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Wednesday, June 05, 2002 |
Responding Effectively to Disruptive Technologies: How NTT DoCoMo Became the World Leader in the Mobile Internet (PDF)
"NTT DoCoMo’s success with i-mode is partly skill, partly luck, and partly due to the different ways in which the Japanese mobile phone market has evolved. NTT DoCoMo developed a more comprehensive business model than its domestic and international competitors, although the domestic competitors have quickly copied its methods. NTT DoCoMo introduced packet and micro-payment systems where the latter involves the collection of content charges for the content providers. It and its competitors have heavily subsidized the price of mobile phones meaning that anyone including young people can acquire a phone with some of the latest technologies for less than $25." [via Scott Loftesness: Mobile Commerce]
There's way too much to quote from in this paper, so I'm going to encourage you to read the whole thing for yourself. It provides some history, context, and a roadmap for how wireless service providers in the U.S. can gain a foothold via the Net Gens. Good stuff.
11:47:05 PM Permanent link here
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"Anonymous Coward writes 'We have just finished a study that shows how user interface design flaws allow users on Kazaa to share their personal files without their knowledge. In a laboratory user study, only 2 out of 12 subjects were able to correctly determine that Kazaa was sharing their entire hard drive. We looked at the current Kazaa network and discovered that many users are sharing personal information such as email and data for financial programs such as Microsoft Money. To see if other users on Kazaa were aware of this and taking advantage of users ignorance, we ran a Kazaa client for 24 hours with dummy personal files. During this time, files named "Inbox.dbx" and "Credit Cards.xls" were downloaded from our client by several unique users. The tech report is online, or see our lab web page.' " [Slashdot]
11:29:36 PM Permanent link here
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TRON and the CBDTPA
"It seems as if Mr. Padden got his understanding of computers from a screening of TRON, Disney's 1982 techno-fantasy populated by anthropomorphic software fighting a totalitarian "Master Control Program" (MCP). The MCP wants to absorb all other software, and control all Input/Output channels to the outside world, as part of a plan for domination -- first of cyberspace, then of the outside world.
Problem is, in our real world of 2002, Disney wants all hardware and software manufacturers to submit to MCP-like controls in the service of enforcing intellectual property rights.
Maybe Mr. Padden's screening ended early, but he would be wise to note that by the end, the insurgent program Tron destroys the MCP. The program-people and I/O towers are freed -- allowing the full diversity of unfettered communication, in the service of user needs, to proceed again. It's really quite beautiful. Eisner, Padden: a remedial viewing is in order!" [O'Reilly Network, via Boing Boing]
Now that I think about it, Megabyte didn't win on Reboot, either....
11:22:12 PM Permanent link here
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Picture Messaging a Hit in Japan
"While Japan Telecom reported a $530 million loss for the latest fiscal year, its mobile-phone unit, J-Phone, reported $14 billion in revenue -– a 16.3 percent increase from the previous year.
J-Phone, whose market share grew from 17 percent in 2000 to 30 percent in 2001, attributed its success to Sha Mail, a service that let users take pictures with their cell phones and e-mail them with a text message." [Wired News]
Maybe if this type of service was available in the U.S. my brother would send a picture of my niece once in a while.
10:52:47 PM Permanent link here
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PowerPoint Tennis
"Forget Photoshop Tennis. The real leet action is PowerPoint bake-offs; competitions to make the 'best' deck of PPT slides." [Boing Boing]
Michael Sippy plans to go seven rounds with Leslie Harpold, first round due any time now. Some interesting excerpts from the competition rules for various rounds (which, naturally, are in Powerpoint):
"More presentations are created each day than babies are born in the United States....
Any images or links to images of babies or kittens will result in immediate disqualification. This includes toddlers, children, and cats. Roses are forbidden. As are puppies, dogs and all animals....
Contestants will use Powerpoint to encapsulate a Rap song of their own choosing...."
10:44:45 PM Permanent link here
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Rising from the Ashes
" 'Economic-research firm Economy.com Inc. is using the Internet's reach to expand beyond its traditional base of clients in Fortune 500 companies. The 70-person firm is reeling in foreign central banks, smaller businesses such as money managers, consumers, and charities?even a church. How? The Internet has let Economy.com offer customized reports that cost a fraction of what reports used to cost.'
While the transition from free to fee has been making headlines, another less visible trend has nonetheless appeared: the move from expensive to cheap. Companies such as Hoover's or Economy.com have been able to introduce new digital formats to accommodate different needs. These 'slicing and dicing' tactics work both for publishers who can repurpose their existing content in new ways, and for customers who benefit from information products more targeted to their needs. This translates as more usable products (i.e. a digital database is likely to be easier to search and browse than bulky bound reports) at lower price tags. All is not bad in the fee-based world after all!" [The End of Free] (Jenny says: emphasis is mine.)
11:54:43 AM Permanent link here
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Any Way You Spin It, Music Industry in Trouble
"No wonder pop fans are singing the blues. Radio sounds like a broken record. CD prices are heading off the charts. Labels are out of tune with the digital age. New acts fail to strike a chord with listeners. It's time to face the music. The $14 billion recording industry, struggling through its first sales slump in a decade, faces challenges on several fronts, not the least of which is a tarnished image in the eyes and ears of fans who feel ripped off by greedy, tone-deaf bean counters. In 2001, album sales dropped 2.8% compared with 2000, the first dip since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991....
While the tsunamis of hip-hop, grunge, rap-rock and boy bands drove sales in the past decade, no strong trend is galvanizing the masses. Billboard's top 10, formerly an exclusive club for albums selling 100,000-plus copies a week, now accommodates acts selling half that.
Illicit downloading continues to chisel away at label profits, prompting lawsuits and generally ineffective countermeasures.
As for today's music offerings, well, fresh bands grow stale overnight while The Beatles continue to sell quite steadily. In this singles-minded era, fans forge only feeble bonds with momentary artists....
'It's the Nickelback question. They have the most-played song in modern-rock radio history (How You Remind Me), and you can't pick them out of a police lineup. There's no story, and it's part of an enormous problem at the heart of the music industry. Artists are being prematurely dismissed or not signed in the first place.'
'Part of me understands that,' Light says. 'The obligation of a multimedia corporation is to generate money for stockholders, not to make the best records, and it's naive to pretend otherwise.' " [USA Today]
I've been increasingly impressed with USA Today's coverage of these issues because they're more willing than most of the BigPubs to examine all of the trends affecting diminished sales. In this article, there's only one mention of illegal file trading among the list of contributing factors.
And while it's true that multimedia corporations have no obligation to get "the best records" out on the market, I think it's also worth noting that consumers have no obligation to purchase music they don't find appealing. I don't totally buy into the theory that there's no good music out there, as evidenced by the number of MP3 traders and internet radio listeners, but it's important to recognize that the major problem here is that the music industry isn't meeting consumer demand, so consumers are turning to other options. (Note: I'm not advocating stealing content as a response to industry incompetence.)
The record industry is experiencing its own version of blowback, and no one (Congress, consumers, etc.) should be expected to bail them out of the fine mess they've gotten themselves into. Instead, they should adapt to the new reality and get on with it.
9:51:18 AM Permanent link here
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"Texas Instruments has announced the BRF6100, the 'first single- chip Bluetooth(TM) solution to integrate a digital Radio Frequency (RF) processor and Bluetooth baseband on one chip.'
By designing a digital RF CMOS architecture, TI has removed many of the challenges associated with current RF devices. The BRF6100 Bluetooth chip will consume as little as half the power of current solutions and will occupy the smallest board area of any product available today. The BRF6100 will allow mobile device designers to easily integrate Bluetooth functionality -- a high value-added feature -- for a total system cost below $4 in volume quantities." [The Bluetooth Weblog]
This may be the drop that overflows the river banks because price point has been such a huge obstacle to Bluetooth adoption. Getting the price of a chip below $5 was a necessary step to mass production.
8:22:53 AM Permanent link here
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The Soundproof Book: Exploration of Rights Conflict and Access to Commercial EBooks for People with Disabilities
"The electronic book should be a boon to people with disabilities. Unfortunately, the nascent eBook industry has often soundproofed its books, preventing access by people with visual and learning disabilities using adaptive technology. Persons using synthetic text-to-speech technology or electronic braille systems are not allowed access to the underlying text of the eBooks, and thus are cut off from the content. The leading eBook technology providers, Adobe and Microsoft, have provided the option to disable disability access in their publishing systems, at the request of publishers. This is not because of an explicit effort to deny access to the disabled community, but rather is due to concerns over audio book rights and enabling piracy of book content. We explore these conflicting visions of accessible eBooks and set forth the essential background for the search for a solution that meets the needs of both publishers and people with disabilities." [First Monday]
Yet another negative consequence of being overly concerned with locking down digital rights. If the industry is that concerned about piracy, they should stop putting out audiobooks on CD and cassette, too. Oh, wait - then there wouldn't be any audiobook industry. Hmmm.
In case you haven't tried this before, you can already find a lot of audiobooks in MP3 format on Kazaa and other P2P networks. For example, you can get Harry Potter and Stephen King titles, among others. That genie is out of the bottle, too. What it should signal to publishers (along with the success of Audible) is that there is a demand for MP3 audiobooks that would supply profits if they would just get over their fears and release their content in that format.
And I don't even need to preach to you folks (the choir) the need to keep digital content and access alive for libraries and people with disabilities, right?
8:20:01 AM Permanent link here
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Here's a great quote about ILL librarians:
"A good ILL librarian is like a good Black Market Hustler. They can get anything, but what's it worth to you??" by Duckboard Harrier*. [Thanks to Steven for this one, too!]
I can't link to the original location of the quote until the site (not Duckboard's site) resolves a request to store a specific image on their server rather than someone else's, but I still wanted to post it because it's so true!
12:45:24 AM Permanent link here
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Humming Is Theft, Record Bosses Claim
"In their continuing struggle to selflessly save the musicians of the world from penury, all of the leading record company executives have pledged to 'stamp out free humming, wherever it may occur'.
'For years people have gone about humming their favourite songs whenever it took their fancy. Normally this would be a source of pleasure. But this pleasure came at the expense of lots of hard work from the musicians who are clearly not getting any compensation for this,' screamed an indignant Rilary Hosen of the Recording Industry Association of America....
The record companies did not, however, make it clear as to how exactly the 'humming rights tax' would be collected. There have been suggestions that a levy similar to those on blank CDs and other media might be a model to follow. Every one who has a larynx (and thus has the ability to hum without paying) could be subject to a fixed yearly fee.
'I think it is up to the end users of larynxes to prove that they have substantial other non-copyright infringing uses than humming songs for free. Mute people and those with serious throat cancer would be excluded from this new levy,' said a salivating Rilary." [The Rockall Times, via Boing Boing]
12:38:02 AM Permanent link here
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Soprano M-Pay
"Soprano today announced with Ultra-Pacific Pty Ltd the availability of a new mobile commerce product that simplifies product purchasing at various points of sale. Thanks to patented voice-based technology from Ultra-Pacific and mobile network technology from Soprano, any mobile phone can be used to purchase products from vending machines or even over the counter quickly and easily.
Soprano Finance Business Development Manager, Mr. Helmut Marschall, said the introduction of the new system resolves many user interface and purchase flow issues compared to other mobile commerce implementations....
'By using this solution, intending purchasers will have a simple means to buy products using any mobile phone. In doing so, they can get the added convenience of an optional calorie counter message on their phone and a receipt on their mobile phone bill', Mr. Marschall said.
With this technology any person can walk straight up to a vending machine with the M-Pay device fitted on the outside, and in a few seconds walk away with their purchase. At the point of purchase, a few seconds of sound is sent through the phone's ear-piece which is held close to the M-Pay device. The M-Pay device accepts the payment by communicating with the phone using sound and then authorises the vending machine to dispense the product.
'The technology means that the specific vending machine does not have to be fitted with a GSM device which can be expensive. It can also be used in a large range of wireless applications including identification, ticketing, over-the-counter sales, and parking', Mr Marschall said." [via Scott Loftesness: Mobile Commerce]
Naturally, this will be implemented in Asia first, but eventually it will hit the U.S. The convenience may be one of the big incentives for users to upgrade to new cell phones and services. If the industry gets their act together.
12:26:27 AM Permanent link here
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© Copyright 2004 Jenny Levine.
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