many to play. Specifically, if indeed all carriers stood behind the trial, it would imply interoperability, which is key to this whole ecosystem.
The trial beginning was scheduled to Jan '08 (oh, what time is it?!).

So today I came once again across The pondering primate post who has a link to Sprint's pleasantly surprising and beautifully made page on 2D barcodes for phones, PhoneIQ. beautiful, I really like it. good explanation on what it is, what phones its on (yup, looks like Sprint will preload the app on their leading phones which is great) etc. Maybe a bit on the techy side but that's alright. that's very good use for the VC money Scanbuy got, it will get them far.

The bit that worries me is that:

I'm not seeing any PR around it (Found the link in The pondering primate), but I'll confess to not doing much search
This page is well hidden in Sprint's web portal
I'm not seeing other operators pushing it

This correlates well with a discussion we had with another operator around mid last year who knew very little about this "cross carrier" trial.

The bottom line here is that I'm worried about how wide this trial will be, and how interoperable, widely marketed and recognized will the solution be. Will it be as common as SMS, or will it be as hesitant and partial service like UMA in the US?
They did a good job with Sprint, I'd like to see the same happening elsewhere.