Author Archive
by Nancy Broden
September 9, 2007 at 11:21 pm · Filed under Devices, Mobile messaging 2.0, Palm
I posted my thoughts on the Foleo when Palm founder Jeff Hawkins first showed off the product at the D5 conference in June. It received less than favorable reviews, to say the least.
On September 4, Palm’s CEO Ed Colligan announced that they will not be releasing the Foleo:
In the course of the past several months, it has become clear that the right path for Palm is to offer a single, consistent user experience around this new platform design and a single focus for our platform development efforts. To that end, and after careful deliberation, I have decided to cancel the Foleo mobile companion product in its current configuration and focus all of our energies on delivering our next generation platform and the first smartphones that will bring this platform to market. We will, of course, continue to develop products in partnership with Microsoft on the Windows Mobile platform, but from our internal platform development perspective, we will focus on only one.
Because we were nearly at the point for shipping Foleo, this was a very tough decision. Yet I am convinced this is the right thing to do. Foleo is based on second platform and a separate development environment, and we need to focus our efforts on one platform. Our own evaluation and early market feedback were telling us that we still have a number of improvements to make Foleo a world-class product, and we can not afford to make those improvements on a platform that is not central to our core focus. That would not be right for our customers or for our developer community.
Jeff Hawkins and I still believe that the market category defined by Foleo has enormous potential. When we do Foleo II it will be based on our new platform, and we think it will deliver on the promise of this new category. We’re not going to speculate now on timing for a next Foleo, we just know we need to get our core platform and smartphones done first.
Kudos to Palm for admitting the Foleo was not quite ready for prime time. It will be interesting to see what the Foleo II will be.
by Nancy Broden
August 22, 2007 at 1:55 pm · Filed under Mobile Advertising, Mobile messaging 2.0, Studies + Research, voice search
Scott Weiss’ Usable Products Company today released the results of their independent user experience benchmark on mobile search. Four mobile search solutions - 3 text-based and 1 voice-based - were tested with 80 participants: InfoSpace WAP, JumpTap Java (Alltel Axcess Search), Nuance Voice Control and Yahoo! Go. The results surprised Weiss and his researchers, no doubt because advertising is generally perceived as an unavoidable evil in a Web-based experience and voice-based search offerings have had mixed results in the marketplace up to date:
Researchers were surprised that 79% of participants favored advertising-supported mobile search, and 37% felt that banner ads actually enhanced the mobile search experience…
Also unexpected was that participants initially predicted voice search would be the most difficult to use but after an hour of usage gave it higher ratings than text search. [Weiss remarked], ‘Users predicted voice search would be the worst of the four search products, but in final usability, it performed much better than expected. We were surprised that participants enjoyed voice search, and how much more they liked it than search via phone keypad.’”
Despite these findings, the overall success rate in finding relevant results was a mere 53% and none of the search solutions tested proved the clear winner.
Unlike Weiss, I am not surprised by the results of his study. Voice is the logical solution for mobile search, given how clumsy most of us are on the keypad of our handsets. There are many players entering the market but Nuance’s technology has taken the lead, underpinning many mobile voice-based startups. Since it is best-of-breed in the field, it is not surprising that Weiss’ participants enjoyed using it to perform mobile searches.
As for advertising, the results do appear to fly in the face of common sense. Given the focused, task-oriented nature of mobile phone usage one would expect the presence of advertising to be more of an annoyance than in a Web-based context. But the mobile context allows for more precise targeting since much more data is available about the individual, including their location which is usually the most pertinent piece of information when on the go. Advertising becomes relevant, and when it’s relevant it isn’t a annoyance - it’s an improvement.
Weiss’ findings bode well for voice- and advertising-based offerings coming to market, such as the advertising-funded mobile virtual network operator Blyk, whose business proposition I wrote about back in May.
by Nancy Broden
August 15, 2007 at 2:12 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Studies + Research, Usage + Usability, mobile social networking
M:Metrics has posted a snapshot of the global mobile social networking market. Of note it is the US audience, which is traditionally hesitant to use the Web browser on their mobile handsets, that is the largest with 7.5 million or 3.5 percent of mobile subscribers accessing a social networking site with their mobile device during the month of June 2007. Italy, the UK, Spain, Germany and France follow the US in that order.
Also worth noting, the US and UK audiences were college-aged (18 - 24) whereas the consumers in the other countries were younger (13 - 18). Not surprisingly, the most popular sites accessed via mobile were MySpace and Facebook, followed by YouTube in the US and Meebo in the UK.
Although the numbers are small, M:Metrics senior analyst Mark Donovan believes this is a nascent market which will grow over time:
“Nearly every online social networking site has added the ability to connect to these communities with a mobile phone, allowing people to access profiles and share content while they’re on the go. With the mobile phone playing a central role in people’s social lives, it’s only natural that social networking sites are working to bridge the gap between the online and mobile worlds.â€
There are considerable challenges presented by the mobile social networking market. At the Mobile User Experience conference in May, Al Russell, Head of Mobile Internet and Content Services at Vodafone, spoke about the challenges that his company faced in translating a community experience from a fixed, PC-based context to a mobile one. Paramount is that the mobile experience not be a ’scaled-down’ version of the PC-based experience. Understanding what the community wants to do in the mobile context and distilling the mobile-relevant elements is key. Unfortunately a user-centered perspective is frequently lacking in the mobile industry, but this is starting to change.
The opportunities presented by the mobile social networking are equally great. Most companies in the mobile value chain have focused revenue potential and rightly so. If mobile social networks can generate a regular audience anywhere near the size of its PC-based visitors, the revenue potential for all those involved would be considerable.
by Nancy Broden
August 13, 2007 at 6:55 pm · Filed under Mobile Tech, Mobile messaging 2.0, Software, Video Conferencing, iPhone
Mobilewhack reports on “possibly the coolest iPhone app” yet to be devised. The app was hacked by Ken and Greg Aspeslagh during the Iron Coder Live competition at Chicago’s C4 Developer Conference.
The video conferencing application uses your WiFi network, iPhone camera and - here’s the hands-on, shop-class part of the project - a modified Huckleberry mirror that captures and beams the caller’s video to the recipient’s iPhone. The app doesn’t support audio but all you need to do is simply call the person you wish to video conference then turn on the speakerphone.
While I am not a rabid iPhone fan - I’m waiting for the next version to come out before buying one - I love that, true to the Apple spirit, the iPhone is this ‘hackable’, pointing to a future where the mobile experience will be ever more customized to each person’s individual needs and tastes.
by Nancy Broden
August 10, 2007 at 7:42 pm · Filed under Devices, Mobile messaging 2.0, News
Yesterday Chinese handset manufacturer ZTE announced an exclusive deal with Canadian carrier Telus to release their ZTE D90 handset.
The ZTE D90 is the first mobile handset in the world to feature both Zi Corporation’s eZiType software for increased data input speed and accuracy, and the Digit Wireless Fastap keyboard, which dramatically simplifies the text input experience. With today’s announcement, ZTE became the first wireless phone manufacturer from mainland China to directly offer a device for sale in Canada.
At first glance the phone appears to have a standard keypad but when in use for messaging purposes the Fastap keyboard lights up to reveal the letter keys “for a true one-touch text entry experience”.
No word on when the “Boomer” version comes out for those of us whose ability to see tiny letters wanes with every passing year…
by Nancy Broden
August 5, 2007 at 2:33 pm · Filed under Carriers, Mobile messaging 2.0, Studies + Research, Usage + Usability
Saturday’s New York Times reports on the impact wireless carriers are having on their customers relationships by offering plans that encourage people to connect to individuals within the network:
“The carriers… set up plans that encourage subscribers to talk mainly to people in the same network. The companies are say they are simply trying to recruit and retain customers.
But what was set up as a purely business strategy is having an unintentional effect. It is dividing people who share informal bonds and bringing together those who have formal networks of cellphone ‘friends’.”
Those most affected by this are young adults who use their mobile phones extensively to keep in touch with their proportionally larger friendship networks, yet who are most sensitive to the cost of doing so.
While some carriers are providing options for staying in contact with people outside of their networks, there are restrictions. T-Mobile forces their customers to pick their “fave 5″, while others offer cheaper messaging after a certain hour at night or on the weekend. The upshot is that the wireless bonds between friends on competing networks loosen while those on the same network strengthen.
Another result is the migration of friendship networks en masse from one carrier to another. Pity the poor unfortunates who get stuck in a contract and can’t follow the herd. They had better plan on finding some new in-network friends.
by Nancy Broden
August 3, 2007 at 3:18 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0
In addition to adding fuel to the Google ‘GPhone’ rumor mill, yesterday’s Wall Street Journal published an article on consumers’ increasing demand for unrestricted access to the Web via their mobile devices. US carriers notoriously restrict or make it excruciatingly difficult to access the Web via a mobile handset as through a PC-based browser. With the release of the Opera Mini browser in 2006 and, more importantly, the well-hyped launch of Apple’s iPhone last month, consumers are increasingly aware of the restrictions that their wireless service providers are imposing on them and demanding change.
The WSJ also notes the FCC’s recent decision to open a portion of the radio spectrum for wireless networks to allow customers to access those airwaves via any mobile device, not just those carried by the network owner. Cleary this will encourage a proliferation of devices that are better suited for accessing the internet than traditional mobile handsets.
What impact would an ‘open garden’ and new wireless devices have on mobile messaging? With teens chosing to message via their social networks, which they frequently access on the go, facilitating access to these sites and their messaging features will undoubtedly translate into in greater adoption and usage due to the improved user experience. And as we all know, greater adoption translates into greater revenue for everyone in the mobile value chain.
by Nancy Broden
July 31, 2007 at 1:13 pm · Filed under Mobile Email, Mobile messaging 2.0, Studies + Research, Usage + Usability
Cnet News posted a special report a couple of weeks ago on the messaging habits of teens and what that may portend in the future.
Teens are using their social networks - be they PC-based or mobile - to communicate with their friends. Email is used only when they need to communicate with adults or to manage “business relationships”. What they mean by this is that they do not use an application dedicated solely to email in order to message their friends. Messaging in the context of social networks is far more compelling than a bland, utilitarian email app.
Many teens (and adults, in increasing numbers) maintain several networks - Facebook for school friends or alumni, LinkedIn for business contacts, MySpace to meet new friends, etc. They are choosing to communicate with one group or another based on the type of network, and there is a reasonable expectation for the type of interaction based on the commonly understood purpose and nature of the network. None is this is possible using a traditional email application.
Does this behavior by teens portend the death of email? I think it’s unlikely. My own research indicates that the tools we use to communicate change along with our lifestyle or stage of life. Bland email apps, be they on the PC or mobile, will continue to serve a purpose. What I do foresee is messaging being transformed by the power of social networks and becoming a richer, more contextual form of communication.
by Nancy Broden
June 25, 2007 at 6:54 pm · Filed under BREW07, Events + Conferences, Usage + Usability, User Interface
Debi Jones’ recent post highlights some of what was new at Qualcomm’s annual BREW conference which wrapped up in San Diego on Friday.
One aspect she didn’t mention was this year’s unprecedented focus on user experience, with panel and breakout sessions over all 3 days on everything from Understanding Users Through Contextual Inquiry to User Centered Design for Mobile Environments and Designing and Evaluating Mobile User Interfaces. Qualcomm also sponsored quick-hit 30-minute sessions where attendees had the opportunity for Q&A in a more informal environment.
The BREW Times, the show’s daily publication, provided a more in-depth look at several user experience related topics such as personalization, user generated content, the problem of feature discovery and mobile social networking, on which I spoke during a Friday afternoon breakout session.
The focus on user experience is not purely altruistic of course - there are high hopes in the industry that mobile social networking and user generated content will provide fresh sources of revenue. Nevertheless, it was clear from the questions I was asked at BREW that the conference is attracting a more diverse audience that is increasingly aware of the importance of a user centered approach to mobile interfaces and seeking out information to this end. This is a good thing for anyone who uses a mobile phone, which is to say, pretty much everyone.
by Nancy Broden
June 6, 2007 at 3:25 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, News, Privacy + Security, SMS
Today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription may be required) presents a good synopsis of a handful of mobile dating services that have recently come on the scene. Targeting that most mobile of market segments, the 18 - 24-year-old, these services leverage text messaging’s role as the communication tool of choice among this group.
MeetMoi, for example, lets registered users text a note and their current location in the form of a ZIP Code or street address to MeetMoi. The service then returns the profiles of compatible date candidates in the area. If the user likes what s/he sees, s/he connects with the person via anonymous text. It is up to them to take the next step and exchange phone numbers or set up a face-to-face meeting. Zogo is similar, but the date seekers connect via anonymous voice calls rather than text.
The main concern with any location-based dating service is security. All services offer some level of security by maintaining the participants’ anonymity and not revealing the details of their location. Still, The addition of GPS may turn any of these services into “stalking applications”.
All the same, the target demographic for mobile dating services is, at this stage in their lives, open to giving up some privacy for the novelty, convenience and/or immediate gratification these services may provide.
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