Tomi Ahonen, Alan Moore and me at Oxford Uni

It's not often you get the opportunity to see both of the authors of the seminal Communities Dominate Brands in the same place at the same time (Alan Moore and Tomi T Ahonen) - and even rarer that you'll find yours truly joining them in what promises to be an exciting exploration of Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media.

Not only is that the title of Tomi's latest book, it's also the title of a course at Oxford University on October 12-13 led by Tomi, Alan and myself.

We tried to run this course almost two years ago. Now that iPhones have become so ubiquitous, there may be more readiness for it.(image via w3.org)

Hope you'll know someone who ought to be there! Book Your Place

The following is from the University of Oxford's Continuing Education site.

About the Course

Mobile is emerging as the 7th mass media channel, whilst legacy mass media witnesses a decline. This course presents a journey through some of the most advanced content and media services deployed on mobile phones, in the most advanced mobile telecoms countries such as Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Finland.

Intending to build on the content of Tomi T. Ahonen’s sixth book ‘Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media’, the course provides a unique opportunity to explore the taxonomy of the seven mass media, with an emphasis on what lessons can be learned when newer media are introduced.

The course will begin by examining the overall industry and the consumers of mobile content, before moving on to explain how to build compelling content to mobile, and exploding the myths of the limitations of supposedly too small keypads and tiny screens. The most promising early media content types: music, gaming, TV, internet, advertising and social networking will also be discussed.
All delegates will receive a free copy of Tomi T. Ahonen's book Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media.

Tomi T. Ahonen speaks to CNN - watch the video here

Who is it for?

Anyone in the current legacy media space who wants to understand new media, thus digital media executives in television, print, radio, cinema, recordings industries and advertising; all in the internet businesses who are interested in the future of the web; and those within mobile who work with media and convergence. No prior knowledge of mobile telecoms or media is necessary.

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Me, Tomi Ahonen and Alan Moore at Oxford Uni

It's not often you get the opportunity to see both of the authors of the seminal Communities Dominate Brands in the same place at the same time (Alan Moore and Tomi T Ahonen) - and even rarer that you'll find yours truly joining them in what promises to be an exciting exploration of Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media.

Not only is that the title of Tomi's latest book, it's also the title of a course at Oxford University on April 22-23 led by Tomi, Alan and myself.

The new date (it was originally due to take place in December) means its on the days preceding the ever-brilliant Forum Oxford Future Technologies conference which is held at the same venue on the 24th.

Hope you'll know someone who ought to be there! Book Your Place

The following is from the University of Oxford's Continuing Education site.

About the Course

Mobile is emerging as the 7th mass media channel, whilst legacy mass media witnesses a decline. This course presents a journey through some of the most advanced content and media services deployed on mobile phones, in the most advanced mobile telecoms countries such as Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Finland.

Intending to build on the content of Tomi T. Ahonen’s sixth book ‘Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media’, the course provides a unique opportunity to explore the taxonomy of the seven mass media, with an emphasis on what lessons can be learned when newer media are introduced.

The course will begin by examining the overall industry and the consumers of mobile content, before moving on to explain how to build compelling content to mobile, and exploding the myths of the limitations of supposedly too small keypads and tiny screens. The most promising early media content types: music, gaming, TV, internet, advertising and social networking will also be discussed.
All delegates will receive a free copy of Tomi T. Ahonen's book Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media.

Tomi T. Ahonen speaks to CNN - watch the video here

Who is it for?

Anyone in the current legacy media space who wants to understand new media, thus digital media executives in television, print, radio, cinema, recordings industries and advertising; all in the internet businesses who are interested in the future of the web; and those within mobile who work with media and convergence. No prior knowledge of mobile telecoms or media is necessary.

Course Presenters

• Tomi T. Ahonen MBA, Independent 3G Strategy Consultant and Author
• Alan Moore, Author and CEO of SMLXL
• David Cushman, Author, Consultant and Director of Social Media, BrandoSocial.com

Course Content

The environment of mobile
• Mobile industry ecosystem
• Digital convergence and mobile, 5 industries
• Customer of Mobile - Gen C

The 7 Media
• Legacy mass media Print, Recordings, Cinema, Radio, TV
• Internet as first interactive media
• Communities of Purpose and Long tail

Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media
• Inherently threatening
• interactive
• Seven Unique benefits of Mobile

Clash of the Media
• Print, Recordings, Cinema vs Mobile
• Radio vs Mobile
• TV vs Mobile
• Internet vs Mobile

Mobile Services and Applications
• Evolution of handset - 8 C's
• The Six M's service creation theory
• Widgets

Community and Mobile
• Group forming theory
• Mobile social networks

Marketing and Advertising
• Social Advertising Intelligence
• and mobile advertising

Making it magical
• beyond the obvious with some case examples
• Shazam, AQA, Blyk, Tohato, Flirtomatic, Cameraphone Dictionary
• Summaries, conclusions, Q and A

Venue

Department for Continuing Education, Rewley House, Oxford
First day registration from 8.30am when course materials will be distributed.
Refreshments from 8.30am on the first day plus two 30 minute breaks during the day and a one-hour lunch break.
The course will begin at 9.00am and end at approximately 5.00pm on each day.

• Book Your Place
  

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• The Glittering Allure Of The Mobile Society - Download Here - Essential Reading (jonathanmacdonald.com)

Services and the death of the website

There are some fairly obvious conclusions to be drawn for anyone making use of widgets, rss feeds and the rest of the web2.0 toolkit.

One of those is the death of the website as we know it. By which I mean a website that doesn't travel with you on your browser, doesn't respond by delivering different content to different users, serves the same ads to every visitor etc etc.

Media companies can't rely on creating a site filled with great content and expect people to come. The Mountains must go to Mohammad.

Users want that great content to be targeted to them, and not just via the gift of search. Services that know you and respond to what you teach them is what is required (think Last.fm, yahoo radio etc).

Web2.0 makes the internet about people, not information. The user wants to be able to dictate what content is drawn to them through self-selection (think google personalised home).

Google personalised home demonstrates the widget-as-services model quite nicely as well.

Traditional Media companies have, thus far, been committed to delivering or aggregating content. They must learn to deliver services, too. Make the right services available and users will interact with you.

And if you think in service terms, then part of that is delivering the service to the person at the place it's most useful to them - and that is always, always mobile.

And so, the rush to mobile internet gets a little faster. In the rush, do not expect to simply 'optimise for the mobile browser'. The mobile internet requires a different experience from that offered by most fixed line sites. It pretty much means build another digital experience.

See Tomi Ahonen's piece (linked below)
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Why your mobile strategy is more important than ever

And while we're looking at some mobile stats... How about this one? 38% growth in sms messages in the UK last year. The number sent topped 40 billion.
Yes, that's right, 40 billion. Or an average of 138million a day - that's well over two texts per man, woman and child (no matter what their age) in the UK - every day. And each one involves money changing hands.
There are 50 million plus mobile phones in the UK.
That's about 3 times as many phones as there are PCs - and PCs are considerably less accessible and personal to the individual.

And you think your mobile strategy is how important?

So if you're ready for the migration of web content to mobile content... catch up on Tomi T Ahonen's latest thinking HERE

What's in your wallet? Part II

Tomi T Ahonen's post about the recent Tokyo 3G conference (on ForumOxford - see resources) reveals NTT DoCoMo has scored a rapid and growing success with its pay-by-mobile model - FeliCa.
In 18 months from launch they have reached 8 million users -16% of their subscribers.
Tomi says: "You see FeliCa users everywhere... as you move around town in the subway trains, at vending machines, etc."
Pay by mobile is no longer niche - it's the fastest growing payment method going. I haven't checked recently ((if anyone knows better, do share), but if I were paypal, I'd be hooking in a mobile payment method asap.
Just one more hurrah for the mobile as THE convergent device.
And if you want to sell your print product or digital download to young people - you could be making it easier right now if you let them pay with phone credit. It's a simple way of buying on credit too (the bill doesn't come until the end of the month, after all).
See also What's In Your Wallet - oh a sim card

Apple I-phone follows the convergence pack

Well, finally, and as predicted only yesterday, the I-phone has arrived from Apple.
There were those who thought it couldn't be called the I-phone because someone else seemed to have registered that (count me among them!). We were wrong.
There were those who prediced apple would go for really simple (ie, just a phone and nowt to do with any i-pod killing mp3 functionality). er, no.
Tomi Ahonen on Communities Dominate Brands says: "Well it took long enough. Just a few minutes ago Apple's Steve Jobs announced at Appleworld that there will be a cellular phone from Apple, which combines iPod music functionality with other top-of-the-line smartphone features, a bright big screen for video and a 2 Megapixel camera. "
Read the rest of Tomi's post HERE
It seems even those with a vested interest in divergent devices are falling into line. Who wants to carry two devices?
So how long until we see the google phone?

Sorry, did I say two years until mobile internet rules?

Latest survey from Harris Interactive (reported on Brand Republic, see link below) reveals that already more than half of all 16-24 year-olds "prefer to access internet content from their mobile network provider via their mobile".

Sourcewire clarifies this: It's not so much about the preference for using mobile internet, as about the youth market insisting on freedom when doing so. They don't want to be coralled behind walled gardens.
The message is that if you have a mobile internet offering you should make sure it's available both sides of a walled garden arrangement with an operator.

From m-send, the people the survey was done for: “At the moment we are in a similar situation to the early days of consumer use of the internet when most people used CompuServe as it was simple, easy to use and correctly formatted.
"However, users soon realised that there was much more available to them outside of this walled garden, as companies realised that it was actually very easy to create websites themselves,” comments Chris Astle, Managing Director of m-send.
“The result of this survey shows that at the moment the vote is split, but we firmly believe that as consumers become more aware of how easy it is to use the mobile internet, they will be demanding access beyond what is offered by their network operator. Getting the offering to those consumers right, will definitely give some companies a competitive edge.”

But all this is before we see the impact of 3's new free-at-the-point-of-use mobile internet deal, which may well make inside-or-outside of walled gardens, moot. To me, optimisation full stop, is the key.

I'd add links to previous things we've posted on this, but blogger is playing up again. I'll try later. In the meantime; use the label links below to find related items:

Full Brand Republic story:

What's in your wallet? Oh a sim card

Over at one of my recommended blogs 'Mobile Weblog', you'll find this which takes us a step closer to your mobile-is-your-wallet, by widening the availability of the required technology.
This element of the convergent technology of mobiles opens loads of new doors. Imagine you sell a magazine aimed at kids - who run out of pocket money. Give them a mechanism by which they can buy your mag in a shop (where they see it, when they want it) without needing cash and you've just made their lives a little easier.
One interesting take on the 3G revolution is that before too long there will be more machines communicating with each other by mobile than humans - and they'll probably generate the bulk of the revenues (Tomi T Ahonen, M-Profits). A tip of that iceberg is automated billing.
Media companies wanting users to renew subscriptions may find it rather easier to have a machine send them a text message offering them a new deal - which also offers them the opportunity to buy with one click of their mobile phone.
Try the same with classified ads, display ads etc etc.

Two years until mobile internet is bigger than fixed line

I use this blog as a thoughtpad as much as anything else - and so - here's some thoughts about mobile internet pulled together from the many blogs and brilliant minds I access - so credit to you all (see recommended blogs and links):

By 2008 more people will access the internet by mobile than by PC* (Tomi T Ahonen).
By 2008: Mobile TV reaches 25m users in Asia Pacific (72m by 2010). (3g.co.uk)

Mobile on internet delivers things you can't get on PC:
i) a mobile phone-based internet is totally personalised. Our PC is often shared (family, work restrictions etc)
ii) The mobile phone is always on. Alerts can always be delivered at the moment they are needed.
iii) The mobile phone is always within hand's reach. No other technology is so close to us physically at all times.
iv) Mobile phone offers a built-in payment mechanism. On a fixed line internet we need to set up something like Paypal, or need to submit a credit card. On the mobile we can pay with a click.

v) Give the above it's inevitable that the internet big boys will optimise for mobile RATHER THAN pc.

For Content providers:

Users on the traditional PC-based internet expect content to be free, but mobile phone users expect mobile content to be paid-for.
Collecting money on the traditional fixed wireline internet is very cumbersome. Collecting money on the mobile internet is built-in.
The world's biggest internet company by revenues is not Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon or AOL. It is Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo's domestic mobile internet arm, i-Mode. i-Mode alone makes bigger profits than the five internet darlings combined.

Where will you put your best content? On the mobile internet of course.

Merge the above thoughts with the following trends I've identified re social-networking - and the idea that social networking is the killer app of mobile internet (ie 3G) and we seem to be building an increasingly compelling case for putting mobile internet at the heart of content provider strategy. See below (previously published)

• Users want to tag their world (3G, geolocation)
• People are making use of new social networking tools to re-establish a ‘we-species’ (as in communities everywhere, but with 3G geolocation these communities can be focused on where you are right now, with the fluidity to allow you to connect with new communities as you move through your world).
• Users want to remain permanently connected to their communities (through text messaging if not ‘online all the time’.)
• People are (naturally) creative and want to co-create their content if we give them the tools.
• People want their opinions to matter – and will rate things (including content others have created).
• People are increasingly used to using several channels, increasingly at once.
• They demand speed of response.
• They have an open-minded approach to change and to experimentation (creative hacking).
• Convergent technology is helping to drive much of the above.
• Crowd-sourcing draws on all these to create contributory communities willing to help develop products which can self-perfect. This can inform all digital development.