March 2006 – Emergic

Mobile vs Computer

I was thinking that an interesting test of how advanced mobile phone evolution has got would be to ask if there was anything you used your mobile for, when your computer was readily available.

Of course, I know that mobiles are generally used when youre out and about and dont have a computer with you. But if you were to put them head-to-head, what would happen?

Personally, heres where mobile wins:

Alarms
Voice call (even then Ill use Skype if the other person is available on their computer)
SMS (again if I cant see theyre there on IM)
Calculator (but spreadsheet wins if its more complex)
Camera (I can take still shots with my computer cam)

Metered Web Services

Jon Udell writes in the context of Amazon’s S3:

Id like to find out whether metering infrastructure services in this way will prove technically and economically viable. When we talk about a grid of Web services, we like to compare it to the power grid, but the analogy is deeply flawed in at least one way. My electric bill isnt itemized. I dont know what it costs me to run each of my appliances, or how long it will take to amortize the cost of replacements. Lacking this feedback, we make poor individual decisions that, collectively, add up to a tragic misallocation of resources.

Creating whats called the energy web — a marketplace where smart producers and consumers of power exchange price signals in real time — will require a massive overhaul of our legacy power grid. Theres just no way for us to start from scratch. But in the realm of Web services, were just now building the grid. Given a clean slate, perhaps we can figure out how to aggregate demand, meter usage, and value services for what they do rather than just for the eyeballs they attract.

Helio and MVNOs

Wired writes:

Helio is a mobile virtual network operator. MVNOs sell phones and service plans just like ordinary mobile network operators, but they don’t own cell towers and spectrum and all the other baggage that makes up a network. Instead, they lease all that from companies that do, creating virtual networks. They’re hot because established mobile operators like Cingular and Verizon Wireless have been too busy selling plain-vanilla plans to Middle America to worry about niche markets. With a virtual setup, a startup can pick any market that’s not adequately served, rent capacity from an existing network operator, come up with phones and services that appeal to its niche, and go.

Helio, set to begin service this spring, is going after a niche that’s broader in age – 18 to 32 – but narrower in focus: trendsetters, gadget geeks, gotta-have-it-now guys with credit to burn. It will operate on the high-speed 3G networks that are essential for music, video, and games. It’s also promising handsets that haven’t been seen in the US and services that go beyond the basic music and video offerings from Sprint Nextel and Verizon. And while the company is as much a marketing ploy as any other MVNO, it feels almost like a cause.

Online Advertising Future

Business Week writes:

The race is on to find new ways to track customer behavior. Advertisers and agencies are progressing far beyond the standard arithmetic of counting clicks and page views. They’re tracking the to-and-froing of the mouse on Web pages, and they’re finding new ways to group shoppers by age, Zip Code, and reading habits. CEO David S. Rosenblatt of DoubleClick Inc., which serves up some 200 billion ads a month for customers, says that every campaign now allows for 50 different types of metrics. One New York advertising company, TACODA Systems Inc., is set to wire a group of web surfers with brain scanners to see which ads register in their minds.

This flood of new measurements is likely to roil the Internet ad industry. Until recently, the data have primarily shed light on the ads customers see and click. But the details pouring in are sure to provide a far more thorough understanding of the Internet players themselves: which ones assemble the best overall portraits of customer behavior, and which ones fall short.

Google Report

Richard MacManus writes about a new Jupiter Research report:

Google has what Jupiter calls “the most powerful ad network online”, with $6 billion in advertising revenue in 2005…Compared to Yahoo’s $4.6 billion, this makes Google the premier online advertising network. So despite the relatively small time spent per user, Google still comes out top in online advertising. More than anything, this points to the value of the distributed nature of Google’s ad network – the ads don’t just appear on Google’s web properties, they are also displayed on millions of external websites and blogs. This is a portal circa 2005/6, not the old-style ‘MyYahoo’ portal.

TECH TALK: The MySpace Story: The Future

Newsweek wrote about whats ahead for MySpace in a December 2005 story:

In November, they teamed with Interscope to create MySpace Records, a label that will release a few albums each year from bands discovered on the site. In coming months they’ll launch a MySpace satellite-radio station, new features that let users access their MySpace accounts from mobile phones and, soon, MySpace Films. With help from their new owner, News Corp. (which bought MySpace parent company Intermix in July for $580 million), Anderson and DeWolfe plan to back a few independent films each year and flood openings with MySpace members. “It costs us nothing to get millions of MySpace users to show up at events,” DeWolfe says.

It almost sounds as if they’re building a rival to Viacom’s MTV. “I think MySpace already means something to its audience in much the same way that MTV meant something to its audience during its early years,” says News Corp.’s Internet chief, Ross Levinsohn.

MySpace announced a tie-up with mobile company Helio in February:

News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch hopes to extend MySpace’s influence beyond the PC. [The] popular site [has announced] a partnership with Helio, a wireless carrier backed by Internet service provider EarthLink and SK Telecom, a Korean wireless carrier which operates what’s viewed in the industry as the world’s most advanced cell-phone network. This spring, MySpace and Helio will launch a service that will let users access MySpace from their mobile phones.

For MySpace, the deal is another move to keep its users bound tightly to it, communicating with friends or listening to music from artists featured on the service. Such innovation should help MySpace avoid the fate of social-networking pioneer Friendster, whose users ended up going elsewhere when it failed to introduce new features.

The move also gives News Corp a foothold in the rapidly growing mobile market. More than 60 million teenagers now carry cell phones, and most take them everywhere they go. MySpace Mobile, which is a free service, could turn into another lucrative advertising venue for News Corp.

A number of moral issues have been raised around MySpace. Danah Boyd writes about the future and the importance of MySpace:

If MySpace falters in the next 1-2 years, it will be because of this moral panic. Before all of you competitors get motivated to exacerbate the moral panic, think again. If the moral panic succeeds:

1.Youth will lose (even more) freedom of speech. How far will the curtailment of the First Amendment go?
2.All users will lose the safety and opportunities of pseudonymity, particularly around political speech and particularly internationally.
3.Internet companies will be required to confirm the real life identity of all users. At their own cost.
4.International growth on social communities will be massively curtailed because it is much harder to confirm non-US populations.
5.Internet companies will lose the protections of common carrier which will have ramifications in all sorts of directions.
6.Internet companies will see a massive increase in subpoenas and will be forced to turn over data on their users which will in turn destroy the trust relationship between companies and users.
7.There will be a much greater barrier for new communities to form and for startups to build out new social environments.
8.International companies will be far better positioned to create new social technologies because they won’t have to abide by American laws even if American citizens use their technology (assuming the servers are hosted outside of the US). Unless, of course, we decide to block sites on a nation-wide basis…

Friendster was a fad; MySpace has become far more than that. If it doesn’t evolve, it will fade, but MySpace is far better positioned to evolve than Friendster was. That said, i think we’re seeing a huge shift in social life – negotiating super publics. I kinda suspect that MySpace teens are going to lead the way in figuring this out, just as teens in the 60s and 70s paved the way to figuring out globalized life with TV. I just hope law doesn’t try to stop culture.

So, go to MySpace.com and create your space. In doing so, try and understand what makes it tick. And think about what it takes to do a MySpace for India.

IDC’s SaaS Predictions

IDC predicts (for 2006):

# Large ISVs Will Spin Off On-Demand Versions of Products
# Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Remain a “Tough Nut to Crack”
# Microsoft Strengthens SaaS Resolve
# Software on Demand Providers Focus on Partnering
# Mini-Ecosystems Emerge to Extend the Reach of Software on Demand
# SaaS Enablers Continue to Aid Availability of On-Demand Offerings
# Merger and Acquisition Activity Continues
# SaaS Providers Concentrate on Improving Offerings and Customer Experience
# Hosted AM Becomes a Stepping Stone Towards On-Demand Delivery
# SaaS Will Help Drive a Software Industry Transition to Subscription Licensing

Will Internet replace TV?

Mark Cuban doesn’t think so:

The last mile into our homes wont have enough bandwidth to support all that we will want to do via our internet connections at home. There is no moores law for bandwidth to the home. THere is a huge misconception that bandwidth will just continue to experience unlimited expansion for every broadband household. Its what we are used to with hard drives, processors, all technology. It gets faster, cheaper, bigger. Thats not the case for the next decade with bandwidth

The net result is that TV is going to be TV, delivered like TV for a long time to come. (I consider IPTV to be regular TV). There wont be enough bandwidth for it to be any other way.

The problem is that our consumption of digital media at home will continue to grow. The bandwidth we want to consume will many times exceed the bandwidth available to us at that time.

The viewing of internet video will continue to grow. We will upload and download more and more video, consuming increasing amounts of bandwidth. We will want to download movies in High Def quality. Digital pictures will increase in resolution, and we will upload and share our lives through digital pictures that consumes multiple mbs per picture. Too do all of the above without limit, where and when you want to do it just cant happen. For the vast majority of us, there wont be enough bandwidth for at will , unlimited downloads.

Mobile Content in India

Express Computer has a nice overview of what’s happening in India.

According to Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), the mobile content market in the country for 2004-05 was worth Rs 558 crore and is expected to reach Rs 1,802 crore by 2007.

Preeti Desai, President, IAMAI says, The increased interest in and demand for personal expression applications across mobile users is driving the applications and content market. Entertainment and content applications offered by content publishers, aggregators and operators are increasingly central to the revenue and competitive positioning.

According to Arpita Pal, Principal Consultant, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the content market comprising mobile gaming, ringtones, ringback tones and wallpapers is expected to increase tenfold in the next five years. Pal points out that mobile operators are working towards offering 3G to their subscribers to support content-rich applications.

Quarterly Earnings Forecast

John Hagel writes:

Public markets, especially in the US, do tend to put undue emphasis on short-term performance. But whos to blame for this?

Ask these same CEOs and their management teams two simple questions:

* What will your relevant markets look like five to ten years from now?

* What will your company need to do in order to thrive in these markets five to ten years from now?

Almost always, the answer will come back that theres just too much uncertainty to have a clear point of view on this. But, heres the rub: If the senior management team of acompany doesnt have a clear point of view on where the company is headed, why should investors put a lot of faith in the long-term performance of the company? In the absence of a clear and compelling long-term perspective, investors naturally fall back on short-term results.