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Great ad from Motorola about aggregating content on a mobile device

This ad ran during the World Series and I thought it was a great take on the type of thing we are doing at Gist.  The ability to sift through an increasing amount of content, information, chatter, and other types of noise to get to the things that matter most. 

The mobile device is changing the world

The impact of communications on societies and as a a driver of economic development is something that intrigues me as evidenced by previous posts around effective teledensity and whether the cell phone can really change the world.

I picked up the video below of Mark Pesce from Burton Group analyst Mike Gotta whose blog I have enjoyed reading for many years and recently had the opportunity to speak with about what we are doing at Gist.  He is as smart guy and has another video of Mark on his post "Hyperconnectivity:  The Power of Sharing."

Big brain stuff to ease you into the holiday weekend.  Enjoy!

 

Mobile Gmail for my BlackBerry

Just set up the latest release of Gmail for mobile on my BlackBerry and am really digging it.  Nice job fellas.  A good use of the brainpower over there.  Some good offline features now and faster scrolling among messages. 

Can the cell phone change the world?

I wrote some time ago about effective teledensity and why you should care about it.  I continue to be intrigued about the impact connectivity and communication can have on economic development and wanted to share this article from Popular Science entitled "Will Cellphones Save the World?"

"Within a year and a half, half the world will use cellphones, predict analysts, and with the bulk of new users emerging from developing nations, the question of what phones can do for their owners has never before had such potentially world-changing answers."

Mobile devices will gain more and more computing power and more communication capabilities as the technology evolves and its pretty cool to think that this could not only improve people's lives but level the playing field a bit more between developed and developing countries.

Out of the ashes Iridium soars towards an IPO

Wow.  Everything old is new again, just this time with maybe a valid business model?  This story from Barron's highlights how Iridium is planning an IPO in 2009.  This is after Billions of dollars of investment (mostly from Motorola), being picked up for $25MM, and actually understanding the target market was being eroded by terrestrial cellular coverage.  Oh..and that little bit about the phone being the size of a shoe box and not working indoors certainly didn't help.  For full disclosure, I worked on a handful of market studies for the then "hot" mobile satellite communications market in 97/98 while at Arthur Andersen and, although our forecast was also on the rosy side, we identified cellular erosion as a key threat and dispelled the myth of the village phone in our results.  That is where I learned about teledensity.

"...the original Iridium business plan - to be a cellular replacement for consumers - was “a misguided proposition that Motorola created.”

Ouch.  Although the plan to supply this to "business customers" sounds eerily familiar, at least there appears to be some focus on defined use cases in maritime, trucking, oil and gas, etc.  And of course the Billions of dollars in investment capital has long since been written off so the hurdle is much lower at this point.  I look forward to watching the progress.

Another reason not to be the first to buy

Or camp out overnight...

Troubling news today for all those iPhone early adopters (suckers?) who shelled out $599 for the nifty new device a scant 2 months ago (June 29) - you can now get it for $399.  Holiday sales promotion or response to slower than anticipated market adoption?  Regardless, Apple shares fell 5% in a universally ugly day in the markets (and are staying down in after hours trading).  This story from Bloomberg digs a bit deeper into the details.

I tinkered with one the other day in the Apple store and it is definitely "cool" but I'm not quite sold and have huge baggage from a previous AT&T wireless relationship... 

Updated:  Looks like Stevie Jobs is giving you "early adopters" a hundo for your enthusiastic early support.  Suppose that eases the pain a bit, but I agree with Andy on his point about embarrassing your fans.  Even Fred Wilson is bumming on Apple.

Crisis management via Blackberry

As August is high holiday time in Europe and also a time for vacations on Wall Street, the recent gyrations in the global financial markets have occurred when many of those that play the game were soaking up the sun in their favorite beach getaway.  This story from the Financial Times talks about a few folks who used their Blackberry's as their "financial lifeline" as events unfolded and credit them with not having to cut their holidays short to rush back to the office.

Obviously emotions are running high and the stakes are huge so one can only guess at the contents of these discussions.  The ability to quickly message back and forth creates a nice record as each of these emails gets neatly stored into a firm's email archive (at least in the US in compliance with SEC 17a-4).  One can only imagine what will be uncovered as the litigation heats up and e-discovery requests come rolling in.  Maybe not a wise idea to send emails after a few margaritas?

Mobile email "kills" text messaging?

According to Gartner, mobile email will become more widely used than text messaging although "it may be quite some time until mobile email completely overtakes SMS."

This is an interesting story (via Information Governance) that is more about the continued adoption of wireless email than it is about it "killing" SMS.  The safer prediction here is that 20% of all email accounts (some 350 million) will be wireless by 2010.  I think the point made in the comments to this story is spot on.

Email will continue to be widely used but I'm not ready to sound the death knell for text messaging as a result of increased email usage via mobile devices.  While I am not a heavy text messaging user, I do use it and the next generation of workers depends on it.  How those personal communications via text message will displace or replace email is yet to be seen.  There will be an evolution to different ways to message, communicate, and share files based on the action required, the recipients targeted, and sensitivity of the content.

A bigger story than the iPhone

This little nugget hasn't gotten near the coverage it should have as the gushing and accolades (plus a few gripes) roll in for Apple's newest creation.  RIM's Blackberry devices are set to go on sale in China in August via China Mobile.  Think the Chinese will experience the addictive grip of these little joys?  You bet.  Here's the story from the BBC.  Apple might make the iPhone in China, but you can't buy one there.

Is an open wireless platform on the horizon?

Looks like it according to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin:

"Whoever wins this spectrum has to provide … truly open broadband network — one that will open the door to a lot of innovative services for consumers"

Full story on his comments here.  So what does a spectrum auction have to do with anything?  We are talking about the 700MHz wireless spectrum that can be transmitted like TV signals and is being vacated as TV stations go digital. Why is it appealing?  Because it transmits through walls and across rural areas just like TV signals.  What's the big deal about it being open?  We consumers will get our choice of phone or device and can load the software we want and not have to take what the wireless carrier wants to sell.  Or as Mr. Martin states "You can use any wireless device and download any mobile broadband application, with no restrictions."

Great news.

Enter the free market, capitalist, former FCC Chairman types who want to move in on the wireless crown jewels of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, & TMobile (that they made the investment to build out).  Combine that with a public policy angle intended to provide police/fire with wireless access and you get Frontier Wireless and former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt.   The stakes are high as Hundt ran the spectrum auctions in the mid-90s and getting access to these means serious opportunity for new players. 

Even Google has a stake in this calling for the above mentioned open platform but has decided not to participate in the auction due to the fact that "incumbent carriers have built-in advantages that will prove difficult to overcome".  Wow...something Google can't/won't buy.

Meanwhile, companies like my Kirkland neighbor Clearwire are building this "wimax" type of service offering today having inked deals with DirectTV & Echostar and banking on filling the void as the transition out of the 700mhz spectrum takes place.  Here's some commentary on that.

The end result will certainly be beneficial as more mobile connectivity is better than less but it promises to be interesting to watch play out.

Updated:

Looks like I was wrong on my point above about something Google won't buy.