Google mobile objectives: Open Handset Alliance / Android

Google make a huge foray into the mobile arena, by providing a phone operating system for free 'Android'. It has launched Open Handset Alliance as the vehicle to facilitate its penetration into the mobile market.

See Sergry Brin introduce it:


Four handset manufacturers are on board: Samsung, HTC, Motorola and LG. Operators?? Sprint, Nextel, T-Mobile, China Mobile, Telefonica and Telecom Italia will sport the Google-powered phones - the first of them will be available late 2008.

This announcement is more than a poke in the eye with significant mobile OS providers such as Microsoft, Research in Motion, Palm and Symbian.

Clearly, everyone is feeling everyone else out with this new offering - 'of course, I'll participate, but I'm not going to jettison any of my existing partnerships that I have nurtured for years'.

I think this strategy is too early for Google - mobile internet isn't what 99% of users require out of a phone at the moment. Another desktop player, MS, took years to gain traction in the mobile sector. Admittedly, this strategy isn't home grown, it came from the acquisition of Android in 2005 - so it will have a better chance than MS, but still...

Google's behemoth is advertising - the mobile industry is a lot more sophisticated and VERY different to the internet. 'Free' isn't word that is trips off the tongue of mobile executives.

I reserve judgment. As I've said before, when people with lots of ammunition are wandering around the battlefield, be careful, they don't have to know too much about what they are doing to be very dangerous.

UPDATE: Here's a biting critique of Google's announcement from a report from Analysys:

As a strategy to bring fundamental change to the mobile industry, Android is way off target.
In reality, a free OS will not be sufficient incentive for major players to write off investments in established software platforms and adopt a platform that offers nothing new from a development perspective.
Manufacturers have a financial liability for their devices, and cannot contemplate the prospect of an open-source OS that could release a virus or trojan into the market. The required investment in OS security and stability would be high, as it has been for Android’s predecessors.
They (members of the Open Handset Alliance) can exploit the publicity if the initiative is successful, and minimise their exposure (as one of several players participating in numerous initiatives) if it fails. In cash terms, partners will invest little in R&D to support this programme.
Ultimately, Google’s primary strategic and revenue objective is to encourage the use of its search engine. If, by backing an OS alliance, Google can expand the scope of its search box placement by cementing relationships with established partners and developing deals with new partners, arguably Android will have done its job.

No surprise that I agree with this viewpoint!

Google opensocial aims to become the social platform glue

At the start of this month, Google released standard set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for building social applications that will work across social networking and other Web sites. So as a developer, write once, integrate with many.

Here are some of the companies that have signed up: Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING. (Most of these are consumer sites, but some are business sites.)

This could be seen as a face-off between Facebook's platform (representing 50 million active users) vs OpenSocial (which leverages users of existing silioed services which together represent 100 million users). However Google is stressing this is an developer platform (rather than commercial one).

Hello? Identity management standard in another guise??

Nice point from this Gartner analyst in this article:

What's missing, said Valdes, is any common user experience, which he believes is one of the reasons that Facebook has prospered.

Also Facebook represents a trusted brand - with privacy standards & trust, as well as a similar consumer experience. A set of APIs alone doesn't represent that.

Pipex reveals UK WiMax plans

Pipex, using the brand Freedom4, announces launch of its WiMax service in the UK, targeted for the end of the year.

Let's be clear here: at this point, you get a receiver the size of a side plate with a toilet roll on top. It allows you to receive a wireless signal (4Mb/s) 500m to 2km (indoors) from the base station; 10km away if you're outdoors. Once you have the signal, you have to pipe it into your PC or Mac or whatever (eg cables or wireless). This Silicon article reports that a USB plug into the back of your PC is coming too - such things do exist. (I'd love the ability to set up my own base station, please?)

Two areas served to date: Warwick, Milton Keynes and Warwick; parts of Manchester coming soon - here's the coverage map.

Clearly, this is complementary to Wi-fi, rather than competitive. Their marketing is aimed at remote access for SMEs:

• those out-of-towners
• too far from the exchange to get broadband
• don't want a phone line.

"Pricing competitive with equivalent fixed line access services." If you've ever had to priced satellite internet access, then this looks like a good deal. But is the market big enough to support this size of initiative??

Google proposes global privacy standard

From Silicon.com:
While Google is leading a charge to create a global privacy standard for how companies protect consumer data.

USA Today story adds some historical colour to the story, by highlighting the fact that Google is struggling with privacy concerns that threatens its purchase Internet ad service DoubleClick for $3.1 billion:

Facing pressure from European regulators, Google got the privacy ball rolling in a new direction earlier this year when it announced plans to regularly remove key pieces of personal information about the search requests stored in its computers.

It then narrowed its time frame for depersonalizing search requests from as long as two years to 18 months — a standard that Microsoft, which runs the third-most-popular search engine, also has adopted.

Yahoo, which operates the second-most-popular search engine, has gone further by promising to scrub personal information within 13 months — a standard Time Warner's AOL also follows.

InterActiveCorp's Ask.com is going even further by offering its users a tool that will prevent search terms and the Internet addresses of computers from being retained.

Previously, all the search engines had been vague about how long they hold on to the personal information logged from search requests.

TerraNet - peer to peer mobile comms

Swedish company TerraNet has developed the concept of mobile communications with mesh networking concept.

From this BBC report:

The TerraNet technology works using handsets adapted to work as peers that can route data or calls for other phones in the network.

The handsets also serve as nodes between other handsets, extending the reach of the entire system. Each handset has an effective range of about one kilometre.

This collaborative routing of calls means there is no cost to talk between handsets.

When a TerraNet phone is switched on, it begins to look for other phones within range. If it finds them, it starts to connect and extend the radio network.

Note that Ericsson has NOT invested in the company, as the BBC reports, but is funded by private investors - see clarification from TerraNet. However backing from a handset manufacturer would make sense, as it would allow them to bypass mobile operators and increase the value in the handset, not in the network

People search - a review

A review of a couple of people search engines: Zoominfo, Spock & Wink.

Gotta say LinkedIn and Zoominfo are the two that I use.

Here's another profile aggregator, ProfileLinker (here's a TechCrunch review). Upscoop aims to identify which social networks your buddies are a member of.

Blimey - transmission to be continued

Haven't posted for ages, so I'm obivously feeling the itch or guilty or something!

Plaxo & LinkedIn sync up

The two strongest social network software providers for business users, Plaxo & LinkedIn, have produced a cross-network sync, so that Plaxo contacts can be synced with LinkedIn contacts.

Clearly, if you have extrapolate the utility of this feature, then you'll want to tie many address books together.... ie around a single identity (well, a reduced number at any rate). I'm surprised it has taken this long to put this together - especially as their offices are about 3 miles apart.

With ads .... radio, television, wi-fi, telephone?

Those ingenious chaps at Fon (free wi-fi) have been messing around with an ad-supported service - and I don't mean the dull Google Ads variety. When you connect to a 'Fonera' (ie a Fon hotspot), you'll have to watch an ad to continue surfing - one every 30 minutes, according to Martin Varsavsky's blog.

Any reason why the same business model can't be applied to ordinary ISP, IM or (mobile) telephone service? Not really - apart from market appetite.

Orange (at last) has a common sense data plan

After years of being in the mobile business, then finally Orange UK looks to have discovered a common sense pricing model for consumers to use the mobile internet.

Bear in mind that 96% mobile revenues comes from plain ol' voice and text, so growing the 'proper' data component is pretty important. To date, pricing has been on a per MB or an 'all you can eat' basis.

I have blogged previously on why 3's gargantuan X-series package was indicative of amateur marketing. Looks like Orange have found a customer-centric solution.... wow, what a concept!

So here's why Orange's announcement will make total sense to users and I would anticipate the other operators will follow suit:

• Pay-as-you-go: Internet snacks – 40p for 15 mins with daily cap of £2 (or a daily £1 bundle).
• Contract: Internet “snacks” – 30p for 15mins with daily cap of £1.50 (or a “bundle” priced at £1 per day or £5 monthly for evening/ weekends or £8 monthly “anytime”)

New position at Webmetrics

Just started a new position at Webmetrics, as Product Marketing Manager - hence why there hasn't been too many posts recently!

It's a fascinating company just north of San Diego. In essence, what Webmetrics provides is simple and useful: they verify that your website is available and functional. But, given that the web is fragmenting, the page that you see is the result of multiple partners working together for the end-user experience, then knowing that your partners are up and running and functional, is vitally important.

For a small company, they have a great customer base: Yahoo!, Barnes and Noble, DHL, salesforce.com. Heaps of exciting potential!

As a side-note, I remain one of the Entrepreneurs-in-Residence at UCSD (University of California, San Diego) on the CONNECT program.

Multiple 'transport' mechanisms used to interact with Internet in developing world

A lovely story from the BBC about cached WiFi intelligence: how, in rural India and parts of Rwanda, Cambodia and Paraguay, the local store has a community computer which gets updated with content whenever a bus (equipped with wi-fi) drives past. The bus connects both people and information requests to larger (connected) communities.

The founder of the United Villages initiative Amir Hassan said:

"0.003% percent of the web that rural India cares about. They want to know the cricket scores, they want to see the new Aishwarya Rai photos, and they want to hear a sample of the latest Bollywood tunes."

It also provides everyone in the rural community with email access too. Users can request specific pages that isn't normally cached. Clearly not designed for personalized services.

OK, so what's the relevance of this heart warming story to the first and second world?

In essence, that most of the internet is asynchronous, so much so that it is (largely) independent of time. So content consumers will use low (or zero) cost communications mechanisms for this type of information and expensive mobile when speed is important or when they lack of access and can justify the expense.

Mobile operators take note.

Cisco & Webex

Cisco, mentioned earlier this month, in Social Software goes corporate?, has agreed to buy WebEx, the video conference company for $3.2b.

Lots of people in Silicon Valley are rubbing their hands with glee as Cisco continues to suck up social & collaborative software into into portfolio.

More acquisitions (plus glee) to follow, surely?

Free Web-based SMS - Old Skool!

Vintage stuff: the mighty Gizmo project is revisiting some dusty, long forgotten functionality: the ability to send text messages to mobile phones from a web page for free.

Remember when telco operators used to let any third party do this back 5+ years ago? They permitted this so that the recipient would hit reply thus generating usage. Sadly, only mobile operators themselves permit this through their own sites - and cap usage to a fairly meager daily limit.

It will be interesting to see if this takes off again - perhaps it will shove SMS into the mainstream in the US market.

In the meantime, you can send a SMS to my mobile / cell phone, by clicking on the Gizmo Logo above.

Jubii - Not quite, yet

Had another mess around with Jubii. I was hoping the service had improved after its launch a couple of weeks ago. Actually it was the comments in the blogosphere that clarified whether / how some of the functionality worked.

So, it comes from Lycos Europe, it's all Web 2.0:

• You get an email address. When you receive emails, they are divided between a public and private inbox based on whether the sender is in your address book
• Send SMS - not available yet
• VoIP (landline to landline, a la Jahah, rather than using PC's speakers + mic)- 30 mins of free calls per day to Austria, Canada, Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, UK and USA (an interesting mix of countries!). Each call is limited 5 mins. Free while in beta.
• Blogging, photo and file storage and sharing. You can selectively share content with your contacts like etribes or vox (10Gb storage for the first million users)
• Interconnects with AOL & ICQ messengers

Several key features are idenabled yet, launching SMS or VoIP is pretty unintuitive. IE7 reports errors from time to time. Overall, some of the concepts that it is aiming for make lots of sense, something that the original Midentity desktop application was aiming for.

It looks reasonably good, but it's buggy - I'd rather not right it off at this point in time - it might be revved up into something reasonable.

Importance of the cost of land on entrepreneurship

One other factor that weighs heavily on entrepreneurship is the cost of land (and therefore the cost of living). The UK is cramped nation of 60 million people - space is in high demand, driving up the cost of land. The US is a vast nation that remains sparsely populated, even with 300 million people in it. The risk of starting a business (and possibly losing your home) is much more significant in the UK than US. For the more extreme contrast, compare with Japan (130 million in a country most mountainous that 75% is uninhabitable).

As a side note, land is more expensive in California than elsewhere in the US, approaching the value in the UK. In my experience, Texas with a reputation for cheap land, hard work and can-do attitude, is much more entrepreneurial than California. Silicon Valley has historically built an innovation cluster (compare with London's financial industry) and now has all the ingredients to make building new high-risk businesses much easier.

Lack of Entrepreneurship in UK - stop whining

Why Britain needs to change its view of entrepreneurs

http://www.nesta.org.uk/informing/articles/rebecca_harding.aspx

I find the point of view that UK lacks a culture of entrepreneurship short-sighted - get over it - innovation is a second class career in the UK. This is from a Brit that has bounced between both sides of the Atlantic, who has founded an internet company in the UK, but now lives in the US tech community.

As Napoleon described UK as a nation of shopkeepers 200 years ago, the same is true today. The UK is blessed with historical existence of the City of London, a financial trading power house that generates billions of dollars of value. It's an center of excellence whose contribution to the UK FAR exceeds that of other trading centers of similar size. As a result, the UK (and the Scottish even more so) are supremely skilled in dissecting risk and reapportioning it and trading it. This contribution is something that the UK should be thankful for and, at the same time, recognizes what is disables.

So, imagine I am a bright, young thing in the UK, fresh out of school or university. The most profitable method of being successful is to be drawn to the bright lights of the metropolis and work in 'the City' - where I use other people's money to buy and sell resources and to shave off a commission out of other people's ventures. Would I even consider assuming the majority of the risk of a venture myself? You must be 'havin' a laugh'.

It is well known that immigrants are much more likely to start new businesses for the reasons that they usually lack powerful networks of local contacts and cannot bring an existing reputation in their new country. They rely on their own intuition to build a shelter for themselves and their family.

UK enviously looks over its shoulder to the US, a nation of immigrants with an immense repository of raw commodities and natural resources. It's a nation so large that it can't be dominated by the financial industry in New York (a country can only have one financial center after all). As a result, any bright, hard-working American considers entrepreneurship to be perfectly valid career choice.

Speaking from personal experience, I have found the UK venture community to be superb at quantifying the risk in a start-up business - analyzing it, slicing it and dicing it, synchronizing it perfectly with the rest of their portfolio of investments. They may (or may not!) provide the cash for the venture, but infrequently the practical expertise to assist the new business.

The venture community in the US, on the other hand, provides not only the cash, but also the understanding of the fledgling business (as frequently those with the cash have been successful entrepreneurs themselves, thereby perpetuating the cycle) and are more likely to jump into the ditch and dig or into the boat and row (you chose your metaphor!).

So my answer to British whiners is: if you don't like the golden egg, then kill the goose, otherwise recognize its limitations and be grateful!

Social software goes corporate?

A sign of the times, Cisco (yes, those router people) acquires tribe.net, a social networking site. Interestingly, Cisco wants to provide "MySpace in a box for its customers", according a comment from the Head of Strategy and Marketing for the Cisco “Media Solutions Group,” which leading Cisco’s Web 2.0 foray.

Now, this is the first sign that I have seen of social networking (typically the domain of consumers or end users) crossing over into the enterprise arena. Caveat 1: I discount LinkedIn-type services as they aren't 'corporate mandated'. Caveat 2: Corporate wikis not included.

The thinking is that Cisco will now be able to approach any brand and create a social networking site for its brand followers, paid for by the brand.

I have no idea why Cisco is charging into corporate fan sites, either. If you know the answer, then please comment below. Thx.

Our digital lifestyle, content publishing, privacy - a good thing

A USA Today article decries the loss of privacy as a result of everyone having a camera phone & the easy ability to publish content.

Far East Asia, then Europe and now the US is realizing the implications of our near 'always-recording' lifestyle in the 21st Century. From 2003, Camera phones banned in changing rooms of leisure centre.

There are positives: at the bottom of the US Today article, it mentions the Dog Poop Girl whose refusal to clean up her dog's mess on the Seoul subway was captured and posted and resulting social shame and capitulation. User generated journalism (most famous being Korea's OhMyNews) and consumer crime prevention (eg text your incriminating photos to your local police station) are other examples.

It is said that you shouldn't put anything in an email that you don't want published on the front page of the NY Times. See this list of career-limiting email blunders (the Claire Swire email, US banker in Korea from 2001).

However, what struck me was that teenagers / early twenties have ONLY lived in an era with the ability to snap 'n' publish content so willingly. Now these students are looking for a job little realizing that all those photos from yesteryear might come to haunt them.

I do think camera phones, the easy ability to post content will make for a cleaner and more just society - it will certainly make things harder to conceal in public.

Facebook - should it exit or not?

Great article on Facebook at CNN, discussing when Facebook should sell. (It has spurned a $1billion offer from Yahoo! already. Its ticket price is apparently well over that now.I mentioned previously that a rumoured price of $2b was greedy. Or should it - shock novelty factor - IPO?)

Myspace sold to News Corp for $580 million. Marc Andreessen, who founded Netscape Communications comments, "Had MySpace remained independent, it would probably be worth $5 billion now".

The story contrasts with Friendster, who turned down $30 million in Google stock in 2003 (now worth $1billion today).