Context is King – Part 1
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 paradox in which it is essentially impossible to ever be out of context.