Mobile 2.0 and Emerging Mobile Media Services

Carnival of the Mobilists #120 is now up at Skydeck.
- a great collection of writing as usual.

Mobile Widgets

On the web, widgets have helped transform the way people create and distribute applications and services. Not only have widgets helped democratize the creation of web applications (i.e., accelerated the ability for end-users as well as software developers and engineers to create web applications), they have been instrumental in reinforcing a more distributed web strategy that has increasingly shifted the power of impressions from the portal to the network. Granted, not only have widgets introduced problems related to fragmentation, lack of inoperability between various engines and distribution outlets, they also lack effective and reliable methods of measurement and monetization. As with other nascent technologies and markets we can presume these are temporary setbacks.

In mobile, however, widgets not only face issues of fragmentation and monetization but they themselves have been targeted to solve another problem endemic to small screens with constrained interfaces: user experience. While there are certainly dreams that widgets will one day bring frictionless distribution to mobile, they are primarily being used to address the relatively poor user experience associated with having to navigate the world of networked content via URLs.

I would suggest that looking for widgets to solve the user experience problem is akin to treating a symptom and not the core problem related to user experience. Mobile widgets, I would contend, have other traits and characteristics – other than temporarily solving the usability problem related to mobile user interfaces – that will make them worth watching as they evolve.

Widget 101

Widgets can be defined in general as self-contained, portable, mini applications that often provide a narrow range of functionality (e.g., temperature) within single context (e.g., weather) in a format that can be installed and utilized across many distribution points (e.g., home pages, blogs) by end-users (i.e., without additional software development, compilation or integration).

The following types of widgets are often distinguished:

• Desktop widgets (e.g., Dashboard widgets from Apple)
• Web widgets (e.g., Yahoo! widgets)
• Mobile widgets (e.g., Nokia’s widsets).

It is worth noting that in mobile both phone-top widgets and mobile web widgets already exist.

The origins of widgets can be tied to a number of preceding capabilities, e.g., (i) early web page add-ons such as link counters and later banners, (ii) Apple’s accessories on the 1980’s Mac that included small apps like calculators and notepads, and (iii) the personalized “my homepage” capability enabled by Netscape Navigator and popularized by Yahoo!. Niall Kennedy has more details on the history of widgets as well as a nifty timeline here.

Widgets are part of what Lawrence Coburn calls “The Four Pillars of a Distributed Web Strategy” which, in addition to widgets includes (i) toolbars / extensions (e.g., Google, StumbleUpon), (ii) Facebook Apps (e.g., iLike, RockYou), and (iii) APIs (e.g., Yahoo! Maps).

Scott Weiss contrasts widgets with applications in the following manner:

Not a lot has been written on the size of the web widget market - let alone the mobile widget market - other than suggestions by Will Price (CEO of Widgetbox) that roughly $20 to $30 million is spent on services to build widgets. This obviously doesn’t take into account any ad revenue or traffic generated, or transactions that they drive to various networks and sites.

Widget Creation

There are primarily three main vehicles used to author widgets:

• Client-side scripting (e.g., Javascript)
• Markup (e.g., framed HTML)
• Plugins (e.g., Flash, Silverlight)

Of course these techniques can be combined in numerous ways, e.g., a widget can include both markup and scripting or scripting and Flash. Niall Kennedy has more details on the basic widget formats.

Mobile Widget Enablement

Regardless of how a widget is designed, created and implemented, there are primarily three main vehicles on mobile devices for presenting and “housing” the widget for end-users to find and use. They are:

• Browsers
  • WAP
  • Mobile Internet
• Players
  • Media Players
  • RIA Players
• On-Device Portals (ODPs)
  • Homescreen Replacements
  • Portal / Portlet Applications

Browsers

Browsers, in general, are used to navigate and view various types of content that is typically resident at remote locations and accessible via a network. Most common are browsers that enable users to navigate content available on the World Wide Web. These browsers were based on a content model that assumes a collection of linked pages (i.e., collections of images and text). With the addition of scripting capabilities (e.g., Javascript), browsers have moved beyond the page-based paradigm.

In mobile, there are essentially two types of browsers: WAP and mobile Internet browsers. Primarily mobile players like Access and Openwave have provided WAP browsers whereas Mobile Internet browsers are and will be provided by both mobile-specific companies as well as more traditional players like Opera, Apple, Nokia, Mozilla and Microsoft.

Players

Players, in general, are most often used to play back and render media or serialized scripts. In mobile, there are essentially two main types: Media Players and RIA Players. RIA Players originated as embedded plug-in objects for browsers. Media Players (e.g., most notably Real, Quicktime, Windows) have been primarily used to playback music and videos.

In mobile, Media Players are provided by both operators and others. Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T all have players that can be utilized stand-alone or launched via video links in WAP / xHTML sites. Companies like Real Networks, Microsoft and Apple also provide Media Players in mobile.

On-Device Portals

On-device portals (ODPs) are mobile applications that have been optimized for accessing and interacting with content and information without necessarily using the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) or other markup languages (e.g., HTML) and associated protocols (e.g., HTTP). The two primary types of ODPs are Homescreen Replacements and Portal / Portlet Applications. They can best be distinguished by their method of distribution and core functionality.

Homescreen Replacements are ODPs that primarily pre-ship with the device and provide the primary user-interface from which the user accesses content and information directly from the phone-top. Portal / Portlet Applications are ODPs that are typically acquired over-the-air (OTA) and provide a self-contained application for content and information discovery and viewing. ODPs came about in response to problems associated with WAP browsers such as compounded network latency issues, poor user experience, and the high number of clicks required to access relevant data and content.

It is worth noting that the Portal / Portlet Applications are sometimes called “browser-less” solutions, which really means a network-based application that lets you interact with content but is not a full-fledged browser.

We are seeing both browser-based solutions and ODP-based solutions used as widget frameworks in the market. There has been less traction with the “players” in enabling widget discovery and usage.

It is still much too early to predict whether browsers or ODPs or some other, yet-to-emerge solution, will become the dominant vehicle for navigating and viewing content from the Mobile Internet. The enthusiasm accompanying mobile advertising and the growth in Mobile Internet traffic has led many to side with a browser-based view of the world. Yet, alternative approaches that do not utilize a browser are gaining traction (e.g., Yahoo! Go, Alltel’s Celltop) which could indicate a future in which the browser is present but not necessarily the dominant form of access to rich, interactive content. ODPs, which were declared dead several years ago, are still getting press and are getting design wins from operators and customer deployments. Other evidence of operators looking beyond the browser to provide a better user experience is the recent announcement that AT&T’s Media Mall 2.0 is to be delivered as an application rather than a WAP browsing experience.

User Experience

Widgets, and the collection of various enabling applications and frameworks (e.g., browsers, players, ODPS – defined below), provide an alternative approach towards addressing the user experience for networked, content-based services in mobile.

Both users and service providers have become attracted to the grid-based (i.e., tile-based, box-based) UI method for navigating applications and content packages. This type of intuitive UI has been utilized in a wide range of interfaces ranging from Zumobi’s to Apple’s iPhone. I’ll have to take my hat off to Harry Kargman (www.kargo.com) who not only has a patent on what he calls the 9-grid but has been a strong proponent of this method of navigation for over 8 years. This method of UI has also become the de facto standard for presenting and enabling the discovery of various mobile widgets.

While the user experience is primarily determined by the design and implementation of given application or service, it is also driven by the underlying technology, which in return is driven by the “paradigm” of the approach (i.e., browser, player, ODP). Beyond the core elements of design, which is not my direct area of expertise, I find it useful to distinguish between the core elements of user experience and the underlying technology critical to enabling the user experience.

Core elements of user experience related to rendering and presenting widgets and widget frameworks / containers:

• Usability (i.e., ease of use, navigation, intuitiveness)
• Configurability (i.e., personalization, customization)
• Responsiveness (i.e., perceived speed, degree of interaction)
• Accessibility (i.e., findability, discoverability)
• Richness (i.e., compelling, high-quality)

Underlying technology critical to enabling user experience via widget enabling engines:

• Protocol (e.g., RTSP, HTTP, TCP)
• Caching (e.g., adaptive, predictive)
• Transfer modes (e.g., synchronous, asynchronous)
• Data Encoding (e.g., XML, binary / serialized)
• Media Encoding (MPEG-4, H-264, AAC, AMR-WB)

Creating and Finding Mobile Widgets

Methods for creating widgets are relatively straightforward and the leading mobile widget providers have essentially based this on what has worked on the web (e.g., Yahoo! / Pixoria’s Konfabulator).

The methods for distributing and enabling end-users to find mobile widgets, however is messy and extremely fragmented. Not only does the problem of distribution and findability relate to the other general problems of finding content via mobile devices, but also contains additional complexity. I have written about the findability problem in mobile.

Part of the complexity surrounding mobile widgets is due to the fact that widgets often require a “container” application for their discovery and utilization. I find it useful to distinguish between empty containers and full containers when it comes to distributing widgets within mobile. In a full container model, you have an existing portal that has a variety of content (e.g., Yahoo! Go). Presumably, given that it has content, the application has been downloaded and has achieved relatively wide distribution. Then, widgets become an add-on to this “full container”. In this model, the widget provider benefits from the fact that the container is widely distributed and already exists on a number of handsets. In an empty container model (e.g., Nokia Widsets), the widget itself must be so compelling that the user is enticed to download the entire widget engine in order to utilize it.

In their white paper on mobile widgets, little springs design articulated areas that are impeding traction with widgets: (i) lack of common terminology – users need to know what exactly they are getting, (ii) lack of perceived value – what the user is getting of why is it relevant to them, and (iii) lack of immediate access by the user, i.e., remove their dependence on a separate free-standing application and therefore ability to use them directly from the phone top.

Mobile Widgets – the Net Net

It would be short sighted to believe that the main purpose of widgets is to solve the user experience problem in mobile. Providing a better user experience comes down to people that truly understand the combination of design and mobility. I would contend that the value widgets could bring to mobile comes down to the following:

• Mobile service extensibility
• The democratization of mobile content and service creation
• Better distribution and syndication of mobile content and services

Mobile service extensibility includes a wide range of vehicles for being able to add value to a service or application after it has been deployed. This includes not only widgets but other forms of micro-sites and integrated add-on environments.

With regards to the democratization of mobile application creation, I believe it is imperative that people are able to create mobile applications and services using their own tools and that they are based on standard web technologies. Furthermore, similar to the power that Frontpage brought to web site creation; widget-authoring environments (e.g., the web-based tools for creating and distributing widgets) and aggregation sites will increasingly enable end-users to more easily create, personalize and distribute applications and content.

When contrasted to the desktop or laptop experience, (i) the user interaction model is fundamentally different on mobile (i.e., without a keyboard and a mouse), (ii) the consumer touch points have the ability to be more tightly integrated (e.g., talking, texting, sending, receiving, listening, viewing), and (iii) mobility itself is an entirely different experience than being portable and / or always-on.

It seems self-evident that the mobile experience will certainly lead to more medium-conducive forms of content and service syndication. The question is whether widgets will round out this trifecta – I am still coming down after being in Vegas for CTIA – by providing better mobile service distribution and syndication.

Carnival of the Mobilists 118 is now up at Mobile Point View by Paul Ruppert.
- a great collection of writing as usual.

I propose using the distinction between “place” and “location” as a useful framework for making comparisons between Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0 in general, and location and locale, in particular. During a roundtable (”Web 2.0 Hits the Handset”) this week hosted by Airwide and Mobile Messaging 2.0, Tim Solt (from go2 media) introduced the distinction between location and locale to highlight the difference between a geo-location and where you are at a given point in time (e.g., Caesars in Vegas).

This clearly relates to the importance of “context” in mobile, which I recently wrote about in Context Is King. It also relates to the difference between the general and the particular, the objective and subjective, etc.

Post-modern geography highlights the difference between a place (my house) and a location (Princeton, NJ is located in the Western Hemisphere at 40.5 degrees latitude and 74.3 degrees longitude). Location is essentially a set of functional relationships whereas place captures the specificity and subjectivity of location. My house is much more than a location; it is a place that is infused with meaning and context.

Location is one element of place. Similarly, listening to music is not merely sound waves within some three-dimensional environment - a Cartesian space where everything can be located on a uniform grid. For me, listening to Scott Joplin’s Heliotropes, John Zorn’s Naked City or Bill Evan’s A Simple Matter of Conviction all connote distinct spaces of listening infused with past experiences of listening, performing and experiencing this music in particular places and contexts.

I contend that Mobile 2.0, when compared to Web 2.0, has more to do with providing users a personalized, localized and ever-present experience to the social web. On the phone you are able to create and consume content in a much wider array of places and contexts. Connecting wirelessly via a laptop is certainly liberating because it is portable but remains an entirely different experience; being mobile is more than simply being un-tethered.

Internet vs. Mobile

Prior to the roundtable on Web 2.0 on the Handset, Steve Bratt (CEO fo W3C) presented the following comparison between the Internet in 1994 and Mobile Data Services as of 2005.

Web 1.0, 2.0 vs. Mobile 2.0

To continue with this style of comparison, I suggest the following distinctions between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0.

W3C and the semantic web

According to Steve Bratt and the W3C, we are moving from a Web of linked documents to “one web” of “creators and consumers” (i.e., Web 2.0) with linked data and services from everyone to everyone (Web 3.0 – the semantic web).

With regards to mobile, I contend that concept of “one web” does not presuppose a browser-based solution on the phone. Steve reinforces this concept by suggesting that the “one web” may involve different user interfaces and experiences but what is common across platforms is that people are accessing the same data with some type of “thematic consistency.”

Widespread adoption of Mobile 2.0

The overarching question that was posed during the Airwide Solutions and Mobile Messaging 2.0 roundtable (“Web 2.0 Hits the Handset” video coverage here), was what does the mobile industry still have to overcome in order to achieve widespread adoption of Web 2.0 from the consumer market?

My answer to this question was consistent with other posts I’ve done on Mobile 2.0. The enablers and drivers for Mobile 2.0 are:

• ubiquitous wireless broadband
• frictionless distribution
• reasonable access fees (e.g., flat-rate pricing)
• open, enabling platforms for service creation

The industry also needs to continue to push for standards and interoperability, i.e., consistent interfaces to ad platforms, social networks, messaging infrastructure and content across mobile and PC).

The Web 2.0 Round Table Final Comments

I had the good fortune to sit next to Rudy De Waele and was at a table hosted by Paul Ruppert.

Steve Bratt provided a succinct summary of the observations raised during the roundtable:

• One web becomes more possible as wireless bandwidth gets more plentiful and devices get more capable
• Users are spoiled due to bandwidth and capabilities they currently get from the Web
• We must make the experience seamless
• Ads need to be better targeted and relevant in mobile
• Personalization is important
• The are many concerns about privacy
• Search and discovery needs to be done efficiently
• Carrier interoperability is critical and carriers don’t need to be dumb pipes

These comments are consistent with Arun Sarin’s (CEO of Vodafone) CTIA keynote. Although he made a similar speech at the Mobile World Congress in February, his points are worth reiterating.

Sarin’s main point is that “the Internet on mobile is the new, new thing.” The increase in data revenues across the Vodafone properties certainly reinforces this contention. Furthermore, “the mobile phone will be the primary touchpoint for continuous use of web services.” He outlined the following challenges to the industry:

• We must move from dozens to 3-5 operating systems
• We need to invest in wireless broadband networks. Furthermore, WiMax should be folded into the TDD section of the LTE standard
• We have to continue to build out better customer information systems and customer relationship management systems.

Finally, Sarin succinctly summarized the key drivers for mobile data services, whether they are communication, entertainment, or mobile Internet services

• Speed (i.e., wireless broadband at speeds moving updwards to 14.4 and 28.8 mbits)
• Simplicity (simple plans and easy to user products and services)
• Value (bundled services)

Carnival of the Mobilists 116 is now up at Situational Marketing
- a great collection of writing as usual.

Verizon Wireless is essentially pursuing a two-pronged strategy. They continue to pursue their existing retail wireless business that is likely to remain a somewhat walled-garden approach to content (e.g., akin to early AOL or akin to a Cable model). In parallel, they will pursue what they are calling their Open Development Initiative (ODI).

This post will focus on putting their ODI in context in terms of the long-standing discussion about openness in mobile.

Verizon’s ODI

The following summary is based on my notes from yesterday’s Open Development Conference in New York City. If you viewed the webcast or attended in person, feel free to skip to the next section.

Verizon has announced three models as part of their Open Development Initiative (ODI):

• Retail
• Wholesale
• Custom

In the retail model, a third-party can be responsible for creating, marketing, distributing and selling of new devices, but not the actual voice, data or content service. After the device is certified and is activated (e.g., by some retail outlet), Verizon handles the billing and customer service directly with the subscriber. The third-party is responsible for submitting and responding to the Verizon testing and certification procedure. In short, the retail model enables companies to create and sell new devices that run on the Verizon network.

In the wholesale model, a third-party is can be responsible for creating, marketing, distributing and selling of both devices and services. The certification process is similar to that described above. With regards to billing, content and customer service, Verizon provides the reporting and subscriber information to the third-party, who is then responsible for handling the billing and customer service with the subscriber directly. In short, the wholesale model enables companies to create and deploy devices and services that utilize Verizon’s network. We have seen aspects of their wholesle ODI strategy already via their wholesale network relationships (e.g., Amp’d).

The custom model is a bucket for anything that does not fit squarely into the retail or wholesale model. One example of a custom model would be a device that comes bundled with data capabilities and as would not require a Verizon service contract. Another example would be third-parties that not only wanted to create devices and use Verizon’s network on a wholesale basis but also want to access various Verizon platforms should as location, messaging and content (e.g., music catalog).

Verizon is positioning the value of its networks and platforms. They will provide a voice and data network and will ensure a stable core IP network that will operate consistently as they evolve from their 3G to 4G RF networks.

According to Verizon, the key things they want to accomplish with their device requirements is to (i) protect their network and their customers, (ii) make sure the specs were not more rigorous than their current retail specs, and (iii) want to base it on industry standards as much as possible. The certification process is likely to be two 4-week processes (depending on the readiness of the device). The device certification process is divided into three stages: pre-certification, certification and maintenance. The remaining four weeks is dedicated to network certification which will likely be handled by third-parties on behalf of Verizon.

Often when describing open networks such as the Internet, the OSI “stack” is used as a point of reference. In this case, 4 of the 7 layers are most relevant: the application layer (e.g., the Web), the transport layer (e.g., TCP), the Internet layer (e.g., IP) and the physical layer (e.g., Ethernet). Using a variant of the OSI stack, Verizon has articulated the four layers that they focus on in their current wireless retail model: applications, middleware, operating systems and radio hardware. They emphasize that the focus of the ODI specification will be in the hardware and network access.

Openness Revisited

In my earlier post on openness, Two by Six Degrees of Openness, I articulate six types of openness from which to distinguish various “open” mobile platforms and services. This has been further refined by Epiphany Vera and used as a basis for discussion at Sprint’s strategy session led by Russ McGuire, director of corporate strategy at Sprint.

Here are the updated types and metrics of openness:

• A. Types of Openness
  1. Open Device OS & Middleware
     Do 3rd party developers have access to all the operating system and middleware APIs?
  2. Open Development
     Can 3rd party developers develop applications without relying on the mobile operators and device manufactures for API unlocking, certification, verification and/or signing?
  3. Open Distribution
     Can content distributors and companies directly market and deliver applications and services to the consumer
     (i) without explicit approval from the network operator
     (ii) using any billing method of their choice
     (iii) with full access to network features
  4. Open Device Network Association
     Can a device be used with access accounts from different operators and on different types of networks?
• B. Key Metrics of Openness
  1. Open & Easy
     How easy is it to understand and use any APIs and processes associated with the different Factors of Openness?
  2. Open with Minimal Tariffs
     How significant are the costs associated with taking advantage of any of the different aspects of the Factors of Openness?

How open is Verizon’s ODI?

With regards to the simple taxonomy suggest above, here is how Verizon’s ODI can be described in terms of the types of openness:

• Open Device OS & Middleware - Verizon Wireless will not directly be specifying or providing an “open OS or middleware environment.” In this case, the degree of “device openness” will be entirely dependent on the third-party device provider.
• Open Development - Verizon Wireless will not have any control over the application and content development (with the exception of their existing retail wireless business and possibly some scenarios under the “custom model” described above), so the degree of “open development” will be entirely dependent on the third-party device provider.
• Open Distribution - Verizon Wireless will not have any control over what degree of openness the third-party device and service providers will have on the ability for content providers to market and deliver applications and services to the consumer. With regards to Verizon’s current wireless retail business, it is essentially business as usual with the exception of probably a wider range of devices coming to market faster and being available through a wider range of retail outlets. For the most part, they will still be limited by their existing content and application platforms (e.g., Qualcomm’s BREW and MediaFlo). In terms of wholesale offerings. We can use previous MVNOs somewhat as a proxy for what we can expect. For example, we can get a sense of what types of content and services can be provided and at what price when a third-party is paying wholesale prices for voice and data network. Given the premium that third-party service providers are likely to pay for data access from Verizon, it would be highly unlikely for any of them to truly “open” up access to content and services as we see from the various Wi-Fi and wired Internet access.
• Open Device Network Association - Verizon Wireless will not have any control over whether devices can be used on other networks. This aspect of openness will take longer to unfold and will depend on whether other networks agree on the specs that Verizon has selected and how industry-standard they are.

In terms of metrics, we can expect the following:

• Open & Easy - it is too early to tell how “open and easy” it is to create and deploy new devices. My sense is that current manufacturers will find it business as usual in terms of device specs and certification. It will, however, enable them to push more product out to the market without being directly controlled by the group within Verizon that determines handset roadmaps.
• Open with Minimal Tariffs - in terms of “open with minimal tariffs”, we will have to wait and see how the wholesale pricing is received. Again, we should look at MVNOs as a proxy for this. It is likely that the key early innovation will be in the range of enterprise devices and services that come to market and not consumer and entertainment offerings.

Some Final Thoughts - Open / Closed vs. Control

I’ve been digging into Galloway and Thacker’s The Exploit: A Theory of Networks over the past couple of days. I’ve been dissatisfied with the ability to use an open / closed distinction as a vehicle for elucidating various emerging mobile services and platforms.

Some key points that Galloway and Thacker make that relate to openness include:

• Open versus Closed
  • Open systems are associated with freedom and political transparency.
  • Closed systems are generally created by commercial and state interests. Companies control their proprietary technologies in the marketplace. They profit on control and scarcity
  • Trying to look at the opposite of closed and open is flawed. Instead of open / closed opposites; we suggest an examination of the alternative logics of control
• Logics of Control
  • Open control logics – those associated with non-proprietary computer code or with Internet protocols. They operate using an informatic (material) model of control.
  • Closed logics – operate primarily using a social model of control. For example, DRM licenses establish relationships between producers and consumers (i.e., a social relationship) by specific legal realities.

What I draw from this is that the logics of control must be articulated together with the degree of openness. In the case of Verizon wireless, there are two key areas of control that Verizon maintains in their ODI: (i) the certification process and, (ii) the use of their network (i.e. controlled by their wholesale pricing and use of proprietary technologies and standards that they select). The amount of control and types of control an operator wields over their network is far more indicative of how it will evolve, the rate of growth, and the types of services and innovation that will emerge. Clearly, openness alone will not yield transparency and freedom.

Verizon’s ODI is a welcome step forward and will certainly drive more innovation than the mere Carterphone style openness that gave us the FAX, PBX and the modem. Yet, it falls short of a fully open devices / networks coupled with open platforms / services. The goal of ODI is to drive innovation by enabling devices and services at the edge of the network. The rate of innovation being driven on the Internet via both networked devices and “open runtime” platforms is staggering. Galloway and Thacker describe an “open runtime” as an “open articulation, open interoperability, open practice, open becoming.” Marc Andreessen, in his post on The Three kinds of Platforms You Meet on the Internet, would call this type of a “runtime environment” a “Level 3″ platform.

We have clearly seen the power of the “web as platform,” will mobility come to represent mere access to this platform or will we see something more powerful emerging at the intersection of these “open runtime” platforms / services together with open devices and networks.

Carnival of the Mobilists 115 is now up at blog.andrewgrill.com
- great collection of writing as usual.

I had the opportunity to hear Anssi Vanjoki (Nokia Executive VP) speak recently at GDC Mobile. In the past, I’ve written about rich Internet application platforms and mobile device middleware. I thought I would take this opportunity to begin to address the various managed service offerings emerging in mobile, starting with Nokia.

I will focus most of this post summarizing my understanding of Nokia’s strategy and then attempt to put “context” in context.

As a matter of convention for this post, when I use italics I am quoting Anssi verbatim (at least according to what I wrote down while taking notes during his talk).

Some terminology and some data

Throughout Nokia’s recent history as a device manufacturer they have endeavored to emphasize that they are no longer merely selling phones. This makes sense since the term “phone” connotes voice and talking. As such, they have gone to great lengths to assert that they are the largest provider of portable music players, the largest multimedia computer manufacturer, consumer durable product distributor, etc. Mobile devices have become powerful multimedia computers.

The emphasis of late for Nokia is “screens”. I am not going to talk to you about phones but about screens. The mobile phone is the 4th screen. Welcome to the 4th screen. By using the term “screen,” Nokia is able to unite the “screens,” i.e., the multiple communication and media platforms.

Nokia’s Vision

Nokia is a world leader in mobility driving transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. There are 1B consumers with a Nokia device in their pocket.

Nokia’s vision is a world where everyone can be connected. I’d add that this connectivity will happen via a small number of screens that mediate our experiences. And, of course Nokia plans on playing a central role in providing services to these screens. Nokia provides 1B of the roughly 3B phones worldwide. They estimate that there will be 4B phones by 2009 out of a total of 6.5B people.

The opportunity for Nokia is to capitalize on their 1B consumers. They want to make 1B consumers upgradeable and into a new environment. This new environment resides on the web and is called “Ovi” - which means “door” in Finnish. This ambitious plan includes using Ovi as an umbrella brand and destination for Nokia’s services - games, music, videos & tv, contacts, maps, photos, Internet, etc. Ovi will be accessible on the web via a PC and also be tailored to be accessed from the small multimedia computer. Ovi will be accessible through non-Nokia devices.

The Internet and the Web NG

To state the obvious, Nokia has observed that mobile device will become our primary interface to Internet and social networks. Mobile devices are mobilizing social networking and Web 2.0. Nokia uses the term “Web NG” to denote the emerging online experiences in which we mix up reality with virtual reality.

The Nokia Executive VP defines Web NG as a contextual presence where we are extending our souls to be part of the online experience. He added that reality will further be meshed up with virtuality.

The concept of Web NG (or Web-NG) has been around since 2006. More recently, GTF “coined” the concept to designate the point “when web consumers can directly access the source data they need, manipulate it in the application of their choice, on the device they have to hand.

Context and Maps

According to Nokia, the mobile phone is a 24/7-presence machine through which I can reflect my context (awareness) to other people. I am aware that I am in San Francisco at a developer conference. I am aware that I my heart rate is about 150 cause I am excited. (NOTE: recall that the italics are quotes from Vanjoki, not that I wasn’t excited listening to the speech. In fact I found it quite exciting, just not to the point where my heart rate ran to 150).

It is about context. Bringing context to Web 2.0.

One core tenant surrounding Nokia’s concept of “context” is the map. The highest and lowest level of abstraction is a map.

We should probably take a moment to briefly digress into maps and simulacra. Baudrillard, in his essay “The Precession of Simulacra”, recounts the Borges fable in which a cartographer draws a map in such detail that it ends up exactly covering the real territory of the empire (i.e., 1’ = 1’).

The map frays as the empire declines. The reality and the abstraction (map) decline together.

In this fable, neither the representation (the map) nor the reality remains. For Baudrillard, a simulacra is a copy that has no original. Much like the concept of Web NG, Baudrillard uses this fable to illustrate that there is a blurring between the map and the territory, reality & virtual reality. As such, he coined the term “hyperreal” to convey the idea when we cannot distinguish reality from fantasy, e.g., in which the map “precedes the territory.” While this sounds quite academic, it does not take much to imagine that media can radically alter (shape and filter) events and experiences.

Back to context … there seems to be an interesting “give and take” between mobile phones providing a context (i.e., a grounding in reality) and them aiding in the blurring of reality / hyperreality. The use of contextual information should simplify the process of content discovery, i.e., discovering content in context. Furthermore, mobile phones will enable us to annotate media (e.g., photos, recordings) with contextual information. We can annotate, stop and recall based on time, place and other contextual information. When it comes to gaming, “context” becomes a method for controlling and enhancing an experience in a multi-player online world / game.

Mobile NG / Mobile 2.0

I have written other posts about Mobile 2.0 and the social web. The social web allows consumers to freely consume, create and combine content. Mobile 2.0 services integrate the social web with the core foundations of mobility – personal, localized, always-on and every-present.

I think Nokia is spot on by asserting that mobility itself is just an element of context.

• what I am
• who I am
• where I am
• what I do
• what are my relations

I remain optimistic that Mobile 2.0 services, if done right, will integrate the full range of mobile consumer touch points (talking, texting, capturing, sending, listening, viewing) in context.

As a final thought, there seems to be some inconsitencies that arise when you combine context and Web NG. For example, if we conceptually mash-up Nokia’s idea of context and their belief that devices (formerly known as mobile phones) will drive Web NG (i.e., the concomitance of reality / virtual reality), you end up with a pardox in which it is essentially impossible to ever be out of context.

Carnival #113 is now up at Ubiquitous Thoughts. A great collection of writing as usual.

I led a roundtable this past week at GDC Mobile on search and discovery of mobile games. This post will be dedicated to addressing some aspects of the search and discovery of mobile content. I will go through the presentation in detail and include the salient points brought forth during the roundtable.

For a less in depth overview of the panel, Jeffrey Fleming from Gamasutra published this review of the round table.

Context

It is useful to think of search and discovery as specific vehicles of findability. In Ambient Findability, Moville defines findability as “the quality of being locatable or navigable.” This relates both to the degree to which something is easy to discover or locate as well as the degree to which the overall environment (in this case mobility) supports navigation and retrieval. According to Morville, the requirements of findability has to do the definition, distinction and difference of the particular object or thing to be found. For physical objects, this relates to size, shape, color and location. For digital content, this relates to labels, links and keywords.

Before getting into mobile search and discovery in particular, it is useful to look at the evolution of cable and the Internet. The best brief history I’ve heard of in the context of mobile was by respective heads of Nielsen Mobile Media (Sid Gorham) and Real Networks (Rob Glaser) on a panel on mobile content discovery at Wireless Influencers.

So, here goes, History 101 by Gorham and Glaser:

• First, TV dial placement was most important
  • From my vantage point, this is where we are now within mobile
  • Sid Gorham quoted a study they did in which a bowling game got a 270% lift when being sold off page one as opposed to page two or three. The importance of deck placement is well known to any game publisher. I’ll go into this in more detail later.
• Then, cross channel promotion
• Finally, an on-screen guide
• Cable was a content paradigm that people understood due to its relationship to television. As such, the context of discovery was based on a ‘channel’
• On the PC / Internet, access was unbundled from content
  • Navigation is rich
  • Advertising, transactions and consumer premiums are all viable models
  • The keyboard and mouse provide much richer discovery

When we then think about mobile in the context of search and discovery, we are faced with a number of challenges:

• Constraints
  • Network performance, limited device capabilities, fragmented formats, keypad & screen size
• Lack of navigational paradigm
  • ‘Channel’ model has had limited success
  • Multi-modal interfaces (voice + keypad) can be hard and difficult
• One size doesn’t fit all
• Non-integrated consumer touch points
  • Talking, texting, capturing, sending, listening & viewing
• Too much choice
  • As Garret Camp, the founder of StumbleUpon has noted, “given 8 choices, a user will not choose anything; give them 2-3 and they will choose something”
• Driving the right answer
  • The right reach vs. brute force
  • Will Relevancy and paid links work in mobile just as they have on the Internet

Before going through some specific market data related to search and discovery, it should briefly distinguish how they are used:

• Discovery (summarized from comments made by Vivek Badrinath, EVP Products & Technology at Orange)
  • Moments of boredom
    • Surf not search
    • Electronic programming guides work in this context
    • Better results, if you also add Amazon-style recommendations
  • Local
    • You are looking for something
    • You are looking for something in a specific context.
• Search (summarized from a recent McKinsey & Company presentation on search)
  • Objectives
    • If people are searching for a ringtone, they often will buy it
    • If people are searching for a video, they often will view it
  • An eye towards Japan
    • NTT DoCoMo: search limited to DoCoMo sites; after they present the authorized content on deck, you can access third party content and sites
    • KDDI: the Google search box is right at the top of the deck
  • Critical mass
    • The critical mass is typically 20% for any given service
    • For cable, it was 25-32M viewers
    • For online, it was 30-50M
    • For mobile, you need 25-40M search users (likely will happen in 2011)

Here is some data from a recent study done by Nielsen (Mobile Media Survey - Nielsen August 2007) that details the mix of search objectives for mobile search by method and the percentage of searches that related to content:

• 27% of the SMS searches were for content
• 8% of the WAP searches were for content
• 31% of the carrier search box searches were for content
• 27% of the carrier portal searches were for content

To clarify, WAP is likely to mean off-deck and both the carrier search box and the carrier portal searches were carried out via WAP.

Market Data

Eric Puterbaugh - Director of Client Services, Mobile Media - for Nielsen Mobile presented some interesting data at the round table. I should also note that Eric is my brother and a Nellymoser co-founder. According to Eric, on-deck games sales in the U.S. were at about $175M in Q3 2007 which is roughly ~$700M annually. Of particular interest is that games are growing at about 24% YoY whereas applications in general are growing at 225%. We spent some time discussing this information. Fortunately, Rob Tercek (a mobile pioneer as well as the Founder and Chairman of GDC Mobile) participated in the discussion and noted that the game growth is slightly misleading mainly due to the fact that Sprint’s game business has taken a hit over the past year. It is also worth noting that application growth relates to both the success of location-based services (e.g., Verizon’s EZ Navigator) and the price point of these applications which is typically around $9 / month.

To provide some additional contextual market data, according to mMetrics (Q4 2007), just over 20% of the mobile subscribers (~220M) play games at least once during a given month. Taken a closer look at the 20%, half of these subscribers play games that they have downloaded, 1.5% play browser-based games, and about 15% play native / pre-loaded games. Keep in mind that these numbers may not “add up” but this relates to the fact that a given user may fit all of these contexts. Furthermore, of the games that are downloaded, just over 75% purchased the game by paying a fee whereas under 40% only use the trial versions. If we look closer that the purchase methods, close to 70% of those that purchased the games ordered via a mobile browser, 5% via short codes and around 10% ordered on the PC and retrieved the game via their mobile phone. Finally, in terms of discovery, about 75% of the subscribers found the game on the phone, 15% didn’t know where they found it, 10% via PC and about 8% (2% per media type) found the game via radio, television, magazines and newspapers.

Eric also presented some compelling data from a Nielsen Mobile study on deck placement. Their key conclusions were:

• Promotion enhances the popularity of games by approximately 75-100% more than the same titles when not promoted
• Increases in both revenue and downloads are driven by promotion
• Games placed on the first page of a promotional deck benefit from 25-50% more than those on the second or later page.

Based on our experience at Nellymoser and analysis of data from mMetrics and Nielsen Mobile, I would list the key discovery vehicles in descending order starting with the most effective:

• Pre-loaded on mobile phone
• On-Deck, promoted or featured
• On-deck, in-category
• Off-deck, D2C (e.g., club or storefront), PC
• Off-deck, D2C (e.g., club or storefront), WAP / Mobile Browser
• Off-deck, D2C (e.g., club or storefront), SMS
• Television, short-code
• Print, short-code
• Radio, short-code
• Retail, e.g., pre-paid card

Fragmentation

You cannot have a presentation related to mobile gaming and application development without articulating some of the issues surrounding fragmentation. This was clearly a sore point that was reiterated at this years GDC in which a number of game developers felt that they were being forced by carriers to support an unreasonable number of handsets such that the porting and testing costs were often equal to or higher than the initial development costs.

Nevertheless, just to reiterate the key aspects of fragmentation, I highlighted the following aspects of fragmentation. First, standing between consumers and content providers is a highly fragmented system of content formats, mobile phone types and wireless networks. Second, combining both on-deck and off-deck introduced additional friction in mobile discovery and delivery. There is further fragmentation within each operator related to middleware access methods. For example, I presented the following diagram I created to represent the middleware fragmentation for the top three U.S. operators:

I then spent some time going through the steps that a consumer has to go through to find a game on each of the operators’ decks. Here is a screen shot from the Sprint deck hierarchy:

Case Studies and User experience

After discussing fragmentation, I discussed some case studies and the importance of user experience based on work Nellymoser has done related to tackling the problem of discoverability as it relates to games.

This included differentiating the pros and cons and when to use SMS, MMS, WAP, Java and BREW. I focused on discussing the following case studies:

• Off-deck storefronts
• In-application commerce
• On-portal game discovery (WAP vs. App)
• Mobile widgets
• Multi-platform and use of social networks for discovery and distribution

I raised some issues and observations based on these various case studies, such as:

• Reach versus the right reach
• Browsing (text vs. multimedia, content-based vs. category-based, multi-modal)
• Downloads
• Heterogeneous systems (WAP billing, Java discovery)
• Previews
• Navigational paradigms
• Click rate & distance
• Pacifiers
• 2-second name test
• Trials (opt-in, opt-out)
• Relative price and price-discrimination
• Multi-platform, multi-player

Improving user experience … help is on its way

Despite the relatively pessimistic tone (with the exception of Nokia’s keynote), I concluded my presentation with some indicators that there are some positive initiatives going on within mobile that will improve user experience in general and discovery in particular. They are:

Standard vehicles for measurement

• Standard methods for measurement across deployments
• Maximizing based on outcomes (e.g., loyalty, transactions, usage) as opposed to outputs (e.g., page views, downloads) the consumer value proposition needs to fit the experience

Android and Apple effect

• Have started addressing usability from the “ground up” (OS and apps).
• Establishing the conditions for themselves - and others - to deliver a more compelling user experience

Resurgence of applications: Browsers +- Apps

• The level of integration and user access will enable developers to set a new bar for rich, interactive discovery applications and services that will surpass the browser.
• A much richer and wider range of discovery vehicles are emerging - beyond ODPs and widgets
• Yahoo! Go is an early indicator of the importance of offering consumers rich, interactive experience

Improved retailing

• Explicit (user rating, ranking, comparing)
• Implicit (browsing, purchasing, viewing and preference history)
• Personalized (’anticipatory’) and directed navigation (e.g. Alltel’s Celltop)

Maximizing consumer touch-points

• Marriage of social web with mobility (personal, local, always-on, every-present)
• Talking, texting, capturing, sending, listening, viewing