Mobile musings and wireless wanderings

In the previous post, Mobile is not a channel, I explored the concept of action codes and their role in media annotation, ruminating on both self-describing content and next-generation media networks.

Even in this short period of time, it is clear that the term action code connotes too narrow a scope in the context of brand activation, i.e., media-based points of activation.

Activation 101

Points of activation such as QR codes, watermarks or images are published in magazines, in catalogs, or on product packaging.  Consumers can then scan the printed material with their mobile smartphones, and activate additional interactive content or digital direct response mobile marketing.

Activation points are most often placed in an advertisement (e.g., a magazine ad) or on the product packaging itself. The customer, while reading the ad or browsing products in a store or online, simply triggers the point of activation with a smartphone camera, by typing in a code on a keyboard or by clicking on a direct digital link.  The device responds with instant, multimedia, interactive and up-to-date content, while providing rich information back to the advertiser or publisher.  The contextual immediacy of this activation and result engages the customer in a way other methods cannot and, to date, have not.

Types of activation points

Brands now have a wide range of activation points to leverage in their marketing initiatives.  

• Quick response codes (QR codes) and other two dimensional barcodes
• Images themselves, i.e., image recognition (IR)
• Links - search links, display ads, rich media units
• Near Field Communication (NFC)
• Location, e.g., geo-fencing
• Invisible & inaudible watermarks
• Text codes, e.g., ranging from short & long codes to star star codes (**)
• Video and image hotspots

Activating Traditional Media

The ability to activate media using mobile devices redefines the form and function of traditional media – print, radio, TV and out-of-home. For example, print ads and packaging can now directly engage consumers in an interactive manner that includes immediate and direct feedback for the brand or advertiser. In these cases, the medium itself is either being activated via annotation (e.g., using mobile action codes) or enhanced (i.e., embedded signals and encoding mechanisms such as watermarks). 

From the view of a brand and / or advertiser, their media buy begins to work harder when it has been activated. Each placement now has the ability to serve and reinforce messages and brand stories in new ways that can be personalized and measured yet still packaged in familiar forms of media presentation.

From the view of the consumer, information becomes more democratized and our voice becomes instantly heard. And, more importantly, in context. We become empowered to better collect and communicate our dispositions and delights.

From the view of the network owners, there is still tremendous power now at the points of intersection between media and mobile, between print and digital, between the static and the social.

Market Drivers

Mobile Activated Media is growing rapidly, based on three drivers:

• Brand marketers and service providers need to acquire and maintain loyal customers that are on the go
• Publishers and content providers see mobile as a new and critical revenue stream
• Consumers want quick and easy access to content and services for use on their mobile phone

Last year was a watershed for mobile in which over half (56%) of subscribers owned smartphones (Nielsen’s State of the Media: U.S. Consumer Usage Report 2012).  Tablets are being widely adopted as a bridge between mobile and traditional personal computing, with all the flexibility and mobility of the first and all the power of the second.

As a result, mobile is transforming our experience of traditional media by adding personalized interaction. Mobile Activated Media allows new, personalized, interactive content to be delivered to enhance traditional media making both the ad buys themselves to be more effective and the consumer experience to be more interactive and rewarding.

Special thanks to Peter Palmer for his contribution to hashing out “activation points 101.”

Some people say that mobile is a channel and should be treated like other media storage and transmission channels, e.g., magazines, radio and TV. But, mobile, like social is not simply a channel – it serves to enhance and amplify other media. When viewed and leveraged as a companion media that works with channels, mobile augments traditional media by making it interactive, dynamic and measurable.

Mobile Engagement

Mobile can be thought of as a vehicle for activating and enhancing content rather than simply a vehicle for repackaging and remediating content. When used as a companion media, mobile makes reading a magazine more interactive and dynamic. Shopping (via catalog or in-store) more immediate and informed. Ultimately, making both experiences more personal, social and engaging.

Action Codes

Mobile engagement can be triggered from traditional media (print, radio, television) using action codes. Action codes are triggers and direct response vehicles (i.e., calls to action) capable of being translated by the mobile phone into immediate and actionable content. Examples of action codes include 1D / UPC codes, 2D codes (QR, Tag), watermarks, image recognition and near-field communications (NFC).  The background of action codes is covered in more detail in the post Action codes are to mobile what the URL was to the Internet.

In short, action codes drive engagement. Engagement enhances traditional media such as print.

Media Annotation

In general, action codes can also be viewed as forms of media annotation. Media can be annotated using a wide range of symbologies. Print is traditionally annotated using page numbers, references and citations. Links and hotpots have been used predominantly annotate digital media.  Now, we are increasingly seeing action codes (e.g., QR codes) used across both analog and digital media in print, radio and television. 

The possibility of self-describing media emerges when the action codes and other forms of annotation become invisible, e.g., finger-printing and watermarks.

It is useful to think of action codes in the context of response types, i.e., as two orthogonal axes. The first axis includes the continuum of the various action code types, i.e., whether their symbologies are visible or invisible. The second axis is whether the response to the action code is active or passive.

Visible vs. Invisible Action Codes

Visible action codes are 1D / UPC barcodes, 2D codes such as QR, Microsoft Tag, Spyderlynk, display / banner ads, video hotpots, short codes and other alphanumeric codes like Zoove’s ** codes. Invisible action codes are watermarks, location and the use of near-field communications. 

Active vs. Passive Responses

An active response would be any explicit action such as scanning a 2D barcode with an app, clicking on a search link, a display ad or texting in a **code (e.g., **NFL). A passive response is any type of alert or notification in which some background process or application is listening or monitoring the environment and then automatically triggers an action, e.g., walking past a location or having an iPad “listening” for watermark triggers in the television signal.

Next-generation media networks

New forms of interactive content and consumer engagement will emerge when self-describing media (print, audio, video) can be controlled and consumed (passively or actively) via a mobile phone.

As the various forms of digital presentation and distribution proliferate, mobile will remain a central hub for activating, saving, sharing, buying and responding to content using action codes embedded in a wide range of media.  

In the past year, we have seen media planners and buyers are not only including mobile as part of their media plan but are proactively specifying mobile activation as an extension to their traditional media mix, i.e., putting action codes in out-of-home and print plans and media buys.

Although 2D barcodes have been around since the mid-nineties (1D barcodes were invented in the 1950s), and had some initial traction in 2005/06, it wasn’t until 2010 that they have really started to take off.

In the past 2-3 months, if you have spent any time in NYC or have read the fashion magazines, it is hard not to come across mobile 2D barcodes, e.g., QR codes or next-generation QR codes such as Microsoft Tag.

In New York, they are on the sidewalks directing you to Duane Read Pharmacies. They are inside of Best Buy and within Macy’s in the Jones New York section (e.g., tags on the wall link to videos). They are on bus stops advertising new EA releases and even on the giant Thompson Reuters display in Times Square. I was reminded when I was recently in St. Marks Bookstore and saw a sticker referencing Semapedia.org, whose goal is to create physical hyperlinks that are readable by mobile phones. 

Semapedia was founded in 2005. The 2005-2006 timeframe represents the first wave of 2D barcode activity in the U.S.  This activity is well captured in Jessica Vascellario’s artcle “The bar code gets a hip new life.” The key players during this time period were Scanbuy, Nextcode, NeoMedia and SnapTell amongst others. One aspect of this wave of activity related to comparison shopping, e.g., Scanbuy’s Shopper WAP site.  Also, it is clear that the battle of “snap and send” vs. 2D barcode formats & readers has persisted since day one. Originally, there was SnapTell & Mobot representing “snap and send” camp and Nextcode and NeoMedia / PaperClick representing the 2D format / reader camp. This is akin to the current battle between companies like Neomedia, Scanbuy and “snap and send” providers like JagTag and Spyderlynk. Microsoft’s High Capacity Color Barcode (now referred to as Microsoft Tag) has its origins in the 2006-2007 time period.

Some key themes from 2006/07

• Data minimization - the appeal of QR codes for data minimization “QR codes … why they’re cool”
• Bridging the physic & digital world - in the October 2^7th issue of Billboard Magazine, Debbie Galante Block noted that “The technology advances efforts to link the physical world to the digital world using camera phones as the bridge” in her article Cracking the Code covering the Sprint, Scanbuy announcement that Sprint will be the first U.S. carrier to test 2D bar code capture technology.
• Physical world hyperlinking - Nextcode “makes all phones hyperlinkable”  
• Rapid connection to content - Mobot (an early snap and send technology) “connect users quickly and directly to content”

Back to 2010 … in terms of publishing, there has been steady momentum growing over the past year. There were some early adopters like Billboard and Bonnier’s Popular Science but the traction really began with Golf Digest in its use of Microsoft Tag to link to editorial articles such as an article on making putts that slide from left to right, which offered readers a video lesson with the Golf Digest senior editor Peter Morrice. Then, Sports Illustrated used JagTag (a snap and send technology) in their February 2010 swimsuit issue which in got up to 100,000 scans which at the time was one of the most successful campaigns to date.  This began the beginning of the real ramp in usage of tags in publishing. Already by September, magazines were getting 100K+ scans. This culminated in Allure’s announcement of getting 444,572 scans in their August “free Stuff” issue.  “They saw a 38 percent increase in the number of participants due to Tag with Tag contestants being 2.5-times as active as PC contestants.”

In the U.S., the CueCat barcode reader was brought to market in 2000. The CueCat is a USB device akin to a mouse that attches to your computer and reads barcodes. Digital: Convergence Corp. designed and brought the CueCat to market by sending them directly to magazine subscribers, e.g.,  sent over 800K CueCats to Forbes Magazine subscribers.

Privacy advocates came out with an number of objections to the CueCat due to the fact that each CueCat had a unique ID / serial number that was tracked along with the scans. This left Business Week to remark “This cat might not have your tongue – but it could have your data.”

One of the early mobile barcode reader companies was established around this same time period. 3GVision, established in 2000, deployed the i-nigma 1D/2D barcode reader in 2002.  3GVision is one of the key suppliers of mobile barcode readers in Japan.

2D barcodes are part of a larger trend that involves using mobile phones as direct response vehicle. Ad Age, in its 2008 Mobile Marketing: Benchmarks and Best Practices discusses QR codes in the context of activating codes. They note that while QR codes were originally used for tracking parts, they are quickly becoming the most likely way to activate a response. Ad Age has referred to these types of 2D barcodes as activation codes. The term activation codes is more often used in the context of gaming and software to refer to particular code sequences used to unlock software or games or used to get a discount by activating a premium account.

Nellymoser has decide to use the term “mobile action codes” as a general term for the full range of symbologies and direct response vehicles capable of being translated by the mobile phone into immediate and actionable content. As such, action codes are both efficient and effective vehicles for using mobile devices to activate a response from the consumer. Examples include SMS short codes, 1D / UPC barcodes, 2D barcodes (e.g., QR, Microsoft Tag), mobile display ads (e.g., banners), watermarking and full image recognition. 

Entrepreneur and investor, Peter Palmer has noted that action codes are to mobile what the URL was to the Internet. Action codes in general (and 2D barcodes in particular) represent the closest thing to the frictionless distribution of mobile content & campaigns that they industry has seen to date.

My most recent post “App Wars” has been selected for inclusion in the Carnival of the Mobilists #212. Terence Eden has selected a nice range of posts coming out of Mobile World Congress.

The question of apps vs the mobile web is still often poised. This contraposition blurs much more important distinctions that will determine the future of mobile content, applications and the mobile web itself.

The ability to use web technologies to create mobile apps has led to a much broader base of developers, and as such, apps now available to end-users.  The use of web technologies also makes it easier to leverage and repackage existing data and content from the web.  Powered by better performing underlying mobile browsers, a thriving mobile app and mobile web ecosystem has emerged. However, it should not be a foregone conclusion that “apps” will necessarily simply become rich mobile web sites. To the developer, in the near future, apps will essentially be rich mobile web sites (thanks to HTML5) packaged for distribution in a vending environment such as the App Store. To the end-user, the concept of buying things from online stores and the simplicity of having “icons” associated with content and / or functionality – even if they end up merely being links – will remain meaningful for the foreseeable future.

In addition to the power of mobility (personal, localized, always-on and ever-present), the mobile ecosystem has brought a robust economic engine to complement the ad-supported Internet: micro-payments and premium apps & content. The “app store” (and its predecessors such as AT&T’s malls, Sprints vending machine, Verizon’s “software store in your hand”, aka Get It Now) provides a way to package and distribute content in a format in which users are willing to pay.

Five years ago, “native” apps clearly provided a better, more responsive interface and were able to provide more optimal performance (e.g., minimize network latencies, cache data, preload content) and UI capabilities that led to an overall better user experience. Now, only very niche apps require the type of access to on-phone capabilities not accessible by the browser.

For example, a great number of iPhone apps are actually browser-based “sites” that have been packaged as an app that can be distributed via the Apple App Store. Arguably, two important factors have contributed to the success of the App Store are the frictionless distribution and by providing ease of development.

Frictionless Distribution: Apple removed the friction of getting apps in front of end-users by accelerating and automating the submission process, offering favorable economic terms for developers and providing great on-phone and PC-based app discovery.

Ease of Development:  Initially there were some hurdles in developing iPhone apps including (i) the fact that most early developers for the iPhone were new to mobile, (ii) they had to contend with a new operating system, and (iii) had to learn an unfamiliar programming language (Objective-C), However, unlike mobile network operators (MNOs), Apple has a long history of knowing how to create a strong set of APIs, provide robust development environments and support developers in general. Further, by enabling access to the browser capabilities (e.g., Javascript, CSS, HTML) on the iPhone, Apple has made it easier to develop apps and significantly increase the number of possible  “app” developers, i.e., there are many more “web developers” than programmers (C/C++, Java).

Of course, if the iPhone didn’t provide a good overall experience and the Apple didn’t take full control of the total experience (i.e., vertically integrate the entire supply chain), the wide development ecosystem would not matter. Clearly, Apple also did a much better job educating consumers than MNOs had so far about the value of apps, e.g., what apps are, what users can do with them, the fact that most are free and how easy it is to get them.

Although Apple’s App Store has created the app store frenzy, it is not due to the fact that it is an open, off-deck distribution vehicle. As Jack Seid noted, “The most cynical in the industry may actually say the iPhone App Store is not truly “off-deck,” it’s just a different deck. As such, it is worth going through the current MNO responses to the App Store. The various approaches of providers are starting to become more apparent.

Sprint

Sprint’s approach consists of a two-pronged offering:

1. For feature phones, consumers will continue to get apps from the “carrier deck” albeit significantly augmented by the GetJar catalog. (accessible via search from the Sprint deck). GetJar is a large off-deck app store with over 50,000 apps. The deck itself will likely be run by a 3^rd party given the RFP that was announced at Sprint’s developer conference.
2. For smartphones, the user will have access to each respective smartphone app store, e.g., Android Market, Blackberry App World, Windows Marketplace, etc.  Sprint will be phasing out Windows and Blackberry apps from their catalog / deck.

Russ McGuire summarized Sprint’s approach in his blog by starting that Sprint’s goal is to enable innovation to happen more rapidly and, as such removing any bottlenecks between developers and customers. They basically want to get out of the way and will not try to dictate how innovation will happen.

What is apparent is that importance of the 1-click interface and phone top services (e.g., enabled by uiONE) are being diminished. As with the other MNOs, the category of messaging centric devices that have querty keyboards is a rapidly growing segment. The question is whether these consumers will (1) want apps, and (2) which OS will win for this category. If it is Android, then users will get apps from the Android Market. If it is BREW, then users will get Java apps (running on BREW as they do today on Sprint) via the Sprint deck.

AT&T

AT&T received a lot of press from their announcements during a developer event at CES in January. AT&T’s app strategy is being touted as an apps to all approach and consists of the following offerings:

1. For smartphones, you will be able to buy apps from the Android Market, Palm, Windows, and Nokia’s Ovi and have the billing go directly on your phone, i.e., off-deck content discovery with on-deck billing.
2. For their mid-range, integrated devices called “quick messaging devices” (messaging devices with at minimum a full querty keyboard and a web browser), they have announced that they will be support BREW.  This likely means that Qualcomm’s Plaza will be the app store for quick messaging devices (QMDs) and other BREW-based devices.
3. For feature phones, it remains a bit unclear what will ultimately happen. For the foreseeable future, the Media Mall will clearly continue to offer Java apps.  And, the AT&T SDK is reported to continue to support Java – whether this will ultimately be running on BREW or on other proprietary operating systems remains to be seen. And, whether Qualcomm will be serving both BREW and Java apps on AT&T will be an interesting development to watch.

AT&T clearly sees QMDs as an important, rapidly growing category. Chris Golvin from Forrester estimated that “nearly one in every three US adult mobile phone subscribers now has either a smartphone or a QMD, up from one in five less than a year earlier.” As noted above, it is yet to be seen whether quick-messaging device users will buy apps. In some sense, the pieces are in place: the devices are plenty capable and the users will be required to have data plans.

Verizon

Verizon seems to have been the first to announce their smartphone app strategy, with an initial focus on quality not quantity. 

1. For smartphones, Verizon will ship the Vcast app store starting with the Blackberry, likely followed by Windows Mobile. Originally, the goal was to have a store launched in Q4 2009.
2. For non-smartphones such as their 3G multimedia phones, the roadmap for the Vcast app store is less apparent. For years, Verizon via its Get It Now BREW-based store has been the dominant provider of games and apps in the U.S. How and when Verizon supports Java and whether it is a replacement or in addition to BREW has not been announced.

Verizon is also part of JIL (also includes Softbank, China Mobile and Vodafone – jointly representing one billion mobile consumers worldwide), whose aim is to provide standards for app and content development to make it easier for developers to create and distribute apps on their respective networks.

Final Notes

While the competition between Apple and Google in mobile has received a fair amount of press, there is an emerging battle between Qualcomm and Google to be the predominant operating system for messaging devices (e.g., QMD, 3G multimedia phones). Arguably, this could be a much larger market worldwide than the smartphone segment.

A likely factor in AT&T’s  adoption of BREW was that it is now available for free and ships on the Qualcomm chipsets. BREW has always been more than a middleware runtime environment and in fact can be thought of as a full operating system.

Clearly, both operating systems have rich development environments and are fully capable of supporting apps. The question is whether non-smartphone users will purchase and / or download and use apps on their phones in a meaningful way.

I would also be remiss in not acknowledging the announcement this week of the Wholesale Applications Community. Clearly MNOs got the message: it is hard and difficult to build and distribute apps that will run on a majority of the mobile phones. I view the announcement as more of an aspiration than a coherent ecosystem. If their vision is realized, there will essentially be a common set of methods for developing apps in which the operator will commit to supporting (likely to ultimately be based on web technologies like Javascript, CSS, etc.).  And, the result will likely be a big catalog that all the operators can draw upon and market within their own branded app stores, ala Sprints approach with GetJar.

Smartphone redux

This post serves to summarize the current state of the smartphone market.

Definitional vagueness

Most definitions of smartphones are ostensive and, as such, involve pointing out examples of this or that phone being a “smartphone.” 

However, there are some common themes used in defining the word smartphone: 

• Provides data access, namely Internet and email
• Contains PC-like functionality
• Based on a high-level OS, i.e., based on one of the six main operating systems  

From the consumer perspective, how is smartphone is defined makes no real difference. Consumers do not go out to look for smartphones - the go to buy an iPhone, a Blackberry, a good texting phone, the cheapest phone, a phone with turn-by-turn directions, a cool phone with music, etc. 

From the perspective of analysts, it is safe to assume that the definition will remain somewhat important since it represents a subsegment of the market that can be isolated. As such, analysts will likely settle on defining smartphones as handsets that use a high-level operating system (i.e., the big six noted above provided by RIM, Apple, Windows, Palm, Symbian and Google).

The “smartphone market” 

iSuppli’s forecasts show that global smart phone unit shipments will be close to 200 million world-wide, 193.3 million out of the 1.11 billion overall handsets shipments. 

According to IDC, the smartphone market grew by 68% in 2008 and is projected to grow by 20% in 2009 and 25% in 2010. Already, about 30% of the mobile phone shipments in the U.S. are smartphones that have e-mail and web surfing functionality. 

At the end of Q2, 2009 NDP’s device tracking revealed that despite smartphone growth, features phones still make up 72 percent of new handset sales. Smartphones represented the remaining 28 percent of device purchases, an increase of 47% in smartphone market share. functionality. 

By 2013, it is expected that almost 4 in every 10 handsets sold will be a smartphone.

U.S. Smartphone Shipments

Based on U.S. consumer sales of smartphone handsets in NPD’s report, Q1 2009 ranking of the top-five best-selling smartphones is as follows:  

1. RIM BlackBerry Curve (all 83XX models) 
2. Apple iPhone 3G (all models)
3. RIM BlackBerry Storm
4. RIM BlackBerry Pearl (all models, except flip)
5. T-Mobile G1 by HTC

According to FierceWireless, based on preliminary research results from IDC, IDC ranked the top-selling smartphone models in the U.S. for Q2 2009: 

1. RIM BlackBerry Curve (all 83XX models) - ranging from $39.99 and $149.99 on AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon and other
2. Apple iPhone 3GS (all models) - $199 to $299 on AT&T
3. RIM BlackBerry Pearl (all models, except flip) - ranging from free to $99.99 on AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon and others
4. Apple iPhone 3G (all models) - $99 on AT&T
5. RIM BlackBerry Bold - $199.99 on AT&T
6. RIM BlackBerry Storm - $149.99 on Verizon
7. T-Mobile G1 by HTC - $149.99 on T-Mobile USA
8. Palm Pre - $199.99 on Sprint
9. HTC Touch Pro - $79.99 to $349.99 on Sprint, Verizon and AT&T
10. HTC Touch Diamond - $79.99 to $299.99 on Sprint and Verizon

It seems evident that RIM is enjoying the benefits of broader availability. Together with the low price point of familiar devices like the Curve and Verizon’s aggressive promotion of RIM devices have created strong momentum for RIM in the U.S.

It is too early to tell the impact of the Verizon / Google partnership announced yesterday, Oct 6, leading up to CTIA. The announcement indicates that the two companies will develop a series of Android-based devices that include pre-loaded applications from both the companies and third-party developers. 

World-wide Smartphone Shipments

World-wide smartphone market share (based on Q4 sales):

1.  Symbian OS (41.7%)
2. RIM Blackberry OS (19.5%)
3. Windows Mobile OS (12.4%)
4. iPhone OS (10.7%)
5. Linux OS (8.4%)

Nokia has been the dominant supplier of handsets worldwide for the past 5 years, garnering close to 40% market share. According to Apple and Generator Research projections, Apple will surpass Nokia in the smartphone category in the coming years with Nokia’s market share dropping to 20%. 

Apple sold 13.7 million iPhones in 2008. It has been forecasted that Apple will sell more than 50 million phones in 2011 and 80 million in 2012, mainly driven by worldwide expansion and overall popularity. 

Nokia will still remain a dominant player due to the global strength of their brand and distribution as well as their ability to provide a full range of phones, beyond smartphones. 

Android will have the added benefit of similarly being used beyond smartphones but also being licensable by any phone manufacturer. As such, devices shipping with Android are expected to outpace iPhone sales in the coming years. According to Informa Telecoms & Media Analysts, Android will outpace the iPhone by 2012. Strategy Analytics estimate that 8 million Android devices will ship in 2009, ABI Research has put the number closer to 4 million given that up until recently there were only two devices in the market. 

Android momentum will likely be attributable due to: 

• Support by a wide range of device manufacturers
• Low BOM costs due to open source OS
• Ability to address both feature phones and smartphones

Apple, being locked to individual carriers will also limit growth during the period that Android is being brought to market. 

Smartphones & App Stores

Yesterday, leading up to CTIA, the Microsoft Windows Marketplace for Mobile became available via the new 6.5 phones. The Windows marketplace can be accessed via the Web or an on-phone storefront. CNET estimated that at the time of launch there were at least 100 apps altogether, including Facebook, Netflix Mobile, Windows Live, Zagat to Go and Midomi. 

At the spring CTIA, RIM launched BlackBerry App World. Recently, TechCrunch covered a Distimo report analyzing the Blackberry App World that showed that average price for apps is more than three times higher than those found in Apple’s App Store and the Android Market. 

In the fall of 2008, the Android Market was launched, concurrently with the HTC G1. The Android Market was recently updated in September 2009. 

Apple launched their App Store in July 2008. There have been wide-ranging estimates on the size of the Apple app store market. There is the now infamous Lightspeed analysis that claimed as of May, 2009 that Apple has made $20-45M from their App Store. A year ago August, Steve Jobs claimed that Apple stands to reap at least $360M / year from their App Store. Other estimates from VisionMobile Research put the revenue close to $500M / year. 

In contrast, according to Nielsen, U.S. on-deck revenue from apps and games was around $1.5B in 2008. This includes, not only smartphones but all feature phones. For example, Verizon, together with Qualcomm has had the longest running carrier-based app store (BREW) in the U.S. As of 2008, Qualcomm’s BREW (i.e. on-device middleware and storefront) shipped on over 500 million handsets worldwide. In 2007 an average of 80 million downloads per month and generated over $1B in revenue.

As of this summer, over 40 million devices (includes the iTouch) have shipped that support the App Store and there; close to 6.5 million active iphone users in the U.S. alone; and over 1.5B downloads with 65,000 available apps created by a community of 100K developers. 

I provided a more in depth discussion of app stores and marketplaces as they were emerging in 2008 in this post. 

Smartphones & Data Use

Eric Puterbaugh (brother, Nellymoser co-founder) recently gave an address at the MEF Mobile Leadership Summit entitled “State of the Union in Mobile.” Nielsen’s numbers clearly show that smartphone are driving data usage. Smartphone users show much heavier usage in all categories, including Internet, messaging, email, app downloads, location services and game downloads. 

For example, close to 70% of smartphones owners use email in contrast to only 12% of feature phone owners. Similarly, 71% smartphone owners use the Internet and only 15% feature phone owners use the Internet. 

Within the smartphone category, the iPhone still outpaces data activities such as Internet usage, apps downloads, full track music and video viewing. 

Smartphones in context: Communications, Entertainment, Computing

Michael Mace has a more nuanced approach towards looking at smartphones, putting them in context with handsets, portable entertainment devices and computing devices. 

He analyzes mobile devices by putting them into three categories: entertainment, communications and computing. In its current manifestation, the iPhone is squarely playing in all three categories. Blackberry, in contrast, is squarely in communications and computing. Cellphones / feature phones are squarely in the communications category, whereas the iPod and e-book devices are in the entertainment categories. MIDs and ultra-mobile PCs are in the computing category. 

In “The shape of the smartphone and mobile data markets,” Michael concludes the following: 

There are three big groups of mobile data customers, each with different needs and tastes, each was about 12% of the population:

• • people who focus on communication (e-mail, messaging, conferencing)
  • people who focus on entertainment (games, video, music)
  • people who focus on managing information (databases, documents, note taking)

The RIM appeals to communicators. The Palm Treo and touchscreen Windows Mobile are on the border between communication and information management. The iPhone is not a Blackberry killer. The biggest opportunity currently not being addressed is in information management. 

 Since smartphones are somewhat of a novelty, phones such as the iPhone were able to own all three categories. In the coming years, it is difficult to imagine all the major smartphones will compete to be best in all three  categories. While, Blackberry and Palm have started making inroads towards the entertainment aspect of the spectrum, it is hard to imagine winners that do not focus on their core constituents and address their specific device needs. We’ve seen some signs of this in that some smartphones do not have very decent voice communication capability. 

Recent trends and emerging smartphone landscape

There are a number of recurring trends throughout 2009: 

• Wireless broadband - LTE / 4G
• Network capacity strained due to smartphones
• Intersection of home & mobile
• Continued fragmentation in devices, formats, networks
• Netbooks & other connected consumer & enterprise electronics (Kindle)
• Apps versus browsers

In addition to these general trends, there have been major advancements in mobile phone hardware / software, including touch user interfaces, location services and video & camera capabilities. 

It is hard not to imagine that the 3 major operating systems will be Android, Windows, Apple. Nokia seems to be keeping their options open in terms of Symbian, Windows, Linux. Surprisingly, Nokia dropped the Linux OS (Maemo) in favor of Windows on their upcoming netbook.

Yearly, rumors emerge that Microsoft will buy RIM. I believe that Microsoft will likely need to buy RIM to own the enterprise space and gain better traction outside of the U.S. , unless NokiaWith regards to Palm, perhaps Nokia may believe that they need to buy them to get a foothold in the U.S. market. 

Unfortunately, the future of smartphones will be the result in two major forces: mobile operators and the device providers. 

First, mobile operators will continue to drive to retain subscribers and drive the value of their network. This will result in a number of consequences ranging from aggressively driving the cost of smartphones down (e.g., working directly with manufacturers to create alternatives to the iPhone and Blackberry) or perhaps even providing the network as a service, i.e., a value-added set of services beyond the classic “dumb pipe” mode. What will emerge will be a reinforcement of the current trend in which the operators provide targeted devices related to types of data usage, e.g., texting, camera, gaming, etc. And, although the operators have had app stores in market well before Apple, they are making a strong second go at it to improve upon

Second, device providers will continue to strive to maintain and substantiate their device margins. As we’ve seen over the past year, a number of providers will also attempt to vertically integrate ala Apple. The drive to sustain value will continue a “feature battle” in which phones will rapidly become faster, more flexible and more connected. Those that can sustain over-the-top services (e.g., Apple, Blackberry - perhaps Nokia), will increasingly come in conflict with the goals of the operators. 

In December of 2007, I made the following predictions about mobile content and services for 2008. I thought reviewing them would keep me honest while finalizing my 2009 predictions.
Golden Age Of Mobile Apps
With the success of Google’s mobile applications (e.g., Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube) and Yahoo! Go, content providers and mobile operators, following the consumers’ lead, are warming up to dedicated applications again for mobile. The verdict is still out whether a browser is the best vehicle for presenting and mediating the 2-inch mobile experience. On higher-end phones, such as the iPhone it is clear that the browser will have a seat at the table. By moving from “closed” operating systems to operating systems with published APIs (e.g, Symbian, Google, Microsoft), applications will be able to provide a much better and deeper integration with the key aspects of the mobile phone (PIM, calendar, camera, location, video), which will enable developers to set a new bar for rich, interactive mobile applications and services that will surpass the experience provided by the mobile browser. There will also be a much richer range of application types, moving well beyond on-device portals and widgets.

The Apple App Store has not only ushered in a golden age of apps in 2008, having recently announced 300 million apps sold. Following suit, Microsoft, Nokia, RIM and the mobile operators have rushed to get comparable offerings to market. We have seen greater evidence of the deeper and better integration coming from the Google’s marketplace, but the marketplace itself has been slow to garner consumer attention. In a recent post, I focused in more depth on App Stores.

This is Not Your Father’s Smartphone
In some sense, 2008 will be the liberation (or death depending on your outlook) of the Smartphone as a category. The devices formerly known as Smartphones continue to be a key driver for mobile data usage in general and content / service consumption in particular. We will see continued growth from Windows, RIM and the iPhone in the U.S. and continued strong growth of Symbian internationally. Meanwhile, the distinction between Smartphones and feature phones may be a less important distinction in the coming years. The appearance of the iPhone not only put an end to the Smartphone as we knew it and ushered in a new generation of devices. Nokia, Apple and HTC have raised the bar in terms of user experience and relevant feature-sets.

iPhone and RIM have 70% of the Smartphone market in the U.S., with Apple and Rim at 25% and 45%, respectively.  The Smartphone category has grown by XX in 2008. Economy aside, we are seeing growth with RIM, Windows and iPhone in the U.S. Worldwide, Nokia has 42%, RIM 16%, Apple 13% and HTC 4.5% of the Smartphone market. The HTC G1 in retrospect was not quite the compelling user experience that we had imagined, but the HTC Touch has gotten good reviews.

In the U.S., Smartphones account for 34% of requests on AdMob’s network in December 2008: iPhone had 48%, RIM and Windows were 19% and 15%, respectively. Palm OS had 9% of total requests.

Being Open: Growth, Friction or Fragmentation
Although openness will lead to consumers having greater choice - better products and services offered at better price points - open devices and networks will create more fragmentation. And, it is not clear that open access can function as a primary growth driver until other enablers are in place. If you think about the rapid growth of Web 2.0, and think about what will drive “Mobile 2.0″, it will be: (i) ubiquitous mobile broadband access - this will be driven by things like flat-rate pricing, mobile advertising solutions that provide alternatives to premium billing and other compelling consumer propositions of content / service bundles that make services beyond voice and ringtones a “must have”; (ii) frictionless distribution – the ability to easily deploy and distribute services directly to the end-user, off-deck; (iii) affordable, unrestricted access to enabling software platforms ( i.e. tools & technology - the picks and shovels). Web 2.0 services rapidly emerged and thrived because of the ability for any web developer to create and deploy services. Unlike the mobile tools on the market today, creating web applications & services doesn’t necessarily require an advanced degree in engineering.

We continue to see further fragmentation: fragmentation in the types of devices, fragmentation in the number of operating systems, fragmentation in media formats, etc. A solution has yet to emerge that makes it as easy to create mobile applications and services as it is to deploy rich applications and services on the web.

To add to the already increasing fragmentation, it looks like Palm is getting some good press about their WebOS.

New Media Companies will Interact Directly with their Audience
To date, the mobile operators and content providers have dominated the sale of mobile content. The mobile operators provide the dominant vehicles (i.e., portals and storefronts) for enabling consumers to find, access and buy content. The content providers have benefited from both from these operator portals and storefronts as well as 3rd party, off-deck D2C services. In 2008, we will see new media companies (e.g. web companies) move to mobile en masse which will not only create off-deck as the dominant vehicle for discovering mobile content but also radically change the nature of the content and services. The nature of the services will transition from Mobile 1.0 services (i.e., broad-cast services that include ringtones, wallpaper, games, video) to Mobile 2.0 – rich, interactive services that integrate the social web with core aspects of mobility.

AOL released their top mobile searches for 2008 which included My Space, AIM, iPhone, MocoSpace.. We are seeing growth in off-deck coming from a variety of areas: Apple’s Store, mobile upstarts (e.g., Thumbplay, mywaves, mocospace) and other over-the-top (i.e., not relying upon the carrier “deck”) initiatives by Nokia, RIM and Google.

Mobile In-App Advertising
In 2008, we will see a rapid increase of digital advertising techniques derived from the Internet (e.g., search, display-based and video), we will also see the beginning of advertising and sponsorship that is made for mobile. In-application advertising, in which brands, ads and promotions are contextualized and integrated into applications and services are just the beginning. Although in 2007, we saw new types of inventory emerge that integrated commerce (e.g. via recommendations, theming and bundling), we expect to see in 2008 the coupling of relevancy-based engagement with contextual commerce. While search and display-based methods will be the primary revenue sources from mobile advertising in 2008, look for personalized, branded media and unique inventory coming from in-application advertising.

Mobile web display ads and overall revenue associated with mobile ad networks have underperformed with respect to expectations. In-App ads have garnered a fair amount of attention given the success of Apple’s App Store. A number of company’s have announced in-app advertising initiatives including Quattro / uLocate, Ad Infuse / Smaato, JumpTap, Millenial / Bango.

Mobile Content Retailing
Mobile operators will continue to cull the amount of content they offer via their portals and storefronts. Furthermore, operators will adopt digital retailing strategies we’ve seen on the Internet that includes better overall user experience, smarter use of placement and “shelf-space”, and more efficient, personalized commerce engines. They will also look to off-deck content partners to be a significant participant in the growth of mobile content sales.

AT&T announced a new Media Mall 2.0, T-Mobile announced that they would open up their app store, and Nokia’s Ovi are examples of such initiatives. This will continue to evolve in 2009 as App Stores are integrated with the traditional storefronts for ringtones, games and other mobile content.

Mobile 2.0 Starts to Emerge
Although we’ve seen some early attempts at Mobile 2.0 in 2007, Mobile 2.0 will emerge in 2008. To date, the so-called 2.0 services are either basic, partial access to a Web 2.0 service via a Mobile Internet Browser (i.e., Mobile Web 2.0) or applications that represent one aspect or feature of Web 2.0 such as user-generated content, community, collective intelligence, or rich media. Mobile 2.0 services will emerge in 2008 that finally integrate the social web with the core foundations of mobility – personal, local, always-on and ever-present. Furthermore, these services are based on a new generation of wireless devices that enable rich, interactive services that integrate the full range of mobile consumer touch points including talking, texting, capturing, sending, listening, viewing.

The early leaders in Mobile 2.0 are the social networks. We are starting to see rich, integrated access to Web 2.0 services via mobile-specific applications and services. Leading the way is the Facebook for Mobile application.

Integrated, Multi-Platform Services
It is the beginning of the end for mobile being treated as a stand-alone channel. Mobile media must and will be integrated into an overall digital experience. Services will be reconceived, manifested and integrated across multiple platforms, instantiated via different forms of access and engagement. Mobile devices will become (i) a vehicle for the discovery of content and services, (ii) a remote-control for all things digital, and (iii) a personalized point of access and distribution for all things digital.

This is still a work in progress. To date, there are many indicators that make me still believe that this is still a priority to companies and end-users alike. Certainly, a majority of companies are still treating mobile as a “silo” but that are plenty of initiatives from agencies, media companies and device manufacturers to bring about the long talked-about convergence of content and services in an integrated, multi-platform environment, e.g., Slingbox and Roku, Yahoo’s TV widgets, Comcast’s Fancast initiatives, Apple geotagging, Nokia Maps 2.0 and of course Twitter.

The original post for the 2008 mobile predictions is here.

Ofir Leitner, this weeks Carnival host, has selected a nice mixture of content: App Stores, Mobile Applications (Web 2.0, Browsers-Based ), Application Environments and User Experience and Design.

Check out Carnival of Mobilists #142 at Next Generation of Mobile Content.

Given recent announcements such as T-Mobile’s abandoning of their deck as well as T-Mobile’s much anticipated launch of the HTC Dream running Google’s Android (i.e., the elusive gPhone now called T-Mobile G1), the idea of open devices, networks and markets continues to capture the media’s imagination.Yet, it is the closed application vending environments that have a proven track record to date, most notably Apple’s iPhone / App Store followed by Verizon’s Get It Now built on Qualcomm’s BREW Distribution System (BDS) and then Sprint’s Vending Machine, AT&T’s Media Mall, and the various Smartphone stores (e.g., Handango, Handmark).

I thought it would be useful to look at the types of “app stores”, review the economics, revisit the concept of openness and consider the likely impact on driving application sales, and draw some conclusions.

Pre Apple: Application Storefronts

Starting with NTT DoCoMo’s i-Mode in Japan, the discovery and acquisition of mobile content was conceptualized as virtual convenient stores and vending machines. Similar to purchases made at a convenient store, mobile content was considered to be digital snacks given both the price point and amount of content (duration, size and packaging). In the U.S., the use of virtual vending machines and storefronts have been the dominant paradigm for enabling consumers to find and buy mobile downloadable content and applications.

Carrier-based Vending Machines, Stores & Malls

In 2002, Sprint released the Java Vending Machine with the ability for users to download games, ringtones, screen savers or applications for the Vision-enabled PCS phones. The goal of the vending machine was to make it easy for both the consumer to download rich digital content but also reduce of barrier of entry for developers by being able to easily registering content with Sprint.

In 2002, Verizon announced that there were launching Qualcomm’s Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW), which enabled consumers to download a “variety of entertainment and productivity applications over the air.” Paul Jacobs claimed, “It’s like having a software store in your hand.” To be clear, Verizon’s Get It Now was the consumer-facing commerce experience but the underlying application environment and content delivery system was and is BREW. Similarly, Cingular’s MEdia Mall was based on underlying platforms provided by Mforma (now Hands-On) and later Motricity.

Although on-deck storefronts have been responsible for driving a majority of the content and applications purchases for mobile phones in the U.S., they have been heavily criticized:

• Poor user experience – arising from a combination of the WAP-based and poor design
• Slow discovery process – too many clicks to find what you want
• Arduous purchasing process – non-uniform and cumbersome billing interfaces.
• Success tied to the whims and wills of operator - as with buyers in retail outlets, the success of a partner application is dependent on the “quality of the shelf space”, applications listed first garner a majority of the downloads
• Lengthy time to market – long and complicated process for getting applications certified and “on the shelf”
• Requires significant investment - To get above the fold (in an operator deck), developers typically have to address 80% of the platforms supported by the operator.
• Lacks off-deck support for applications – Current handsets such as BREW prohibit loading apps that were not directly downloaded from Verizon or Alltel. And, for off-portal applications, most operators don’t support carrier-based billing for applications.

Smartphone Storefronts

There have been a number of smartphone storefronts prior to the launch of the Apple App Store that handled the marketing and distribution and applications for Palm Devices, Microsoft Devices, Symbian and Blackberry’s. These storefronts are powered by companies such as Handango and PocketGear. PocketGear was recently spun out of Motricity and includes PocketGear.com, SymbianGear.com, PalmGear.com and other smartphone-based destinations.

The Apple Effect

To state the obvious, Apple’s App Store for the iPhone has caused a resurgence of interest in Smartphones, applications and application storefronts. Regardless of recent frustrations voiced by application developers towards Apple’s policy for approving applications, the end-to-end experience from discovery to purchase has driven significant demand for applications and creating a significant gap between both the existing Smartphone storefronts as well as the carrier-based storefronts.

Apple managed to solve a number of the problems associated with carrier decks. Early reviews have been glowing:

“Arguably more amazing is how easy it is to install the apps from the iPhone / iPod Touch itself. Assuming you’re connected to a Wi-Fi connection, simply load up the App Store, find the app you want, click on its price, click install, enter your password and in seconds it downloads and install and you’re done.” Full review here.

From an economic perspective, the numbers seem to speak for themselves. On July 11, Apple announced 100 million applications have been downloaded by iPhone and iPod touch users. Apple is arguably on track to generate nearly as much revenue in 2009 as all the carrier-based storefronts combined! This year, according to Nielsen’s Q2 2008 Mobile Media Executive Overview, the size of the on-deck application and game download market was just under $1.6 billion. According to Piper Jaffray, the Apple App Store could become a $1.2 billion market by 2009. Granted that this is world-wide, but even if it hits a third of that number for the U.S., the impact is quite stunning as evident by the stir this has caused in the industry:

• iPhone app fever – more than 3,000 applications available in the store which launched a little over 2 month ago.
• The onslaught of new application distribution outlets - Google’s Android Market, T-Mobile’s abandonment of their traditional deck, Microsoft’s Skymarket, Nokia’s revamping of their mobile store Mosh and the entire Ovi initiative
• The flow of money into apps and app contests - the iFund back by. This was later followed by Android’s developer challenge [$750K just announced to winner], Sprint’s Instinct developer contest [$25K]
• The increased importance on the killer device – Sprint’s $100M marketing the Samsung Instinct, Verizon’s anticipated push for the upcoming Blackberry Storm, the T-Mobile HTC Dream with Android

Google: From Stores to Marketplaces

In the next couple of weeks, Google’s Android will make its first appearance presumably along with the Android Marketplace. In contrast to the closed storefront model adopted by Apple and the majority of the operators, Google chose a more open approach and used the term “market” rather than “store” to distinguish this less restrictive approach towards distributing applications. According to Techdirt, they have adopted a model along the lines of YouTube.

Google will let developers post applications to the store in a matter of minutes, without going through an approval process. But that will make it hard to vet bad, glitchy, or inappropriate applications. To weed out bad apples, the Marketplace “features a feedback and rating system similar to YouTube”

Apple’s Store (closed) versus Android’s Marketplace (open)

In the world of “brick and mortar”, a consumer has the choice of purchasing goods and services from vending machines and retail establishments ranging from the local 7-11 to Walmart. These retail establishments are “closed” in the sense that they control what goods are services are distributed and promoted by a given retail location. In contrast, consumers can go to a flea market or bazaar or buy something via an auction. These exchanges tend to be more open. For the producer of goods, the barrier to entry for a flea market or exchange is much lower than a retail store. But, those producers that get carriage and placement from Walmart will likely generate greater revenue and exposure.

Along these lines, Ted Wugofski has conjectured that “For people building high cost high value applications and services, the Apple model with ‘one click’ purchasing will be very attractive. For people building lower cost lower value applications and services, the Google model with transparent advertising will be very attractive.” Indications from T-Mobile are that free applications will not be able to use advertising. It will be interesting to watch this development and whether it will apply to the upcoming Android phone.

Another distinction is whether Google will be able to control the end-to-end service in the manner that Apple has come to perfect. In his post ‘Do Androids Dream of Killer Apps’, Paul Golding has argued that “it is ‘iPhone ecosystem’ that is the killer. The device, the early adopters (and now hoards of smart followers), the flat-rate tariff, the apps store, the Apple marketing machine, the SDK.”

As noted above, this very iPhone ecosystem, being closed, has created a ground swell of criticism.

Techdirt: “The list of removed App Store downloads include Tetris clones, harmless but expensive novelties, movie listings and useful wireless applications. Although many have sung the praises of the new system, this trend of contingent generativity – Jonathan Zittrain’s term for intermediaries exerting control over new creativity – has some worrying implications. An ecosystem with perfect enforceability of rules will come to preempt the creativity, which comes from the edge (and even piracy).

Open / Closed – The operator’s vantage point

It is quite evident from a recent CTIA panel discussion that the major U.S. mobile operators are focused on different types of openness to make the case that they, as a network, are in fact truly open.

CEO of Sprint Nextel Corp Dan Hesse “The Internet is one of those great things that are still unregulated and people are looking for ways to regulate it … but openness can be defined in three contexts:” open for the end user, open for the developer and open for the device. “Consumers want the whole internet not a walled garden one .. Quite frankly, what the industry did from a brand point of view was ensure that the user experience was a good one [by using walled gardens].” Excerpt from CTIA: Carriers attempt to define “openness.”

CEO of T-Mobile USA Robert Dotson “Being open means unleasing innovation for users” Dotson “T-Mobile USA will advocate an open source operating system through its relationship with Google’s Android OS. Excerpt from Carriers talk “open” network but no clear definition.

Dotson “if you look at just unfettered access in an open world, all of us would probably agree that you probably poor experience at the end of the day.” Excerpt from U.S. carriers hedge open network claims.

CEO of Verizon Lowell McAdam “Openness should go hand in hand with quality experience and security and privacy of the consumer.” McAdam wireless carriers need to “open the doors but protect the network.” Excerpt from Carriers talk “open” network but no clear definition.

Open / Closed – Some further distinctions

Per Hesse’s comments above from CTIA, it is more useful to think of openness in terms of the developer, the end user and the device. I’d argue that “network” is conspicuously missing from his remarks. I find it useful to make further distinctions in the types of openness between devices, networks and developers.

1. Open Devices

• Open Operating System – transparent OS with APIs accessible to developers. Two further distinctions can be made
  • Open Access to Core Features
    • Open operating systems are those in which provide documented with APIs that are accessible by developers. Examples include Symbian, Mac OSX and Windows. ON contrast, closed proprietary operating systems are those utilized by the OEMs on the various feature phones.
  • Open Source
    • Open source operating systems are those in which the entire source code for the operating system is open source. The Linux operating systems (e.g., Motorola MOTOMAGX, LiMo) and Android are examples.

• Open Application Environments – developers have unfettered access to building and running applications of their choosing.
  • Operating Systems and Mobile Platforms
    • Symbian, RIM, Windows Mobile, Palm and the upcoming Palm Linux, Java FX Mobile, Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW), Android
    • MontaVista, WindRiver, PurpleLabs, Azingo, Access ALP
    • Mentor Graphics’ Nucleus, ENEA’s OSE, OpenPlug’s ELIPS
  • Runtime and Application Environments
    • Java, Javascript, JavaFX Script, Flash, WebKit core and Nokia’s Web Runtime, ActionMonkey (Adobe / Mozilla), Lua / uiONE, SVG (Ikivo, Bitflash)

Andreas Constantinou from VisionMobile has described in detail a wide range of application environments.

2. Open Networks

• Open Distribution – marketers have the ability to engage, market, distribute and monetize mobile content and services in a direct relationship with the end-user with the ability to utilize billing and delivery systems of their choosing.
• Open Device-Network Association – any device can be attached to the network.

3. Openness from the developer viewpoint

• Level 0 – no third-party apps; all apps provided by OEM
• Level 1 – third-party apps; distribution controlled by operator
• Level 2 – third-party apps anywhere; controlled APIs via certificate, e.g., Symbian 3rd Edition, T-Mobile Deck and device (no network if not signed), Blackberry
• Level 3 – all API access to device with no restriction; let user judge and approve, e.g., Android

This elaboration on types of openness is a continuation from my previous blog posts on Verizon’s Open Development Initiative and Two by Six Degrees of Openness – Apple and Goolge’s impact on the mobile ecosystem.

Some conclusions

Open devices, networks and markets will likely, at a minimum, have the following impact over the next 2-3 years:

• Increasing fragmentation adding more friction to the creation and distribution of mobile content and service.
• An increase in the amount of mobile content and services available to the end-user coupled with a wider variance in quality.
• A shift in value creation from the device and network to value-added service.

However, it is still not clear whether in this time frame, that the various open initiatives and marketplaces will drive the number of purchases for applications, and corresponding revenue for developers, that we will likely continue to see from Apple.

I wanted to thank Wendong Li, a Principal Software Engineer at Nellymoser, for his comments and suggestions for the types of openness from the point of view of the developer.

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