Strategy

One more thing: Yahoo goes further with mobile

Posted on by charlie

I forgot one thing about the app that shocked me and others are starting to comment – the app is huge. Also, installation takes a while and if you look at the install log, you’ll see a bunch of mini-apps there – recipe for disaster.

I never had the memory issues that others were having, though.

I guess we’re cutting close to what the device can actually do. Sigh. Need to wait for better devices.

Enough. I could go on for a bit on this. But, now I remember one of the main reasons I don’t use it.

Link: Lifeblog: Yahoo goes further with mobile.

I’ve played with the Series 60 Yahoo!Go app and it’s pretty nifty, especially if you have a Yahoo account. It does a really fast and good job of synching calendar and contacts info, among other nice tricks.

Strategy

Googirama on: SMS seen as growth engine for mobile industry

Posted on by charlie

Ha! Good enough for me.

Last week I was doing some biz analysis for a web company and my mind get gong back to SMS – SMS – SMS. I almost felt foolish thinking of it, despite always harping about how it still has plenty room to grow.

Well, CTIA is not a shabby establishment. And they agree.

Link: SMS seen as growth engine for mobile industry – Googirama: Mobile Blogging Tools Technology Commentary.

Recent research from  CTIA predicts SMS growth from 900 billion in 2005 to over 1.5 trillion by 2008. Not only will this force price cuts but companies who enable more related services especially in the areas of advertising, entertainment and business communication stand to benefit most. SMS as alerting tools for potential credit fraud and mobile blogging services for personal/dating sites are just some areas expected to experience heavy growth.

Face it: it’s the only ‘data service’ making decent money.

The Narrative

mojo on: Linking top phones to mobile data usage

Posted on by charlie

Debi has some commentary on some numbers by M:metric.

She also highlights a decrease in mobile data usage from April to November. That’s troubling if true, since there are a ton more subscribers in November than April, so in numerical terms the decrease might be quite significant. Hmm…

Link: Linking top phones to mobile data usage | 12/29/2005 | mobile jones.

The report is interesting on a number of points.  First, market share by manufacturer and top models are identified.  The top two manufacturers with the greatest install base are Motorola, and in second place, Nokia.    The single most "used" mobile phone is the Nokia 6010 which M:metrics points out is a device commonly associated with pre paid plans and lower spending.   Note:  the phone doesn’t have a camera.

Strategy

Yahoo goes further with mobile

Posted on by charlie

Congratulations, Yahoo.

I’ve played with the Series 60 Yahoo!Go app and it’s pretty nifty, especially if you have a Yahoo account. It does a really fast and good job of synching calendar and contacts info, among other nice tricks.

The underlying tech comes from Marco Boerries’s company VerdiSoft, which was purchased by Yahoo in 2005. That was a quick integration and I think Yahoo!Go is the right philosophy. With your data everywhere and needed on multiple devices, Yahoo!Go handles the synch (never easy) and storage of all of it.

And we thought Google was getting grabby. This just will cement Yahoo’s importance in (450 million!) users’ lives.

Best of luck.

BTW, Marco is head of Yahoo’s Connected Living division and is bossman to my old bossman Christian Linholm. Christian has more on Yahoo!Go and a link to download the mobile app on his pages here.

Link: Yahoo goes mobile | CNET News.com.

Yahoo Go Mobile, which the Internet company launched Friday, is a set of communications and media applications, including Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, Photos, calendar, address book, Web and image search, news, sports and finance.

The Narrative

Do-it-yourself mobile services?

Posted on by charlie

Seems like Om is extending his brand into the mobile domain. He now has an applet, GigaOm Moblet*, that is as an RSS reader for all of Om’s feeds.

MobHappy also has a branded RSS reader (including their favourite RSS feeds).

I think this is all so cool. Media outlets creating a compelling app for their readers. This self-service mobilization includes also the many sites mobilized via WINKsite, a personal mobile portal service I mentioned earlier (see upper left of my blog for my WINKsite or visit
http://winksite.com/cschick/mobile with your phone). Om uses WINKsite as well. Check out the list of other sites that are mobilizing with WINKsite.

Link: Om Malik on Broadband : � New Tools GigaLinks and User Feedback.

We are in a new year, so its time for something new. For starters, I am introducing a new mobile RSS reader which lets you get GigaOM on your mobile phone, along with feeds from some of my recommended blogs. In other words, a tiny GigaOm branded mobile application.

* Great name. Alas, the applet runs only on a small set of phones and
is only available for phones in the US (due to the poor distribution
mechanism). I’d check it out if I could just download it.

Uncategorized

Belated notes from Les Blogs – The Future

Posted on by charlie

I was going through some notes and found some stuff I had written at Les Blogs.

On the morning of the last day, Loïc asked me to join the last panel to discuss the future. I decided it was best to prepare, so I wrote down a few things. For the most part, I didn’t use any of it, since I was brought into a discussion on mobile phones and privacy, and gave a little rant about flat-world – spiky-world issues (very close to the heart, for me).

I intended to focus on my mobile perspective, since I was the only hard-core mobilist on the panel. Looking back at my notes, they are for the most part fears and not hopes. Here they are:

1) A hope: There will be more integration between mobile and Web (the fusion I always talk about). As part of this, voice and SMS still have more to go and contribute here.

2) Note: The next 1 billion phone subscribers will be in emerging markets. Most of these folks will not have a PC. The mobile will be their window, their experience with the Net, with blogs, with the Web. That’s when I realized that wireless broadband for these folks will actually be wireless ‘strawband’ (as in ‘through a…’).

3) A fear (and this fed into my rant, responding to a question from the audience): Silicon Valley will dominate. We are missing a significant European contribution (let alone cross-over innovations from Asia, Africa, or Latin America). And, partly because of this, we will remain mostly PC and broadband based.

4) A fear (thought from David Weinberger): Will we move to the light – increasing public domain content and consumer choice; or will we go to the dark – where carriers control everything and choice goes down (Ben Hammersley brought this up in his Les Blogs talk)?

5) A fear (tip of the hat to David Weinberger, again): As mobile and voice get integrated into the Web, how will that change the tone and texture of on-line conversations. Currently, the bulk of conversations on the Web are asynchronous and disjointed. With something like a Skype presence indicator providing a real-time connection, what will the ensuing conversation be like?

6) Trends in the back of my mind when I look at the future of mobile and the Web: urbanization, affluence, flat and spiky world views.