Sony Ericsson Idou – yes we do?

Touch screen with 12 megapixel camera (yes we want) was announced today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It’s expected to be the leading entertainment device of SE. Check out the sleek high quality movie clip on the site - http://www.sonyericsson.com/idou/

Skype and Nokia – a bypass operator channel?

The companies announced skype application would be integrated into selected Nokia devices, starting with the N97. On the N97, skype will be part of the address book, which will enable users to see when their friends are online and would be able to make voice calls.

This cooperation is part of Nokia’s strategy of becoming an Internet company and offering VAS together with hardware devices. The move is interesting and it’s even more interesting to see how the mobile operators will act according to this move…

Nokia N97 – more of the same or a breakthrough?

The Nokia N97 is making a buzz at the Mobile World Congress. The new N series device will be launched in the first half of 2009.
Looks interesting and prestigious could have been a bit thicker and is definitely looks similar to Nokia 5800. It has 5 megapixels camera, but isn’t it time for 8 megapixels device following Sony Erickson and Samsung? It has Qwerty keypad, which is great, and the screen is 3.5 inches.

Also, the mobile computer, the term Nokia uses, has multiple sensors, processing power and connection speeds – “for people to create a personal Internet and share their social location”. Social networking applications are one of the most popular issues at the congress this year and operators around the world and considering actions and tactics to address the issue and increase ARPU from social networking usage on the mobile.

N series devices are the flagship products of the company and N97 is expected to replace the N95, which was a major success worldwide. Would the N97 be as successful? Time will tell…taking into consideration the intense and crowded market and the fact that Nokia is no longer a leading innovative player, 2009 might be a period for the company to focus even more on low end devices in developing markets.

Show me the money

When the web2.0 buble hipe is fading away together with it's fantacy, start up enterpernuers and senior managers realize that they are acting within the business world and therefore the leading principle is making money (yes, saying it out load). It's not enough to have a great idea, technology in place, high skilled execution and experienced people on board, you also need a potential profitable business model and positive ROI.

Taking the number of facebook's users for example, which grown 70% in 2008 and in the begining of 2009 anounced they have 95 million users. It is an impressive figure but is it being translated to revenues? not so sure about that. Flicker is making around a $1B compare to $300M of facebook with approximately half the users.

A great post about how to increase digital goods revenue is written by Jeremy Liew, Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners that basically talks about increasing the gifts product portfolio, creating more payment channels and motivating users to purchase virtual gifts. It is an interesting direction and should probably be a part of the revenues mix together with advertising, applications and premium subscription.

On my way to Scoop

While looking for the the scoop cafe on 154, rue Saint Honoré, I wondered how come my genius mobile can't tell me how far I am from the place, is it open, is there a free table and of course can I order and what would be recommended (as I was starving after the Musee d'Orsey and musee de l'Orangerie). After finally getting there and being lucky as a table was just vacant (the best table) we found out that it's definitely a chic Paris style place with branch fix menu.

This time it turned out great but what if the place would have been packed.... So going back to the important customer value services mentioned in the beginning, the technology exists it's just a matter of integration, educating the consumers and finding a pricing solution...

The French hospitality with the Eiffel Tour as the back yard

Welcome to my back yard...

Facebook is turning 5 and we are getting a free token, someone said boorrriiinnnnggg?...

Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg writes, “To express our appreciation, we’ve created a “Thank You” gift, which will be available tomorrow in the Facebook Gift Shop for you to to give freely to others. In the spirit of celebrating connections between people, we encourage you to use this gift to give thanks to your friends, colleagues and family members with whom you are connected on Facebook.”

The gesture is appreciated and part of the “mutual faith strategy” towards the loyal users of facebook. I would of expect a more exciting way to celebrate the occasion that involves maybe an interactive program/activity, surprising design and features or even an interesting web campaign. but who knows, they might surprise us after all.

Social networking and web mobile usage

Social networking has been a driving user to be upwardly mobile. Facebook's mobile website grew from 5 million users at the beginning of 2008 to 15 million by November. The downside is that it does not support operators all over the world.

According to tech analysts eMarketer, more than 800 million people will access social networks worldwide on their mobile devices by 2012, compared with 82 million in 2007! It’s time for mobile social applications…

Some figures (http://www.news.com.au/) - Mobile web surfers go online looking for music (43 per cent), games (33 per cent) or sports news and results (32 per cent). Other users shared photographs (70 per cent), ringtones (46 per cent) and music (46 per cent).

Introducing smarta.com – LinkedIn watch out

Clean updated design with the slogan of “Think Create Growth” characterizes the new business networking site for entrepreneurs - smarta. Attractive look and feel, which implies that a serious though and strategy is behind this site for entrepreneurs. Yes I definitely feel comfortable at smarta.com…

The site is more than just a networking place it’s got interesting case studies, video diaries and business oriented content and tools. The real value is the ability to set a new business in 30 minutes and feature short video and advices on varies sides of starting and growing the business.

Users will be able to interact and communicate with different business owners and entrepreneurs, create events, groups, access Q&A forums and review case studies.

The entrepreneur of smarta is Shaa Wasmund that is backed by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Vodafone and commercial law firm Mishcon de Reya. Even Bebo founder Michael Birch has decided to invest in it as well.

Spikko - free SMS from PC to Mobile

Spikko enables you to send free SMS from PC to mobile. Spikko solution doesn't require any downloads (telemessage, Triplay) and it's simple and straightforward. Just create a new email to number@spikkosms.com.

The interesting part is the cooperation with the operator. the SMS from PC to mobile is free but the reply SMS is charged for a lower fee than standard SMS fees. The business model is based on rev share between Spikko and the operator.

I like it because there is a value for the consumer - free SMS and attractive fee for the reply SMS. The operator is gaining a new market that is already there and now is leveraging it. Sppiko with it's creative, simple product can create interesting cooperations. I real challenge for Spikko now is to bring users and for this they either need the collaboration of the operator (I wouldn't count on it) or smartly promote it through viral marketing, SEM, PR and affiliate marketing.

Video conferencing for iPhone – it’s about time…

Apple plans to introduce video conferencing to future generations of the popular handset. The lack of video capabilities on the handset has been a major downside among customers. Tero Kuittinen, a Global Crown Capital analyst, said the iPhone must adopt a higher quality camera with video capabilities if it wishes to remain competitive with rivals Research In Motion, Samsung, HTC and LG.

Nokia has video conferencing in most of the 49 new devices launched every year but is this tech advantage is a real benefit to the leading handset manufacture? Apple will probably close the tech gap but will Nokia reposition itself as a cool, innovative and attractive brand? Time will tell they are sure trying so with the OVI.

As for the camera capabilities, after switching from my Nokia N95 8GB to Nokia E71 I can say that having a powerful, high quality phone camera (relatively of course) is useful and a basic requirement of our generation…

Nokia's second acquisition of LBS start up

After acquiring the start up Plazes http://plazes.com/ in 2008, the next lucky company to be acquired is Bit-Side. Bit-Side http://www.bit-side.com/ , which is a German based company with 39 employees is expected to be integrated into the Nokia Service Unit.

Bit-Side is a media-sharing software company with several products such as entertainment and games software and media –sharing programs for Androis, iPhone and Symbian.

Bit-Side is expected to focus mainly on Nokia maps. Seems like Nokia is looking for location based social networking. The company has strategically decided to expand and improve the navigation/LBS/maps etc in order to gain product competitive advantage and slowly move towards offering software as a complimentary product or stand alone.

Modu Gets $7M from Qualcomm; but would it be enough to actually launch the device?

I started hearing a different music from Mudo’s employees in the last couple of months, after the MWC 2008. Modu has an interesting idea but would the $7M be enough for the R&D completion, production, operation, marketing and sales?

It makes you wonder if for this competitive and dynamic market a low budget penetration strategy is recommended…think about the iPod massive global campaign to get into the music players market in 2005…It seems like a successful market penetration would need deeper pockets.

After raising a gigantic figure of $100M this round is not as promising but is probably crucial for the next period. Nevertheless, raising any dollar at this challenging time is impressive.

Nokia website change – is it the best execution to its strategy?

Align with the company's strategy to become an Internet leader; Nokia launches the new updates on the main site http://www.nokia.com/ . Nokia's continues effort to penetrate the new OVI services in the market is finally revealed at the home page. I actually wondered how long it would take Nokia to distribute OVI services through all their channels, especially the main site.

Talking about it on their home page is a significant move but is it enough? Let's say I'm interested at finding out about Nokia games, why doesn't it have a link to N-gage and each of the services from the home page? Now I need to choose a region and then a minimum of 4 clicks (in cased I know what OVI is…). I'm sure Nokia's aim is to drive more traffic to it's' sites, so why not make it easy and accessible?

Nokia's multi-brand strategy (Nokia, OVI, Mosh-mobi, ect) should be re-examined as it may confuses consumers and not necessarily being as efficient as possible…

Mobile Persuasion

Interesting presentation, iPhone Vs Nokia Tube…is it a lost battle? Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Mobile Persuasion

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: mobile design)

I have a dream – Personal Home Page

Getting daily invitations to join social/business networks, blogs, websites, search engines and many other online initiatives emphasizes the amount of web traffic we all consume. On one hand, information is transferred quickly and the amount of data is gigantic. On the other hand, web usability has still along way to go to meet customers’ needs.

The “Favorite” option on your Explorer, Mozilla, or Chrome is indeed helpful in managing web favorite sites but is it the ideal solution? It requires an active search of “pulling” the info required. An easy to use platform “push” based is an opportunity.

Google obviously has an interest at creating a one stop solution for all it’s web applications but is it the perfect solution?

I have a dream that when I open my laptop I will first open my personal home page with a drag and drop option for all my web data with a personalized design and recent updated news. I have a dream that my personal home page would have several widgets for search, email accounts, calendar, all contacts and easy access to my favorite sites – business and personal. I have a dream (agreed with Google) that all my info, favorites, blogs, sites would be organized clearly, efficiently and comfortably…

Mobile Trends for 2009

Taking into consideration the global economic slowdown, leading players at the mobile industry will have to adjust quickly and provide more source of revenue or increase existing channels to compensate decreasing mobile usage. Here are major trends for revenue growth:
1. SMS usage growth – despite of the economic crisis SMS usage is expected to grow, especially among the youth segment but not only.
2. Mobile advertising and ticketing/ coupons. Instead of receiving the invoice or ticket to your email, which is definitely not the best solution for the environment, customers will start receiving it as a MMS to the mobile. Easier, convenient and environment friendly.
3. Content and more content
4. Location Based Services – but not necessarily paid services. Google, Nokia and other players offer free maps; the trend of paying for navigation is yet to come.
5. Social networking on the go – the revolution of facebook, flicker and twitter will expand to the mobile as well.
6. Mobile Internet – dramatic increase of internet usage and a larger variety of services offered
7. Touch screen/ high end devices – for niche market
8. Mobile security – preparing the surface for mobile frauds and scams. Having access to growing information and billing methods
9. Bluetooth is becoming an advertising platform. Finally marketers will start to acknowledge this technological advantage for promoting products/services within a geographical area.
10. Quick Recognition/ 2DBar Codes – campaigns on newspapers and billboards that provide user with very fast access to information – anything from an SMS to a mobile link, to an application download. QR reader should be installed on the device (Nokia, Android devices).

Mobile market slow down

The worldwide economic slump is predicted to impact global mobile market. 2007 was a successful year to the industry with 16% growth. This year global sales are expected to reach only 10-11%. Taking into consideration that most of the growth will take place in emerging market.

As per the devices, a large majority will be low - end mobiles for the low – end markets. The profit margins for those products are lower than the high- end products. It is becoming more and more a game of number.

From the manufactures perspective, the SME will struggle and it seems like the leaders will manage to leverage their dominancy in the market for the long run.

Goan beach vacation

After quite a challenging flight we have finally arrived… (Excellent flights, both aircrafts were half vacant but still need to complain about something :-) the taxi from the goan airport took us to palolem beach in less than 2 hours. At first sight you get a bit of shook – welcome to India – cows conveniently walking in what you may call a street, dogs, no exact roads and how can I describe the smell… after asking our driver to take us to a quite nice place he took us to Neptune Point which is just at the south point of palolem. Palolem Tranquil, idyllic and laid-back, Palolem is a beautiful beach in Goa so get ready here we are for the best vacation ever.

Neptune Point – beautiful sunset, great sleep, the ultimate quite but I was extremely determined to find even a better place as far as the hut’s concern and thought about getting the beach experience. Apparently it was a good idea and luckily found a nice, green, beachfront resort like – ciarans - http://www.ciarans.com/.

Ciarans – fabulous 5 days spent with new friends Ro & Mike from the UK and Paulina form Poland. Ocean-view Cottage - Double cottage with en-suite bathroom, outdoor ground level veranda seating area overlooking the beach and ocean! Amazing food, beautiful clean beach and pure fun, this is what I call paradise with IL…happy, happy, happy

One of the things that amazes me is the “me 2” approach of the micro business environment, they are all selling the same things, no differentiation, no branding/marketing/sales strategy (I probably went a bit too far). Very hard to make money if you are selling the same thing as your neighbor… one important basic lesson – be unique, different and create real value for your potential customers.