Archive for predictions
by Ewan Spence
January 22, 2008 at 7:42 pm · Filed under predictions
Since the start of the year, the team at Mobile Messaging 2.0 has been dropping in their predictions for the year ahead in the mobile smart phone world. And while everyone has zeroed in on their own specialties, it’s interesting to see the common threads that have popped up again and again in our minds.
If you want the quick one liner takeaway from all our predictions, here it is.
Follow… The… Money…
The impact of mobile advertising was picked up by most of us. Now that our smartphones are becoming connected to the internet more frequently, it feels a natural avenue for advertisers to deliver a highly personalized message to users, with up to 8% of advertising budget being ring-fenced for mobile advertising in some US companies.
But I think it is wrong to think that the mobile internet is going to develop in the same way that the PC based internet did. While ‘all you can eat’ data-plans are starting to become more readily available, they are not the norm. When users are paying for every bit coming down their pipe, there is going to be a big resistance to all but the most subtle of advertising messages. When you’re paying for it, you’re not going to want pop ups, flash banners and audio messages kicking in while looking up times for an airline flight.
The best time, at least on the PC based internet, to give someone a nudge to a site is in search – that’s where Google’s AdSense makes a significant portion of their revenue. But mobile search is radically different to regular search. Where people are happy to get hundreds of answers on a Google PC search, they’re only going to want one or two when they’re on a smaller screen. If one of those slots is a paid for slot that other result better both be super accurate, and ready for a small screened browser to display accurately.
Nobody’s cracked mobile search yet, not even Google. As they say, past performance is not a guide to future earnings.
And, like any good blogger, this post brings in yet another term when discussing the future of the internet on phones – the PC Based Internet. The terminology is bad enough for us technology commentators, so who knows what the consumer thinks. Mobile Web, Mobile 2.0, Web 2.0, Mobile Internet, Web on the Go… until terminology is agreed on, we’re not going to be able to join the dots in the minds of consumers.
The mobile world is still a huge number of islands, connected by rickety rope bridges. While it’s a given that there will be consolidation in a number of areas (and one key area might be in the adoption of MMS (multi media messaging service) to the same level of inter-operability we expect of SMS. This would open up new features on the phones, from high quality megapixel images, video messages and packaging up bundles of data for whatever the social networks websites think will be usable.
The key is going to be the cost to the user. Flat rate data opens up access to the internet, and either megabundles or flat rates for texting (SMS and MMS) will be needed to open the floodgates. The competitive nature in al the markets should see this happen, my guess is in late Q3, in time for a marketing push for the festive period.
Consolidation in the products and services associated with mobile is a given, especially if the hints of a recession this month continue in the markets (can we all say Silicon Valley Bubble 2.0?). The chatter behind Twitter always wonders who is going to buy the service – one suggestion is AOL – but I think we’re going to see Twitter used as a vector to deliver those advertising messages before it gets swallowed up. Other services are going to look for the tie-up. Expect some of the more switched on network providers (I’m thinking T-Mobile and Vodafone in Europe) to buy these services, both to push themselves as content providers and to act as incentives to switch to their networks.
The underlying predictions though are simple. More money coming into the ecosystem, with a combination of even more users, advertising spend, and the idea of mobile payments, probably driven by Europe and Asia. But in terms of the global markets, the USA will make some big leaps to get much closer to the other major territories, both in terms of handsets but in contracts and network services.
In manager speak, the mobile space has been through the forming, and while there’s a lot of [brain] storming still going on, 2008 looks to be the year we settle down, start norming, and use the tools we have for change to their maximum effect.
Our Predictions in Full…
Russell Shaw, Debi Jones, Ewan Spence, Paul Ruppert
by Russell Shaw
January 17, 2008 at 2:17 pm · Filed under SMS, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Payments, Acquisitions/Mergers, predictions
Now that I’ve finally gotten used to writing “2008″ on my checks (I still pay a few bills offline), I guess it is time to act like some of my co-inhabitants on these screens and post my own Mobile Messaging Predictions for 2008.
Ready? (o’course you are or you wouldn’t be here.
In no particular order of probability, they are:
The trend toward “free” texting will continue. Carriers, at least in North America, will bundle texting into overall pricing plans. Not that they wouldn’t raise the price of the overall plan to incorporate texting fees that used to be billed separately.
Twitter will be sold. Question is, to who? Google bought a competing app. Facebook might be a natural fit. I am thinking maybe AOL?
With 3G networks closer to reality MMS will really be multimedia-enabled. You can count on that.
iPhone will lose its AT&T Mobility exclusivity in the U.S. Not due so much to the hackers unlocking the iPhone to be used by other carriers, but Apple will realize the five-year exclusivity window is too long to forego potential revenue from non-AT&T customers stuck in the middle of their service contracts. A substantial payment from Apple to AT&T and things will loosen up.
Cricket Wireless will ally with another type of service provider to produce a triple-play. On my VoIP blog I’ve long been suggesting an alliance between energetic upstart Cricket and VoIP stand-alone Vonage to battle the triple-play offerings of the big service providers. K then, how’s a Cricket-Vonage-Boingo alliance sound?
Five more to go. (Blogger scratches head, a bit of ew-w-w- gross dandruff flakes descend to keyboard).
We’ll see the growth of dedicated Spanish-language dedicated mobile services. I envision an existing cell carrier teaming up with a Univision for a branded MVNO service. That’s service, not just a “press two” Spanish language channel.
More rich media adverts on mobiles. Not on record at especially wanting to see this, but faster mobile speeds, manic advertisers wanting to reach you everywhere- flippin’ inevitable.
Mobile payments will grow. There’s a bit of creative tension here between the mobile Web security experts at banks and merchants that want to “SSL” everything, and the mobile operators who need to facilitate their Web browsers to accept SSL seamlessly. There’s a movement toward reconciling those two imperatives.
More touch screen on mobiles. Apple, of course, is doing it with iPhone, and users tend to think it is cool. So why not in newer models of competiting handsets?
And finally:
Mobile search will still suck. Even Google hasn’t gotten it right. When I perform searches for these sites on my BlackBerry, too many non-optimized-for-mobile sites still seem to come up. That’s not even to mention some search results where you can just sniff the stink of jive mobile SEO jiggering that got some listed search results sites up there.
by Debi Jones
January 15, 2008 at 4:13 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, 2008, predictions
One of the things that I love about the mobile industry and technology in general is the excitement and what some would call hype around new developments. It’s common knowledge that there’s an important gap between new developments and capabilities in the industry and the adoption or even adaption of technologies by the marketplace or what I like to call people.
This gap is an industry of it’s own. Specialists in research, strategy and marketing devote vast resources to giving brands, service providers and others the best possible analysis of this gap and it’s direction or even it’s manipulation. Predictions focus upon this gap and have become a very popular game for the expression of knowledge and understanding by those involved in the technology industry including mobile. Corporate press, bloggers, service providers, hardware makers and application developers have all joined in sharing their speculations about what the next 12 months will reveal for technology adoption, people’s purchasing habits, and the market’s winners and losers.
Who needs one more opinion on what to expect from the mobile market and it’s players in 2008? What you’ll find below is a collection of predictions that will be important to watch in 2008 from their original sources who likely have some special insight into where the mobile industry is likely to shine over the next 12 months. Also, I’ve included a couple WTF predctions just for fun. Can you figure out which are which?
Chetan Sherma’s predictions take a different tactic by surveying a group of mobile industry players and pundits. One thing to note about this list is it’s obvious western geo-region bias.
Verdict: If wishing could make it so - especially for Mobile Advertising. Fortune 1000 companies have 8% of their advertising dollars budgeted for mobile, according to the Yankee Group. This doesn’t bode well for the type of inventory required to deliver on advertising going mobile in 2008.
Nellymoser founder and chief strategist, John Puterbaugh, offers a short list of
2008 predictions for Mobile 2.0, Mobile Advertising, Openness and handsets.
Verdict: I like these predictions, but some will clearly take more than 12 months to be realized. Puterbaugh selects areas of development that will be important, although he misses a few that we’ll see more discussed this year.
The billing platfrom company,
Bango, has offered their own set of industry predictions for 2008. Bango focuses on mobile advertising, - anyone see a pattern? - messaging decreasing as browsing increases, mobile commerce and PC and mobile convergence.
Verdict: Huh? The messaging part shows that Bango needs to read Mobile Messaging 2.0. Between alerts, WAP push, more people with interoperable access to SMS, messaging will not recede just because browsing increases.
IDC’s consumer predictions for 2008 focus on the rise of the mobile internet and LBS.
Verdict: Say what you mean. There are still questions around the terminology and meaning for the next phase of applications and services for mobile devices. When you say mobile internet is that different from the mobile web and how so? When you say mobile internet is that different from WAP browsers and how so? When you say mobile internet is that different from mobile 2.0 and how so?
FierceWireless Europe writer, Paul Rasmussen, offers
Top European Wireless Industry Predictions for 2008. His attention is on changing business models and network technologies. Mobile WiMAX, operator network sharing, the iPhone UI and mobile social networks are highlighted.
Verdict: Cha-cha-cha-changing. One his very first European prediction Rasmussean looks to Sprint in the US. Here’s a tip on Sprint’s WiMAX. The CEO with the vision to initiate WiMAX at Sprint was ousted by an activist shareholder. Bummer.
Also from FierceWireless, but the US version, brings predictions from the US market. Brian Dolan holds his crystal ball up on US carriers including Helio, Sprint, Clearwire, and Verizon Wireless.
Verdict: Dude! It’s not all bad news. Brian focuses mostly on where things this year will fall short. Moto breaks up, Helio perishes, and Verizon’s Openness is absent is a no there, there. He forgot to mention mobile advertising.
What we take from all these predictions is that the mobile industry continues to be fragmented. Many people will talk about and work to bring advertising to mobile devices. The most energizing and exciting developments are the increased focus on mobile by, well, everyone. With the impact of the iPhone on the mobile industry (i.e., new business models are possible, and UI innovation not lip service) and the engagement of the rest of the web industry (e.g., Yahoo!’s Widgets, Zumobi, iPhone SDK, Google’s Android) 2008 will be a year of great and profound experimentation in all things mobile. Some will even find workable advertising models.
