By way of apology for not testing mippin before leaping in with this, here's mippin's video showing how utterly fabulously content renders and displays, via mippin, to your iphone. Thank you coalface!
Want FasterFuture on your phone? It's a stroll. Click here.
The further ahead you look - the faster you go | davidpcushman AT gmail.com | These are my views and my views only.
Showing posts with label mippin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mippin. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
FasterFuture now available for iPhone
FasterFuture has long been mobilised: most notably via mippin.
Now there's a version for the iPhone, created on Mofuse.
You'll find it at: http://fasterfuture.mofuse.mobi/iphone/
It'll look a little something like this:
Now there's a version for the iPhone, created on Mofuse.
You'll find it at: http://fasterfuture.mofuse.mobi/iphone/
It'll look a little something like this:
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Make this mobile. But will we still talk?
I've just added a new widget at the top left of the blog. 'Make It Mobile'. Click it and you'll have the content from this blog on your phone to take with you where-ever you go. And it'll get updated the moment I update.
The irony of sending it to your communication device is that by doing so you risk disrupting the conversation.
The 'make it mobile' badge is one of the new bits from Mippin. I've been following Mippin's progress - a system which turns rss feeds from fixed line content into mobile sites, since it launched (Mippin plays video from your feed/ Mippin: Satisfying the long tail, extending the reach of the stumpy dog). CEO Scott Beaumont joins the conversation here from time to time.
They are among the best of a crowd of challengers in this space (widsets, squace and a new one on me, kimia)
Today they've updated and the changes make it oh-so-easy to monetize your content.
And as we know from the explosion of the long tail which adsense inspired on the internet, offering an incentive to publish is a key driver for the many millions who will populate the mobile internet.
In this post when I suggested the long tail would impact mobile internet first and fast (and Itsmy.com and Pepperonity are showing the way) I asked for the following to enable that long tail:
1. Really easy creation of mobile pages (on fixed line and on mobile)
2. Really easy ability to change the design to our tastes (and I'm thinking icons/desktop style as well as background colours and layout)
3. Ability to add and create rss feeds
4. Ability to add code snippets (ie YouTube video, google adsense)
5. Really easy share/ creator propogation (ie socially networked)
6. Enabled for social trade.
7. It has to be free to the site owner.
8. Option to offer as an application-based widget.
So how does the latest version of Mippin score?
1. If your fixed line site has a half decent rss feed it couldn't be simpler to mobilize. But you can't make a mippin site or upload content to it from your mobile.
2. The icon and desktop stuff is still illusive - but that's a nightmare to make right for every operator and every mobile, so Mippin, you are forgiven.
3. The rss feeds bit is what drives mippin. They rely on you having a fixed line site already which has them.
4. The youtube video example has now been implemented on Mippin. Add a youtube code to your blog post and it will play on the mobilized verson too. Critically they've made it easy as pie to add admob code, more easily even than admob. Type in your admob id number and mippin does the rest. Need an admob account? The links are there to guide you very swiftly.
5. Easy share stuff - well that awaits critical mass but Mippin is certainly enabled for this.
6. Enabled for social trade. Sadly not (in a mynumo kind of way) but what the hey.
7. Free to the site owner. Yes yes.
8. Widgetised. No. You can't create a widget to share on anyone's phone's 'desktop' or homepage. But there is a widget (now added to this blog) for your fixed line page which makes it a one-click operation for a user to get your content optimised for their phone, on their phone.
So, a round of applause chaps. I'm trying the admob ads on the mobile version, though I don't expect too many to be queueing up to place ads on my content, but I do seek to understand how easy it is to achieve.
One thought/question: Itsmy.com doesn't share revenues with the people who create its content. Their users are inspired enough by two things which make this possible:
1. The owner of the UGC (publisher) gets to control whether or not they have ads of any kind on their content. If they do choose to have ads then they can also select what kind (as referred to in my posts about Mobile Internet in Berlin earlier this week) and in this respect the user begins to think of the ads as content - not as an unwelcome interruption.
I'm hoping that they get to select at a quite granular level ie which brands, even which exact ads. I need to revist Itsmy.com to confirm. Perhaps a more regular user can tell me?
The right brands on your content allows you to show the world what kind of person you are.
It's a nice reversal of the usual routine in which brand owners decide who or what to associate their brand with through where they choose to advertise. In this model the user gets to select which brands WE wish to be associated with.
Is this another example of the intention economy? Trust me? trust my brands!
Since most users in the Itsmy environment are likley to trust their peers more than a brand in the first place, this could prove very powerful.
2. Only content created on a mobile is allowed on itsmy. That means a) it's all guaranteed to be the users own (written, shot, or filmed on their phone) and b) it all comes from the point-of-inspiration device that is your mobile. The result is users share the content they create very rapidly - and upload lots of it, creating loads of advertising opportunities as they go. Being able to publish at the point they are inspired becomes a driver in and of itself, as CEO Antonio Vince Staybl discussed in Berlin.
Mippin speaks to a need. The need to extend reach into the mobile space for anyone who is creating their content on fixed line.
Itsmy speaks to the need of those who are inspired to create, publish and share as they live their life, where ever they are and what ever they are doing (data charges allowing!).
In theory of course, if you use something like shozu to add content to your blog... and your blog feeds into your mippsite, then you can share at point of inspiration, too. Bit of a stretch though?
Wonder if you can turn an itsmy site into a Mippin one? Would that make for an unholy mess or a double whammy?
I suspect the former for a relatively simple reason. Mippin is a broadcast model. Itsmy is a networked one.
No matter how much of my rss feed is published, the one thing you can't do via mippin is add a comment to the original blog post, or even on the version of it that appears on mippin.
You can vote on my Mippsite in its entirety, you can send a link to a particular post by email. You can twitter it. You can share it on facebook. And these are all very socially enabling, all about sharing after all.
But in each case in order to join the conversation I must send the user away AND hope they are also a member of the community in which we could actually have the conversation. And in this respect the model misses out on the creation-at-the-point-of-inspiration power of the mobile AND the exponential growth potential of connecting up the nodes.
This has to inhibit its fit with the networked world.
This is not necessarily a criticism. And if it is, it is certainly one which can also be levelled at Mippins RSS-fed rivals. Mippin is, after all, an attempt to mobilize the broadcast, publish-from-the-centre, world. The fact that it turns the humble blogger into a broadcaster too is perhaps just a casualty of this.
So, for the record, if you do read one of my blogposts on mippin, please try to keep your inspiration burning long enough to get to a fixed line or full internet version of the blog and join in the conversation then. Send yourself a text reminder or email alert (hey Scott - add that as a button!)
The irony of sending it to your communication device is that by doing so you risk disrupting the conversation.
The 'make it mobile' badge is one of the new bits from Mippin. I've been following Mippin's progress - a system which turns rss feeds from fixed line content into mobile sites, since it launched (Mippin plays video from your feed/ Mippin: Satisfying the long tail, extending the reach of the stumpy dog). CEO Scott Beaumont joins the conversation here from time to time.
They are among the best of a crowd of challengers in this space (widsets, squace and a new one on me, kimia)
Today they've updated and the changes make it oh-so-easy to monetize your content.
And as we know from the explosion of the long tail which adsense inspired on the internet, offering an incentive to publish is a key driver for the many millions who will populate the mobile internet.
In this post when I suggested the long tail would impact mobile internet first and fast (and Itsmy.com and Pepperonity are showing the way) I asked for the following to enable that long tail:
1. Really easy creation of mobile pages (on fixed line and on mobile)
2. Really easy ability to change the design to our tastes (and I'm thinking icons/desktop style as well as background colours and layout)
3. Ability to add and create rss feeds
4. Ability to add code snippets (ie YouTube video, google adsense)
5. Really easy share/ creator propogation (ie socially networked)
6. Enabled for social trade.
7. It has to be free to the site owner.
8. Option to offer as an application-based widget.
So how does the latest version of Mippin score?
1. If your fixed line site has a half decent rss feed it couldn't be simpler to mobilize. But you can't make a mippin site or upload content to it from your mobile.
2. The icon and desktop stuff is still illusive - but that's a nightmare to make right for every operator and every mobile, so Mippin, you are forgiven.
3. The rss feeds bit is what drives mippin. They rely on you having a fixed line site already which has them.
4. The youtube video example has now been implemented on Mippin. Add a youtube code to your blog post and it will play on the mobilized verson too. Critically they've made it easy as pie to add admob code, more easily even than admob. Type in your admob id number and mippin does the rest. Need an admob account? The links are there to guide you very swiftly.
5. Easy share stuff - well that awaits critical mass but Mippin is certainly enabled for this.
6. Enabled for social trade. Sadly not (in a mynumo kind of way) but what the hey.
7. Free to the site owner. Yes yes.
8. Widgetised. No. You can't create a widget to share on anyone's phone's 'desktop' or homepage. But there is a widget (now added to this blog) for your fixed line page which makes it a one-click operation for a user to get your content optimised for their phone, on their phone.
So, a round of applause chaps. I'm trying the admob ads on the mobile version, though I don't expect too many to be queueing up to place ads on my content, but I do seek to understand how easy it is to achieve.
One thought/question: Itsmy.com doesn't share revenues with the people who create its content. Their users are inspired enough by two things which make this possible:
1. The owner of the UGC (publisher) gets to control whether or not they have ads of any kind on their content. If they do choose to have ads then they can also select what kind (as referred to in my posts about Mobile Internet in Berlin earlier this week) and in this respect the user begins to think of the ads as content - not as an unwelcome interruption.
I'm hoping that they get to select at a quite granular level ie which brands, even which exact ads. I need to revist Itsmy.com to confirm. Perhaps a more regular user can tell me?
The right brands on your content allows you to show the world what kind of person you are.
It's a nice reversal of the usual routine in which brand owners decide who or what to associate their brand with through where they choose to advertise. In this model the user gets to select which brands WE wish to be associated with.
Is this another example of the intention economy? Trust me? trust my brands!
Since most users in the Itsmy environment are likley to trust their peers more than a brand in the first place, this could prove very powerful.
2. Only content created on a mobile is allowed on itsmy. That means a) it's all guaranteed to be the users own (written, shot, or filmed on their phone) and b) it all comes from the point-of-inspiration device that is your mobile. The result is users share the content they create very rapidly - and upload lots of it, creating loads of advertising opportunities as they go. Being able to publish at the point they are inspired becomes a driver in and of itself, as CEO Antonio Vince Staybl discussed in Berlin.
Mippin speaks to a need. The need to extend reach into the mobile space for anyone who is creating their content on fixed line.
Itsmy speaks to the need of those who are inspired to create, publish and share as they live their life, where ever they are and what ever they are doing (data charges allowing!).
In theory of course, if you use something like shozu to add content to your blog... and your blog feeds into your mippsite, then you can share at point of inspiration, too. Bit of a stretch though?
Wonder if you can turn an itsmy site into a Mippin one? Would that make for an unholy mess or a double whammy?
I suspect the former for a relatively simple reason. Mippin is a broadcast model. Itsmy is a networked one.
No matter how much of my rss feed is published, the one thing you can't do via mippin is add a comment to the original blog post, or even on the version of it that appears on mippin.
You can vote on my Mippsite in its entirety, you can send a link to a particular post by email. You can twitter it. You can share it on facebook. And these are all very socially enabling, all about sharing after all.
But in each case in order to join the conversation I must send the user away AND hope they are also a member of the community in which we could actually have the conversation. And in this respect the model misses out on the creation-at-the-point-of-inspiration power of the mobile AND the exponential growth potential of connecting up the nodes.
This has to inhibit its fit with the networked world.
This is not necessarily a criticism. And if it is, it is certainly one which can also be levelled at Mippins RSS-fed rivals. Mippin is, after all, an attempt to mobilize the broadcast, publish-from-the-centre, world. The fact that it turns the humble blogger into a broadcaster too is perhaps just a casualty of this.
So, for the record, if you do read one of my blogposts on mippin, please try to keep your inspiration burning long enough to get to a fixed line or full internet version of the blog and join in the conversation then. Send yourself a text reminder or email alert (hey Scott - add that as a button!)
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Trying out Mippin's new video function
I'm a bit of a fan of Mippin. It ticks many of my 'moon-on-a-stick' requests for a mobile internet play which will enable the long tail. And Refresh Mobile CEO Scott Beaumont is good enough to keep me up to date on developments. The latest supports video found in RSS feeds.
The blurb claims: "Refresh Mobile (makers of Mippin) and blueapple.mobi Partnership Creates Seamless Video Service Connecting Video in RSS Feeds With Mobile."
"...the service will convert and distribute flash-based RSS video content of any publisher, from international publishing companies through to independent bloggers. The process will see video transcoded automatically to the .3gp mobile standard in real-time for viewing on users' handsets."
What I'm not sure of without testing is whether that means it supports video I upload to this blog AND play videos referenced on this blog (eg the copy and pasted youtube code which makes it appear the video is on this blog).
So here's the experiment.
First (example 1) I'll upload a video of my own to this blog:
Next (example 2) I'll copy and paste in some code (also my own, from Brightcove) and see if Mippin also supports that. Frankly, I'll be surprised and amazed if it does.
If it copes with number 1 and 2 then there's no requirement to change our approach to using video in order for our reach to extend on mobile.
However if example 1 works and 2 doesn't then, for those who want to give the fullest experience on mobile, we'll have to stick to ONLY uploading video, rather than copying and pasting code. And that will change where we upload our video in the first place (why put it on youtube if you then have to go and upload it to your blog, too.)
Might be good news for the likes of VodPod, because you'd upload once to your blog/site then use something like the in browser ease of VodPod to share elsewhere.
Apologies, all this is guesswork until we actually see the result of the test... you are currently walking through the experiment with me!
Stand by. I'll be updating soon.
Right then, so far not working. Scott has come back and explained why (see comments below). My example 2 uses Brightcove (and not yet supported, read the comments for those that are). Bit concerned that the Blogger uploaded one (example 1) ain't working either on my mippin site (go to mippin on your mobile - http://mippin.com - and search for 'fasterfuture' on there, find this post and you can join in as we go!). Scott does say youtube and several others are supported. So...
Here's example 3, David Ogilvy coming at you from Youtube with a clip that wouldn't have seemed out of place in the first series of Lost.
And Eureka the youtube one does indeed work, and very smoothly too. Congrats to all of you at Mippin. It does indeed play videos simply referenced in the rss feed from this blog (ie youtube code). I'm told the Blogger ones should be added fairly soon... Brightcove may take a little longer.
When the Blogger (and eventually) Brightcove ones are live that'll mean any publisher can extend the reach of not only their content and pictures (via rss) onto mobile via Mippin, they can also add video. An impressive and important addition.
The blurb claims: "Refresh Mobile (makers of Mippin) and blueapple.mobi Partnership Creates Seamless Video Service Connecting Video in RSS Feeds With Mobile."
"...the service will convert and distribute flash-based RSS video content of any publisher, from international publishing companies through to independent bloggers. The process will see video transcoded automatically to the .3gp mobile standard in real-time for viewing on users' handsets."
What I'm not sure of without testing is whether that means it supports video I upload to this blog AND play videos referenced on this blog (eg the copy and pasted youtube code which makes it appear the video is on this blog).
So here's the experiment.
First (example 1) I'll upload a video of my own to this blog:
Next (example 2) I'll copy and paste in some code (also my own, from Brightcove) and see if Mippin also supports that. Frankly, I'll be surprised and amazed if it does.
If it copes with number 1 and 2 then there's no requirement to change our approach to using video in order for our reach to extend on mobile.
However if example 1 works and 2 doesn't then, for those who want to give the fullest experience on mobile, we'll have to stick to ONLY uploading video, rather than copying and pasting code. And that will change where we upload our video in the first place (why put it on youtube if you then have to go and upload it to your blog, too.)
Might be good news for the likes of VodPod, because you'd upload once to your blog/site then use something like the in browser ease of VodPod to share elsewhere.
Apologies, all this is guesswork until we actually see the result of the test... you are currently walking through the experiment with me!
Stand by. I'll be updating soon.
Right then, so far not working. Scott has come back and explained why (see comments below). My example 2 uses Brightcove (and not yet supported, read the comments for those that are). Bit concerned that the Blogger uploaded one (example 1) ain't working either on my mippin site (go to mippin on your mobile - http://mippin.com - and search for 'fasterfuture' on there, find this post and you can join in as we go!). Scott does say youtube and several others are supported. So...
Here's example 3, David Ogilvy coming at you from Youtube with a clip that wouldn't have seemed out of place in the first series of Lost.
And Eureka the youtube one does indeed work, and very smoothly too. Congrats to all of you at Mippin. It does indeed play videos simply referenced in the rss feed from this blog (ie youtube code). I'm told the Blogger ones should be added fairly soon... Brightcove may take a little longer.
When the Blogger (and eventually) Brightcove ones are live that'll mean any publisher can extend the reach of not only their content and pictures (via rss) onto mobile via Mippin, they can also add video. An impressive and important addition.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Squace: the latest mobile internet navigator
I've been having a play with Squace this morning - which launched in Beta earlier this month.
It's a Swedish-based play to compete with the likes of Widsets and Mippin
In the same way as both you can create your own sites on it free (so for me, another place to vent the rss spleen of fasterfuture). Like Widsets (and unlike Mippin) you have to download a bit of software. Very intuitive and seemless for my Nokia N73 - as was the case when I tested Widsets.
I like the grid-like interface (it's a series of tiny squares which you scroll over to discover what you want) - it's a good effort at making a navigation which suits the mobile screen rather than following the list-like precedents of web1.0.
What I do like is that using the rss feed to build a site retains the links (even though if you do click a link to a page which has not been perfected for mobile the experience gets shaky. At least the opportunity to point is retained - a key element of the power of the network).
How does Squace stack up against my old moon-on-a-stick measures?
1. Really easy creation of mobile pages (on fixed line and on mobile)
2. Really easy ability to change the design to our tastes (and I'm thinking icons/desktop style as well as background colours and layout)
3. Ability to add and create rss feeds
4. Ability to add code snippets (ie YouTube video, google adsense)
5. Really easy share/ creator propogation (ie socially networked)
6. Enabled for social trade.
7. It has to be free to the site owner.
8. Option to offer as an application-based widget.
Squace scores well on 1, though I think you'd struggle to make a page via your mobile for it. It is very easy online (seconds of your time!).
On 2, halfway there, easy to add your own background image or logos. The grid (very well designed for mobile) can't be changed (correct me if I'm wrong on that, but it does appear fundamental).
3. Easy to add your rss feed.
4. Nope - can't add code snippets.
5. Easy share is very much front of mind.
6. Not as far as I can see.
7. Yep.
8. Not yet - let's see where the developer forum goes.
All in all, a very fine contribution to enabling the long tail of mobile internet. Many congrats - but not quite the full cigar.
How it works:
It's a Swedish-based play to compete with the likes of Widsets and Mippin
In the same way as both you can create your own sites on it free (so for me, another place to vent the rss spleen of fasterfuture). Like Widsets (and unlike Mippin) you have to download a bit of software. Very intuitive and seemless for my Nokia N73 - as was the case when I tested Widsets.
I like the grid-like interface (it's a series of tiny squares which you scroll over to discover what you want) - it's a good effort at making a navigation which suits the mobile screen rather than following the list-like precedents of web1.0.
What I do like is that using the rss feed to build a site retains the links (even though if you do click a link to a page which has not been perfected for mobile the experience gets shaky. At least the opportunity to point is retained - a key element of the power of the network).
How does Squace stack up against my old moon-on-a-stick measures?
1. Really easy creation of mobile pages (on fixed line and on mobile)
2. Really easy ability to change the design to our tastes (and I'm thinking icons/desktop style as well as background colours and layout)
3. Ability to add and create rss feeds
4. Ability to add code snippets (ie YouTube video, google adsense)
5. Really easy share/ creator propogation (ie socially networked)
6. Enabled for social trade.
7. It has to be free to the site owner.
8. Option to offer as an application-based widget.
Squace scores well on 1, though I think you'd struggle to make a page via your mobile for it. It is very easy online (seconds of your time!).
On 2, halfway there, easy to add your own background image or logos. The grid (very well designed for mobile) can't be changed (correct me if I'm wrong on that, but it does appear fundamental).
3. Easy to add your rss feed.
4. Nope - can't add code snippets.
5. Easy share is very much front of mind.
6. Not as far as I can see.
7. Yep.
8. Not yet - let's see where the developer forum goes.
All in all, a very fine contribution to enabling the long tail of mobile internet. Many congrats - but not quite the full cigar.
How it works:
Friday, November 16, 2007
Mobinar 2 and the top 200,000
Just had the pleasure of attending Mobinar 2 - the latest in the series of mobile seminars that Mobinar launched in September. It's an internal emap thing with invited guests.
I was just along for the ride on this one, with emap specialist's head of mobile Ian Richardson in the chair.
Scott Beaumont told us about Mippin (something I was lucky enough to get a preview of at the beginning of October).
Mippin is fast heading towards its 2,000,000th page impression. It clocked its first million within its first 22 days. Scott, who is also speaking at LeWeb3 next month shocked me when he revealed there are already 220+ people who have tagged this blog as a favourite on mippin.
If nothing else, this ought to convince you of the need to extend your reach by mobilising the content you already have - via a simple re-appropriation such as mippin's RSS-driven service. There is clearly the hunger for content - provided it offers a good user experience on the mobile device.
Must be a bit of day for stat magic, because a look on Technorati today revealed FasterFuture has crept in to the top 200,000 globally for the first time. Given that recent estimates suggest 70m blogs are being tracked, that's a nice place to be. The more people who connect, the better the conversations are going to get - the greater the value we'll all share.
Cracking the 200K coincided with this blogs 'authority' rating rising to the magic 40 (where, no doubt, life begins).
Our second speaker was Rok Media's CEO Graham Baines.
Rok floated this week and were valued at $1bn. But you probably haven't heard of them if you, like me, are based in the UK. That's because they do about 1% of their business here. Their big markets are China, India, Brazil and Russia.
Graham described some cool tools they offer on a global scale.
They've got loads of clever stuff - from made-for-mobile avatar-based communities to youtube-style newstreams of UGC. But the thing that really stood out for me was their insight into the markets they endeavour to serve.
They have a text-to-voice service, for example. Sounds like a neat bit of fun? And I've heard of something similar being deployed for dating purposes.
But it turns into something of critical personal and business need in a market like Pakistan - where large numbers of mobile phone users can't actually read the texts they receive!
Insight.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Mippin: Satisfying the long tail - extending the reach of the stumpy dog
Some time ago I asked for the moon on a stick.
Today I saw something which might not offer the entire lunar body, but I think it gets us into orbit. Mippin is in beta right now. Next week it'll be shown in public and go into public beta.
I was lucky enough to get a pre-preview preview, if you like - and VP, product management, Prashant Agarwal is happy for me to share. So go check it out for yourself.
It's the latest thing from Refresh Mobile - the former T-mobile management buy-out team which previously gave us Mobizines.
And it ticks a lot of the boxes from my moon-on-a-stick list.
As I said once before ...the fixed line net was initially grown by content providers of the mass industrial age, the mobile web will explode as a direct result of User Generated Content.
And because of the social nature of 2.0 I expect the growth to be exponential - and to dominate the way the mobile web develops in a faster and more pervasive way than we saw with the original fixed-line internet.
The long tail will wag the mobile internet dog more vigorously than it has the fixed line internet."
And I identified these drivers for the long tail to go truly exponential.
1. Really easy creation of mobile pages (on fixed line and on mobile)
2. Really easy ability to change the design to our tastes (and I'm thinking icons/desktop style as well as background colours and layout)
3. Ability to add and create rss feeds
4. Ability to add code snippets (ie YouTube video, google adsense)
5. Really easy share/ creator propogation (ie socially networked)
6. Enabled for social trade.
7. It has to be free to the site owner.
8. Option to offer as an application-based widget.
Mippin gets a long way along the route. It's really easy to create mobile pages (from rss feeds from your current content - your blog for example, or your website, if you are a publisher). So it also ticks number 3 on the list. FasterFuture is, of course, already available on it!
There are both sharing and rating functions (5) and community scoring edits the 'hits' you find on your portal home page.
Critically it integrates with ad services such as admob (or at least it will very soon) which allows the UGC creator to benefit from their efforts. The ability to monetise long-tail content was a huge driver for the explosion of the fixed web (eg google adsense, the most powerful widget yet!)
Mippin is free (that's no7) and there are plenty of widget plans (they've even got a bit of an in with facebook... watch that space).
This is Widsets on steroids. Where Widsets doesn't allow you to make cash from your rss feed in, the admob integration (Screen Tonic for bigger publishers if you prefer) means you benefit from your labouts.
And powerfully, while you have to download a client to your phone to make Widsets work, there's no need for this with Mippin.
How do they make their cash? Ads on the aggregated elements (users create their own portal of content they want to have fed to them, they get to rate it and share it too (though the share via sms function is too clunky at the moment - but it is early days).
There are no ads on the publisher's content - other than the ones the publisher selects AND which that publisher is earning cash from. This trumps the peperonity model, for example.
They take no revenue share from your arrangement with Admob, google adsense or whoever, either. They expect to make money from their introduction of your content to the likes of Admob. Which seems fine and reasonable to me.
In a nutshell, what Mippin does is allow individuals to create their own mobile portals of content they care about and rate and share that content.
Their marketing plan involves mobile ad campaigns of their own. It remains to be seen how effectively they can position themselves as your first-choice mobile portal.
The publisher (be it users creating their own mobile sites from their blog feeds etc, or publishers of bigger websites seeking to move into the mobile space) are simply extending their reach.
We shouldn't confuse Mippin with something which allows the creation of mobile-focused services fitting the 6Ms of mobile to perfection - as described by Tomi Ahonen (and those who attended Mobinar will be clear on these).
It also doesn't carry links from the original content, nor videos (though it does manage images from the rss feeds.)
What it does do is radically simplify the process of extending reach into mobile - and monetising it.
To publishers, I do not recommend Mippin as your long term mobile strategy - but it does seem an ideal quick fix to get you on the road and to use as part of your strategy. Create new mobile services alongside this - but perhaps use this to extend your reach and make a little revenue - free.
To those who are about to create the long tail - this is going to help a whole lot of shaking happen faster.
Today I saw something which might not offer the entire lunar body, but I think it gets us into orbit. Mippin is in beta right now. Next week it'll be shown in public and go into public beta.
I was lucky enough to get a pre-preview preview, if you like - and VP, product management, Prashant Agarwal is happy for me to share. So go check it out for yourself.
It's the latest thing from Refresh Mobile - the former T-mobile management buy-out team which previously gave us Mobizines.
And it ticks a lot of the boxes from my moon-on-a-stick list.
As I said once before ...the fixed line net was initially grown by content providers of the mass industrial age, the mobile web will explode as a direct result of User Generated Content.
And because of the social nature of 2.0 I expect the growth to be exponential - and to dominate the way the mobile web develops in a faster and more pervasive way than we saw with the original fixed-line internet.
The long tail will wag the mobile internet dog more vigorously than it has the fixed line internet."
And I identified these drivers for the long tail to go truly exponential.
1. Really easy creation of mobile pages (on fixed line and on mobile)
2. Really easy ability to change the design to our tastes (and I'm thinking icons/desktop style as well as background colours and layout)
3. Ability to add and create rss feeds
4. Ability to add code snippets (ie YouTube video, google adsense)
5. Really easy share/ creator propogation (ie socially networked)
6. Enabled for social trade.
7. It has to be free to the site owner.
8. Option to offer as an application-based widget.
Mippin gets a long way along the route. It's really easy to create mobile pages (from rss feeds from your current content - your blog for example, or your website, if you are a publisher). So it also ticks number 3 on the list. FasterFuture is, of course, already available on it!
There are both sharing and rating functions (5) and community scoring edits the 'hits' you find on your portal home page.
Critically it integrates with ad services such as admob (or at least it will very soon) which allows the UGC creator to benefit from their efforts. The ability to monetise long-tail content was a huge driver for the explosion of the fixed web (eg google adsense, the most powerful widget yet!)
Mippin is free (that's no7) and there are plenty of widget plans (they've even got a bit of an in with facebook... watch that space).
This is Widsets on steroids. Where Widsets doesn't allow you to make cash from your rss feed in, the admob integration (Screen Tonic for bigger publishers if you prefer) means you benefit from your labouts.
And powerfully, while you have to download a client to your phone to make Widsets work, there's no need for this with Mippin.
How do they make their cash? Ads on the aggregated elements (users create their own portal of content they want to have fed to them, they get to rate it and share it too (though the share via sms function is too clunky at the moment - but it is early days).
There are no ads on the publisher's content - other than the ones the publisher selects AND which that publisher is earning cash from. This trumps the peperonity model, for example.
They take no revenue share from your arrangement with Admob, google adsense or whoever, either. They expect to make money from their introduction of your content to the likes of Admob. Which seems fine and reasonable to me.
In a nutshell, what Mippin does is allow individuals to create their own mobile portals of content they care about and rate and share that content.
Their marketing plan involves mobile ad campaigns of their own. It remains to be seen how effectively they can position themselves as your first-choice mobile portal.
The publisher (be it users creating their own mobile sites from their blog feeds etc, or publishers of bigger websites seeking to move into the mobile space) are simply extending their reach.
We shouldn't confuse Mippin with something which allows the creation of mobile-focused services fitting the 6Ms of mobile to perfection - as described by Tomi Ahonen (and those who attended Mobinar will be clear on these).
It also doesn't carry links from the original content, nor videos (though it does manage images from the rss feeds.)
What it does do is radically simplify the process of extending reach into mobile - and monetising it.
To publishers, I do not recommend Mippin as your long term mobile strategy - but it does seem an ideal quick fix to get you on the road and to use as part of your strategy. Create new mobile services alongside this - but perhaps use this to extend your reach and make a little revenue - free.
To those who are about to create the long tail - this is going to help a whole lot of shaking happen faster.
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The rate of change is so rapid it's difficult for one person to keep up to speed. Let's pool our thoughts, share our reactions and, who knows, even reach some shared conclusions worth arriving at?
