Flash Apps on Android vs iPhone OS x vs Maemo

There is a big Mobile OS battle running out their. With every mobile phone manufacturers and software providers doing all they can to bring the fastest, sexiest and coolest mobile device out for the consumers. A lot has to do with applications or apps. built around these OS platforms which makes the platform look cool and involves more people and gets them excited.

Google Android Phone - Adobe on 7th January updated about the Flash 10.1 BETA support on google android phone.
Watch Video here

It's a significant advancement that the open handset alliance can rejoice this year and pass on the benefits to the consumers and break Apple's App Store monopoly.

iPhone OSx - Presently, any application built in flash can not directly run on iPhone. And off-course the Jesus Phone has millions of fan following. However, iPhone doesn't allow and doesn't intend to allow to run any flash app to work on iPhone directly, you need to develop it with the MAC SDK provided by Apple. This meant that the app has to be available through the Apple's store and Apple gets 30% of the revenue share in each app download. Sifting through pages on adobe's site, when you land upon adobe flash's support for iPhone, you will be surprised to see that * which says: Delivery through the App Store requires participation in the iPhone Developer Program and approval of the application by Apple. meaning 30% revenue share remains.

However, with Google and HTC and other partners of the open handset alliance coming together and launching the google android based phones and adobe extending their support to them, developers can now easily build content or port existing apps to the mobile devices. Which in a way can hurt Apple's App store downloads. Eg: If I am presently hosting my app at any website then I can just promote that link through Admob and other mobile ad service providers like that and get people to download apps directly without bringing Apple in the middle. 2010 will be a significant growth year for apps on open source and growth of google android and hardware devices based on it.

Nokia Maemo - Interestingly the OPEN source Vs BOX race has more contenders, the big-weight in race, yes the world's biggest manufacturer of mobile phones, nokia, is pushing it's agenda with it's ovi app store and Maemo OS, their linux based open source launch is a solid step towards it. They have been supporting flash from long ago, however, their smart phones just didn't pickup. With Nokia N900 device running on Maemo 5, they wish to change this. Their recent announcement of BETA launch of Qt port for Maemo 5 on 19th Jan which will enhance developers to develop cross-platform applications and GUI.

Hoping for a more OPEN environment in future.

Paradigm Shift - Real Time Social Entertainment

This article tries to track the shifting paradigm of consumer consumption of skill based games and derived entertainment and engagement. Why is it happening and how? It will also try to answer the question: "What's the next step in social skill based games, entertainment and engagement?"

Skill Games, Entertainment and Engagement model in India?

India has showered love and affection for massively popular Game shows on Indian Television and recently audiences have also been hooked to the twisted humour, sensationalism and sometimes vulgarity in Reality TV in India.

Around the year 2000 games shows on TV started to pick up steam in India with the launch of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) the Indian version of Who wants to be a Millionaire?. And then it kept the momentum going with more game shows like 10 ka dum, Sawaal Dus Crore Ka, Jeeto Chapad Paad Ke etc. followed suit by exploiting one or the other human behavioral instinct. The undying hope of humans to succeed with their skills was well leveraged. From a legal perspective these games shows leveraged the fact that any game of skill played for money is deemed legal and if you can involve masses to participate across India with TV as the popular medium, you can make huge profits not just with advertisements but also with user engagement through SMS or online voting systems.

India saw a shift in Entertainment from such pre-recorded games shows to the reality TV. Reality television frequently portrays a modified and highly influenced form of reality, utilizing sensationalism to attract viewers to generate advertising profits. For the Reality TV game shows it is about social connection eg: Leveraging Dating in young men and women in MTV Splits Villa or Channel V's Dare to Date, or it can be about vengeance and physicality like MTV Roadies or channel V's V the Player etc. which taps in to human psychology and delivers a value which not fulfilled well earlier.

What has changed now?

While these reality TV shows continue to exist and flourish along with soaps and other genres there has been a substantial paradigm shift in consumer mindset. The shift is more apparent in US and UK and other countries where internet penetration is high, however, it's catching up in India pretty fast.

Let's take a look at how communication technology changed consumer behavior and media interaction over years. In early years of television, TV shows used to interact with audiences through posts. I remember an interesting TV show "Surabhi" aired on Doordarshan used to ask people to send Postcards to a Mumbai address. Obviously that was an era when Email didn't exist. We saw the emergence and rapid expansion of email technology in 1990s and how TV media started getting feedback or interaction from viewers through emails. The communication paradigm shifted a lot with the emergence and popularity of Internet and Mobiles. India became on of the fastest growing mobile consumer worldwide. TV content producers started to interact with audiences through mobile SMS voting etc and started to engage audiences in online voting systems.

However, the instantaneous response still lacks in the reality TV and the content is well edited to ensure certifications and abiding by censorship rules. This is the limitation in the TV as a medium.

A paradigm shift!

The paradigm shift is REAL TIME information access, participation and sharing for enhancement of one's social status, social contact and instantaneous gratification.

Since early 2000, India saw growth in Internet penetration and a lot of dot com companies emerged. Majority of the companies had a revenue model based on advertisements. Some of the companies later in the decade started to offer e-commerce and allied services. Slowly with the increase of internet penetration the sources of finding entertainment also started to move online. In 2008 India's internet population was almost similar to internet population in US and China few years back. So India was on a brink of rapid internet growth and penetration across country. This is being leveraged by some skill game sites in India and some recent Online TV Shows like Jay Hind. May be real time SMS voting and Online voting to decide results may soon become the norm...or the REALTIME TV.

To answer the questions: "What's the next step in social skill based entertainment and engagement?"

An apt answer would be: Emergence of Real Time Social Entertainment - RTSE.

Rapid expansion of Facebook and Twitter are clear indicators of this paradigm shift and the emergence of Real Time Social Entertainment. Even online games industry leveraged this paradigm shift eg: companies like Zynga and Playfish etc. tapped well into the growing online population. However, when it comes to monetization and producing sticky content especially for Indians which stays for years and people continue to pay for it, we need to go back to basics.

Changyou.com and Shanda Games are extremely successful chinese online games companies and they have successfully demonstrated that, with local games like: Mahjong, Blade Online, MMOGs etc., content is the king and it stays with the people and clicks super fast with them.

Local content providers in India like Games24x7.com offering Online Rummy in India and more such real time turn by turn played games like: nomination, pool, carrom, chess etc. are all set to tap into this real time social entertainment paradigm shift.

The love affair between Indians and card games spans all demographics right from working men playing in subways and buses, housewives playing at social parties, middle aged and retired men playing in social clubs, to friends and families playing on weekends. With over 1 Lakh players registering on Games24x7.com in just 9 months primarily with word of mouth marketing, playing Rummy online is becoming the new face of entertainment in form of Real Time Social Indian Games.

New tools and technology helps people to answer simple questions like: Where are you now? What are you doing now? Where are your friends Now and What are they doing now? This gives that instantaneous gratification of social contact and if you can interact and enjoy with them while being miles away from them either through a mobile device or accessing internet on a laptop or PC, you get the social entertainment in Real Time. Eg: Foursquare.com engages friend circles in real time updates and engagement to explore cities etc through any mobile device like: iPhone, Google Android based phones, Blackberry etc. Similarly Gowalla.com also allows you to share real time experiences to discover new places anywhere and everywhere.

Most of the innovations in today's time are being built on these psychological paradigm shifts in consumer mindset. Skill games and real time social entertainment derived out of them thus is a huge opportunity out there.

Engage, Participate & Enjoy in Real Time, seems to be the new mantra for 2010.

M-Seva SMS based Mobile Ticket Booking System for Local Trains

Travel and Tourism 2.0 - Leveraging Web 2.0 for your Business Transformation

Travel and Tourism 2.0

This is in continuation to my previous post on Enterprise 2.o.

MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) have always been a large and rapidly growing industry. So what is happening on this front?

So what happened?

Well a large portion of work being done by local travel agents and DMCs has been taken over by online portals like www.makemytrip.com . www.yatra.com, www.cleartrip.com and the alike. Initially they started off with just travel bookings; however, soon they realized the importance of Hotel bookings etc. and launched more services through their online portals.

Why this happened?

Well ever increasing pressures on reducing the costs and enhancing customer service put pressures on agencies and consultants to find more efficient ways to reach customers and come up with innovative methods for end to end services and better customer satisfaction. As well as ROI calculations on meetings, conferences and exhibitions are showing a clear picture that they are a costlier way of reaching audience. Simultaneously, Incentives industry is seeing more boom because of increasing pressures of employee attrition. HR managers are coming up with more innovative Incentive programs for travel bonuses etc.

What can be done for your organization?

Many SME and large organizations have realized the ROI from exhibitions is way too less as compared to other channels. Organizations are now focusing on companies which provide very focused meetings and congresses like www.naseba.com where the environment is B2B and the focus is business than branding. The advantage for people is interaction on a one-to-one basis which drives the event and delivers much better results than any other event.

So let’s say today if www.cleartrip.com wants to differentiate itself from www.makemytrip.com they can probably look at creating blogs integrated with websites for recommendations on which places to travel, how their website was cheaper in providing travel tickets plus what additional services they were able to get from cleartrip.com. What are the featured destinations and testimonials from people who enjoyed visiting such places using the services from this specific website? Enable interaction through recommendations, testimonials, videos, widgets etc. Direct tie-ups with corporates for special Incentive packages, driven by recommendations from previous users and more. Special prices for let say all employees from Wipro or Infosys if they book from www.yaatra.com .

Will Google Go Mobile? What if, it does…

Will Google Go Mobile? What if, it does…then in future you can talk to anyone on Gtalk running on a Google Phone running on a Google Android having a Google Prepaid or Postpaid connection and browsing Google.com to search for any product on Google’s retail website and buy it through Google Checkout.

Amidst the speculations from the media on whether Google will go the Mobile route or not, this is what you can expect if Google Actually goes mobile.

If google gets the Bandwidth, they will pose a big threat to the Telecom Companies, because Google already have the software ready for the hardware and there have been successful trials and prototyping done.

So if tomorrow Google gets the spectrum it won’t be surprising that they run a parallel program to the open handset alliance and come up with their own revolutionary device the much rumored Google Phone.

So what does it mean for the other Telecom providers? More competition, shifting customer loyalties above all focus on better services and best prices for customers.

If it does happen, the question would be: “Can Google fight the giants in terms of services?” and will a product company completely translate itself into a services company?

I Just iMobiled it! - ICICI Mobile Banking

Wife: “Sachinnnnnnnn, did you transfer the money to your parents’ account that I asked you to do? And the bill payment?”
Sachin: “Yes I did”
Wife: “Don’t lie to me, you didn’t even move an inch from your place for past one hour. And stop watching this stupid TV.”
Sachin: “I am not lying I just iMobiled”
Wife: “iMobiled? What’s that? Some new trick of yours?”
Sachin: “Oh common, you don’t know about the new iMobile service from ICICI Bank? ICICI bank has launched its amazing Mobile Banking Services, iMobile. Through this you can do transactions through your mobile. I can do a Balance Enquiry, I can do Cheque Book Request, View my Credit Card, Demat, Loan Account Transaction details, I can even pay bills, recharge my mobile phone and all this just sitting in my place without moving an inch, while watching India Business hour on CNBC TV18.”

Thanks to ICICI iMobile, I just iMobiled and it has made my life easy!

You might see some similar TV commercial running on air soon promoting ICICI bank’s mobile banking service iMobile. Here is the link to FAQs. With launch of this mobile banking service ICICI has become India’s first bank to launch Mobile Banking. However, this is not the 1st time in world when someone has launched mobile banking. Previously, in 1996 and 2000, Bank of America, Citibank, HSBC and some others have already burnt their fingers. The previous launches of similar services were unsuccessful because of the bad mobile phone handsets and the poor networks available.

However, now the networks are much better as well as the handsets have better capabilities, which makes the outlook more positive. I am a strong supporter of Online and Mobile methods of reaching out to customers. And I strongly support the move of Mobile Banking. I would say 2008 -2010 is the right time to get into the Mobile Marketing and service arena and take the early mover’s advantage. Establish your brand name and brand recall and star building your company’s association with the mobile services. Oh by the way did I say Mobile Marketing will work in India?

With mobile payment options now available, I guess it’s just got a little more easier to promote M-Commerce as well as promoting ads on mobiles as the purchase media vehicle is ready to carry the money. I see by 2010 onwards the company revenues will shoot up with revenues from Mobile purchases coming through higher ad conversions. However, it would be necessary that the brands start attaching themselves with the most modern “Mobile” identity.

Looking for more action in 2008 in the Mobile Front!

Will Telephony Calls be free in India? - Atleast for someone!

Will telephony become Free in India? Will telephony just become Internet telephony? Will 4G networks and IPV6 track the entire world with 300 Billion IP adresses? Will VOIP calls be much better than analogue calls? Will your thumb recognition become your worldwide biometric identity? Read to know more...

If we were to go by the growing clout of telecom operators in India and the fierce fight among them for Bandwidth, it's a rare chance that the telephony would become free. However, based on my previous post on how the TSPs might just turn into ISPs, this might just become true. Even the government of India through their BSNL and MTNL services is planning to launch 2MBPs free broadband internet connection by 2009.

At-least for Youth it might be...
There have been not so old instances of free service providers like Tiger etc which failed to attempt such a concept. Though, I guess it was too early for Indian markets. However, looking at how wireless telephony has expanded in India and why mobile marketing should work in India. I do see a large Youth market out there (Youth Ages 10-24, by 2025 is estimated at 349,200,000 by Population reference bureau) who would not mind listening to a 5 sec ad after every 15 minutes that they spent on phone; if there phone calls were free of charge. (Or probably the premium telephony for business users where they don’t get ads, but they pay higher rental charges.) Also they are given an option of a unique single online mobile wallet for multiple purchases in which they need to buy a monthly recharge wallet card varying anywhere between Rs 99 - Rs 1000.

So, what I am essentially saying is, having an online mobile wallet which gets recharged by a payment of Rs. X/month, like from a recharge coupon which can be bought from a local shop. (Even this will get eliminated when we will have 4G network and IPV6 so that every device will have an IP address and just a Biometric thumb recognition would be your worldwide identity.) Now, they get to talk free and have to listen to some Voice / Video Ads and probably text messages. What they just need to do is probably use the mobile wallet to buy the services being offered to them through promotions on their mobile.

Why should I buy from my Mobile Wallet?
Well anyways, wouldn’t you be buying your monthly required items like a deo or a Movie DVD (after watching the trailers on mobile) or may be a grocery or something similar? And if you get to buy the same through a Mobile phone through a special promotion being run and it gets delivered to your doorstep…obviously an hassle free shopping experience (oh did I say that Oil prices are always rising and travelling has become a challenge, specially if you have stayed in places like bangalore, mumbai, dubai etc). You can browse through the online store on your mobile and choose and pay directly through your mobile wallet safely by your biometric signature check on your mobile phone.

What’s in it for the Supplier?
Cheapest media to connect and advertise directly in the hands of the consumer. No large real estate investment, no large set-up required, no middle men’s commission, just pure B2C delivery of products.

How can you implement this?
Initially promotion of the Mobile Commerce or M-Commerce can be supported through certain specific low cost campaign launches from advertisers like contests, freebies etc. and over a period of 2 years when we see M-Commerce becoming popular, the TSPs (or WiISPs), would start charging the advertisers for the AD time which will again be contextual content ads targeted according to the buying or other behavior of the audience.

Is this model sustainable?
This is the question which we have to answer and will get answered only by looking at the response to the mobile advertising’s success in India. Would Indians accept the technology and would prefer to buy on Mobile or would still want to visit the store to buy? Would the telephone calls be completely free or the companies like Skype or Google charge the consumers to call? Would internet broadband become a reality on mobile phones or would it still be marred by the technology?

I see the light of positive hope and this approach of Mobile driven sales and marketing catching up in next 2 years time.

Will Telecom Network Operators finally become Internet Service Providers only?

Will Telecom Network Operators finally become Internet Service Providers only? Future of Telecom service providers? Would ISP and TSPs become one? A walk back from Future...

2015. AT&T today announced their Internet Services expansion to India. “We see India is the largest Mobile Communication devices’ consumer population worldwide followed by China and our high speed, reliable mobile Internet Services would help the regular Indian consumer to enjoy most advanced telephony and Value Added Services on their ARM Mobile 1.28 GHz processor driven, Google Android / Microsoft / Symbian based, mobile communicators.” said their SVP Worldwide Marketing and Product strategy at the launch function in New Delhi.

2010. Discussing the future of Telecom business at the Worldwide Telecom Forum, the heads of Top 10 worldwide telecom network operators conclusively shared a vision, with open mobile platforms like Google Android or Yahoo Open Mobile, telecom operations have virtually came to a halt with ever decreasing revenues from Mobile Phone networks consecutively for past 2 years while VAS and mobile ads revenues are increasing. There was a consensus that the TSPs would now concentrate on their newly launched Open Mobile VAS services along with the high speed 1GBPs wireless networks. Profitability will be driven by the Ads and VAS services and the telephony will be free of charge for the consumers. This will be on a revenue sharing model with the VAS operators.

If the above claims look strange, you may want to think about what’s conspiring in the world, on the mobile scenario, again!

With Apple’s iPhone, the mobile industry has seen a completely different face of information and communication. And with Google Android’s open mobile platform, you can imagine running a mobile software, which will be capable of Voice and Data communication processing in an ARM processor, and then transmission and reception over XG (3G, 4G, 5G…) internet services. Which means, the thing in your hand, is a PC which can run something like Google Talk or Skype and you can communicate (call someone, share a song, a video or probably send a vibe(vibrator ring)), with someone who has Google Talk or Skype running on a similar mobile communication device. And with IPV6 standards this mobile phone or communication wireless device will be having an IP address too. (You can track it for contextual or behavioral marketing – Did I say Push marketing was dead?)

So what is left for the TSPs? Probably a carrier…for Internet and not for telephony. And off course 2 important things Contextual Content, Contextual Ads (in various formats like Video, Text, Audio, probably Vibration or Touch Colors etc.).

Why companies like NTT DoCoMo, Digiweb, Reliance, Vodafone, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, Tata, BT, Etisalat, Du and similar ones should now focus on a long term growth strategy of acquisition of VAS providers, content management systems and mobile application development on open devices seems obvious. Companies which can help provide Mobile Advertising solutions, Mobile Content delivery or High speed mobile internet are the real companies to look for in future. Companies which can challenge Google in creating a mobile Google checkout to purchase online and start building an online purchase history and complete behavior of browsing and purchase will become very lucrative and growth businesses.

I might be knaive and may not understand the internal dynamics, though, I do see such trends which will bring Telecom network providers to become ISPs and VAS providers and contextual content delivery in various media on a mobile communication device over Internet 4G networks would rule.

*This entry is based on my imagination and analysis and is more of an observant speculation.

Is there a need for Mobile Information Company, like Alexa.com?

In my previous post on Mobile Devices, I mentioned about Static IP addresses for all mobile, hand held or electronic devices, talking to each other over wireless networks.

So a question crossed my mind, is there a need for Mobile Information companies like Alexa.com (web information company).

Not just that, in today's world, when there are so many email service providers like ExactTarget, VerticalResponse, SubscriberMail, vTrenz, Bronto, Silverpop, Strongmail and many more...we are headed for mobile mail delivery providers as well as mobile content delivery providers.

In Email delivery, one of the key challenge is ensuring the mail doesn't go to the SPAM box, which depends on a lot of things, most importantly the reputation of the service provider. Websites like http://www.senderscore.org/ provide email vendor's reputation with various ISPs and give a score which says how well recepted a specific IP address of a specific vendor is.

With Mobile Marketing Association getting more and more active in recent times, they have now laid down the guidelines for Mobile marketing in various regions. I see a need for a mobile information companies which will be monitoring the Mobile Carriers and Mobile VAS operators for delivering the content on the mobile phones and will give a credibility rating suggesting if the incoming messages are being blocked by a user.

Well, till now call barring is what I am aware of. However, as we go forward, with more and more marketers tending to leverage mobile media for marketing, there need to be some controlling guidelines put into place. Does this gives rise to Mobile Information Company?

Do share your comments about the same...

Will Google Android dictate 2008 mobile strategy? 2008 Mobiles from Nokia, Apple, LG, Samsung, Moto, Sony

2008 would be an interesting year for mobile phones as New Generation Phones with ARTistic and Designer instincts seamessly integrated, with WiMAX, 3G and Software driven phones will be taking over the old rut.

1. Google Android

Surprised? The much rumored G-Phone never materialized, but in its place we were given Google Android, not a physical phone, but an operating system to rival heavyweights like Symbian and Windows Mobile. While many were disappointed not to see a shiny new piece of hardware to go face to face with the iPhone, for true mobile lovers Android represents something just as exciting. Seamless integration with Google’s maps, email, search and countless other applications, and an open source platform for developers to create their own mobile software. There’s even a million dollars worth of prize money for the best creations, as Google look to raise the bar once again. It's clear, Software is driving the hardware now.

2. 3G iPhone

Despite its enormous hype, the iPhone has been underwhelming in its assault on the UK mobile scene. Perhaps people have been put off by the exorbitant price, maybe its the lack of true USPs, either way, it’s fully expected that a second generation iPhone will be with us sooner rather than later, and this one will be equipped with 3G connectivity. It was a big disappointment not to see 3G on the original model, severely undermining the product’s excellent safari browser and touchscreen interface, but a Mk II iPhone should be enough to appease some doubters. The rumoured price drop might swing a few floating voters as well.

3. Nokia 8800 Arte series

The Nokia 8800 series has been one of Nokia’s most successful ranges, comfortably outselling far better equipped phones. Until you get your hands on one its difficult to understand the attraction, but up close it’s a cut above, a fabulously designed and beautifully engineered mobile phone that feels as good to use as it does to look at. The next generation of the series brings us the Nokia 8800 Arte models, and this time there’s a bit of substance behind the style, with a 3 megapixel camera, 3G and 1G of internal memory among other improvements. The Sapphire Arte even boasts a whole sapphire within the d-pad!

4. Samsung Armani phone
Following the arrival of Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Levis and Tag Heuer onto the mobile scene it was surely only a matter of time before Armani followed suit. The Armani phone, designed in partnership with Samsung and also known as the Samsung P520 bears an unmistakable resemblance to the LG Prada phone with its black exterior, square frame and touch-screen interface, but its clearly a classy little number and we can’t wait to get our hands on it

5. Nokia 3110 Evolve

Nokia have been keen to display their green credentials of late, and at the forefront of this comes the Nokia 3110 Evolve, a phone for the environmentally aware. It’s a smart looking phone in silver and black, lightweight and slender, with a 1.4 megapixel camera and EDGE connectivity, but its the materials that have gone into the production of the Evolve that stand it apart from other phones. The casing, dubbed the ‘Bio-cover’ is made from 50% renewable materials, the packaging from 60% recyclable material and Nokia’s most efficient ever charger will make its users glow green with pride!

6. Sony Ericsson W890i
What! Another walkman phone! Surely not. Ok, it might not sound like the most interesting development in the world, but read on, the W890i is sure to turn a few heads. It’s the replacement for the ultra-cool, ultra-thin W880i, and it builds on the success of that handset by adding some mouthwatering features. The W890i is an HSDPA phone and also has a 3 megapixel camera, and is still only 9.9mm thick. Not bad when the iPhone stripped of 3G to shave off a few millimeters!

7. Tag Heuer phone
The Tag phone has been on the cards for a long time now, but an announcement in November suggests a release is imminent. French design house Modelabs are working on the design and the word is that we’ll see a product in the second half of 2008. But is it a watch or it is a phone?!!

8. Samsung F250

The Samsung F250 should be with us in early 2008 and looks like being an impressive addition to Samsung’s already extensive list of stylish slider phones. The F250 has a mirror-finish fascia and a brushed-metal keypad that recalls the Ultra range. The features aren’t outstanding, but it looks like being competitively priced.

9. Sony Ericsson P5i
The Sony Ericsson P5i is at this stage just a rumour, but its a good rumour so deserving of its place in this list! If reports are true then we’re looking at a 5 megapixel camera phone with WiFi, GPS and HSUPA connectivity. Mid 2008 release? Watch this space…

10. Motorola and Nokia WiMax phones
It has long been reported that Motorola and Nokia have targeted 2008 as the year to market their first Wimax phones, handsets that would be able to connect to citywide WiFi networks, and potentially to massively bring down the cost of mobile internet surfing for the average user.

* content help from ... http://www.dialaphone.co.uk/blog/?p=942

What's the Future Series Part 3 - Mobile Devices

Last week, I was sitting with my ex-colleagues from National Instruments when we started discussing where the world is headed to in terms of new business opportunities in IT and Web technologies and more...

Interestingly hand-held, wireless devices and online portals became the key discussion topics. Though, we discussed more about how computing is moving online and how just a TCP/IP enabled platform will become a single standard for information, computing and sales (this was under the light that IPV6 standards will provide over 300 Billion static IP addresses to any mobile, wireless, wired and electronic instruments). This should be enough to take care of the 6 billion population of the world for coming 50 years, I guess.

During this discussion, I was thinking about how our behaviour changes towards technology and I recollected some memories from my college days. There was a time when I presented 2 techhnical papers on M-Commerce and Holographic storage devices. M-Commerce basically mean purchasing things on mobiles and holographic storage means storing Terra Bytes of data on 3D holograms. 7-years back the audience was more amused and intrigued on my papers. Though they might be buying their next movie ticket on mobiles today. Anyways, I am happy that my thinking 7-years back is tied well with reality today.

Now, the Future of marketing, which I see is definitely going to be Marketing through the Mobile Channel or the “Mobile Marketing”. With Blackberry's becoming more and more common and Nokia standardizing its business phone, E-series, with Mobile content management and Mobile Value Added Services companies growing over 200% annually, with email marketing providers thrusting on the mobile friendly content, it's not going to be long when revenue source for companies start showing "through Mobile" as a constant field in their reporting.

Mobile marketing (MM) consists of a unique, complex, mix of technologies, business skills, and marketing expertise. It is a child born of the Internet revolution, and it is critical that today’s marketers grasp its significance. It is one of the first new channels to arise in over 50 years, and will quickly become a primary means of reaching out to our customers.

The reliance on mobile phones is increasing rapidly, and considering the Indian markets which has shown enormous growth, for consumption of these services, it's obvious that some of the world's largest players are investing heavily in India. In fact, there are now more mobile phone subscribers in the world (2.4 billion)*, than there are landline phones subscribers. The mobile phone is becoming a primary means of communication, not only for voice but also for digital services, email, digital photos, navigation, etc. Worldwide over 350 billion text messages, also known as “SMS Messages,” are exchanged across the world’s mobile networks every month, with over 15% of these messages, according to the Yankee Group, being classified as commercial, or marketing, messages.
*GSM Association, http://www.gsmworld.com/

An interesting mobile marketing ecosystem has emerged according to MMA, aptly depicted by the image below:-

The Mobile Marketing Ecosystem is comprised of 4 interconnecting strategic spheres–Product & Services (brands, content owners and marketing agencies), Applications (discrete application providers and mobile ASPs), Connection (aggregators and wireless operators), and Media and Retail (media properties, “brick ‘n’ mortar” and virtual retail stores). Various enablers provide the foundation for each particular sphere. Players within these spheres work in concert to deliver a rich experience to consumers. The Mobile Channel Value Chain is the path by which the actual mobile communication and interactivity takes place between the Product & Services Sphere and mobile subscribers (consumers), however, consumer demand must first be established. To create this demand, products, services, events, and content programs are promoted through the Media and Retail Sphere’s various traditional channels.

An interesting report in 2005, Unfolding of the Mobile Marketing Ecosystem: A Growing Strategic Network, by Micheal Becker, CTO, iLoop Mobile explains this ecosystem very well.

Another interesting thing which you might be thinking of is how these SMS campaigns are managed? How companies like Yellow Pages is able to send instant SMSes to you with the information you requested or how while Voting for your popular candidates on a Indian Idol show gets collected by the marketeers? Or may be how your SMSes for Contests on your favourite FM channel makes you win that hamper? Well this is because of the rise of mobile Value Added Service providers eg. On Mobile, IMIMobile, One97 to name a few in India.

With competition starting to take-off in this category, more and more marketeers will be moving to these channels. Also, these VAS providers would need to gear-up for the futue of customer centric services. They will have to look much ahead of a demand to be created and will have to be Agile enough to get such demands fulfilled even before the customers ask for it. So essentially, the strategy would be to create a Think Tank or Pool of Ideas on proactive basis, to keep differentiating the offerings before the competition does.

A WIDE-OPEN eye along with a keen tap on the market movement, will help them to remain ahead in competition. With companies like Reliance, who would want to have the entire ecosystem under their nose, it would only become more and more challenging for these VAS operators to sustain. With sustenance based on VCs, its always a continuous sword on the head, to overperform and post more and more profits. Though innovation and proactive behaviour might ask for diverging away from profits in certain business quarters. Also, this can even spur another consolidation wave where we can see some more mergers and acquisitions.

Tata Indiacom Offers Samsung Duo Dual Mode Handset in India

Following the Spice Telecom, Tata Indicom with Samsung has announced to launch Samsung Duo, the dual mode handset supporting GSM and CDMA technology.
According to Samsung, users can use two GSM or two CDMA or one of each sim cards in one handset.
The Duo handset is a slider phone having a 2.2-inch hybrid TFT display. Also it features 1.3 megapixel camera with 10X digital zoom and video recording. This phone is a real business phone supporting document files in excel, word and PDF formats.
The phone also offers good amount of entertainment to users through an MP3/AAC+ player supporting video in MPEG4. The phone has 10MB of internal memory and can support up to 1GB of external memory.
Besides, the phone has three input options ABCD’ keyboard or a normal mobile phone keypad and thanks to the handwriting recognition software that it incorporates, you also jot something on it.
Perhaps, the most interesting feature for Indians the Indian calendar it bundles which lists all the festivals, dates and important occasions. Additionally it has a Panchang featuring auspicious/inauspicious times during a day.
Currently the Duo is launched in Mumbai only at the price of Rs. 11,999, excluding the Indicom Sim card.

Was just discussing yesterday night ... Teleportation is the Next Technology change? Which is going to throw out all these mobiles and communication devices....I wish I could be alive to see that day!