Written on May 13, 2008 – 1:44 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
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The guys from Skype have a bad day today, as two mobile industry experts from a Dutch town called Rotterdam launched a mobile application that brings free mobile VoIP calling to 500 hundred different types of mobile phones. Wow! This means that users can make calls around 50 countries and just pay for their local data usage. So you’d better use a flat-rate data plan.
The new Nimbuzz mobile VoIP application works worldwide on Nokia Symbian Series 60 devices when connected using a 3G or Wifi network - with a Windows Mobile offering for release in June. For GPRS/EDGE connections, or when using Java-enabled phones, Nimbuzz also offers its “hybrid-VoIP” solution, which counts for the 50 countries.
Co-editors Boris and Patrick at Nimbuzz’s HQ in Rotterdam
Although the Skype-bashing part is the most interesting, I gladly tell you that Nimbuzz’s app also includes conference calling, instant messaging, chat and group chat, and photo and file sending across multiple IM communities, including Skype, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo!, AIM, Jabber and ICQ, plus 23 social networks, including Facebook and Myspace. Founder Evert Jaap Lugt received VC and strategic funding since 2006 by Mangrove Capital Partners (Skype investor), Naspers/MIH (Tencent, Mail.ru, Gadu-Gadu, Mweb, Sanook, Tradus) and Holtzbrinck (StudiVZ).
My expectation that for a while, this service will remain a niche thing - they now have 500,000 beta users -, yet after some enthusiastic “you gotta try this” conversations, the masses might pick it up. I know that for a lot of people downloading and installing a mobile app is still little too much to ask, but when Nimbuzz users tell them they can call for free, they’ll probably give it a shot.
The most interesting question here is: what will Skype do? Launch a similar new-and-improved service? Might Nimbuzz become really successful and Skype’s mother company eBay take the advice of their ‘Disruptive Innovator’ Rolf Skyberg - make Skype the third pillar in the eBay empire -, then an acquisition could be in sight. Don’t you also just love to speculate about the next (mobile) web?
Written on May 5, 2008 – 5:12 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
The Associated Press - one of world’s largest news wires - will launch a service on Monday that brings local news stories to your phone. AP teamed up with 100 newspapers to update readers about the latest developments in their local area by using ZIP/ postal codes. The PR circus is focused on the iPhone, as AP and Apple also took care of an iPhone-optimized widget (see iphone.com/webapps).
“We are excited to offer the first comprehensive mobile news web app and to have been selected by Apple as a Staff Pick. With a new generation of mobile devices on the market, like the iPhone, the time is right for AP to introduce a product that brings together our members’ local news brands with AP’s unrivaled coverage of international and national events,” said Jane Seagrave, AP’s senior vice president of global product development in a statement.
At first you might think, “what else is new?”. Yet existing services like Google Mobile News don’t offer you local stories in such a sophisticated way. And they weren’t smart enough to jump on the iPhone-means-free-publicity train.
Earlier today I wrote a story about the rise of mobile TV. I noted that other news services make 100-second news broadcasts on a phone quite useless. Well… AP just announced another one.
Written on May 5, 2008 – 10:50 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
The New York Times business section opens today with an interesting story about mobile TV. For those of you who think this is a service born for the niche - except for Asia, you seem to be mistaking. Alright, in the US it is: Verizon Wireless has been offering this service since March 2007, but it has fewer than 100,000 paying viewers. However, some European countries have adopted the service entusiastically — in Switzerland, 40,000 people watch news broadcasts on a daily basis, and a million Italians pay 19 euros a month to watch a dozen mobile TV channels.
Several American and European investors have started to expand the infrastructure on which mobile TV relies, which the New York Times describes as “special transmission towers that beam to tiny receivers in the mobile phones.” In the UK, France and Germany, mobile video services like these are on their way. AT&T is shaking things up in the US by launching a mobile TV service as well.
These rapid developments exceed the expectations of experts. A year ago, research firm Screen Digest predicted that the adoption of mobile TV services in the UK might have to wait until 2012, due to a shortage of spectrum. The new infrastructure might speeds things up.
The big question remains though: who will watch mobile TV? People stuck in traffic jams or public transport? And still, when caught in a situation like this, wouldn’t you prefer an episode of Seinfeld or anything but a news broadcast? I suspect that people have already found their sources for news: the TV bulletin in the morning, mobile news sites, screens in public transport and for that matter, the newspapers. Who would want to pay another 20 euros for 100 seconds of news broadcasts?
Written on April 20, 2008 – 11:00 am
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
This is a guest post by mobile marketeer Peter Evers
After Russell Beattie’s post about the end of Mowser, a mobile transcoder, last Monday, a lot of bloggers reacted fiercely on his controversial viewpoints about the end of the mobile web. As a mobile marketing professional I feel kind of obliged to write about my view on the future of the mobile web.
Let’s start with a short recap about what happened this week. On Monday Russell Beattie, founder of Mowser, an application that transcodes normal websites to mobile websites, announced that Mowser has stopped. In this very personal article Russell came up with different reasons for the end of Mowser, such as lack of funding and personal debts but mostly Russell’s lack of confidence in the future of the mobile web. Russell states:
…I don’t actually believe in the ‘Mobile Web’ anymore, and therefore am less inclined to spend time and effort in a market I think is limited at best, and dying at worst. I’m talking specifically about sites that are geared 100% towards mobile phones and have little to no PC web presence. Two years ago I was convinced that the mobile web would continue to evolve in the West to mimic what was happening in countries like Japan and Korea, but it hasn’t happened, and now I’m sure it isn’t going to. In other words, I think anyone currently developing sites using XHTML-MP markup, no Javascript, geared towards cellular connections and two inch screens are simply wasting their time, and I’m tired of wasting my time…
With this kind of powerful expressions, the commotion he caused in the blogosphere doesn’t come as a surprise. Almost every mobile blog I’m subscribed to wrote about it. Especially the articles at MobHappy, MobileMarketingWatch and mocoNews.net were worth reading, But what is Russell actually saying? If you read his text carefully you might have understood that the thing he isn’t confident about is browsing mobile-only websites on two-inch screens.
I can say that I don’t believe in mobile-only websites with no or little PC presence too. If a website is only visible on a phone and not or hardly available on a PC, people probably will not know about its presence.
(more…)
Written on April 2, 2008 – 10:33 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
I’ve written quite a bit about mobile search on The Next Web Blog and recently called it the ‘Achilles heel of Google’ in a piece about Taptu. Since Google and other major search engines were built for the desktop, they likely lack the kind of thinking that is needed for this complete new way of searching. The new, smaller yet mobile-focused search engines do get that, and therefore get awarded and some good buzzing in blogosphere. The CEO of Taptu, Steve Ives, said: “Mobiles are supersocial devices, so if your service isn’t relevant to you in a social way it won’t get used that often”.
Yet when I read an interesting article by interactive marketing man David Berkowitz today, I noticed that there’s also another battle going on the field of mobile search. Berkowitz describes five predominant ways consumers can search through mobile devices: on-deck, off-deck, applications, voice, and SMS. I’d like to focus on the first one.
With on-deck search, Berkowitz is referring to mobile search and mobile Internet usage on the carriers’ branded portal. According to him, this is the most used form. These portals offer default search engines, powered by mobile advertising companies like Medio Systems and JumpTap. As you can tell by their websites, these companies are both focused on monetizing search and see content as a nasty side-effect. Berkowitz draws a strikingly good comparison:
The deck is exactly like AOL in the 1990s, where AOL focused on bringing brand-name content to the user in its walled garden.
Wow, that’s really great guys, follow the example of AOL. Remember how that ended? Users who had walked around in the walled garden of AOL suddenly discovered that there was a whole new world out there. Ok, not one where AOL was making lots of money, but why would they care? They’re the users! They want good content! Not some fake articles that are just written to sell stuff.
So of course, many users left, even when AOL offered open Internet connection. Everyone associated AOL with the walled gardens. So why are the mobile carriers doing the same thing? Again, we’re at the beginning of a new revolution and again companies start creating portals. Sure, the masses will fall for it the first year, but it’s only a matter of time before they ask for off-deck searching - like Google and Taptu - and other off-deck services. When it comes to technologies that are all about connecting people, a walled garden just don’t work. So, all you carriers executives out there, you’d better think of another strategy before your brand gets hurt.
Written on March 27, 2008 – 5:08 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Yesterday we reported that French railway company SNCF will offer a wireless Internet connection on its trains. A few minutes ago I noticed a story on MobileCrunch saying that the UK will allow mobile calls from aircrafts.
The Office of Communications announced that the UK will allow passengers on a British aircraft to make calls and send text messages once the plan reaches a minimum height of 3,000 meters. During take-offs and landings, calling is still a no-go.
A spokesperson from the Office of Communications said: “The safety of passengers is paramount and mobile systems on aircraft will only be installed when they have secured approval by the European Aviation Safety Agency and the Civil Aviation Authority in the UK”. Moreover, they’re in discussions with other countries whether phone calls can be allowed on all European flights.
So being unreachable for a few hours due to some ambiguous ”don’t-use your phone or we will crash’ fear will soon be history. It seems like traveling in Europe becomes more convenient by the day.
[Tipr: Peter Evers]
Written on March 25, 2008 – 9:50 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Every week we publish an interview with a start-up. We ask five questions, hoping the answers will give you inspiration and new views. Well, actually six questions, since we also ask the start-up to who he or she is passing the mic to.
As I’ve promised you last week, I will interview the start-ups who participated in the start-up rally of PLUGG 2008. This time I’m interviewing Joonas Pekkanen from Floobs. That’s a Finnish start-up which enables anyone to setup their own live internet and mobile TV Channel. The advantage of this streaming video service, compared to competitors like Qik, is that it’s Java-based. So theoretically, the Java client is easily exported to a large number of mobile devices. Our WebTipr from Finland, Timo Paloheimo, has written a good overview of this promising start-up. Here’s their own story.
How did you come up with the idea of Floobs?
“We had been discussing different ideas with my co-founder Kai Lemmetty since the end of summer 2006. By winter we found ourselves discussing more and more often on the subject of live video and its possibilities. One evening we just suddenly realized that everyone will be carrying a video production tools in their pockets in the form of smart phones very soon. In the end of January we set-up the company and started working on the first draft of the business plan, recruiting key people and looking for seed funding. Our idea is to allow anyone to set-up their own live mobile Internet TV channels – streaming live content from mobile phones, web cams, DV cameras and mixing that with pre-recorded content.” (more…)
Written on March 24, 2008 – 2:08 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Our Next Web Tipr in Israel, Yaniv Solnik, is a great guy. He sends us many tips and is generally very nice. Today however, he seems a bit angry. He’s talking about an Israeli company that is ‘bound to crash big time and make many investors loose their money’. What’s going on here?
Yaniv discusses Modu, a very ambitious venture that has developed a mobile phone that consists of one smart CPU and many totally different and good-looking covers - or jackets. So these three different-looking phones have the same CPU with all their personal and mobile info stored on it:
It’s an idea of the well known and successful entrepreneur Dov Moran. Before Modu, he was the founder, Chairman and CEO of msystems. A company that invented USB Flash Drive and FlashDisk amongst other things. From scratch, Moran build a 1 billion dollar company in 18 years. It was acquired by Sandisk for 1.6 billion dollars. So to say the least, Moran has an impressive track record.
That probably helped when he was looking for some funding. So far he has received investment funding from SanDisk, Genesis Capital, and Gemini Capital Fund Management totaling 20 million dollars. Moran hopes to secure another $100 million this year and he probably will. He’ll start selling his product in October with three service providers in Russia, Italy and Israel.
So the investors really fancy his phone-morphing idea. It doesn’t really surprise me, since it’s a trendy product that looks astonishing. And of course, the business model is also pretty simple: Moran expects consumers to keep buying new jackets. Yet isn’t the product launch five years too late? The mobile world is raving about new smart phones, the iPhone and the all-in-one Nokia N95. Why would people walk around with these little and cheap devices?
Dov Moran
Moreover, according to my loyal WebTipr, this is not the first time that an Israeli company is trying to pull this kind of mobile centric device. “A quick look at IXI Mobile, another Israeli venture that burned millions trying to do the exact same thing with a bluetooth centric device, gave up long time ago and is now focusing on a ’smartphone for kids’ named Ogo.”
While we are being very negative here, Mr. Moran himself thinks he’s working on a revolution. “It’s not like the top five companies where everybody makes devices similar to the others, we’re going to change the cellular market,” he said to Reuters. Guess I would say the same thing when I was in it for 5 million dollars.
[WebTipr: Yaniv Solnik, Israel]
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