At Saint-Emillion with my colleagues Lam Nguyen (who teaches classic SS7 at ENST) and Alex Vorbau who comes from Web service design at HP Labs.
I attended the ICIN conference on intelligence in networks. As some of the best Bordeaux wines, it now an 18-years celebration of “classic telecoms”. But 2007 was an innovation challenge as the congress mixed experience coming from IN glory days with revolutionary Web 2.0 mash-ups. It was quite nice to see the old guard moves on and actually contributes ideas to combine the best of both worlds. And with such optimism, we obviously celebrated the French gastronomy, tasting a mix of old grand-crus and new wines. Key points
Web architectures as Google are even more scalable than IMS
Web services can be interfaced with telecom networks and IMS
Client software is essential in all cases : Java JSR 281 is one approach
HP Conversa is a simple example of Web 2.0 to communication services, we presented more IMS oriented demos (instant group communications) so did several other presenters.
There is a broker in the Net ... its name is Google Roberto Minerva, roberto.minerva@tilab.com from Telecom Italia Lab kicked off with his views on Google vs. IMS architectures “comparing apples and oranges”. He did a good job to impress us with the technology and scare us with the business models. In a summary Google is
(PageRank of page n is the sum of PageRank of pages pointing to it , divided by L(n) the total number of out coming links from page n. q is the probability that the users will leaves the page without clicking any of these links )
Google monetizes page ranks with brokerage to advertisers (Ad sense is illustrated here) . But the clear direction is to move to detailed subscriber profile management to increase ARPU using information from :
Registration to services (Gmail),
Personalization of services (MysearchHistory, Page creator),
On-line searches on PC, (Maps, Froogle, …)
Applications (Gmail, Gtalk,..)
Google distributed system have pushed the limits of parallelism :
Distributed computational model with Sawzall programming language
Replication. fault tolerant version of the Linux Red Hat
Up to 100,000 servers with 2 GB RAM >80 GB disk
A quote from Eric Schmidt, CEO : “we're much further along in the build out of data centers. We have the cheapest and most scalable architecture. Running large Internet scale businesses is very, very difficult."
Google disruption can be summarized as follows :
Google Video (+ YouTube) = Impact on Media Companies
Google Base, Froogle, Checkout = Impact on eBay, Craig list, …
GTalk (IM + VoIP) + WiFi = Impact on telecom service providers
Desktop Applications (Writely) = Impact on Microsoft, Apple, …
Google Library, … = Impact on book publishers
Spectrum acquisition in 700 MHz access = impact on Mobile network operators
Web 2.0 in an IMS Environment Thomas Magedanz and Niklas Blum from Fraunhofer FOKUS ran a tutorial and several presentations on a cooperative research portfolio they characterize as “play ground” .
The Open IMS playground aims at creating enablers to IMS, legacy and internet network. HP OpenCall unit has provided MRF, HSS, XDMS component in this multi-vendor testbed. Orchestration of the service components can be done with : SIP application servers, IMS SCIM using S-CSCF service filter , SIP Proxies.
Listen to Thomas Magdeganz's advertising presentation of the SOA and IMS playgrounds on a classic Jazz backgrounds.
Niklas Blum presented a prototyping fixed mobile environment, with a focus on the network address book shared by multiple devices:
IMS clients (Synchronisation via XCAP)
legacy clients (Synchronisation via SyncML)
Email clients (Synchronisation via SyncML)
. Here is a demo of "IMS 2.0" done by their team.
Mobile video in a community-based Web service My colleagues April Slayden Mitchell, Mitchell Trott from HP Labs were presenting Conversa, a social utility enabling video conversations. Our HP OpenCall team contributed a mobile video interface to this service. Alex Vorbau gave a very good example of HP research combining web enablers and telecommunication features. In addition, Conversa addresses social and usability aspects of multimedia services. Alex Vorbau presentation at ICIN 2007
E-commerce transaction validation I presented a discussion paper on payment transactions with telecom enablers co-authored with my colleagues Dominique Sandraz , Paul Serra and Antoni Drudis. This is work in-progress but the original objective was to investigate possible use cases were voice authentication and activation could assist e-payment. We felt this could be relevant in countries with low literacy and PC penetration. For example mobile money transfers are popular in Zambia and Bangladesh where Paypal could’nt be an option. Here is our work-in-progress ideas :
I attended Informa IMS Strategies 2007, Dusseldorf, October 4
IMS is the Holy Grail but Open Source could make it real Karl Heinz Van Der Made, Director of services, KPN Netherlands presented the IMS service experiences, based on the following number of services deployed:
10 VoIP 8 primary suppliers 7 stove pipes 4 commercial services 2 video 2 wholesale 2 network PBX 1 Mobile 1 cool new services second life
IMS is the Holy Grail: the ROI for migrating to an IMS core network is not there as voice is still the only volume service. There is little value in converged voiced services : who would pay for caller ID on TV? KPN has deployed pre-IMS or partial-IMS products from 3 vendors and had to face interoperability issues.
KPN current developments aim at replicating the creativity from Web providers (Skype). They seem IMS most valuable when involving smaller systems integrators with open source components such as OpenSER, Asterisk, and the Open IMS from Fokus. They want to provide good integration with non-voice services including MSN IM, Presence, LBS.
Waiting for IMS handset clients Kamran Kordi, from T-Mobile innovation stressed the issues of client developments. Today a service provider has to support more than 10 platforms x 2 handsets x 2 software drops/year = 40, at horrendous costs.
The IMS SIP terminal specification were set in 2002. But SIP and 3GPP/XCAP increase complexity, video streaming requires multi-threaded and caching, the result is high handset prices. Mid-range handsets are necessary to ensure take up. He commented positively on JSR 281 IMS client standardization and J2ME compilers. This JSR provides a high-level API to access IMS services.
This is the Blyk go live ! A great idea and defining moment for mobile services. Services : Blyk starts with a messaging-focus. It offers f r e e 217 SMS and 43 min voice / month to 4.5 million invited 16-24 years old members in UK. This resulted from market research covering 3,000 16-24 year olds across Europe. They will charge additional 10p/SMS, 15p/min top-up rates with mobile data 99p/ Mbyte (except from adds clicks).
Blyck invites advertisers to go beyond adds and create dialogues not demographics stats and click-thru. Advertisers get unprecendented feedback from members, who get relevant information. 45 brands were announced at the launch including Boots, Coke, Flirtomatik, L'Oreal, McDonalds, MasterCard, Natwest, Sky Broadcasting, Sony Ericsson, Microsoft's Xbox. Infrastructure : Nokia Siemens Networks provides a full mobile virtual network operator (MVNO)hosting connected to Orange UK radio network. First Hop provides the messaging software. TietoEnator, manages the BSS, web portals and services.Blyck has an elaborate customer care, in particular for subscriber authentication and ad campaign management. Xtract supplies consumer analytics (See my notes on Xtract founder Jouko Ahvenainen) . Mermit develops advertising and CRM systems. Plans are for for a pan-European deployment. Blyk is conisdering 12 deployments including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
The press conference with Blyk’s co-founders, Pekka Ala-Pietilä (former president of Nokia) and Antti Öhrling courtesy of VPOD TV.
text WHISPER to 82595 to get your code to join Blyk in UK if you qualify
Bill Fischer is professor of technology management at IMD. Bill Fishers studied management of the creative processes. His case studies shows that all-stars teams are required for great changes and great successes. And he brings a combination of academic research with his own real world experience from activities in healthcare, in telecommunications and in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.
If you believe the future of telecommunication is that of a new media they you should like the examples from the book Virtuoso teams co-authored by Bill Fischer and Andy Boynton because they offer examples ranging from entertainment (West side story and Miles Davis) and to telecoms technology (in the days of Edison).
Available vs. obtainable talent Virtuoso teams are elite teams put together for one-time-only efforts to create big change. Such change is difficult to develop and execute. It needs the best talent a company has to offer to have the best chance of success. In other words, an elite group with a license to really deliver big change, staffed with the very best performers that the company can place in each position, including going outside of the organization to get them. These teams are intense and intimate, and they work best when members are forced together in cramped spaces under strict time constraints. They assume that their customers are every bit as smart and sophisticated as they are, so they don’t cater to a stereotypical “average.” Leaders of virtuoso teams put a premium on great collaboration and they’re not afraid to encourage creative confrontation to get it.
How does this approach differ from the conventional team approach? Larger organizations are reluctant to acknowledge elites, because it is easier to manage human resources through egalitarianism and harmony. In addition, in most companies, talent is the property of groups, functions, regions, etc, and not visible or movable within the broader corporation. Therefore traditional teams are typically made up of whoever’s available and achieve average results.
Directive leadership The example closest to telecoms technology is that of Thomas Edison whose virtuoso team leader skills included :
Committed systemic vision (end to end services)
Team diversity and skills (he assembled engineers, mathematicians, technicians, business people)
Open business organization : flat hierarchy meritocracy and rewards and communications Fast prototyping
Communications and marketing (he pre-announced products to create demand and also innovated in business models)
Individual talent within a team context Another virtuso team example made a breakthrough in the entertainment industry. West Side Story went against all of Broadway musical traditions of the 1950s. Blood on stage, racial violence, dissonant music changed the face of American shows and the subsequent movie got 10 Oscars. The team of virtuosos included classic composer Leonard Bernstein, choreographer Jerome Robbins, writer Arthur Laurents, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Do you remember the Maria song ?
Another musical example comes from Miles Davis musical re-invention during his career. He surrounded himself with great musicians like Bill Evans and ensured that even rehersals would add surprise and drama. This has been documented in Kind of blue: the making of the Miles Davis masterpiece, Ashley Kahn and the video below from Ken Burn's Jazz.
Innovation teams at IDEO We looked at a video on IDEO, a design industry leader and promoter of the concept of ‘design thinking’, a term given to the introduction of design methods and culture into fields beyond traditional design, such as business innovation. In telecoms they are known as having worked on the Helio device design. We also had a teleconference with a lead designer.
Teamwork ; The key soft skill is teamwork not creativity. Innovation is a team sport. They stress importance of human empathy : we help client to innovate up to the CEO agenda. If you want to innovate you need inspiration requires contact with human beings. Thru interviews with customers and observations you get ideas. You need to get out into people’s houses, offices and conduct dialogs with a view to identify problems and headaches. Make sure everybody knows what the customer experience is.
Analysis : Then comes the ability to synthesize for decision making. It’s the art of making meaning and finding directions from a mass of ambiguous information. Some points are important, some other not. Start by aggregation of information. Innovation can be big or small; breakthrough innovation, looking for large revenue. Walk out the room with one or three messages for executives, package the idea in such a way that it can be communicated to all stake holders.
Prototyping : IDEO value proposal is 'think to build', having researchers in the same building where implementation occurs provides a high degree of immediacy. The approach is to get a prototype to the market as soon as possible. What is a prototype : right things but not the overall service and using available tools like photography, Flash animations. People are scared to show an innovation to upper managers unless its ready. Foster a culture of prototyping : failures become variations, options, choices. Prototype reduces the costs of failures that can be corrected before people are emotionally connected to features.
Eric von Hippel's research demonstrates that communities of users are now driving product development. As the telecom networks open-up to web mashup services, virtual network operators, we can leverage lead-user developments that have happened in many industries. Eric von Hippel provides numerous quantitative analysis of the processes that generate breakthrough innovation. Here is a summary of his papers and and video tutorials.
Users generate different innovations than manufacturers Examples demonstrate that communities of users are powerful innovation "engines" . 20 to 40% of users engage in developing/modifying products (20% of mountain biking users, 37% of extreme sport participants) . Those with the strongest lead user characteristics develop innovations having high appeal to the general market place.
Von Hippel argues that 80% of innovations come from DIY lead-users because manufacturers don't see emerging business potential, nor can deliver in time. 'Necessity is the mother of invention '. Some examples : Apache web servers users improved security functions. HP Voodoo PCs were developed by users over-clocking standard processors and installing water coolers
Generating breakthrough value on top of incremental improvement
Users and manufacturers tend to have different knowledge leading to different kind of innovations. Unfortunately there is information asymmetry between users and manufacturers and the two sources of innovations are hard to combine. This is sticky information, because it is very difficult to transfer from one group to another or between application domains.
User need and context of use knowledge is generated by lead-users. Often the richest source of information can be found on user web sites. Users tend to develop innovations that are functionally novel. Note that users tend to share their innovation freely inside communities such as Open Source”. As a result user innovation is often cheaper and faster. And user communities are driving manufacturers out of product development.
Generic solution knowledge is, on the other hand, mastered by enterprises closer to manufacturing and supply chain activities within a particular industry. Manufacturers tend to lead in solution process improvement innovation. But the need to protect innovation with IPR often slows down innovation by preventing collaboration with 3rd parties for example.
Democratization with toolkits for user innovation
One way of democratization of innovation is to combine both types of knowledge. 'Toolkits for user innovation and design are integrated sets of product design , prototyping and design testing tools intended for use by end users. One good example is the semiconductor industry with custom ASICs toolkits. Another is Lego mind storms craze for adult techies. Lego executives simply did not know what to do. Toolkits substitute market research by collaborative innovation with communities of users.
Rebecca Henderson, Professor of Management, MIT Sloan Rebecca Henderson focuses on strategy formulation, competition, research, and product development in high-technology industries. Her course slides are here. As telecommunication industry boundaries start to blurr with those of media entertainment , consumer electronics and on-line web 2.0, Rebecca Henderson’s rational approach help answer three questions : how to create, capture, and deliver value?
1. How will we create value? A picture of S-Curve How will the technology evolve, how will the market change? The S Curve is a tool for triggering discussion on industry life cycle and the evolution (especially disruptive transition) of markets. For telecoms, the difficulty is to choose the focus of analysis : Industry : media/entertainment (content) or network access and transmission or both ? Technology : fixed or mobile broadband and broadcasting? Product : handset devices, internet services, network equipment and software ? And which dimension of performance : market adoption, market sizes, social value ?
As we aim at creating value for customers, we should be desperate to listen to them but be very careful about which ones we select (innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards). Too often the innovation is influenced by current customers (CTO councils) and not the leading edge customers that will survive after the discontinuity.
2. How will we deliver value? One company innovation illustration: For sure in telecoms, there are too many options to choose from and strategy is required to drive real resource allocation? Rebecca jokes about why in the real world it is so hard to kill project #26. Low priority projects still meet ROI goals, please some customers, and have CEO support. Absence of innovation strategy leads to un-innovative project approval. There are a range of decision tools : Risk adjusted NPV, decision trees, simulations e.g. Monte Carlo, closed formulas e.g. Black-Scholes and differential equations. Accuracy of information is key for scenario analysis.
HP Labs moves to an open innovation process so that there are few boundaries for exporting or importing innovation at various stage of the process. How do we manage the core business and growth simultaneously? It is about combining entrepreneurial vs. operational excellence. In betweens are joint-ventures, project teams, separate teams [an organization challenges is to avoid A vs. B team conflicts] . The best approach is not in the organization structure but rather in establishing incentives so employees share the innovation values "do you want to save lives?' ''Manage from the heart'', build on core values, practice thinking in new ways. It requires ability to manage divergent incentives and career paths plus a process to monitor metrics and resource allocation.
3. How will we Capture value?
How should we design the business model? Money is in the business model innovation. Now web 2.0, energyu and nano are hype. But 100% growth in mobile adoption or consumer riots for DuPont Nylon are no more there. It may sounds immoral but fast followers can capture more value.
Uniqueness : controlling the knowledge generated by an innovation. Complementary assets : controlling the assets that maximize the profits from innovating, even if not unique. These are competencies=things you can do : manufacturing, sales, service . It also includes resources=things you can own : brand, channels, global. A summary of wireless technology value chain
Where should we compete in the value chain? Should we buy our suppliers? Distributors? Should we outsource our manufacturing… distribution… sales… capability?
Will cheap voice reach 500 million users by 2010 ? I visited India August 19-22, at the end of the monsoon, to study 3G multimedia services potential. We all know that 190 million mobile subscribers (+ 7 million/month) were signed in 5 years, as a result of lower rates, cheaper handsets and networks expansion into rural areas. On the fixed line side, there are 2.5 million broadband out of 40 million connections and these are not growing at all. India has 12 telecoms operators competing for world's extreme blended ARPU of 7$ and MOU approaching 400 min. according to regulator TRAI. TRAI's approach is to license 10 operators per state but there is no sight of number portability. Current mobile penetration below 20%, given a population of 1.1 billion, but with huge industry investment it should grow this to 60% by 2010. The government plans targets 500 million subscribers by 2010.
Will the boom lead to multimedia ?
During this visit, I was happily surprised to hear about the interest for 3G instant messaging and mobile video services as I had not expected from market focused on subscriber/MHz optimization. Several operators offer mobile video streaming and download services or are planning for this in 2008.
Hera also industry investments are neeeded. On August 23rd, Nokia's CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was also in New Delhi announcing $100 million investment by Nokia Siemens Network in Nokia's $500 million Chennai facility which produced 60 million handsets for India's market since 2006 and operates managed networks. And Vodafone is bound to introduce Vodafone live multimedia services after deploying the cheaper handsets.
Reliance Communications, Mumbai. Business overview :>35 million subscribers, expanding to cities of 5K inhabitants. Network : 97% on CDMA, 3% on GSM. ARPU is at 9$ (370 INR). The network supports CDMA 2000 EVDO 1xRTT. The evolution plans for a migration towards 3G WCDMA. Reliance acquired FLAG http://www.flagtelecom.com/ long distance network for 450M$. Reliance independent tower company RTIL plans to deploy 20,000 multi-tenant/technology towers in 2007.They have an IMS / SIP network test bed with softswitches from Alcatel-Lucent. Video : Have installed mobile video streaming (Apple Darwin). Reliance broadband offers Adlab
Tata Teleservices, Mumbai Trying to convince Tata requires enthusiasm... Business overview : > 18 million subscribers (Indicom brand) and a postpaid that let's you choose your number. Network :CDMA 2000 1xRTT network Video : interesting discussions on video for CDMA2000
BPL Mobile, Mumbai Business overview : 1 million premium subscribers from urban Mumbai. BPL mobile is a great brand, strong in value-added data services. They introduced Voice SMS and ring-back-tones on the Indian market Network : GSM Video : offer a Mobile TV and music service on GPRS (37.52 Kbps) with WAP menu and Realplayer in handsets (30 models from Nokia, Motorola and SonyEricsson) Tariffs are : real-time streaming 0.05-0.1$ (2-5 INR/min up to 15 min), download PPV 0.25-0.5$ (10-15 INR). Content includes CNBC, AajTak, CNBC, Aawaz.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), (not visited) Business overview : 31 million mobile subscribers (CellOne brand) + 34 million fixed lines including 2.5 million internet subscribers, 0.5 million broadband subscribers. BSNL is the state-owned incumbent operator and consequently focuses on reach to rural areas (7000 cities, 5 million villages). Network : GSM (20 million) , 18000 BTS, 37000 SSPs, plans to expand to 125 million fixed lines.
IDEA Cellular, New Delhi Business overview : 17 million subscribers; blended ARPU is 9$ (450 INR). Operates in 11 circles covering 45% of population. Idea completed an IPO to finance growth. Network : GSM EDGE moving to WCDMA Video : plans to introduce Mobile TV and personal mobile video calls at 3G roll-out
Spice Communications(not visited) Business overview :3 million subscribers, operates in 2 states. 46% ownership by Telecom Malaysia. Network : GSM/GPRS
Developping multimedia value added services in India
So with the charm of Bollywood and the most cost-effective mobile network infrastrure in the world, could we expect value-added services growth? Currently it's more below 10% of ARPU including data charges. But several of OpenCall partners expect to change this.
Kirusa Voice SMS has been supplied by Kirusa to BPL and Idea and is extremely successful in India. It delivers value add SMS feature over voice. And it's so simple : Sending :dial *recipient's phone number, record a 30 second message, hang-up. The message is delivered in the SMS inbox. Retrieving : dial *0* to listen to all new Voice SMS
Bharti Telesoft At Bharti Telesoft with Vaibhav Sahai They provide VAS platforms worldwide such as m-entertainment solutions, messaging. With HP OpenCall they developed a mobile surveillance with streaming live/stored video to handsets. Their platform VDP facilitates multimedia (audio/video/data) content hosting, distribution, and delivery.
One97 Communications With Vijay Shekhar Sharma One97 is a king of ring-tones and traditional value-added services they supply to most operators in India. They have a 3G video dating service. A new way to speed date, through one single video call the users gets to date five persons. on WAP of with an SMS, participants select a category, then participate to 5 one-on-one video calls 1 minute each, all set-up by the service. And obviously, they rate and send messages the most interesting dates. And with had great discussion about mobile advertising, social and content services. We coined the expression the phone address book is the largest social network .
Vijay on mobile advertising video Whatever your personal interest in dating, I recommend you start with Vijay. He gave me an insight into the success of Indian start-ups. He has vision, energy and most important he is fun.
My phone's favorite ring tone now includes Jhoom Barabar Jhoom.
I visited Brazil August 13th-17th to study 3G multimedia services evolution. I saw big changes from my previous visits. In 2002, the big thing was 2G prepaid launches - my job contributed to a large deployment (at TeleSP, now part of Vivo) together with Portugal Telecom Inovacao. Then in 2004 the topic was NGN and VoIP, we shared our experiences with operators such as Brasil Telecom, and their CEO, marathon runner Carla Cico. I was really impressed with her but remained a modest ½ marathon runner. Between 2004 and 2007 I saw the following changes :
2G mobile penetration reaches 60%, and 3G is coming fast Growth exceeded 20% in recent years, Brazil has now 115 million mobile subscribers, a 58% penetration, 80% on pre-paid plans according to Anatel . I have estimated the monthly ARPU at 13$. All this makes Brazil the 5th largest mobile market (after China, US, Japan, Russia). On the mobile innovation side, 3G is finally being rolled-out with auctions by Anatel of 1900MHz and 2100MHz bands (announced in 2000 but delayed to 2008). The plan anticipates 80% urban coverage by 2010 at a cost estimated at 3B R$.
Mobileoperators are consolidating in a duopoly The 2nd change is that competition in Latin America with Mexico is leading to a duopoly of mobile operators in Brazil. Telefónica’s is taking control of Telecom Italia and resulting an equity in 53% of Brazil's cellular. This balances América Móvil’s control of Claro led by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who also controls Telmex and is expanding in other Latin American markets. A good measure of market concentration is the HHI index which went down from 3213 to 2257 in 5 years (Herfindahl-Hirschman Index) and should drop further after recent M&A.
Like for my previous visits, I was hosted by excellent colleagues : Jefferson Kishida who has a lot of insight on the network infrastructure in the country and Fausto Dedeschi who has been working with the Latin America telecom industry for years. (in the picture Jefferson Kishida with me at Brazil Telecom in 2004 and in 2007 at Vivo with Fausto) Dedeschi and Carlos Alberto Pinto "Cap") During this visit, I had the opportunity to get feedbacks from major operators on the 3G plans : Vivo and TIM (Telefónica–controlled) and Claro (América Móvil’) who dominate but also Oi who is gaining market share (controlled by Brasilian operator Telemar).
Vivo (Telefónica, Portugal Telecom) 30 million subscribers 1600 M$ revenue 370 % growth, 403 M$ profit The company is present in 20 Brazilian States or 86% territory coverage. According to their network director Attila Branco, VIVO are consolidating their networks (CDMA/TDMA and GSM/EDGE; deploying HP's HLR solutions). They are also innovating with content services (using CoreMedia DRM with PT’s MMBox/DiNO platforms) and now preparing 3G video services.
TIM Cellular (Telecom Italia, Telefónica) 23 million subscribers, 3400 M$ revenue, 84 % growth, -153 M$ losses
Claro (América Móvil) 22 million subscribers (GSM1800, TDMA800) 3900 M$ revenue 39 % growth, 498 M$ profit also plan to launch 3G services over existing 850MHz spectrum
Oi Movel (owned by Telemar) 13 million subscribers (GSM1800) 1600 M$ revenue 35 % growth, 64 M$ profit
Brazil's social networking expands into mobile 2.0 The 3rd change is the continued expansion of the Brazilian internet phenomenon . On the infrastructure side there has been visible progress : internet users doubled to 41 million since 2004 [ITU 2007] connected using 51 million fixed lines (26% penetration) and 6 million fixed broadband (3.1% penetration, 11th worldwide). Some new cable companies are challenging the 5 incumbents Telesp, Telemar, Brasil Telecom, Sercomtel, and CTBC Telecom : I noted the cable operator Net Servicios offering a 8Mbps service. Broadband price is still a big inhibitor, the cost ratio to the average income being 10 X that of western Europe. PC penetration is 11% and HP is one of the manufacturers contributing to efforts to lower prices and there are offers in the range of 500$ with 24 month payments. Brazil leads is social networking usage. The country takes the number 2 position worldwide in Ipsos’ Face of the Web survey. They measured active (30 days) SNS usage in South Korea 55%, Brazil 41%, China 27%, Mexico 26%, and the US 24%.
MSN Messenger and Google's Orkut social network were adopted immediately in Brazil . Google's Orkut claims 12 million monthly visitors in Brazil, that’s 50% of their worldwide traffic and over 30% of Brazil’s internet users. Unfortunately a few of them showing illegal content as Wall Street Journal reported. The settlement of such abuses by peer moderation as well as regulation is unfortunately part of reaching the maturity of services.
In Second Life, Brazilians are the 6th largest group with nearly 5% of worldwide users. I have seen Paulisto SNS users in trendy internet bars such as this one :
The natural evolution of social networking on mobile has already generated a few announcements. Dada Brazil launched a mobile SNS that enables mobile blogs with pictures and video. Dada Mobile has 7 million members worldwide, 3.2 million in the US. Vivo and StreamVerse ran a proof of concept for mojo, which enables mobile blogs, RSS feeds, vote/picture-vote, chat, share images, and status. And .but does not disclose number in Brazil. Focus Films / Conquest, a Brazilian media company together with Korean IntroMobile launched a personal blog solution NetMirror. IntroMobile had previously deployed its mExtendMedia MMS solution at VIVO.
Mobile instant messaging is also being promoted nicely. This add for MSN mobile was posted on You Tube :
Mobile 2.0 must fit with social and economic differences Brazil is that is a country with divisions. Sao Paulo state and city account for 3 million of the 5.3 million Brazilian enterprises. A majority of subscribers belong to the poor population but a small part are educated and rich . To deliver the potential of 3G social networking services it’s important to think about services that would have both a high-end western-style (like mobile TV content and video blogging) and a cheaper 2G version (like and group SMS, ringtones, cards, notifications). Brazil’s economic position is however in the top tier within BRIC countries (GDP per capita at purchasing power parity, source: Economist) Brazil 8,997 Russia 11,059 India 3,508 China 7,498 Mexico 10,817
This HP-sponsored webinar was hosted by Light Reading who archived it. I have posted an extract below. Dreaming of concept cars Wondering about personal video and 3G service evolution, I compared this to concept cars Henry Ford might have dreamed of when he started: there was no consumer market and poor roads and no fuel-efficient engines - but it all came together. I am now convinced that personal video will slowly but gradually develop as one of the media commonly used. User acceptance did not happen at immediately, because a critical mass of services and users was not available - but also because some technology issues were un resolved, including H.324M long call set-up (solved with Annex K) or the latency of the early 3G data links (will be solved with HSDPA and HSUPA when it becomes available). Encouraging the test of new services One approach I advocate is to test-drive a critical number of early services with soft-launches, in order to satisfy the many different of social behaviors. And more importantly to open widely the mobile video infrastructure to content producers, web developers so they can try to build new concepts and businesses. It should be as easy as posting on a blog or assembling a mash-up from components. It should attract the creative media guys, not only the engineers. Over the last year, working with HP OpenCall software, I have learnt so much from every single video calling project we launched in Asia and Europe. It is clear that the role of larger companies is to help younger teams incubate new challenging ideas, and it's possible if you bring in enthusiasm and curiosity. Initially, as many of us, I was disappointed by such a slow service adoption but I have seen so many innovations that I can foresee a gradual take-up of shared user generated content within everyday's communications.
Organised by W2F , there were a panel presentations and roundtable discussions. Some kind of speed dating event with efficient networking activity. Here are some comments, classified by type of participants mobile, internet, media, advertising rather than by chronology. My take-aways : 1. Online web 2.0 services are still on the way-up but migration of users have started to appear, there could be ups and down as the social habits and demographics evolve. 2. Mobile network operators are opening the walled garden to the big brands but also partnering with ASPs, this could stimulate a value-added service creation utilizing more fully the mobile assets (location, address books, IMS enablers) 3. Advertisers and media are still cautious about mobile social networks, see it as a modest multi-channel addition to boost brands, not revenue. 4. Technology enablers are coming : widgets for user interfaces, customer analytics, and possibly as mentioned selective network enablers
Online services Sarah Gavin, Global communications director,Bebo Bebo is now the 3rd social site, with 5.8 million, Beboers and may catch MySpace by year end. Bebo's success is based on very strong engagement of users, they spend 160 minutes / month [compared with 140 minutes for Facebook and 100 minutes on MySpace ]. [ Note : Beboers create profiles, list favorites, pictures, and activities; it provides band profiles and music sharing. Beboers customize profile skins, make it public or private; to protect personality Bebo does not allow criteria search. Skype provides IM. BeboTV has 12 categories : music, sports, comedy, entertainment, animals and news. Bebo also has music from all genres. ]
David Springall, CTO and co-founder Yospace Yospace is the ASP behind 'See Me TV' user-generated video gallery offered on 3 UK and and O2's LookAtMe!. It provides MMS hosting and services. Statistics for See me TV : 13 million clips / year, reward and pricing is key. start at 10-50p. Clips are 10-30s videos (MMS). Paypal used to participate and reward. It leverages the fact that mobile users are willing to pay. Community is secondary to content gallery because of mobile UI limitations.
Roy Vella, head of mobile payment, PayPal PayPal mobile payments works exactly the same as on the internet, replacing an e-mail address by an MSISDN and password. But Roy stresses that SNS drivers have not been all about money. MySpace started as a promotion for small bands, Facebook was launched when Harvard refused to post face books on internet. Advertising money came as a result because eyeballs. Few SNS are money-centric : eBay is a community where people meet in and transact leaving feedback about people and goods.
Brands should be cautious about engaging with SNS. It ‘s a new space to thread carefully. Imagine if you throw a party and a non-invited corporation shows up ! The word of mouth can be negative if you are not contributing something tangible to the community. Half of the value is consumers’ generating content about your brand.
Tim Hussein, Head of mobile, AOL UK SNS are nothing new for advertisers and brands : message forums existed in the 80's, Coke sponsored football clubs because it's about communities. It’s no different on-line and it's common sense principle. And adds are posted where people are more likely to buy. People expect to see adds when they pick up a magazine but not in SNS which they think is private . About 16 hours usage ? he doubts it.
Mobile operators and application service providers Amer Hasan, Manager mobile internet partnerships, Vodafone global Mobile brings users a remote control of their profile in social networks. And MNOs can offer additional enablers to the ecosystems : id [authenticated] , location, handset support. MNOs can also provide value with customer care (user can call when have queries). And a range of billing options from free offering to premium service : for example MySpace for 50p. to 1.5 £./day, flat rates of 7.5 £/month,
But mobile SNS need critical mass and uniform availability across all channels. Therefore they are not sustainable as MNO proprietary offerings. Vodafone’s direction is towards preferred non exclusive partners : MySpace [MySpace mobile is wap based update blogs and friends, only known friends.- email address], eBay. Google maps. Short term exclusive agreements to provide time to promote.
Mark Watts-Jones, Head of development and innovation, Orange UK Orange interest is no more in the creation of mobile SNS products. Orange tried proprietary solutions before but realize that partnering will result in better products. Orange works with Bebo, IMS. .However it is not easy to copy internet on phones. We have to develop useful service that mobile users will use it and advertisers will come. Dead easy to say, hard to do! . About mobile UGC, you have to realize that what users are doing is SMS and messages, not only blogging and sharing : my mum do not understand blogging.
Liz McCord, Principal engineer, France Telecom R&D, UK She commented the role for IMS to provide some services to online networks, such as identity moves. I hardly heard anyone else mention IMS during the day.
Anuj Khanna, head of marketing, Tania mobile They provide ITV platforms for UGC and participation. The mobile data market is 100B$ but 80% of this is SMS . Flat rate data offers will trigger VAS on data. So far mobile users have shown a surprising tolerance to pay bad content but this will not last. Need better content. 70% may be offered free on internet and 30% charged on mobile because “this market exists”
Laurence Seberini, Managing Director, Lucky mobile Mobile banners adds are very effective in RSA. Click thru is 1:5 (because phones display only 1 add at a time), compared to 1:50 on internet and 1:100 on TV. But the CPM of mobile is al lot higher (5x online and TV) Also market surveys can be done in 24 hours using WAP forms. And we have seen instant purchasing behavior very strong : mobile users buy crap content easily.
Advertising and media Graham Darracott, Partner, Graphico New Media His opinion about mobile SNS business : Mobile is an extension of the net, and it works as an additional channel, part of digital campaign...MNOs “can't get their pound of flesh”. Consumers will always find their way around paying e.g, use Facebook for group SMS [ Some related comments here Facebook Will Win in SMS Social Networking] . MNOs have to offer , all you can eat data bundle including roaming to allow new services. One mobile issue is privacy : : SNS.are like big night clubs, “you don't give your mobile number to everyone”.
Brand must bring real [genuine, authentic] value in social networks. Brands that give something back to the community benefit. For example ordering a real Domino's pizza from inside World of Warcraft is, fantastic : you don't have to go out of the WOW environment, you only have to answer the doorbell ! [ Story is here ]. Nike in Second Life it's about how you look [avatars can acquire and wear customized virtual footware; Nike gets actual revenue for the digital shoes, gathers market research such as colors and designs and branding. Further analysis here ]. BBC brand instantly creates affinity with customers and is incredibly strong. He recommends market-research research : on-line or on the streets : spend time with people. Neil Hughston, Managing Director, Saatchi&Saatchi Interactive The development of mobile social networks will be modest. Even in Korea’s Cyworld usage of mobile is selective. Many people have up to 15 contacts in their phone address book. And many do not use applications on their handsets. Users will not pay MNOs for services, the march is towards offering pay as you go and contract tariffs choices. MNO are involved with mobile with SNS to get critical mass of customers. .
About SNS advertising, we should not mix influencers and connectors. There are different ways to measure influence and connectivity. Who is being listened to should be measured, not number of friends? Names collectors are of no value, boys collecting girl's names; unless you are a star, you are not a connector. SNS advertising is moving away from big hit big campaign and playing on passions : music, charities, events. It’s very difficult to apply to all brands. Think of Campbell Soup or Procter Gamble washing powder who have the budgets but cannot have that level of responses.
Melissa Goodwin, head of mobile, ITV ITV are not doing SNS for the money but in order to get user feedback on programs. It is a direct audience to TV interaction, that can be read exactly, they are unofficial testers, tell exactly if it's rubbish, and ITV can put our own responses. This is the most valuable reason ITV does it for now for 18 month. There is a simple way with audiences: delight them, engage them.
Rachel Beresford, Head of mobile marketing, emap Transparency of pricing is key. Integrated billing plays in favor of mobile especially for impulse buy - internet / Paypal is not as integrated. Questioned about an example of failure : Friendsters, which Google paid 13B$ but got less than 1% of the SNS market. They forgot about customers and had service quality issues : 1min to download profiles.
Technology Gero Steinroeder, head of partnerships, Nokia Widset Widset (Nokia’s widgets) is about opening walled garden, with over 80 mobile devices supported . It is all about choice as opposed to operator control, following the successful internet model where user do unexpected thing. There is a community to recommend and share Widsets, it enables users, open up services, let them fine the direction. He expects that users will primarily use internet’s add-funded model and free usage. With mobile SNS, non intrusive engagement advertising should be build as a basic part of the service. There will still be room for premium rate.
Jouko Ahvenainen, Founder and COO, Xtract Ltd Xtract Social Links is a part of of Blyk's advertising solution. Jouko explained how companies can utilize and analyze word of mouth marketing in a systematic way, recommendations are really important and are behind 71% of purchase decisions. With SNS analytics, you can analyze, understand, value the very important, players [alfa users] . Similarly, advertisers need facts and user profiles details. There is a need to optimize value chain and user experiences in mobile and internet channels . Traditional web analytics are describing only average users, Google provides only ad-hoc links based on current search context. Mobile SNS get to learn user preferences over time, not only what people tell you but detailed behavior patterns. How limitations on privacy private communities public / are there some obvious lines to draw, location
Market research Nadja Litschko, research consultant. W2F London She presented 3 segments from the Mobile Youth report ( showed qualitative recorded interviews without quantitative analysis) : • casual users 55% of total; have 100 friends (real friends) • dedicated users 35% of total; 15-35 old;have100-300 friends, most of them real; 6-15 hours usage , personalized pages, often musicians and artists • hard core users 10% of total; less than 18 years; have over 300 friends (not real); 16 hours, highly personalized pages Highlighted the trendes migration of social networks away from youth market, as user grow-up and also as the older users get on board. For example,. 75% of users YouTube are now over 25, 87% over 18yrs (compared with only 41% in 2005).
Oxford University CPD ran short courses around mobile Web 2.0 on 3- 6 July 2007, covering . • Mobile social networking, • User generated content • Mobile Web 2.0 and IMS : I attended and took notes on presentations by • Tomi T. Ahonen , mobile service consultant • Alan Moore, CEO of SMLXL • Steve Jones, 3G strategy consultant • Ajit Jaokar is the founder of Future text • Mark Searle, head of product development at Surfkitchen
Take-aways 1. Mobile social networking is already there, it’s a 3 billion $ business and can get to 90% penetration with lots of niche services to complement the big names we know today. 2. There’s plenty of potential for creative advertisers to create new multi-channel consumer experiences, while generating revenue for enterprises. 3. Collective intelligence is what powers the web and opening mobile network assets, including IMS to developers will accelerate mobile web 2.0 4. Widgets, identity management are key enablers for mobile web 2.0. 5. We need to observe better social behaviour, emotional experiences to develop successful services. 6. The walled garden model of mobile networks is slowing the development of services, there are regulatory and historical explanations to this but more openness is required.
Video sampler (so you get the energy and passion of our speakers)
Tomi T. Ahonen Mobile service consultant, he was previously at Nokia's global 3G Business Consultancy. Tomi’s book and blog cover the relation between mobile communities and advertising.
Tomi discussed about youth and mobile. It’s generation C “text telepathy” sending SMS under the sleeve using Samsung's chocolate phones. He sees SMS threads beating mobile IM because it’s so ubiquitous. Up to 100 messages/day in Korea. Tomi estimates mobile social networking being a 3.5 billion $ industry that could double next year. He gave a listing of his favorite mobile social networks including : • Habbo hotel (has 8 million subs spending 0.4 € per month), • Flirtomatic ( designed by Fjord, sending over 1 million messages a week now, on average 40 flirtograms, logging 8 times per day, and creating a side-business of romantic gifts), • SeeMeTV (over 300K GBP paid out to bloggers by 3) , • Ohmy News (3000 citizen journalists and now 7-years old). • Cyworld, obviously as Tomi’s next book is “Digital Korea” he could not avoid the example of (90% of Korean teenagers, 20 million on internet, possibly 1 million from 3G phones), • Daycare center blogging ( a day at the zoo, such as Peter Vesterbacka’s Connected day service )
Alan Moore CEO of SMLXL, Alan is a great evangelizer of “engagement marketing “. He defines it as : • Not ‘interrupting' audiences –with product or brand marketing messages • Helping businesses and customers better engage with one another. • Building customer advocacy. • Compelling content that intellectually/emotionally engages audience through multiple media channels. • Built upon the 4C's: Commerce, Culture, Community Connectivity He gaves the example of Artic monkeys, offering free tracks to audience at concerts, thanking them for their support. One other example is the “Fanta Beach” project that offered an end2end user experience around fancy urban beaches, where you play, meet, sound, dream. Although it was not launched, it is a good example of moving FCMG brand to the cultural brand of cinema or communities.
How do we apply this to mobile ? It is mostly a creative challenge. 76% of users Blyk target users say they don’t want adds but services. So we have to create a compelling experience.
“Our parents grew up with product marketing, we were raised on brand marketing and our kids live in the world of community marketing. A connected culture is a world of hot media, of Current TV, peer production, collective intelligence, Second Life, the world of Warcraft, Pop Idol, Citizen Journalism, Myspace, Bebo, YouTube, mobile social networking, new business platforms which is about utilising digital technologies to radically challenge the status quo of our industrialised world. It is all about persistent conversation and extended narrative.”
Steve Jones 3G strategy consultant and founder of www.the3Gportal.com. Steve Jones summarizes the two success factors : 1. The user interface has to be a delight (zero complexity) 2. The service should deliver emotional rewards (this is what users are looking for)
One comment was on the potential of niche communities that can ve developed by specialists “ the value of the cheese is in the holes” . Some examples include • Mobber that allow mini-communities. • Cingo for familylife • Evoca provides site to create, organize, and share voice recordings • Parental advice • Car buyers
Ajit Jaokar Founder of Future text, consultant, author of book 'Mobile web 2.0' and a well-known blogger and member of the web2.0 workgroup. During the two days, he discussed • Definition of Web 2.0 • Web 2.0 business case, • Mobile and Web 2.0 technologies • Social behavior • Evolution of publishing business as an example
1. Definition. With Mobile social networks in mind, , Ajit Jaokar proposes 7 principles of Web 2.0 adapted from O'Reilly -- What Is Web 2.0? It is about
1. Harnessing collective intelligence: “this the central principle from which all other derive” (it means blogging, wikis, tagging / ranking by communities…) 2. Web based: “double click was rigid” ( it means browser and network data and lots of long tail content or services) 3. Data inside : “re-index it, link it permanently, Google is relevant because of this” ( it combines data from NavTech, Digital Globe and serves it to mashup sites who link it with other data). 4. End of software release cycle : “ permanent new current release, beta releases with users as co-developers” 5. Light programming models ( example SOAP for B2B, REST representational state transfer, XML/HTTP, RSS, or widgets; syndicate, reuse and mix services) 6. Software above the level of a single device ( this means convergence of services on devices such as N95/ iPod/iPhone but also PCs and others – not only user interfaces but content) 7. Rich user experience “ think of Google maps” (and also personalized, context-aware pushed content)
2. Business case : . This turns into demonstrating the importance of metadata. Not the data only but what are you capturing uniquely in a transaction,. And not the users only “users will come and go” Then the question of smaller communities was raised : “ is it a race where the slower or fastest will win ? Will one end up winning or many winners? “ In web 1.0 there was no real niches but in Web 2.0 with UGC it allows niches to appear.
One question to answer is : are we in bubble 2.0 ? Ajit answers NO because • There is no IPO, M&A activity like the Web 1.0 period. • The revenue model is stronger • Application are genuinely usefull to end-users (Flickr vs. petfood.com). • The cash requirement are modest so VC funding is not so critical (hardware start-up cost as low as 20K$ unless video / audio; software from open source is free) • VCs do not expect huge losses (US funding easier UK funding in the '000s not millions ) • There is a lot of support in the business community ( see “How businesses are using Web 2.0: A McKinsey Global Survey” ¾ of executives say that their companies plan to maintain or increase investments in Web 2.0 technologies in coming years)
4. Mobile technology, How can we put Web 2.0 success on mobile phone ?. The challenge is that the mobile stack is fragmented but some open platforms are appearing. Ajit is a fan of browser technology (he’s been blogging about this )and gave some examples : • Ajax (Asynchronous JavaSript and XML so you access services from a browser without bouncing between pages, see the mobile ajax FAQ ) • Widsets (widget for Java MIDP 2.0 phones providing RSS feeds, blog posts, photo-uploading sites. Nokia has a library and templates for creation) • Opera widgets (for Opera 9 browser) • Mobile Ajax • Google gadgets • Openwave has widgets with extensions for mobile address book • iPhone API’s (Morfik WebOS AppsBuilder to develop AJAX on iPhone) • Zimlets (Zimbra "Mash-up" Zimlets) • Snocap, as an example uses widgets for Facebook and Myspace ,to embed music stores on the internet services • OpenID was also quoted as additional example here. An OpenID identity is an URL which can in turn refer to documents (FOAF, RSS, Atom, vCARD). the authentication can be implemented with Ajax . The interop is one of widgets issues as they tend to have java script but also extensions. There are other limitations but Ajit sees them winning against previous mobile development tools : • Java 2 Mobile Edition (J2ME) • XHTML • Symbian ( Forum Nokia has 1.3m developers) What are the mobile technology assets ? We need to use web to harness intelligence of mobile devices and networks • Mobility, location (call routing, handover, presence, missed calls); • Mobile content (synchronization of contacts, buddy lists, messages, ringtones, photos); • Mobile messaging (SMS, email, voice mail, IM, video messages); • Personalization (profile, authentication, directory, browser favorites), • Billing, • Some open APIs
5. The team also discussed the social side . • Are social networks a mean of expression? Or is it a distraction “we have exceeded the limits of having contacts” ? “Twitter is a loss of time “. Is it going to stand the test of time ? Are on-line participants really socials in real life ? . I quoted the papers of Kenton O'Hara where mainly social use cases have been observed [ Everyday Practices with Mobile Video Telephony]. • On rules governing social networks, were you do draw the lines for regulation? Should it be user (policing based on goodwill) or service provider monitored. Regulations differ depending on societies, religions. Habbo, Friendster, Second Life have strict rules. Mobile operators have a much stronger responsibility than ISPs. • On content : UGC cannot be stopped nor control it (example of Osama Bin Laden), content is king as long as people consume it. The changes is that consumers are no more mass media but community consumers • On issues of privacy, Ajit pointed to Kathy Sierra, “the girl with a one track mind” who fighted back privacy intrusions with the help of bloggers. On demographics, we noted that usage patterns change with ages. There is a huge movement out of MySpace,as the 14-16 generation grows-up and turns to other networks, such as Facebook) • And then digital rights issues, lawyers point of view : is there no point in going after small players but they will go after big players.
6. Ajit shared his view on the impact on his publishing business .
• The role of the editor is changing from maintaining brands to reinventing business models. Newspaper never made money was subscription , advertising was. • Communities become content editors. • Niche publishers are emerging ( Futuretext uses HP printers at Lightning source bound in softcover to print 500 copies of a book) • Marketing is evolving : Futuretext want to sell books, but it adds blogging to get references.
Mark Searle Head of product development at Surfkitchen (their main product is a mobile content publishing client software and server provisioning). He opposes the web eco-system to the mobile telecom on economic and technology levels. And he sees little future for IMS as long as it remains a walled garden.
As backgrounder, Mark suggest look at the eco-system illustration in Tim O’Reilly Meme Map and to compare with IMS the papers from the Moriana group.
Is IMS-based Web 2.0 a contradiction ? Mark Searle seems very frustrated that the issue is not so much technology but cultural. IMS has does have some of the characteristics of Web 2.0. But telecom operators are chartered with the responsibility (license agreement)to operate a reliable service compensated by financial revenues. The web developed in an opposite manner, mostly as a free service, by technocrats or hacker communities seeking no financial reward. Today, this leads to a conflict “the net heads point of view : telecom operators are trolls guarding the edge of networks"
On the technology side, creating mobile applications is VERY complex as IMS has a strong "telco" structure. “IMS has a schizophrenic view : CSCF and SIP AS are similar to IN and control oriented , …not all packets are equal"” . Today, IMS interop is not there, it is single NEP vendor-driven . Surfkitchen struggles to get web 1.0 on mobile so mobile web 2.0 will be a challenge. Mark Searle argues that 3G-UMTS is first a service platform. The big deal is not in the bandwidth (mobile bandwidth will always be limited, for example e.g. streaming/GPRS/HSDPA)but in the service enablers. The success of SMS however is quite similar to Web 2.0 in the way it opened to VASP. IMS should be transparent, naked SIP :without control mechanism.
The 4 drivers of the internet eco-system are : • Entrepreneurial culture (Skype, Google etc..) • Communitarian culture (the whole idea of web W.P, Wikis etc...) • Hacker culture (a social model, not economic, contributors looking to gain status as developers, Linux, JBOSS, Tomcat are examples) • Techno-meritocracy (Mbone started H.323, with VoIP suits began to appear)
And there are 4 phases of development in mobile telecoms: • Coverage • Quality • Price • Services (usually closed and controlled, as opposed to the web open service enhancements and competition on the user experience "History is not on the side of operators as developers of cool services.).
What are drivers for IMS ? • IMS : devices are not here. No customers are queuing two nights to get an IMS device like an iPhone • There is no user demand for IMS services. Voice is the big service, there are no data services. FMC is a big motivation for operators because of market saturation (Tispan release 7) . • Video calls perhaps “when you are in love” but no mainstream. • Simultaneous session capabilities : voice call while watching is no more subscriber growth • Synchronous network address book is a very strong capability, evolution from PAB to directory services such as Taxi, Pizza services that appear on your PAB. "There will be two battlegrounds The first screen : widgets are the way to deliver the user experience The PAB address book, linked to identity. Sxip also an OpenID supplier, proposes an identity being a cloud of attributes sources. Sxip’s CEO Dick Hart evangelizes identity 2.0 and the simple extensible ID protocol.
A quick visit to Hong-Kong to present at IIR's MIM Asia conference. With the boom of on-line social networks, mobile IM is gaining a lot of traction, but still an unclear business case for mobile operators.
I presented a view on new personal communication services, beyond IM and SMS/MMS. I discussed technical implementation using a combination of IMS and Web 2.0 open technologies. The case study was based on OpenCall Instant Communication and approaches proposed by the EU research project COMET.
Some of my notes on the presentaions:
Mathieu Saccharin, Bouygues Telecom : he presented the experience of Bouygues Telecom with very good understanding of how to market and price IM to customers.
Arnold de Ploey, Nokia Siemens Networks : gave the example of new services such as Mxit having 3 million registered subscribers, charging 0.001 euros per messages but recovering money on chat rooms with 15% of users. He stressed the value of SMS continuity and interoperability between operators. Nokia handsets is bringing out a single message composer that lets users choose to send as IM. MMS, Voicemail depending on content.
Patrick Olenzak and Pascal Lorne, Miyowa : gave their experiences of 17 launches as managed services with Bouygues, Orange, Base, Ten, FarEastone, KPN, Wind, MTC, Cellcom, Cosmote, O2, Starhub, Telefonica, Telstra. Their usage studies shows no canibalisation, but the opposite (6 month on 4000 users : growth from 152 to 176 calls/month and +7% SMS).
Ervins Kampans, LMT : described their analysis of OMA IMPS wireless village. There is 80% overhead [2kb/message; assuming a group of 5 people, 12 min this is 44kb/session, 281kB/day for presence updates of 20 contacts x 30 sec polling] . The conclusion is that there are serious GSM / GPRS congestion. This is much less important with 3G and in the future MBMS will allow more efficient chat room broadcast.
Tom Williams, Fastmobile he presented the case of Helio Ocean, an ASP in USA. They focus on usability and have numverous installations : Globe (IM evrywhr )Vivo, finance, BT, T-systems, BSNL, Vivo, Idea, Helio, Idea, Globe, BPL, Airtel, Hutch, Aircel, MTN Dialog. Partnerships (Jataayu gateway in India, Guzy, Livecargo) and interoperability are key (AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Google, chikka, terra)
Ana Fatima Tavares, IM Campaign director She gave an update on the IM MoU with 42 operators and 1 billion subscribers www.gsmworld.com/personal_im . Several countries are live : India, China, Egypt, Philipines, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Portugal. Matt Hooper EVP Marketing, Colibria : he quoted Reeds Law stanting that the power of network multiplies in proportion of the number of groups. The key user experiences are 1. service discovery 2.first time use 3. habit use 4.new services. Strategy analitics forecasts SMS plus revenues of 3500B$ in 2011 and mobilised internet IM 1000 B$.
Paul Jeseman, CTO Asia, Acision : he focused on the experience economy that requires a stronger foxus on consumer analytics "I am female and 24" is just a statement; "I like travel, white wine, music" is a fact! In his view, mobile is becoming a FMCG consumed by the digital youth community.
Caroline Sexton, Vodafone, community product manager : a most interesting marketing basics presentations. Her goal is to avoid ,targeting the whole of Vodafone UK 17 million subscribers with irrelevant services. Rather focused on sustained service for long term "how do we make it relevant to customer lives ?" And she knows about it : she is 27 with 110 friends on Facebook 110, uses MSN as "boredom relief", Flickr, Vodafone SMS "when I am late", BT wireline "long chats". Vodafone has identified 17 subscribers segments, using data mining on usage patterns. The following are key for instant communications :
1. tireless texters are 17-20 females, they txt more than voice, typically low income working at Tesco, hair dressers and readers of hit/ok. Buy on internet clothes with emotional purchasing, not early adopters but followers. 2."mobile maniacs " 22-25, low income as student, but likely to spend more when working 3. confident communicators : above 30s, average income, watch X-factors. Predominantly female planning long conversations or evenings out.
The IM expectations opposite depending on the fact that subscribers are or not PC users. PC users want Yahoo and MSN branding and need the same buddy list, presence, emoticons, five way chatting. Non PC-IM texters like simple features like group messaging.IM-ers get angry about event charging but recognize the value and accept unlimitted monthly subscription. Mobile texters want messages pricing with monthly (1000) bundles.
SFR is outsourcing 3 contact centers which triggered social protests on the day of our visit in Paris. Another sign of financial pressures in the telecom industry. Whether we like it or not, basic mobile telephony services are becoming a commodity with a huge pressure to continuously reduce costs and consolidate. On that day we had good discussions on 3G services, this is the only way to add value and indirectly protect jobs.
Social networks brainstorming A visit to good old friends. Peter Vesterbacka from Somebazaar.com has just launched is Connected Day service for day care centers, nursery schools who want to share children photos and videos with some level of privacy. Joonatan Henriksson from HP, and the team at Fjord and Movial to review 3G group communication services and beyond. Fjord is a great team to design new user experiences while Movial has superb expertise with software clients for mobile messaging.
Mobile Music With Tomi Hietavuo , the former HP bazaar DJ and and Finish rock band Kemopetrol, with whom we started mobile services in 2002 and did video-blogging in 2005, we checked the new Meteli.mobi service launched by Nemesys – New Media Systems, a Helsinki content production company providing mobile information about concerts festivals, bands, musicians. One cool idea would be to add instant communication groups of fans, visitors to these services. I also met with Meteli.mobi CEO Patrik Lindberg.
Trip to Helsinki are always stimulating. A short clip on this trip.
Between Europe and Middle-East, Istanbul was a great place to discuss convergence of services and cultures. There is no 3G service in Turkey yet but launch is coming. We had Christine Perey of Perey Research to introduce here view on the market - she brought new video eyewear gadgets with her and we had a look at the best of YouTube on my iPOD. We enjoyed the great food and weather by the Bosphorus. Before flying back we had a look at manuscripts and calligraphy from the Ottoman empire at Topkapi palace - another form of blogging.
Blue Ocean strategies in telecom from around the world
The content, information and opinions shared on this blog are mine and do not reflect information from my current customers. Claude Florin. claude@florin.ch
At Saint-Emillion with my colleagues Lam Nguyen (who teaches classic SS7 at ENST) and Alex Vorbau who comes from Web service design at HP Labs. 
Thomas Magedanz and Niklas Blum from Fraunhofer FOKUS ran a tutorial and several presentations on a cooperative research portfolio they characterize as “play ground” .
