Test drive mobile video dreams

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.

UGC &SNS summit, London, 16 July 2007

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 course on Mobile 2.0

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.