Archive for July, 2008
by Imran Ali
July 30, 2008 at 7:50 pm · Filed under Location, Locative, Mobile messaging 2.0, Nokia
Prominent Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase, recently wrote about the implications of shared location data and it’s increasing awareness to others.
Chipchase explores the emerging trend of people seeking disconnection from one another in urban environments, despite the increasing economic dependence we all have on interconnectedness in all its forms.
As mobile and locative technologies are providing a new precision and pervasiveness in locating individuals, coupled with a rise in overlapping social networks, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to maintain geo-privacy meaning that opting out of technology could likely mean opting out of culture and society - less a technology issue and more one of cultural gravity.
Though mobile elements of web services such as Dopplr and Yahoo’s FireEagle are looking at mechanising how we share, articulate and perform our locative data - no one is really exploring the social implications and social cost of non-participation in locative media.
Chipchase rightly doesn’t seek to offer answer, but encourages readers to articulate meaningful questions to explore the implications of our collective invention…an approach entirely appropriate to any emerging technology.
You can read Chipchase’s article here…
by Darla Mack
July 30, 2008 at 5:34 pm · Filed under Apple, Mobile messaging 2.0
I happened to be apart of that 1% of .Mac/MobileMe users who’s service was interrupted for a week or more. Wow… 1% seems like such a small number, but in a global percentage of users its HUGE!
Dear MobileMe member:
On Friday July 18, we experienced a serious issue with one of our mail servers that has prevented you from accessing your MobileMe mail account for the last week. We apologize for this service outage and the frustration it has caused you.
As a first step, we have enabled limited web access to your email account so you can check for messages you may have missed since the outage began, and send and receive new email. To access webmail, log into www.me.com as you would normally. Please note that this interim solution does not provide access to any email messages received or saved before the outage began on July 18.
Your remaining messages and folders will reappear when the restoration of your account is complete, at which time we will also re-enable access from desktop mail applications, iPhone, and iPod touch. We expect to be finished with this process by next Friday but you may have complete access sooner.
While the vast majority of your email messages will be fully restored, in the affected accounts a small percentage of email messages have regrettably been lost. This includes approximately 10% of messages received between 5:00 a.m. PDT on July 16 and 10:20 a.m. PDT on July 18. For more information, please visit this support article.
Please accept our deepest apologies for this service interruption and any messages you may have lost. We will do everything in our power not to let you down again.
Sincerely,
The MobileMe Team
Now if this was a free service I don’t think there would be as many frowns about it. But since we are shelling out $99 - $149 a year I think we deserve more than just a 30-day extension.
by Imran Ali
July 29, 2008 at 4:23 pm · Filed under MMS, Mobile messaging 2.0, SMS, UK
Back in November, we reported that Brits were sending 1.2bn text messages each week. Today, just eight months later, the UK’s Mobile Data Association released figures (as reported by BBC News) covering the first half of 2008 that show in increase to 1.4bn messages per week, surprisingly including 10m photo messages.
Assuming an SMS averages 5p and MMS 10p, that’s likely to be around £60-70m of revenue each week for a product will a relatively miniscule cost base…an astonishing figure which underlines the massive consumer appeal of SMS and MMS and its value to cellcos. All the more impressive when comparing the 28bn UK messages with 80bn messages sent across the US in the same period, a country five times the size of Britain.
Conversely, the UK’s Chartered Society of Physiotherapists today published a study illustrating the physical and physiological impact of texting on teenagers and other groups. As well as a geographic and demographic breakdown of the texting habits of 177 people, the CSP goes on to suggest a five step programme for safe texting…
- Hold the phone up with the screen facing towards you so you are not having to flex your neck too much as you look down to view the screen.
- Keep your hands close to your body. The weight of a phone may not feel much, but the load on your arm is significantly increased if the arm is held out stretched and this action will put strain on your neck and shoulder muscles.
- Try to use both hands together when texting to “spread the load”. Keep messages short and use abbreviations and the predictive text messaging feature on your phone. This will help reduce the repetitive motion of pressing various keys.
- Don’t text continuously. Try to take breaks by putting the phone down between text messages.
- Carry out the following two exercises to prevent text message injury:
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- Regularly open your fingers and stretch them out.
- Stretch your arm out, rotate your wrist so it is facing upwards and with your other hand pull your palm down towards the floor to feel a stretch over the front of your forearm muscles. Hold for 15 seconds and repeat 2-3 times.
Taken together, the MDA and CSP studies provide an invaluable insight into the textual habits of Brits.You can read the CSP’s study online, here…
by Tarek Abu-Esber
July 29, 2008 at 1:32 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0
Everything seems to be getting the 2.0 treatment these days. First it was Web 2.0, then Mobile 2.0 followed by the inevitable Mobile Web 2.0. The trend has continued now with the emergence of what could be called Moblogging 2.0.
Moblog, one of the original moblogging platforms and communities, has recently launched V2 of their moblogging platform and the list of updates boasts features that wouldn’t be out of place in a new Web 2.0 service.
First of all lets look at the new Mobile services, starting with my current favourite topic: LBS (Location Based Services). Moblog will now allow you to post geo-tagged images to your moblog which can then be displayed on a Google Map as a visual representation of where you’ve been and what photos you have taken there. This information can be used and displayed in a variety of creative ways such laying out a recent trip you’ve made for others to follow along.
Moblog, by definition, have always supported posting via Mobile. Historically this has been done via MMS and Email. However it has never had a Mobile Web version of the site for users to browse the moblogs on their phones until this update. The mobile version of the site is automatically generated and re-drawn specifically for the device you are using (as any good Mobile Web site should) and will even allow you to directly upload images using the Mobile Web service.
Moblog have also decided to take advantage of voice and have partnered with Spinvox to enable a couple of innovative voice-driven features. You can now post text directly to you moblog by calling up a pre-registered number and leaving a message. Spinvoxs speech-to-text software will then convert the message into text and that will be displayed on your blog as a new entry.
Moblog have also made use of Spinvox technology to make the sign-up process as simple and painless as possible. You can either text in to sign up or simply call Moblog and leave a voice message and the software will do it all for you. This is especially important to Group moblogs which can allow anyone to post to a group blog based around a specific topic.
Other 2.0 features include the ability to syndicate your content to other sites including the ability to post to Twitter (which can be used cleverly) and many other options. A great way to check out a lot of the new Moblog features is to take a look at the recently launched “We Love Your Accent” site. It does a great job of showing off the new Group and voice-driven features and if you take part you could win a Nokia N82.
So, if Moblogs new features are anything to go by then moblogging is starting to evolve and become a far more useful service. You can set-up your own moblog for free (mine is here) so why not give it a go and see if you don’t get hooked.
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by Imran Ali
July 29, 2008 at 9:27 am · Filed under 12seconds, MMS, Twitter, Video
A few days ago I received a Twitter from my friend Katie, linking to a twelve-second video of her applying some lipstick. This was my first experience of 12seconds,the recently launched Santa Cruz based startup being heralded as the video of Twitter.
Though other services such as Seesmic have sought to emulate the intimacy and immediacy of Twitter in video form, Seesmic always seemed a little too rich and required too much of a user’s attention, in comparison with the simplicity, sparsity and elegance of Twitter.
As its name suggests, 12seconds limits user’s video messages to a couple dozen seconds, encouraging the same charm, inventiveness and brevity that we see in 140-character Twitters. Where Twitter’s limitation was semi-imposed by the limitations of its medium of choice - the SMS - 12seconds’ limit is an arbitrary boundary cheekily described by the service’s creators as ‘an upper boundary for boredom‘…
The scientists here at the 12seconds dodecaplex have conducted countless hours of research to determine the precise amount of time it takes for boredom or apathy to set in during typical Internet video viewing. Our patent pending Electro-Tear-Duct Prongers have determined that exactly 12 seconds of video is the ideal amount of time to keep anything interesting.
However, 12seconds’ limit may actually position the service ideally for mobility. Squeezing twelve seconds of video from a mobile handset’s forward-facing camera into an MMS is probably quite feasible technically, compatible with most handsets - and as a user experience - recieving a few dozen twelve second video messages is no more distracting than hundreds of Twitters!
It’ll be interesting to see if 12seconds recognises it’s mobile opportunity and whether users take to it as they took to Twitter and its rivals.
For me, receiving Katie’s message invoked a similar emotional response as when I first started to use Twitter - voyeuristic and intimate, potentially distracting, but open to many possibilities and user-created innovations.
12second’s is currently in a closed beta public alpha period…here’s hoping for an invite 
UPDATE: I just received an invitation to the public alpha and it seems that mobile users can submit videso by emailing an attached clip or emailing an MMS clip…here’s my first pixellated attempt!
by Tarek Abu-Esber
July 23, 2008 at 10:53 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0
A couple of weeks ago Nielsen Mobile released a report announcing that the Mobile Web had reached Critical-Mass. According to their research a combination of device availability, network speeds, content availability and consumer interest mean that the Mobile Web is set to grow rapidly in the near future.
While I might not go as far as using the term “critical-mass” I definitely agree with the overall idea of their report. The traditional barriers to the Mobile Web are all being broken and this is helping drive Mobile Web usage: Walled Gardens, Data Charges, Connection Speeds, Device & Browser Technology, compelling content.
All this got me wondering, how long till the Mobile Web hits mass-adoption? More specifically, what would be defined as “mass-adoption”?
The majority of mobile phone users are Mobile Web users?
A high percentage, say over 80%? Or similar to the proportion of PC to web users? As Western telcos and other mobile players make waves in the Mobile Web area this will drive adoption up exponentially. We might expect this proportion to be higher in emerging market as the mobile will be the main internet connection for a large portion of the population.
Mobile Web usage reaches similar levels to Regular Web usage?
Or perhaps even surpasses, especially when the emerging markets start to embrace Mobile Web. This should be a smaller number of users than in the category above as Mobiles outnumber PCs roughly3-1. Should we be comparing the Mobile Web to the regular Web this closely? Does the way the Web played out give any insight into how the Mobile Web will?
We hit a ceiling in the number of data connections that the operators can support on current hardware?
Potentially a real limitation. As networks are offering unlimited data packages and more and more people takes these up (Vodafone are giving 500MB/month free to every customer) their networks are going to start feeling the strain especially as users start to use the mobile data connection as they do regular web. 4G technologies like LTE et al would over come this but will they come online soon enough? Mobile Web adoption is growing at a fast rate and probably ahead of the road-map for most Western 4G solutions.
What else could be possible indicators of “mass-market” uptake of the Mobile Web? Do any of the above thoughts ring true? Please leave a comment with your thoughts and ideas.
by Hylton Jolliffe
July 23, 2008 at 9:38 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0
We’re pleased to announce that Paul Ruppert, who joined the blog a year ago, has been appointed our new managing editor. We’ve gotten to know Paul well over the past year and greatly appreciate his industry insights and guidance as this blog continues to grow and expand its coverage and roster of excellent contributors.
Paul brings a broad business perspective to the blog and, as you may know, has held numerous executive positions in emerging and established companies, including Mobile 365 where he was part of the executive team that grew the business into a $110 million enterprise, and helped launch PacBell Wireless. He’s also a co-author of several SMS-related US and EU patents and has been weighing in here on topics as diverse as the future of mobile messaging, and innovative companies in the space, and “mobile zen.”
We’re also happy to officially welcome two new contributors to Mobile Messaging 2: Tarek Abu-Esber, who’s been weighing in here since early last month, and Peggy Anne Salz, who we first got to know at CTIA in Las Vegas in early April when she moderated one of the discussions at the Airwide-sponsored industry roundtable event. Peggy is the chief analyst and founder of MSearchGroove, an online network specializing in analysis and commentary on mobile search, mobile advertising and social media, and a well known commentator of mobile search and monetization.
And Tarek has been a keen observer of the mobile industry since the early 2000’s when he started tracking the smartphone market via his blog. He has since edited or contributed to numerous publications and blogs about mobile devices and technology as well as worked for several companies in the industry and we’re thrilled to have him aboard.
Peggy and Tarek are joining Paul, as well as our other excellent contributors Ewan Spence, Imran Ali, and Darla Mack, as we continue to grow and expand our coverage beyond just mobile messaging to mobile media, marketing, and more. Stay tuned and as always feel free to weigh in via the comments here or via email.
Person Paul Ruppert
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by Imran Ali
July 22, 2008 at 8:26 am · Filed under Conferences, Events
In mid-September, my friends over at Giga Omni Media will be hosting their first conference on mobile technology and culture - Mobilize.
Taking place on 18th September at the Mission Bay Conference Center, the one-day conference will be focussing on the mobile web, rather than the broader mobile industry.
Speakers include Android’s Rich Miner, formerly of Orange. Amazon’s VP of their Kindle division, Ian Freed, investors represented by iFund and the BlackBerry Partners Fund, as well as executives from Sprint, SkyDeck and Pinch Media.
The early-bird rate of $395 holds until mid-August.
UPDATE: Rich Miner’s set for a keynote as is Cisco CTO Padmassree Warrior.
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by Ewan Spence
July 21, 2008 at 6:56 am · Filed under Advertising, Convergence, Google, Hardware
I’ve just updated my Sony Playstation Portable (PSP). It’s one of the smoothest upgrade processes I’ve seen for any electronic device. You just selected the ‘Network Update’ option on the menu bar, the PSP scurries off onto the internet (via Wifi) and checks for the latest Firmware. If it’s newer than the machine, it’ll download the file, and you can choose to install it then, or later. And it doesn’t wipe out any setting or preferences on the PSP.
One day, all mobile phones will be like this.
But that’s an aside. Rather than talk about basic infrastructure, I wanted to look at Sony’s approach to the PSP, and a rather tantalizing addition to the PSP’s internet menu – Google Search.
Windin back a PSP to v1.00 and you’ll find a machine that is significantly less feature rich than the current v4.05. It could play games (which is a good thing) and play music, albeit only in Sony’s own proprietary ATRAC format (essentially the compression format used for minidiscs). But as firmware versions kept coming, improvements and additions were made. MP3 support was added, Windows Media (unencrypted first, then encrypted), a web browser was bundled in, a streaming MP3 client for podcasts (which saved to disk for offline usage in the subsequent firmware). In short even though there were tens of millions of PSP’s out there Sony continued to develop the device capabilities. Interestingly, all these new features never cost the users anything extra. Perhaps the lawyers behind the iPod Touch should get in touch with Sony and ask how they made that work?
Anyway, on to the addition of Google Search under the network tab – labeled Internet Search, but powered by Google, from a programmers point of view this allows you to enter a search term in the PSP user interface, which is passed cleanly to the web browser and presents you the results. It also keeps a history of your search terms so you can
Google again whenever the need takes you.
Why do I think this is a good sign of things to come? Two reasons, the first is the continued improving of a product after it leaves the factory. Apple may get the plaudits for the iPhone, Nokai may be doing the donkey work on millions of Symbian handsets, but it’s Sony and the PSP that have made a workable, user friendly updater and are seriously using it to help the product.
The second is Google wants to be everywhere, and are making sure that if a device gets on the internet, then the user will be handed a search page that belongs to Google. Given that Google’s affiliate program passes a tiny fraction of a dollar to its partners for each search term they pass them, be it through a PSP icon, or the search bar in Firefox, there is an inducement to companies to add Google. Tiny fractions add up when you have the software installed on millions of devices. And of course there is still a ‘market choice’ in providing search to devices, and Sony could have went to anyone. Honestly.
So the device owners get a recurring income stream, the users get easy access to search, and Google continues to get a nice big percentage of the new search avenues before they become truly profitable. Which might prove contentious down the line, especially to other search providers and online advertising companies.
by Darla Mack
July 17, 2008 at 2:09 pm · Filed under Apple, Mobile messaging 2.0, MobileMe
In an effort to fix the delayed and proper workings of MobileMe, Apple has offered a 30 day extension to existing users of .Mac. They also have re-defined their use of the word “push” in the MobileMe syncing process.
I received this via email and I’m sure many existing .Mac users have seen the same.
We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped.
Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running.
Another snag we have run into is our use of the word “push” in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe “cloud,” changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word “push” until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.
We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge. Your extension will be reflected in your account settings within the next few weeks.
We hope you enjoy your new suite of web applications at me.com, in addition to keeping your iPhone and iPod touch wirelessly in sync with these new web applications and your Mac or PC.
Thank you,
How nice of them to clear all that up for us, but answer me this… why does one need to pay $99 a year just to have an email address? Can’t they just omit all the rest of the add-ons that people chose not to use and offer a nice basic email address for free? It’s not like they can’t afford it.
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