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This page contains all of the posts and discussion on MemeStreams referencing the following web page: Social networking goes mobile. You can find discussions on MemeStreams as you surf the web, even if you aren't a MemeStreams member, using the Threads Bookmarklet.
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Social networking goes mobile
by Acidus at 7:03 am EST, Feb 15, 2007 |
The technology executives and analysts here in Barcelona this week are trying to figure out how take all the content found on the Web and migrate it to your mobile device. The mobile phone network operators like to charge for content. One executive, who didn't want to be quoted, told CNN this creates a "closed garden" of content that is controlled by your mobile operator and is dependent on what deals the operator has with a select group of content providers.
I'm pretty sure this will fail. That was the lesson of AOL. Remember all those ads that said "Go to AOL keyword [blah]?" AOL tried to be both an ISP and a rich content provider. Their product was access to a wide range of content, presumably styled and vetted by AOL for "safeness" and accuracy, all in a single easy to access place. This wasn't a bad deal in the mid 90s, when free websites with quality content supported by advertising didn't really exist in large numbers. And even the few sites that did exist were difficult to find because search engines sucked so much. I distinctly remember having to explain to people in 1996 that AOL was not the Internet. So what happened? Things matured. Why spend $20 a month and go to AOL keyword "WebMD" when I can spend $10 a month and go to www.webmd.com. Why visit AOL's software library when I have download.com? Even if everyone at AOL was in the business of generating content for AOL, there was still an several orders of magnitude more people generating content for the web. Suddenly there were hundreds of gates into the theme park that was the Internet, and nobody wanted to wait in line at the most expensive gate. What about mobile phone providers? They are just gates onto a data network. They are trying to provide content their users want, and charge for it. However, they can never provide all the types of content their users want. This is a classic Long Tail issue. You are targeting mobile content at kids. But why? What about the millions of housewives? Coupons, sales, what about recipes? Take a picture of a barcode, and a website tells you meal ideas involving that item. There is definitely something there. This "mobile ISPs providing content" plan will fail as soon as one mobile provider decides to focus on leveraging the content of the entire Internet. If companyA provides the fastest possible access to existing content, put money in caching proxies and into software gateways that automatically reformat HTML to fit a mobile screen they would win. Mobile providers need to embrace their role as "provider of the tubes" and make their money on charging for packets, not trying to decide what I want those packets to contain. |
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RE: Social networking goes mobile
by dmv at 8:32 am EST, Feb 15, 2007 |
Acidus wrote: This "mobile ISPs providing content" plan will fail as soon as one mobile provider decides to focus on leveraging the content of the entire Internet. If companyA provides the fastest possible access to existing content, put money in caching proxies and into software gateways that automatically reformat HTML to fit a mobile screen they would win. Mobile providers need to embrace their role as "provider of the tubes" and make their money on charging for packets, not trying to decide what I want those packets to contain.
I *heart* my blackberry. I think I have gone into T-mobile's garden once. I average many megabytes each month, and I've got the very slow browser. When I eventually upgrade, I expect my usage to increase, and my computer usage to decrease. It is ever so nice to have unfiltered network and email access in my pocket when working in a typical company with a filter, logs, and a strongly worded AUP. I can't (err, I don't) use the phone access for transporting internal work out... I just sometimes disagree with what is an acceptable website to view. I can understand why the IT staff does not like people using external mail... but my phone doesn't break their network. I expect this to be more common in the near future, just like fewer people make personal calls on the company phone system because they have a cell phone in their pocket. |
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RE: Social networking goes mobile
by k at 11:35 am EST, Feb 15, 2007 |
Acidus wrote:
...
Mobile providers need to embrace their role as "provider of the tubes" and make their money on charging for packets, not trying to decide what I want those packets to contain.
I don't know what other people's networks are like, but my sprint phone provides the whole internet. Granted, it looks like shit if the site didn't bother to create a page that's formatted for that size screen, but I can open a URL and have it load. That being said, I don't know that the networks are what they are purely because they want to make money on "walled garden" offerings. Rather, I think it's a non-public acknowledgement that they are in no way capable of providing those "tubes" the way they'd like you to believe. There's a reason sprint barely advertises it's network plans for phones, concentrating instead on the business users with Windows laptops who can get the PC card connection and get their employer to pay for it. If the price dropped and the interface acted like firefox instead of corralling you into the pre-defined options, the network would come crashing down. All that being said, I still love it. I can get movie tickets, weather, search google, and I have downloaded Java applications for Gmail and Google Maps, because they are, for the moment, more functional and better designed interfaces (for the phone) than the pure-web alternatives. Thank you google. My phone's Gmaps interface is a gps chip away from being a giant fuck you to garmin, tom-tom, etc. It does the satelite view and everything. Sadly, it's not likely to get that gps chip... maybe my next phone. |
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