Mobile Web Europe Conference- Key Takeaways

LONDON -It will take me a while to assimiliate 3-days worth of information on where we are headed with Mobile Web today but some of the key questions that were addressed were:

-Should we head towards a 'one-web' concept (same for PC and mobile as per the Convergence theorists) or more towards two distinct webs (as advocated in part by .mobi), one optimised for PC and the other optimised for Mobile (and the maligned 'small screen')?

-With much talk of Mobile Social Networks, shouldn't companies in this space realise that they need to focus on hosting the network instead of managing it? This was a great point mentioned by Priya Prakash of Flirtomatic, who also went on to state that a great host should facilitate conversations and act more as a matchmaker so that new contacts can be made

-Alfie Dennen from moblog:tech was of the opinion that the iphone has taken the industry a step back (due to its closed environment), something overlooked amongst the mass hysteria surrounding it

-Kashif Hassan, from ooober, made an excellent point about content, suggesting that given the sameness of many Mobile Social Networks, it is the presence of branded content that will make the difference...witness HBO's Entourage feature on the whrrl site

...to be continued///

GeoMe quoted in El Pais Newspaper as Leading LBS Innovator

MADRID -El Pais, Spain's leading newspaper, published an article yesterday on Location Based Services and Mobile Social Networks, describing the overall environment and prospects.

'In Spain, there are a handful of innovative start-ups vying to lead the market.From the location-based service of GeoMe...the mobile phone is 'dressing up' with a web outfit in order to hit the town..' says Manuel Angel-Mendez, from El Pais.

I was interviewed for this article and duly get a quote later on where I state my view that most users don't want to be tracked wherever they are and prefer to leave messages on a map so that only their friends can see them if and when they are in the same area as the message.

Rummble, one of the companies presenting at the Mobile 2.0 Europe event in July in Barcelona (see previous quote) gets a well-deserved mention-they have a recommendation-based search function that allows community members to receive notifications according to your preferences.

'The barrier for mobile social networks is achieving a community of 100,000 users' continues Angel-Mendez, 'Once a service hits this magic number, anything is possible'.

For Spanish-speakers, the El Pais article can be referenced through the title link of this post.

deCarta devCON08-San Francisco 22-24 October

deCarta, one of the enablers behind NokiaMaps, is hosting its Development Forum, devCon08, at the Intercontinental Hotel in San Francisco on the 22-24th October 2008.

The event will cover a wide range of development issues surrounding location on mobile, with both lecture-based and workshop-based sessions. The rough agenda is as follows:

• Business and Industry sessions to provide the latest perspectives on mobile LBS market trends, technology requirements, roadblocks and opportunities, with individual presentations and panel discussions featuring some of the industry's leading experts.

• Technical sessions going deep on topics such as advanced navigation capabilities, geo-coding, enabling the mobile Internet, real-time and thematic data integration, traffic, platform scalability, best practices for sat nav system UI design, and so on.

• For developers who are new to location applications or deCarta's technology, a series of sessions will provide an accelerated course on developing applications using deCarta's DDS platform, Web Services and powerful JavaScript API, as well as deCarta's Nav.Net, and Internet connectivity for advanced personal navigation devices and smartphones.

• A full-day, hands-on Developer's Workshop on the first day will be custom-tailored to help you accelerate your mobile application development.

For more info and to sign up, link through the title to the event website.

Kevin Kelly's 'The One' Vision

A friend of mine pointed me to the video of Kevin Kelly's (Editor of Wired) presentation at the TED conference and his 'The One' vision is well worthy of being shared further.

His premise is that the web (not the internet) is only 5000 days old and has grown to an amazing level in that time in terms of complexity and functionality (and the amazing thing, he says, is that no-one is amazed).

He then looks at the future 5000 days of the web, which will be the 'Internet of Things'. He envisages total personalisation of the web in the future but at a cost of providing 'it' with total transparency of personal information...if you forget your phone number in the future, you will only have to google for it...

The future web will be smarter (and incorporate AI), will anticipate what we do and will be more ubiqitous.Everything will go through the web or be saved by the web. Scaringly, today the sum total in processing power (or 'intelligence') of the web is equal to that of one human brain but in 30 years' time, the intelligence of the web will exceed that of the whole of humanity put together...

In terms of mobile web, Kelly's vision puts portability of the web high on the agenda and connectivity everywhere -implying a dominant role for portable connected devices, mobile or otherwise.

I recommend you take a look at the video and judge for yourselves...

Ecorio-scoops one of 10 top Android Developer Challenge Prizes

Sometimes a startup comes along and executes a nice, innovative concept in a beautifully simple way and with a nifty design...Ecorio is one of these rare pearls, with an application that allows you to measure and reduce your carbon footprint by keeping track of your journeys using the GPS on your mobile device.

Ecorio was founded by '5 guys from Ontario', and they came up with the simple 3-button model of ecorio:

Reduce-to find out how to save by changing route or transport mode
Inspire-with tips from community members on how to reduce environmental impact and
Offset-allows the user to mail himself with a carbon offset calculation and purchase carbon credits online.

Ecorio won one of 10 top prizes of $275,000 under the Android Developer Challenge competition and now has a real chance to build on their initial success and develop new features for their application.

View the full Android Developer Challenge results by clicking on the title link of this post.

Fring-mVOIP startup works up an edge

Fring, the Israeli company with $10m funding (from Pitango Venture Capital and Veritas Venture Capital) launched its first Mobile VOIP (mVOIP) service back in January 2007, and since April this year has made its application available on the iPhone.

Fring works well with flat rate data tariffs as well as Wi-Fi. The nice aspects of the application are that you are able to see who is online before you call and to do so, you simply click on Fring’s green button icon.

Some debate exists as to which company is likely to make it in the mVOIP sector, where notable players include jajah and truphone (see my earlier post in January). Fring may have the edge, given that it is truly free (it works completely off the operator data plan with no extra charges) and also seems to have a clearer and more aggressive strategy than the others.

Truphone, though initially much hyped, initially set out to deliver mVOIP exclusively over Wi-Fi, a bold move but ultimately the wrong one, as it was later forced to additionally offer its service through the 3G network. It was also behind fring in offering its service on the iPhone, only releasing the app in July this year.

Fring has now also opened up its API to third parties, allowing it to build up something of a community in the future. It now features a Facebook add-on and encouraged microblogging through its FringOlympics promotion in the summer. The Fring-me widget is one the later additions to the stable of add-ons, allowing those connected to the web to see when a Fring user is online .

CERN Time Machine to start ticking on Sept 10th

GENEVA -I rarely stray from the main subject matter of my blog, but unless you've had your head buried in the sand during the summer vacations, you will realise that in just 9 days, the biggest scientific experiment ever planned will take place near the tranquil waters of Lake Leman in Geneva.


The Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile long particle accelerator at the CERN facilities (home of the inventor of the www), will accelerate matter to 0.01% of the speed of light and will be switched on for around 10 hours. During this time, its beam will travel roughly twice the distance between Neptune and the Earth.

All of this is vaguely reminiscent of Star Wars, and the photo (credit:Maximilien Brice, © CERN) reinforces this impression.

Exactly what will happen when the enormous amount of energy required to fire the beam is unleashed is anyone's guess but, if I were you, I'd plan a full backup of your computer files for September 9th...

A webcast is available at CERN, which you can reach by clicking on the title of this post.

US Closing Mobile Usage Gap

I posted a piece back in January this year about the Rise of the Mobile Wallet and was pleased to see that it was quoted in an Experian Consumer Research Report about the US Mobile Usage Gap.

The report suggests that while only 2% of US consumers regularly make purchases via a mobile device, already 16% use mobile banking services, roughly equally distributed among different age groups.

Interestingly, the research shows that the age profile of GPS users is heavily skewed towards 18-24 year olds, with a severe drop off in usage rates in the age groups 45-54 and over.

Mobile advertising acceptance is confirmed as being higher than for traditional web, with over a third of consumers who are online for at least one hour a week rating themselves as interested in receiving ads via their mobile provided there is a tangible incentive.

You can read the full 9-page report by clicking on the title of this post.

Social Network Valuations Reach Record Levels

I wrote back in March about AOL's acquisition of Bebo and the (inflated) purchase price they splurged for it (USD$850m). This, you may remember, equated to $38 paid per Bebo user.

Now an article in Mashable.com suggests that frenzied interest in social networks is taking these frothy valuations to new heights, and that Facebook's 100m users are worth at least $150 each based on the company's estimated value of USD$15bn.

Clearly, the exact calculation of Facebook's theoretical value remains a mystery, but by all accounts makes it the most valuable social network in the world and sets the marker in terms of premium valuations.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose personal stake is worth an extravagant USD$3bn., must be rubbing his hands with glee. And execs at Microsoft must be praying that their investment in 2% of the company pays off strategically.

Meanwhile, market analysts anticipate that Facebook has the capability to continue expanding its user base to over 200m members, which would ramp up its value even further...someone please prepare the smelling salts...

Killer Apps in Mobile Social Networking-Part 2

I posted earlier this week on potential candidates for the next Killer Application in Mobile Social Networking, identifying the following 4 potential candidates (so far):




-Mobile Dating Apps
-Mobile Social Network Aggregrators
-Virtual World or Second Life type applications with chat
-Phone Address Book

Here are my thoughts on the latter two candidates:

Second Life type applications with chat

There is no doubt that people are spending more and more time in virtual worlds. A company called Vollee has already released a public beta that allows you to make a connection to the Second Life Grid while handling the technical heavy lifting of rendering objects. The company then streams video output to your phone like any other media file.

By combining SL or other virtual worlds with chat on a mobile phone, a new dimension opens up for social interaction on mobile-anonymous and faceless maybe, but also with fewer boundaries than in the ‘real’ world. These characteristics may make it the next killer application in mobile social networking (at least in Japan, where anonymity in social networks is valued highly).

The Phone Address Book

The humble phone address book has been, is and will be one of the cornerstones of the social dimension of the mobile phone. Before anyone learnt to SMS, they learnt to add contacts to the phone address book. And when anyone loses their mobile phone, the thing they grieve about the most is the loss of their phone contacts.

The phone address book is the mobile social network par excellence –albeit a bit limited in its current state. But, let’s think about this…ALL one’s valuable contacts are already in the address book (no need to ‘add’ any friends), often with full contact details (including e-mail) and a photo…all we need is for a phone manufacturer to transform the phone book from its current state and integrate things like ‘preferences’, photo tagging and maybe some location-related info (“where are my contacts?”) and hey presto, you have a powerful social network ready to use!

Ok, some issues around privacy remain (will everyone be willing to make their phone address book public?) but the trend amongst mobile handset manufacturers is definitely towards beefing up their mobile software applications, and what better way to do this by transforming the now old-fashioned address book?

uLocate announces deal with Garmin for Buddy Beacon

BOSTON-In line with a trend that has been developing this year, uLocate (well-known for its WHERE platform) is the latest LBS company to announce a deal with a device manufacturer. Today, the company has released a note stating that they will integrate their Buddy Beacon application into Garmin's connected devices and their Mobile XT Platform.

The full press release is as follows:

" August 19, 2008—uLocate Communications, the world’s leading developer of location enabled applications, announces an agreement with Garmin to add friend-finding capabilities to select current and future Garmin GPS devices. The partnership leverages APIs on uLocate’s WHERE™ platform to enable Garmin users to easily find and connect with friends nearby through the leading friend finding network, Buddy Beacon.

“The team over at uLocate continues to drive innovation with their open WHERE platform, enabling the broadest set of location based applications across the largest distribution network in wireless,” said Jeff Rath, vice president, global head of technology research of Canaccord Adams. “This represents a powerful combination – the largest PND manufacturer and the dominant platform in the market bringing together the universe of location enabled connected devices.”

With access to WHERE’s Buddy Beacon network, Garmin customers will be able to connect with their friends, share their location and update their status across a variety of online social networking sites including Facebook. Unlike other friend-finding applications, WHERE’s Buddy Beacon operates seamlessly across multiple networks, making it possible to connect with friends regardless of phone or carrier.

“We are delighted to team up with Garmin and through our WHERE platform, provide their users with access to Buddy Beacon,” said Walt Doyle, CEO of uLocate Communications. “The partnership connects two leaders in their industries that are committed to offering customers new and exciting interfaces."

Expect other companies in the LBS scene to come out with further announcements in the coming months, as new distribution and monetization models come to the fore.

Killer Apps in Mobile Social Networking

I will be contributing to a speaker panel on the Next Killer Application in Mobile Social Networking at the Mobile Web Europe conference in London in September and am gathering some thoughts on the subject.

So far, I have identified 4 potential candidates for what this next Killer App could be:


1. Mobile Dating applications
2. Mobile Social Network Aggregators
3. Virtual World or Second Life type applications that incorporate Instant Messaging
4. the Phone Address Book

I will be discussing the first 2 candidates in this post, while the remainder will be the object of a subsequent post:

1. Mobile dating applications are currently limited in their use of technology and frankly, have not made their case powerfully enough compared to web-based dating sites. Meetmoi, a $1.5m-backed mobile dating service launched last year still relies on SMS texting and requires the user to update his location manually-hardly revolutionary in the light of advances in location technology.

However, rumour has it that Microsoft is developing a mobile dating service that relies on Image-based face search in order to match prospective dates…a step in the right direction in terms of killer applications.

2.Mobile Social Network Aggregators (such as Spokeo) have attracted increasing levels of interest this year, in part due to the proliferation of mobile social networks and the tiresome task of keeping up with 4-5 different profiles and passwords. Different strategies are being deployed, with some aggregators going for Identity consolidation, others for message consolidation and others still for friend tracking.

Only a few days ago, news emerged that SonyEricsson was planning to release soon its own version of a social network aggregator, 3GLifestore.The game is hotting up…though would I pay €29/year to join Spokeo? Maybe not…

...to be continued

Online Social Network Rules

One of my readers from Youth Radio highlighted this Current.com video about young people's attitudes towards web-based social networks and privacy.

It gives a quick snapshot of current opinion but offers further proof that web users are wisening up to the risks of over-exposure via the web and adopting their own set of rules for using their favourite social networks sites.

Mobile Internet Blog reaches 3000 Readers (or thereabouts)

BARCELONA-I launched this blog in January this year to be able to share my passion about all things mobile with the large (and growing) mobile community out there.

Now, with the blog's global readership about to reach 3000, it is a good time to say thank you to all of you out there for reading, commenting on, bookmarking and sharing my blog -your support makes it all worthwhile!

In the first 7 months of this year, I have been privileged to participate in a number of mobile events, from the Mobile World Congress to the Mobile 2.0 Europe event, and have enjoyed sharing the latest news and buzz from these events with you (it has been great to share with readers from all corners of the world, from New Zealand, to Trinidad, Hawaii, UAE and India).

If you like the blog, please remember to subscribe to the RSS Feed so as not to miss out and also join the blog community on MyBlogLog. Above all, keep those comments flowing!

Beijing.mobi-coming soon?

With the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing scheduled to kick-off on Friday 8th August, speculation is mounting as to whether or not the often gossiped about flagship dot.mobi site for the city, beijing.mobi, will finally be unveiled.

The mTLD or dot.mobi consortium has, since its inception, focussed heavily on developing city mobile sites, with barcelona.mobi following the initial helsinki.mobi development.

One of the touted strategies of the consortium is to synchronise city.mobi launches with prominent events, and the 2008 Olympics could not offer a better platform for this, given the substantial amount of publicity (both postive and negative) that the games have attracted this year. Much of this media frenzy will peak this month, offering a great opportunity for mTLD to achieve a truly global launch for the site.

It would also help to stave off critics and sceptics alike, who have pointed out how the m.dot domain still remains predominant in North America.It would also give the whole dot.mobi movement a shot in the arm at a time when its main shareholders (the mobile operators and equipment manufacturers) are increasingly coming head-to-head with each other in their attempt to retain (or attain) control over the mobile subscriber.

I love Mobile Web Awards

I will be on a speaker panel at Informa's Mobile Web Europe event on the 22-24 September in London to discuss the next killer ap in mobile social networking (what do YOU think it is?) -the mix of topics on the conference programme is probably the most comprehensive available for this area, and so there are bound to be interesting learning points and clues to the future shape of things to come.

One of the side events is the I love Mobile Web Awards sponsored by the dotmobi consortium, aimed at recognising the best designed and developed mobile internet site.

Enter one of six exciting categories for free before 22 August 2008, and you can have your work featured online at ilovemobileweb.com for the industry to view.The judging panel includes Michael o'Farrell, Chairman of the dotmobi advisory group.This is a unique opportunity to have your innovative ideas showcased to a highly qualified audience, so if you are in the .mobi site space, don't miss out!

The Great iPhone Debate

Much too much has already been said about the iPhone in general, but especially recently, with the 3G version rolling out across Europe and news of Apple selling 1 million units in the first weekend of sale (this compares to the 74 days it took to sell the original iPhone).

What we are talking about here is an emotional product, a marketing success by Apple, who have managed to exploit an unsatisfied need in the market with a neat design and just the right amount of cleverly orchestrated hype to make the iPhone one of the most wanted objects in recent history.

That we are talking about an emotional product is clear by the way certain operators enthuse about its virtues (irrationally some may say) and how developers and mobile enthusiasts equally lambast it or praise it.

At the recent Mobile 2.0 conference in Barcelona, Antonio Vince-Stabyl from itsmy.com, expressed his hatred thus, in a now popular quote: "what does the iPhone have that makes it special? It is just about browsing, browsing and more browsing". Antonio also confided later that he had initially handed all his employees a new iPhone and was later flooded with returns because it was simply impractical for business use.

Love it or hate it, the iPhone is here to stay and Apple would be wise to maintain its pricing premium by keeping it in the niche market that it currently comfortably dominates (more media-tainment than telephony).

I just love the story told to me yesterday by a Dutch acquaintance, of a flashy business type busy discussing an important deal on his iPhone, getting out of his taxi in a hurry and putting the phone hurriedly back to his ear after paying the fare, only to have its glossy, slippery surface glide right over his face and form an arc in the air, before landing neatly in a rose bush.

Stricken with panic, the businessman shouted at the rose bush and continued his conversation from a distance...just one of those hazards of the beautiful, sleek and smooth iPhone surface you don't hear about so much..but then again, I wonder how many iPhone aficionados are actually using it for calls...

Mobile 2.0 Europe -Wrap-up

The Mobile 2.0 Europe event at ESADE in Barcelona delivered against expectations -a good selection of European start-ups, some early-stage, others more advanced, presented their projects to an audience made up of mobile entrepreneurs and enthusiasts.

The discussion panels were animated, with much time dedicated to how the iPhone is changing the playing field and disrupting existing business models. The highlight was undoubtedly the after lunch discussion panel on the Operator Perspective, which featured a heated debate around what operators should or shouldn't be doing to help stimulate the development of the mobile 2.0 industry. Mobile entrepreneurs were keen to hang the operators for blocking innovation, though others came to their defence on the grounds that they were caught in a trap between rising infrastructure investment and decreasing data rates.Given that 90% of the operator profits still come from voice, this seemed to be a weak excuse for inertia.

The Early Stage Startup Sessions was won by Zipipop, with their 'Intention Broadcasting' concept allowing you to see what your friends are planning to do. The Pre-Series A Startup Sessions was won by Rummble, with an interesting recommendation process based on an in-house algorithm developed in partnership with an Australian university.Finally, the Post Series-A Startup sessions was won by Nimbuzz, a communication platform for social networks incorporating mobile IM.

Overall, congratulations to Rudy de Waele and Carles Ferreiro for pulling off a great event, and successfully transplanting the Silicon Valley event in the increasingly innovative Barcelona area.

Osaifu-Ketai: NTT DoCoMo's Mobile Wallet

I'd like to share an interesting presentation on the development of NFC contactless mobile payments as described by NTT DoCoMo in Japan during the recent GSMA Mobile Money Summit in Cairo.

The latest figures released show that the uptake of mobile payments has been dramatic, and that at the same time as the number of retails outlets accepting this form of payment grew to 600,000, so did subscriber numbers for the service, to 28,5 million.

Apart from the cultural factors at play to explain this successful uptake (tech savvy consumers, on-the-go lifestyle etc), key to sucess has been the succesful partnerships established amongst chipset manufacturers, handset vendors, service providers and Mobile Network Operators.

This has made mobile payments the payment option of choice for a wide range of transactions, from loyalty card point collection, to ticketing, employee ID card authentication and many more.

You can read more about this in the presentation by clicking on the title of this post.

Google Mobile Phone will start ringing in Q4 2008

According to the Wall Street Journal, the first of the new Google phones developed on the Android platform, will become available by the end of 2008, at least 3 months behind the original planned launch.

Taiwanese firm HTC is expected to be the first manufacturer to release a G-phone and will be met with high expectations, given the claims by Google that Android-powered phones will make the internet as easy to use on a mobile phone as it is on a PC.

Google's aspirations to become a leading force in telecommunications should not be under-estimated -via the Android Developer Challenge, the internet powerhouse is tempting developers into its fold by offering $10m in prize money to savvy programmers able to come up with the best applications.

Android consists of an operating system, middleware, user-friendly interface and applications and is available under an open-source license, which has been praised for setting a new industry standard.

However, detractors comment that Google is not moving fast enough to be taken seriously and that its partner line-up for Android is missing some of the key industry players, notably Vodafone and Nokia.