Carnival of the Mobilists #71

A pleasure to be hosting the 71st Carnival, which must mean it has been at least a year since I hosted last.  Congratulations to the great people who have been making this happen week over week.  For me hosting represents my best chance to dive into a world of divergent perspectives, new ideas and amazing analysis within the industry.

For me, the best post of the week was Ricky Cadden's Why I Won't Use a Music Phone (Yet) posted at Symbian-Guru.com.  I think it's such an important topic in the upcoming release of the iPhone as operators are nervous about taking on Apple heads on with music related devices.  Ricky's first bullet point nails it in my view though: ease of transfer.  iTunes, the music store and the consumer integration experience that goes with them is Apple's competitive edge.

Mark Logan presents Mobile Marketing Principles posted at bemomobi.  While Mark humbly points out that it's not rocket science, he is starting to put a framework together that clients can actually understand and reference.  If you are at all working within mobile advertising, I'd join in on the discussion with Mark.

On the same topic of mobile marketing, Troy Norcross writes about Mobile Measurement – The right end of the stick? posted at Mobile Marketing & SPAM.  This is an insightful piece reminding advertisers to really understand their campaigns, and not just run them.  A useful point - don't worry about it too much, just do it in some way!

Tim Trent presents SMS - Text Message - Marketing is scary for permissions posted at Marketing by Permission.  As someone involved in SMS marketing, this is a good reminder post.  Do you know what a director of mobile marketing told me at a major record label before signing our contract:  "You are the first mobile company where I joined an sms list and did not receive spam."  Wow.

This post titled Global Wireless Data Market Update 2006 by Chetan Sharma at Always On Real-Time Access almost made my favorite for the week, only because I love data so much (and for some reason when it's free I love it even more).   If you're into data to help run your mobile business, go see what Chetan and his smart team is reporting on what is going on.

Leaping over to the application side, Zach presents TalkinSilent by Silent Communication posted at Nokia S60 3rd Edition Applications Review.  This app is pretty wild - I'm a huge believer in multi-modal use cases (I'm dying to try out one of the voice to sms voice mail service for example).  I don't know if it can be done as successfully in real-time as these guys are trying but fun to learn about it.

At the end of the post, Zach talks about the difficulty in buying the app, which is what Little Springs Design's post titled on-selling applications is all about at the Little Springs Design blog.  They've put down some specific ideas to help bolster the methods for better selling and point out that if application junkies don't get excited, then how are ordinary consumers supposed to!

We know many operators think they already do ok at this, so you have to appreciate Tarek Esber in his post Operators, Internet Telephony & The N95  on the tarek speaks mobile blog.  He's trying to strike the balance between his passion for and commitment to an open carrier phone network (where operators don't mess with phones and apps) and the realities of an industry.

You can bet that Tarek hasn't seen anything yet if Google releases its own phone, which is a nice lead into Jimmy Atkinson's Five Things I Want Google Phone to Offer that iPhone Won't posted at VoIP Now.  I guess I am not the only one who looks to Google to solve all of the worlds needs.   I like his open platform point - I think you're going to see an operator embrace a hacker phone in a big way, but I'm guessing Google's to mature at this point to offer it.

Ajit at Open Gardens really covered these points and a whole lot more when he moderated a panel with carriers (an assignment he could not refuse) and wrote about it in the post How should Operators integrate third parties into their network.   Here's his view: in an IP world, as the Mobile Internet mirrors the Internet, the Operator should focus on the core of the network and leave the edge of the network to third parties.

I can't help but think of a similar post I wrote when I read Ajit's comment, and also Erik Starck's The Mobile OS of the future is... posted at The Mobile Web Tablet.  Not to kill the drama of the title, but he thinks it's the web.  Here's a challenge remaining with the promise of the mobile web - this morning I dropped by for the opening remarks of a conference at Stanford that turned out to be tomorrow.  When I got there I was confused so to learn why no one else was there, I decided to phone my friend vs. looking it up on the mobile web (Verizon Edge).  So if basic information collection isn't a slam dunk yet, how long until mobile web apps are?  Or would that just be a North American behaviour?  (Or worse, the CEO of a Palo Alto mobile company - yikes).

A quick aside on mobile content (surprisingly the only post in this area this week) before getting more technical...  Jason at Skydeck makes the bold call that content will be free.  Given the statistics he kicks off the post with, it's hard to see it happening all too rapidly without the full arrival of an open mobile web supported by the carriers. 

Think tank Vision Mobile Forum on its blog delivers an excellent outline of issues facing the SIM industry in a post titled Prague or Berlin.   Andreas Constantinou covers two recent conferences and offers his own insights in this must read for anybody trying to figure out where SIM is headed.

Malcolm Lithgow discusses the "Command Line Interface" (aka CLI) and presents A bit more on the CLI posted at Smart Dreaming: smartphone industry commentary.  There is a lot of discussion happening about CLI  happening in the industry (and particularly SMS in the US).  CLI and graphical user interfaces are the most successful whenever the user reward:user input ratio is highest, so that ratio can be put to the test in the head to head debate.

And close to finally, young Tarek El Ghazali in Egypt at Symbiano Tek provides a short and useful definition for what is S60. 

In the horribly conflicted category, Justin Oberman at Mopocket writes about an amazing comedy group called the Late Night Players and points to the production of a Spiderman text your adventure that uses keywords from my company Mozes.  Go text your chosen fate for Spidey.

I believe Steve Litchfield is next week's host.  Should be interesting given the title of his blog:  rants and raves.  I can think of at least one I'll try to submit.  Hope you enjoyed this week's Carnival!

Comments

[Steve Litchfield]

Ah no. My Rants and Raves blog is a personal thing and nothing to do with mobiles and smartphones. You'll be wanting 3-Lib and AllAboutSymbian to stay on topic 8-)

See you all next week.

Steve

[Noclegi Ustka]

Good article . Thanks

[Dan]

I can find the prayer I want. I thank God for this website.

[Albert]

I have been looking for sites like this for a long time. Thank you!o