"Mobile Crunch" -New rules for Mobile Start-ups in today's economy

Extremely well-timed Mobile Monday Barcelona session last night focussed on Mobile Start-ups in Times of Crisis and how to manage through a financial and/or economic downturn.

Panelists Oscar Farres from Debaeque Capital, Sergio Perez from Caixa Capital Risc and Marcel Rafart, from Nauta Capital, gave their take on the current situation and offered guidance to young mobile start-ups.

Their main points:

• The rules of engagement have changed -risk profiles have shot up and banks are retreating to safe investments, those that generate revenue or profit already (but preferably both). Fundamentally, for young start-ups the message was 'forget the banks'.
• Start-ups should outsource or plan to outsource whatever activity can be externalised, as these leverages the company's cost base and reduces risk from an investor point of view.
• Focus on burn rates-cut out any expenditure that is not strictly essential
• These are tough times, but also times of opportunity for those companies able to stick it out throughout the crisis.

As Rudy de Waele put it eloquently, 5 years ago there was no Facebook or Twitter or myspace...times of crisis allow for a natural selection of only the very best concepts and businesses. Start-ups should really ask themselves what unique benefit do they offer that no-one else offers?

I asked the VC guys what % ROI they expected to still consider making an investment and the rule of thumb was 25-30% y-o-y.

Interestingly, Oscar Farres highlighted what he considered to be the big growth opportunities in the market (independently of recessionary pressures) and Location based services was up there amongst the chose few sectors.

Opera Mobile for your Windows Mobile Device

It has now been 3 months since the Norwegian browser Opera released the beta of their Opera Mobile 9.5 for the Windows Mobile platform. Despite some initial bugs, including an OOM (Out of Memory) problem on some devices as a result of caching activity and a Notifications bug (that turned off notification sounds), overall feedback has been positive from the Opera fan base.

Browser wars are hotting up, though, with Mozilla announcing a mobile version of their browser later in the year, Skyfire consolidating its mainstream appeal and the i-Phone Safari browser receiving accolades for its user experience.

Meanwhile, Opera's Java-based browser, Opera Mini, has built up a substantial following of its own and provides an excellent solution for mid-range phones to access the web and avoid connectivity glitches that arise by accessing the web through the operator portal.

Currently, Opera Mobile 9.5 only works on touchscreen devices with non-touchscreen compatibility expected to be added in the future. However, things have gone dead quiet on the community forum over at Opera and no announcements have been made of future releases..maybe they are busy gearing up for the Mozilla launch, which is now rumoured to take place in 'a few weeks'.

Why now is a good time to invest in mobile start-ups

Global financial meltdown...credit crunch...government bailout...fiscal tightening...all these words will be very familiar to everyone following the unfolding of financial events on both sides of the atlantic. The picture for stock holders and bond holders, from private investors to pension plan owners, is not pretty.

That small proportion of wealthy individuals around the world are faced with some stark choices for making the most of their capital...look to preserve it by adopting a risk-averse approach (and buy gold bullion) or sit on their cash and ride out the storm, wary of potential bank collapses.

Neither of these two options offer the true capitalist a decent return. But, as always, there is money to be made in times of crises and parts of the economy that will fare better than others. The mobile sector is by no means immune to the downturn, and while operator revenues are likely to stay flat (guarded by inelastic demand), other parts will grow.

Mobile web is at an inflection point in terms of its global growth, moving from niche to mainstream, from Mobile 1.0 to Mobile 2.0, and there will be a number of competent start-ups that, though small today, will be huge tomorrow.

The great news is that the relative risk of investing in these start-ups has decreased compared to a year ago, given the drastically reduced equity returns from quoted companies. In addition, many of these quoted companies have either cut or withdrawn their dividend, and so look and feel more like growth stocks.

Fancy a flutter on an equity investment? My advice is, look at the opportunities out there to fund a mobile web start-up: it will be not much riskier than a blue-chip investment, will certainly be more fun to follow and, you never know, could be your next mobile equivalent of Facebook.

Enablers for Mobile Social Networks (MSN's)

LONDON-As one of the key themes that was discussed at the Mobile Web Europe Conference last week in London was Mobile Social Networks (MSN's), User Generated Content (UGC) vs branded content and Location enablers, I feel prompted to delve into this subject area to share some current thoughts.

Firstly, when we think about MSNs we often witness the attempt by some operator or another to launch their own network (whether based around music or some other catalyst)...these attempts have met with mixed success, though it is probably to early to draw a line below them. Nontheless, in research presented by Priya Prakash of Flirtomatic, over 70% of social network users would refuse to join a(nother) social network created by an operator. On the other hand, off-portal attempts by start-ups (notably itsmy.com) have met with success.

In general, the feel I get is that operators are losing traction at a faster pace than anticipated and off-portal startups have proved that it is possible to build a sustainable and profitable business without the operator.

Social objects (or the reason two people are talking to each other) can be either UGC or branded/syndicated from mainstream sources...with the saturation in the MSN playing field, it seems that at the very least a mix of the two is required to ensure that community members remain stimulated (and check in daily or hourly on the MSN).

An interesting play on this is by Buongiorno's blinko MSN (currently in closed beta) which has VIP channels that allow users to follow their favourite celebrity (be it Paris Hilton or Beyonce' Knowles).What is interesting is also the breadth of VIP channels available, which relates to a point made by Adrian Velthuis of Milennial Media. He stated that advertisers and community hosts alike should develop niche audiences to allow a differentiation in their offering compared to the plethora of competing MSNs or other mobile content.

As far as location is concerned, my belief is that this will be one of the key enablers of MSNs in the future -and that while technological limitations mean that it is still not mainstream, developments are expected in leaps and bounds. Sam Critchley from Gypsii talked about 'ambient awareness' as being the background awareness of what one's social network is doing...definitely something that reinforces location as a key enabler (where am I?) to achieve that contextual holy grail (what am I and my friends doing?).

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!