I'm not knocking the concept. Peperami essentially get 1185 people to pitch them on the hook of a $10,000 prize. No doubt an ad agency would bill them more for the creative time. So on the face of it, it looks like a very efficient solution for the brand.
I'd love to show you the outcome but... er... the video can't be shared from the Brand Republic site it's shown on. Score that how you wish (I'll be scoring that very low, just so we're clear).
Anyway, once again, rather like Nokia's collaborative co-creation of a phone, there is only one outcome here. Only one winner. Only one version of 'good' - and that good judged from just one perspective.
And since we know relevance beats quality every day of the week... it's throwing away a load of the long-tail value being generated.
Peperami should be creating a platform for people to make their own shareable versions of the story, ones which matter to them and their mates - not just coming out with the 'big hit' winner - which is meant to one-size-fits-all suit the lowest common denominator.
Every one of the 1185 entries tells Peperami what people think of its brand. But in isolation only.
The process isn't collaborative. It's silo'd ideas in competition with one another. And that isn't how ideas spread (the intended outcome surely is a spreadable idea as a minimum?). What's missed when you miss out on collaboration is that very critical human element - social influence. What does your idea mean to other people? How would other people reshape it? What do they choose to pass on? What do they choose to adapt?
The problem is that the key outcome of this process is aimed at creating a TV ad. When you start with that as a premise, you're bound to take a very broadcast approach; always an odd match with the networked world the idea is aimed at engaging.
Making just one product as a result of a social tech-powered approach to collaborative co-creation kind of misses the point - and out on lots of the value.
It's great for making your product a better fit for the needs of the people you would have use it.
It's great for creating a marketing force for the result - the folk who joined in creating the outcome and who will therefore embrace and champion that outcome to their peers.
It's great for making people feel you are a more open, outward facing, welcoming, brand or organisation.
But if the outcome is just one product, my concern is you've missed out on everything else you've discovered on your journey to making that one product.
For example Nokia's Design By Community project, in which we are all invited to help shape a prototype phone, will end up with just one outcome.
The spec for that one phone is selected by the community each week. From a range of choices, users are invited to vote. And even if (as is likely) there is a long-tail distribution to the spread of votes, only the spec accruing the highest number of votes - the single most popular spec for that week - gets included in the final outcome.
This, like Twitter trends, tells you one thing - what is the single largest grouping.
Yet everything we know about the peer-to-peer network world of the internet tells us that there is greater value in the long tail than in the single largest 'hit'.
So while the single largest group (note, this is very far from the majority in a networked world, while it was very close to the majority in a broadcast one - see 'why hits are worth less in the networked world') may be telling you to make a phone with the largest possible touch screen, 80% or more may be telling you they want something different - be that a small touch screen, a qwerty keyboard, or whatever.
Failing to respond to that, may be missing out on what looks like the smaller prizes, but together, serving global mass niches, they result in the bigger prize.
Watch this mistake get played out again and again as old broadcast ideas get applied to the networked world - where people try to use social tools to bring people together - but deploy them against broadcast concepts.
I fear this may be exactly what our new UK government ends up with as it attempts to use technology to bring more of us into the decision-making process. They will surface and serve lowest common denominators; with the resulting disatisfaction for the majority with the single outcome.
Socialising the processes of collaborative innovation and co-creation means more than just using social tools to find people and to distribute to them. It means understanding the greater value lays in the long tail and ensuring this isn't lost in the rush for the single most popular.
Great timing, since Apple just announced its billionth AppStore download.
The Mobile Application Stores, Strategy and Deployment conference is a partner seminar of International CTIA WIRELESS I.T. and Entertainment.
Ajit reckons (and he should know) it is the only conference to focus exclusively on the business of mobile applications - the opportunities in the mobile apps stores ecosystem.
Featured speakers include:
• Dr. Jin-Sung Choi Ph.D, Senior Vice President, Head MC Global Product Planning Team, LG Electronics Korea • George Linardos Vice President, Product Management, Media, Nokia • Ilja Laurs Founder & CEO, GetJar. • Tim Haysom, Chief Marketing Officer,OMTP • Mike Merril, CEO-Smart Phone Technologies • Ajit Jaokar, President-futuretext • Chetan Sharma, CEO, Chetan Sharma Consulting • Jouko Ahvenainen, Founder, Grow VC International • William Volk, CEO, PlayScreen • Sena Gbeckor-Kove, Chief Technology Officer, imKon
It's easy to think it's all about Apple, but everyone and their mother is busily setting up mobile appstores. Recent additions include LG’s Applications Store and Windows Marketplace for Mobile as well as Android and the Blackberry App World.
It's all come a long way since the likes of Nokia's Widsets blazed a trail.
I dropped my iPhone on Friday. Face down from pocket height to pavement. I don't know if the chill air made it more fragile, but the screen shattered.
It was still working. Just didn't look very nice or likely to last too long in that condition.
So I rang O2. Who didn't know who did repairs. Suggested I tried rivals Carphone Warehouse.
Actually O2 does have an exchange plan. £156 and your phone has to be sent back to apple which will, only upon receipt, supply another. But the on-the-phone 02 people didn't know that.
They could do an exchange. And they would make an appointment for me with a Genius (member of staff) at my nearest Apple Store in Cambridge.
They made it for 3:15pm that day. It takes me some time to get into traffic-choked Cambridge. Even using the park and ride.
I had hoped to be working on a consulting brief that Friday afternoon. But staying connected is key for me. Needs must.
So, making the best of it, I trundled off to Cambridge with 4-year-old daughter in tow. She likes a ride on a double-decker.
And we arrive on time. And we sit down for our appointment. And just as the centralised apple care team had told us when making the appointment, there was no replacement screen available. Only an exchange could solve this customer's problem. But.
But.
They didn't have any in stock.
Let me describe a simple logic flow here.
Has iphone got shattered screen?
Yes
Is only resolution of this a replacement phone?
Yes
Has apple store got that phone available to conduct said exchange?
No
Should you waste an afternoon of your customer's limited time sending him into town on a Friday afternoon with zero possibility of a positive outcome?
Can you guess the right answer?
Apple couldn't.
So, there's a customer service issue here. And I didn't half take up some Genius time explaining that in store.
And my annoyance at my wasted time left me asking a range of other questions I really think apple should have a stab at answering:
How much does a screen really cost? Given they break at the drop of a phone (my wife dropped her Nokia yesterday- zero damage) why aren't Apple making cheap and quick repairs available?
Why do you think mobile phones are the width they are? It's because it is the ideal fit for the average human hand (Nokia's interaction designers have known this for a long time). The iphone's extra few millimetres of width make for a great screen but an inherently more droppable design.
Yes apple, I am holding you partially to blame for all those cracked screens. We haven't all just got clumsy. I've owned mobile phones since the mid 90s - dozens. And I've never broken a single one.
And what about this pricing? £200 for a replacement. Hang on a mo. That's what I paid for my brand new one on contract in the first place. I'm still on that O2 contract.
Yet the replacement phone is made of recycled parts (in a new case). And you get no periferals, no charger, no earphones.
I'm all for secondhand recycling, cutting down on waste - but why do you get to keep all the cash saved apple?
The apple store rang me on Saturday to tell me they did now have a phone for me to go back into Cambridge to pay them £200 for (and they get to keep my cracked one - to recycle and charge someone else £200 for. WTF?).
Over a barrel, I went to get it.
Apple care were meant to have rung me at just after noon to explain how they would resolve and recompense for my wasted time.
By 3pm they hadn't called. I had to call them as I dashed for the apple store to make my 4:15pm Saturday appointment.
BTW: My PC was running the wrong time when I restored the iphone from itunes. Which meant to get the right time on my phone I had to reset the computer's time, restart it, restart itunes and then restore the iphone to factory settings and then finally restore all the content and contacts etc. To adjust the time. Ouch.
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.
So finally, I get a chance to share with you some stuff about Widgety Goodness. And it's all good. I even shot (badly) some video on my Nokia N73, so you can get a sample of some (not all) of the speakers. Here's some stand-outs for me: 1. Yahoo's Susan Mernit (coiner of the phrase Widgety Goodness) via video. What's next for widgets? Your ID/own data being migrated and embedded in widgets. She reminded us that web2.0 really means "we are the operating system". 2. Freewebs Chris Cunningham: "Widgets teach those who try them about engagement marketing, they require new engagement metrics - not CTR or PI. "Widgets are pull, display ads are push. Widgets are about brand advocacy." Chris (who I shared a cab with, and thanks for the lift!) says widgets need both a value utility AND and personal outcome. And he points out that the widget is simply the lastest version of the increasing dominance of personal voice as we've moved from CRM, through corporate blogs to widgets today - and who knows tomorrow? 3. Open Intelligence Agency's Russell Davies: His presentation was more performance than lecture - and a fine illustration of adding value with imagery/sound/humour which is kind of his point. I have video of Russell. I don't wholly agree with his perspective. For example, he discusses (just before the video clip starts) the idea of the uncanny valley - the notion that as robotics become more and more human they start off kind of cute and end up kind of freaking us out. And he takes this idea and applies it to advertising messages. When they have the nirvana of complete knowledge about us what they serve us freaks us out. It makes us feel uncomfortable - cue nightmare visions of the Minority Report kind. But I think you only end up there if the world remains a command and control, centre-out one. If you apply edge-in, community-focused approaches to the same dilemma I believe you end up less freaked out, more helped out. Russell gets 10 mins or so to state his case on video - so I thought it fair enough to make a counter-case? The other thing I didn't get was his belief that ads that add value to products (eg the soft porn of perfume ads which transform a £3 bottle of liquid into a £50 fantasy fulfilled) were irreplaceable. I think this plays to the world as it is. But when we're all involved in the conversation, when we're all involved in the co-creation, is anyone going to pay £47 for an image constructed for them and broadcast at them? So while I get his 'right now' point - and his premise that a widget can't do the job of fooling someone that a £3 bottle is worth £50, I don't think its a sustainable long-run position as the networked world disrupts. The networked world reveals the huckster. Anyway - enjoy his presentation - I certainly did.
4. The widgetizers panel: Steve Bowbrick stuck an enduring image in our heads - The Darwinian Disco (not really sure why it's a disco, other than the alliteration...). Anyway, the notion is that the website building universe is Newtonian - massive, relatively slow-moving giants. The widgety world is more like little animals (warning - mixed metaphor ahead!) scurrying about in the undergrowth, swinging from tree to tree, adapting fast - or dieing. Websites are lumbering dinosaurs. (mixed metaphor over now... and relax). 5. Google's Matthew Trewhella: If only from an insight into the Gadgety Goodness of Google - and OpenSocial. See video.
6. Techlightenment's Ankur Shah on what Facebook teaches us about viral widgets. Watch the video, but the big take-away from me came in the q&as (and I'd put the camera down by then). Ankur was challenged about the 'ownership' of data implied by how some of his widgets worked. But he calmly explained the data is only used when it is functional for the user. ie it only knows who and what you are while you are interacting with it. The data is not farmed/owned/kept/stored. This is a model of data usage (ie permission to use when the user allows) which I expect to become the norm.
Interesting stats: Facebook accounts for 80% of widget consumption right now. The top 20% of Facebook widgets account for 80% for usage.
I went down to Brighton the night before the event to catch up with organiser Ivan Pope - and ended up joining in the co-creation of the conference in a tiny way - by stuffing T-shirts into goody bags into the evening! By the way Ivan - if you've got a spare medium...
Ivan's vision was to pull together some brilliant thinkers and case studies on the explosion that is widgets to try to work out what the uses of widgets are to real businesses.
His team pulled it off in double-quick time, too, and its success means Ivan is busily putting together the next Widgety Goodness, this time in New York in the summer of 08 (disclosure: Ivan has asked me to be part of the advisory panel for that event and to speak at it - so I hope to be playing a larger part in the co-creation of the next one).
Nokia has just issued a report on the trend towards user participation in entertainment and away from traditional media groups. It's a sign-post that points very firmly in the direction of a world in which we create what we want, rather than have it created and packaged for us.
I'm going to replicate it in full below. I have a few thoughts on it - and I'll add them in bold as we go.
Up to a quarter of the entertainment consumed by people in five years time will have been created, edited and shared within their peer circle rather than coming out of traditional media groups. This phenomenon, dubbed 'Circular Entertainment', has been identified by Nokia as a result of a global study into the future of entertainment.
This is not to say that traditional media groups don't have a role to play in this - simply that the content they themselves create and broadcast will have a reduced role. The new role is different. The study, entitled 'A Glimpse of the Next Episode', carried out by The Future Laboratory, interviewed trend-setting consumers from 17 countries about their digital behaviors and lifestyles signposting emerging entertainment trends.
Combining views from industry leading figures with Nokia's own research from its 900 million consumers around the world, Nokia has constructed a global picture of what it believes entertainment will look like over the next five years.
"From our research we predict that up to a quarter of the entertainment being consumed in five years will be what we call 'Circular'. (others might call edge-in, rather than centre-out) The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups - a form of collaborative social media," said Mark Selby, Vice President, Multimedia, Nokia.
Selby continues, "We think it will work something like this; someone shares video footage they shot on their mobile device from a night out with a friend, that friend takes that footage and adds an MP3 file - the soundtrack of the evening - then passes it to another friend. That friend edits the footage by adding some photographs and passes it on to another friend and so on. The content keeps circulating between friends, who may or may not be geographically close, and becomes part of the group's entertainment."
Participation culture. Relevance trumps quality - at least for this 25%
Tom Savigar, Trends Director at The Future Laboratory added, "Consumers are increasingly demanding their entertainment be truly immersive, engaging and collaborative. Whereas once the act of watching, reading and hearing entertainment was passive, consumers now and in the future will be active and unrestrained by the ubiquitous nature of circular entertainment. Key to this evolution is consumers' basic human desire to compare and contrast, create and communicate. We believe the next episode promises to deliver the democracy politics can only dream of."
Of the 9,000 consumers we surveyed: - 23% buy movies in digital format - 35% buy music on MP3 files - 25% buy music on mobile devices - 39% watch TV on the internet - 23% watch TV on mobile devices - 46% regularly use IM, 37% on a mobile device - 29% regularly blog - 28% regularly access social networking sites - 22% connect using technologies such as Skype - 17% take part in Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games - 17% upload to the internet from a mobile device
As part of the research we have identified four key driving trends; Immersive Living; Geek Culture; G Tech and Localism.
These trends are currently sitting on the edge, but as these trends become more mainstream, they will have a collaborative, creative effect on the way people consume entertainment and, we predict, will lead to the Circular Entertainment phenomenon.
Immersive Living
Immersive Living is the rise of lifestyles which blur the reality of being on and offline. Entertainment will no longer be segmented; people can access and create it wherever they are.
Geek Culture
This triumph marks a shift as consumers become hungry for more sophisticated entertainment. Geek Culture rises, consumers will want to be recognized and rewarded - the boundaries between being commercial and creative will blur.
G Tech
G Tech is an existing social force in Asia that will change the way entertainment will look. Forget pink and sparkly, it is about the feminization of technology that is currently underway. Entertainment will be more collaborative, democratic, emotional and customized - all of which are 'female' traits.
Localism
The report uncovered a locally-minded sprit emerging in entertainment consumption and Localism will become a key theme of future entertainment. Consumers will take pride in seeking out the local and home-grown.
The extensive research identifies the trends, along with the technologies, that will be pivotal in the next episode of entertainment. In conclusion, the results of the survey lead Nokia to believe in the next episode; entertainment will be circular.
Notes to Editors
The research took place between July and September 2007. 9,000 consumers, who are active users of technology and own a mobile device [not restricted to Nokia] aged 16-35 were questioned. In addition 17 correspondents from the Future Laboratory's LifeSigns Network were interviewed. LifeSigns network is a community of 3,000 'superconsumers' thinkers, doers, creators and authors of culture. Interviews were also conducted with 10 leaders in different areas of entertainment who provided us with in-depth proven insights into this subject and what lies ahead. Experts were chosen from the areas of radio, internet, gaming, device developments, mobile telecoms, music, computing, legislation and marketing.
I think Nokia has recognised trends we've been tracking on this blog and elsewhere for some long time. Five years isn't very long. Is 25% a big ask? I have the feeling it ain't. I have this feeling because, even among Nokia's own figures, there are indicators that we're already there.
For significant portions of the population 25% and more of their entertainment is already c0-created. These fast growing markets are already ripping up rule books. Think youtube, think ohmynews, think spreadshirt, think mynumo.
What Nokia is saying is that across the entire multi-billion global industry of music, film, radio, computer gaming, publishing etc, 25% of the value will be created by people who used to be regarded as consuming it. 25% of the total value. I don't know what that adds up to in dollars but I do know it's one very big number - and one that can't be ignored.
The big questions for 'traditional' media companies are:
Will this be substitutional?
If it isn't - how can we share in the value creation?
It can sometimes take 20 years for an idea to become all pervasive - especially if there's technology involved.
Which suggests this figure will not stop at 25% in five years. 50% in 10 years? 95% in 20 years? I always expect the future, faster. Halve those timescales.
As Euan Semple says at the very start of the video you'll find below, it is all about connections and connectedness. It is my good fortune to know both Alan Moore (Communities Dominate Brands) and Euan Semple (The Obvious). Both blogs are listed in my recommended list, left. But Alan and Euan hadn't met. The video here is of a brief part of the conversation that happened when they met for the first time when I introduced them at the British Library this week. I was thrilled to be the connection in this case. Their conversation ranges from the power of the network, through blogs and blogging, why they blog and what they get from it, through politics, education, engagement marketing, the loss of control (if the centre ever thought it had any anyway...) identity and trust. It's worth 10 minutes of your time - if you're interested in how the network is disrupting where-ever it touches. There's even a cameo appearance by yours truly... when Euan takes charge of the camera (sorry, converged device, it's a Nokia N73). So here is a bit of content, created at the point of inspiration (ie we started talking, I thought, let's record it) which scores high on relevance for this blog and my aims in sharing the Power of the Network message. But it ain't quite BBC TV quality. Your comments, as always, are actively sought.
By the way, those still waiting for the Tomi Ahonen presentations from my Mobinar last week - we haven't forgotten - aiming to get the first ready to share tomorrow.
The common sense view of Nokia is that it is a mobile phone manufacturer. Those who look a little closer note that is about as close to the truth as describing it as a rubber boot manufacturer (which it once was...).
The deal to buy Twango (click here for report) is extremely revealing. Nokia is clearly positioning itself as a media company - the definition of which stretches by the day.
The Twango deal (an image and video sharing site with fantastic mobile accessibility) makes obvious sense when you also consider that Nokia is the world's biggest manufacturer of cameras (yep, the ones integrated in your converged handset).
They also believe themselves to be manufacturers of computers (yep, once again, that converged device somewhere very close to you right now).
And the appetite to see themselves as a media company is clarified when you note that Gerard Wiener, is the company's vice president of multimedia mergers and acquisitions.
A Nokia phone user can snap photos or videos while at a sporting event and have those images integrated with their online photo collection at Twango's Web site. It works the other way too - so you can view images from your pc on yoru mobile (a la Orb).
And all deployed through your (Nokia) Widset for fast internet access perhaps? And with Nokia Adservice ads against it?
I promised a link to the notes from the Nokia Mobile Advertising Thought Leadership Meeting I attended in London last week. They are now available online, along with 10 industry predictions arising from the meet. Find it all at MobiAdNews.com And you're welcome of course to comment either here or there!
Life will never be the same. The I-Phone goes on sale today. How good the device is, how well it lives up to the claims, is almost irrelevent (as Tomi Ahonen has pointed out in his Before and After I-Phone post HERE) What other convergent device has attracted the column inches, the Radio One newsbeat reports, the Ten O'Clock TV news coverage... the queues in Manhattan...? Of course the queues thing has been achieved before, and the hype for that matter. Think each time a new 'must-have' console emerges - the X-Box launch, for example. And most games consoles today are exceptional convergent devices, which often allow users to communicate through them, too. The difference is that the I-Phone is an always-on, always-with-you, example of pervasive computing in the way the console has yet to emerge as. When has Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung or any other handset maker achieved the same? It is the marketing, the hype and the acceptance of this that will be Apple's biggest gift since it gave us windows as an operating system (picked up and run with by Microsoft). Now the world and his mother understands that a mobile phone is also a viable way of accessing the power of the internet. Now the world knows that they can be constantly connected with global communities sharing information, creating content, reporting the 'news', capturing and sending thoughts and images and (alas, not on the I-Phone) video at the point of inspiration. The consequences of a people empowered by this notion and holding these tools in its hand will be felt in media, politics, science, education and beyond. A test? Could Tiananmen Square happen again in this world of always-connected-communities? How slickly the I-Phone pulls all this off, or not, is to a large extent irrelevant. The cat is out of the bag. There will be no stopping its curiosity.
I was at MobiAdnews' Nokia-sponsored thought leader meeting today on the subject of mobile advertising, and I have to thank the organisers for bringing us together. It was a small but interesting group ranging from representatives of creative agencies, to brand owners, to media buyers, to content creators, to yet-to-be launched mvnos, to handset makers, to bloggers... Some great ideas and predictions were shared, many of which will be summarised in the MobiAdnews reports on the event (which I'll point you at when they become available). And while there was some consistent thinking around some of the barriers we all see, and the potential opportunities, the one thought that stayed with me was that there remains a huge reluctance to let go of mass and centralised control. Ajit (Jaoker - OpenGardens), and I both raised the impact long tail will have on the mobile internet - and the neccessity to create opportunities for advertisers and content creators at this end of the spectrum (a la google adsense). But there may be a more fundamental issue. If you are wedded to the notion of selling mass produced products to mass audiences, you're likely to be tied to the ideas of mass markets, mass media and attention for eyeballs. To really grasp how things are going to change we have to understand that the same thing that is happening to media (ie disaggregation, co-creation, the use of platforms to serve communities of shared interest, setting their own agendas and creating their own rules, content (and yes, 'adverts') will inevitably happen to all mass produced things. How do you sell a mass produced one-size-fits-all product to people who want their content disaggregated and delivered to them exactly where they want it, when they want it, and honed to the interests they self-select and/or navigate to/discover through trusted communities? One answer might be to tailor the advert to the segmented user group. Take a look at realtimecontent.com for a vision of this. It's a brave attempt to solve a difficult problem. But I'm not comfortable with it. I wasn't sure why before. Now I think I am - it doesn't address the fundamental miss-match here - that we're trying to sell the same mass produced product to different people by effectively pretending (spinning that) it's a different product. It ain't, it can't be and it won't be until you let the community of shared interest take a stake in the creative process. Context is not enough. How does that work in the production of things in which mass means affordable - cars for example? Well, on a niche global scale, a group of people sharing the same interest in developing the perfect car for a family of 3, which also uses it for the weekly shop and occasional trips to the dump etc could be huge. Certainly large enough to benefit from economies of scale. If you have that community engaging in the process of design, assessment, testing etc they'll not only become your ready-made market, they also become your ready-made marketing force. They already have a personal investment in the future success of the car. Powerful.
ADDED June 27: Further to the above - consider which have been the most successful/faster growth consumer products of recent years - PCs, mobiles, mp3 players. What they all have in common is that they can be hugely personalised. This may not always mean that you can change the style/look of a device, but it does mean that their function can be creatively hacked to meet the individual users requirements. In the case of PCs and mobiles this is through everything from the software they run to the look and feel of their 'desktops', wallpapers, etc etc. In MP3s it is through how the user chooses to fill them (ie uniquely tailored 'content' for you).
They quote sources saying Google is close to starting a mobile network of its own as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) in a deal with O2.
All sign-ups will be on line - no shops!
At the end of last year I predicted Google would launch its own mobile device. Rumours persist that this is getting closer to reality. The speculation is that a Google MVNO would supply selected Nokia phones with pre-loaded google apps. The pieces are falling into place.
There is much sense in this, especially when you consider the Google Mission statement: "To organise the world's information and make it universally accessible."
Mobiles are way more accessible than PCs.
Google has long predicted all calls/texts etc will end up free of charge - with this it has an opportunity to prove it.
Perhaps this is why adsense for mobile has not yet been launched in the UK?
This kind of convergence seems inevitable. Nokia makes the considerable effort of developing cool apps and stuffing their phones with them - only to have it all ripped out and replaced by operators (retailers) preferred bits and bobs.
Given this eternal waste of effort, it makes sense for Nokia to start its own MVNO - and Nokia stores will carry impressive brand weight in the High Street, too.
The difficult bit will be convincing an operator to let them in as an MVNO. But if google gets the door open, why not?
Nokia clearly sees its network of mobiles as having great value (operating on the edge of the network like pcs do on the fixed line web) - hence their attempts to get AdService rolling.
It seems I may have done Widsets a disservice in this previous post: 'Long tail will wag the mobile internet dog' In that I said: "Widsets.com allows you to choose fasterfuture as a widget to download to your mobile - and that delivers every post as it's made from this blog to an organised rss feed. But there are few design options, no ad model (from a ugc perspective), no ability to add code etc etc." And that is the case for a lone user. But I caught up with Kaj Hege Haggman (Widsets business development manager) last night and he says Widsets will soon be offering a development pack for content owners to have a play with. Using that publishers will be able to deliver a much richer experience more like the Wikipedia widget currently available in the widset library. So look out for that here by the end of the month. There's still no plan to allow publishers to add their own code for ad revenues (eg adsense or admob) yet - but this is (says Hege) because this is still an emerging business. They want to grow the thing first. Interestingly the idea that anyone can create a widget using anyone else's rss feed - a natural assumption for anyone having a play with the tools widsets offers - is ruled out in the small print. In a tipped hat towards copyright law, the T&Cs tell users they must ask the permission of the content owner to use their stream. I understand why Nokia-owned Widsets wants that get-out clause, and I also understand why they don't want to draw too much attention to it (hello YouTube!). I think the joy of it will be users mashing up their own feeds/needs etc and taking whichever content they want to use for their personal use. Which is why, to me, offering a way for the content provider to monetise, is critical. As, I've said before - look at what google adsense (the most effective widget ever) did for the long tail on the fixed line internet... Nokia are really buying into the notion of widgets full stop. Nokia's Ganesh Sivaraman is joining with Ajit Joaker to run a Nokia Widgets workshop in London today.
... even the Mail on Sunday is producing supplements about mobile internet (in it's Financial Mail section). The March 18 issue heralded it as 'The Biggest Hit of the Year and said: "After ignoring it for so long, the mobile phone industry has finally embraced the internet... and it is set to be a marriage made in heaven." The article quotes Nokia's CEO on how his company is 'putting the internet in your pocket'. The impact and ideas behind 3's X-Series are discussed and Juniper Research is quoted saying the value of the mobile entertainment market is predicted to his £42 billion by 2011. So, I guess the secret is out. How well prepared are you? If you thought you were ahead of the game - several million more people just caught up/on. But of course it's not just knowing that the mobile internet is going to become dominant. We've 'known this' since April 2006 (Tomi T Ahonen's prediction) - it's knowing why and how it will do it (is doing it) that's critical. Then you can work out the best possible response. But there's one thing for sure - there's less time to do that today than there was last week!
It smells a lot to me like a google adsense for mobile.
And I quote from the Nokia blurb: "Nokia today announced two mobile advertising services. Nokia Ad Service, is a fully managed service for advertisers to conduct targeted advertising on mobile services and applications. Nokia Ad Service consists of a group of mobile publishers forming a mobile ad network and a platform to deploy, manage and optimize mobile advertising campaigns. Nokia also introduced Nokia Advertising Gateway, a private label service for third party Publishers and Advertising Aggregators that want to extend to relevant mobile advertising. Nokia Advertising Gateway operates as an intelligent switch, selecting between text, visual, audio and video ads - depending on the user’s context – and feeding the ad to the device. "
Ajit Joaker believes this is an extremely significant moment. Read his take here. Alan Moore at Communites Dominate Brands has this to say.
Publishers are offered (from Nokia site):
Our mobile ad server delivers sophisticated campaigns. Publishers can capitalize on the following:
Categorization in Nokia ad network to receive relevant ads
Flexible setup of any mobile publishing service
New source of ad revenue without deploying ad sales and operations
Full technical support to help with implementation
Detailed user profile while respecting users' privacy
Users' data is secure, protected and maintained in our ad platform
The implementation of the service is a 3-step-process:
Step 1: create the order form to outline different formats of advertising,
Step 2: receive ad tags from Nokia Ad Service and place them in the desired location throughout your mobile internet service,
Step 3: access full reports 24 hours a day. Metrics are available on a flexible set of cross relational rules.
This is all based on the theory that there are loads of Nokias out there to serve ads too - they are as much a network globally as the internet is. But if google comes up with something similar, surely the reach will be greater?
A little further reading of the Nokia site reveals: "Nokia Ad Service provides a worldwide reach to advertisers through its network. Nokia.mobi, one of the largest mobile portals with over 100 million monthly visits in 120 countries, has already joined the network."
I don't know about you, but I've never accessed Nokia.mobi. Perhaps its pushed more to users on handsets outside the UK? In any event divide 100m by 120 and that ain't that many users per nation per month. But I guess this is just the start of the network?
What the Nokia plan does have is that it isn't mobile-internet dependant (google adsense for mobile has to be). Nokia will serve ads against content dependant on the way that content is being seen - on a text only page, or video where that's appropriate.
I'm fascinated to try to understand the detail - do Nokia phone owners have to opt in, can they select preferences? I've got a Nokia and no-one has told me what to expect...
Whatever the case, just as everyone expected mobile advertising to be a rich picking for content providers and operators this year, along comes a supreme piece of disruption.
Think what google adsense did for internet advertising and to traditional media.
Think what it did for the drive to generate content on the internet platform too.
Then you get a sense of why the likes of Alan and Ajit are raving.
It's all kicking off for mobile operators. Free calls on your mobile is right here and right now. Over on Forum Oxford, Tomi Ahonen revealed that Skype and Nokia are collaborating to develop a new mobile Skype experience on the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, introduced on January 8. This is different from Skype on your mobile via your 3G internet connection (though that's possible, too, just as it is on the N73 in 3's X-Series deal.) This is making use of the N800's effective wi-fi connectivity to give you really fast skyping - so video calls should be as easy as voice. And that's inspired a flurry of speculation that the long-awaited I-Phone from Apple (though I don't expect it to be called that, someone else registered the name long ago...) will be announced this week too (the CES conference is on in Las Vegas this week where such things occur, I am reliably informed). And, Stef Coetzee tells us, BT has announced its Fusion phone is now going on sale in Phones4U stores and that they are rolling out 12 'wireless' cities where by March next year there will be consistent wireless coverage in city centres. BT offers calls on this wireless network at the rate of four mins for the price of one of their ordinary ones. It's hoping the growth of wifi handsets will inspire lift off. So not only do we now have free-at-the-point-of-use internet access on 3G (X-series on 3), we're going to get wi-fi coverage (at least in cities) which should offer really fast access in double quick time. Surely it's now just a matter of time before an operator offers a fixed charge for it all - mobile web, calls, text, wi-fi. It's one more reason why your mobile will become not only your primary communications device but also your primary point of access to the internet. And it's happening faster by the day. Plan for this, design for it too.
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?
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