Mobile devices and Swiss army knives...

I've had several discussions online with Tomi Ahonen over on the Communities Dominate Brands blog. Tomi's not afraid of coming out with bold statements about the future of the mobile market and then finding some 'statistics' to back them up.
Most of the time I only disagree with the premise that a mobile phone will be umbilically tied to a specific mobile network and be a universal 'Swiss army knife', able to do everything that it's owner requires. (David has a more logical view of the 'Swiss army knife' comparison here)

In summary, my differences from Tomi's predictions are:
- A mobile phone (i.e. voice) will be a service, that can be utilized on any wireless or wired device that supports it
- The device is likely to be a collection of components that perform specific functions. E.g. the basic unit might be capable of some services but typically people will integrate specialist devices into a PAN (though I'm not sure Bluetooth is up to the network job).

It does seem that mobile devices are trying to become universal devices, BUT they are also becoming specialised.
Currently, for most people, the mobile phone's primary function is voice, but as voice (as a service) becomes more widely available and cheaper, it will cease to be the driver for purchases of mobile equipment (i.e. a device that is capable of networking wirelessly)

When Apple produce an iPod that is networked, and capable of voice (an iPhone?), then there is less reason for people to buy a phone from another manufacturer.

In the short term, the universal, tied device will continue to encroach into specialist areas (e.g. PDA, MP3-player, video recorder, camera), but essentially by expanding the market, not stealing (many) customers from current specialist suppliers.
This is not the endgame, and it's not over until the fat device sings (or gets so fat it collapses under it's own weight).
Right now it's still easier for a mobile phone to integrate other features than for other devices to integrate voice - but it won't be that way much longer...

Anti-marketing

Mark Cuban recently put out a challenge to get someone to come up with a solution to get 5 million people off their collective butt and into the movie theatre at the weekend. There was a job for anyone who came up with a good idea (perhaps as spin-doctor for the next President of the US?)
It wasn't exactly clear whether he wanted them to go to see a specific film or just any film, but Robert Young, writing on Gigaom came up with a very "touchy-feely" solution where people could hold on to their ticket stub and volunteer it to a friend over coffee (no doubt Fair Trade) and some organic carrot cake, so that they could get a $1 discount to go and see the film themselves. Perhaps Robert values a $1 discount more than I do...

The problem is that the cinema no longer has any unique selling point. Why would I go there instead of watching the film at home? The other thing is that the hype for these films allows us to know most of the story and the best bits, before we even see the movie. I think that the current approach to selling movies potentially reduces demand.

We need to use word of mouth (as Robert says) and the power of community (which he fails to tap) to generate increased demand to see the film.

Think Small.
By releasing the movie early, to a key demographic, and actively restricting the amount of information available about the film, except that it is out there and available to the select few, you create a demand to find out what is going on. You allow increased distribution of the film only by invitation from the original invitees (ala gmail or orkut) and give each person, say, 5 or 6 invitations they can pass on.
By restricting access to those people who are likely to enjoy the film, you increase the amount of positive feedback and by giving the invitations you allow them to create their own community around the film.
One of those who posted a comment on Mark Cuban's site equated a movie theatre with a bar selling beers at $20. His solution: lower the prices! Creating an 'invitation only' approach can increase demand, even for $20 beers, if the 'membership' kudos is great enough.

Let's have a quick (simplistic) analysis of the figures. A good movie might take in $100 million in the first week which would equate to about 10 million people watching the film. If you're seed group was 25,000 people then after 4 showings, your potential audience would be 15.5 million, after 5 it would be 78 million. Through the invitation system this could be tracked and if the film viewing figures are growing beyond a particular rate, then you flip it out to the more traditional marketing, which will allow you to maximize the 'buzz' return (though I suspect that it may make just as much by being kept in stealth). If the growth is small, or not significant then you leave it in the community (but keep monitoring the viewing - Chris Anderson didn't discover the Long tail for nothing!)

People love being part of the 'in-crowd' and that typically means excluding the masses. The way films are marketed at the moment creates mass appeal but it is short-lived.

Of course, if it's a crap film, it'll lose you money no matter what you do. At least with the viral approach you don't lose much money.

There could be a follow-on approach to this, drawing on agile development techniques, where the film goes out in beta, only to be refined before mass release. The Directors Cut (iterative).

It only takes a minute...

As has been shown by all the recent UK campaigns to provide 'Free' Broadband, as part of a bundle of services,it's pretty easy to offer fixed price services for free.
The revenue and margin model is easy to calculate, because you know exactly what revenue you lose by offering it free.
For variable cost services it's harder (have you heard of an operator giving free mobile service in return for subscribing to a bunch of other services?).

But it's still not too difficult, mobile companies have been doing it with bundles (though you notionally pay for the bundle), and online email providers have been providing 'free' service for years.

The key is working out what the average usage of the free service will be. If I have a million subscribers, and I give them free calls (at least on-net), all the time, as much as they want, how much would they use it?
Certainly, I would get some subscribers making hundreds of calls per day, and being on the phone for say, 8 hours (perhaps more), but the vast majority of my users would not change their usage patterns significantly.
(hint: how much disk space/user does Google need to service the 2.75Gb gmail allocation?)

So, how much would it cost me? (answers on a postcard to 'Basic Economics', please!)

Perhaps the real irony here is that in the telco world it would cost them everything, because if you take away their ability to charge for call usage, you take away their 'raison d'etre'.
If they're not selling minutes, what are they selling..?

I have said for a long time that they really need to sit down and work out where their business goes, when the minutes go away.

Geek mobility...

A friend of mine installed an old laptop in his car, mounted behind the dashboard. It runs Linux and he mounts a PDA with GPS on his dashboard that communicates with the PC.
It got me thinking about the state of telematics and on the concepts of mobility.

If I was designing a car IT system, what are the computing features I would want to put in it (and why, from a product marketing capacity). Would you classify an in-car system as (a) mobile? What features would it need?

The key features of the system would be as follows:

• Ability to view DVDs
• Ability to store and play MP3
• GPS capability
• USB Connectivity to other devices, e.g. Camera, phone
• Internet access (ideally 3G and Wifi - with Mesh capability)
• In-car WiFi (so I can attach things like wireless speakers and PSPs)
• Access to onboard computers to record driving/engine data

So, here's some of the pieces I would need:

• Docking station for laptop (for upgradeability)
• WiFi router(Fonera?)
• USB hub
• Bluetooth dongle (or built-in)
• 200Gb HDD
• Serious power converter unit
• GPS box
• 3G phone with unlimited plan

All of this stuff is around today. I haven't heard of anyone having a WiFi network in their car, people normally talk about connecting to outside networks, so I'm not sure how well it would work at speed. However, if I understood the basics of relativity, it should work ok.

If I could then sync my car network with my home network (rsync my music directory) when I get into the drive, I would have a pretty powerful system. And it's mobile. You can, of course, argue about what is mobile and what is not (Tomi).

It might get very interesting if I can have an IM account for my car and on my mobile phone. I could just send an IM to my car to unlock it, or to immobilize it.

Having a WiFi camera pointing out the back would make parking easier, and having several pointing in various directions would be invaluable for insurance claims!
My garage would love to see stats on how I'm driving the car, so they can prove beyond all doubt that I'm a crap driver!

If there were others that did the same, and we had WiFi mesh capability (or Fon), then we could build an adhoc network that would span Bangkok, or London during rush hour.
How's that for a public, ubiquitous WiFi network!?

Ted and Bill's great adventure....

Yo dude, it's all made of tubes!
What, you mean like those straws you get in your Coke? (Did I say that right?)
Man, it sure is tough for Telco Dude, I mean, he's spent a lotta time an' money putting his tubes together and now everyone just comes in an' puts all this 'stuff' through them!
Stuff? Like what stuff, man!
Media, stuff, and internets. All kindsa shit, and they don't give Telco dude a dime! And more than that, Telco Dude can't even get his own shit down his own tubes!
Man, that sucks! What can we do to help Telco Dude, Ted?
We gotta get with the IMS program (air guitar...)! It'll help Telco Dude control all the evil-robot-us-es, and stop them from giving things away for free!
But Ted, we like free stuff!?
No, Bill, free is baaaaaad, free stuff just blocks up the tubes, and then Telco Dudes shit has to get in line. Once Telco Dude has IMS, he's gonna have ultimate power! He's gonna put so much shit in his tubes, we're gonna have shit everywhere, and, it's gonna be quality shit, man!
Yo, Ted, Telco Dude rocks! (air guitar...)

[I wish I could have done this as a YouTube posting with some video editing software, but sadly my skills are not sufficient! :)]