NAB’s scope only grows broader. Take a few of the concurrent conferences: the weekend Digital Cinema Summit, IPTV World, MoTV: Mobile Video & TV Forum, Podcasting, Business, Law & Regulation Conference, NAB Web & Mobile Development Conference, MPEG Industry Forum, RTNDA. Or the keynotes: Kevin Corbett, GM, Content Services Group, Intel Corporation; Jeremy Allaire, president, Brightcove; Philip Corman, director-worldwide partner development, Microsoft TV; Frank Dangeard, Chairman & CEO, Thomson. Other speakers include Disney-ABC’s Anne Sweeney, Wired’s Chris Anderson, WSJ’s Walt Mossberg.
Monday’s schedule shows the breadth, starting with an “all-industry opening” that’s broadcast at the roots: NAB President and CEO David Rehr’s first state-of-the-industry address and recognition for anchors Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and the late Peter Jennings. Later in the day, it’s News 2010 with a large panel that includes Rather, AP’s Tom Curley, Google’s Marissa Meyer and several others. Biggest question: will trying to be everything get NAB anywhere?
Our NAB coverage is sponsored by Javien.

1:57:22 AM    comment   

Hotxt has been attracting quite a lot of attention in the UK, not the least because it’s backed by Dragon’s Den entrepreneur Doug Richard. Dragon’s Den is a TV programme where wannabe entrepreneurs pitch their wares to a panel of VCs.

Hotxt is a mobile messaging service that offers an all-you-can eat menu for ¬£1 ($1.79) a week. It’s pitched as an alternative to sms, but offered at a far cheaper rate, especially for heavy users.

How it actually works is that you download a Java application to your mobile, which then allows you to send messages across the mobile internet, bypassing sms. You still incur data charges from your mobile operator, as well as your ¬£1 a week, however these are likely to be negligible and you’ll certainly save money over and above ordinary sms.

I like the idea, but have two concerns - one easily sorted out and one on a more strategic level.

The first area, which they can correct with a bit of time, is how the idea is presented in detail. The site really isn’t clear and the above summary I wrote took some digging around from someone who knows this space pretty well.

Java isn’t mentioned at all, for instance, and maybe this is deliberate to avoid jargon confusion. But what isn’t clear and up front is that if you want to send a message to someone else, they need to have the application installed too. What happens if they don’t have Hotxt installed isn’t very clear, but seems pretty important. After all, with a new service, the chances are slim that all my friends will have Hotxt installed, so I really need to know what happens. Will I be told that they’re not a Hotxt user when I send my message? Will they just not get it? Will my phone explode? What?

There is something called Hotxt Out, that I can use to send an sms at about 7.5p to non-subscribers. But does this kick in automatically if I try to send a message to a non-subscriber? I’d quite like to know, especially if I’m buying this primarily on a cost basis.

So, the presentation of the detail needs to be improved significantly and suffers from a common issue of the writer almost certainly being too close to the product they’re explaining. At the very least this element needs revamping and I’d recommend doing some proper usability work on the website and how people understand the service, sign up and use it.

The bigger issue is bundling. UK mobile operators already sell bundles of sms messages, which cost significantly less that the “retail”. For instance, you can buy a bundle of sms from O2 starting at ¬£3 ($5.36) for 50, or 6p (10.7c) each and you can drop the price to as low as 3p (5.4c) by buying bigger bundles. If you’re a heavy user of sms, you’ll almost certainly be buying bundles, which already offer cheaper sms than Hotxt Out.

Of course, the core messaging service is still considerably cheaper than bundles offered by mobile network operators. But the problem is that, in the beginning, most people won’t have installed the Hotxt application, which means that most of the time your ¬£1 a week, all-you-can-eat service is pretty useless. Therefore, the temptation for most users will be to wait until more people have signed up and if everyone does that….you see the problem.

Hotxt clearly recognise this and have built in a viral recruitment mechanic into the very heart of the system. Users get a week free messaging for everyone they sign up to Hotxt, which is indeed a powerful incentive. But whether it’ll be powerful enough to drive critical mass adoption remains to be seen.

Skype, which has clearly influenced Hotxt in everything from design to terminology, managed to succeed with a very similar model, as you can’t Skype someone who doesn’t have Skype installed. Later on, Skype introduced Skype Out and I can’t help thinking that this would have been a better route to follow for Hotxt. Just offering a low cost messaging application, which both parties needed to install is a lot simpler to communicate, without the complication of cheapish sms on top.

Another possible lesson from Skype would have been to simply offer free messaging using the application and generate revenues from premium services. This would clearly have been very ballsy, though it is an approach you’d have thought would have been seriously considered, especially given their investors.

So, is Hotxt hot? To be honest, I’d go for luke warm with lots of potential. If they sort out their usability/copy writing issues and went for a free service at the core, I think they’d be red hot.

1:56:16 AM    comment   

Business 2.0 has a short but sweet story on Netflix, and the evolution of its envelope from its early days to now. (Photos are here.)

In 1999, Netflix started out with a heavy cardboard mailer. With only 100,000 subscribers, costs weren’t a concern yet. Then the company experimented with plastic envelopes, which proved not to be recyclable, and padding, which added too much to postage costs. Both top-loading and side-loading envelopes made an appearance. Seven years of tweaking have paid of… How well those iconic red envelopes will help the company fend off the newest threat - video-on-demand - remains to be seen.

1:52:07 AM    comment   

ET does a speculative story quoting unnamed industry sources that the churn rate in the new user additions may be as high as 20-30%. It then goes on to quote other unnamed industry sources putting the rate as low as 3-4%.

Thankfully, this kind of a story does not mean anything. Otherwise, a defaulters rate of 30% in new subscribers could ring alarm bells for the industry. This kind of a rate of attrition would mean that the market is nearing its peak and that majority of new users are not worth having.

The story does have some valid points worth covering.

As telcos target new subscribers across new market segments with lower disposable incomes, they often end up enrolling subscribers who either cannot afford a mobile phone, or do not think of the mobile phone as an essential item.

While the additions to the cellular numbers are published every month, companies do not disclose the number of subscribers churned out.

Due to the keen competition, with five to six players in most circles, telcos lure customers by advertising low tariffs. [base ']ÄúBut when first-time users get to know the other costs from initial bills, like clip charges, service tax, education cess and itemisation charges, they are shocked at the amount they have to pay.

Further, there is no screening process to determine users who default and then switch over to another operator. [base ']ÄúThese defaulters sign up for a new telco after defaulting. There should be a mechanism for filtering out such users to avoid frauds,[base ']Äù said an analyst.

The telcos do not even have any standard mechanism to ensure timely payments by subscribers. [base ']ÄúThey stop outgoing calls after a certain credit limit is reached, but by then, the damage has already been done,[base ']Äù said industry sources.

Probably the biggest case of defaults was with Reliance Infocomm’s Monsoon Hungama scheme. Only a company like Reliance could take a hit like this and still be surviving.

1:47:00 AM    comment   

The mobile music industry is set to overtake legal conventional music industry by the end of this financial year, according to the Cellular Operators Association of India.

The size of the conventional music industry is around Rs 700 crore, according to a recent report by FICCI and PWC. By the end of this financial year, the mobile music industry is forecasting that it will be worth around Rs 720 crore.

Mobile music, comprising of ringtones, caller ringback tones and music clippings, is registering a growth of 40-50%.

India’s largest operator Airtel has a subscriber base of 20m, out of which six million use mobile music services. During the last financial year, the company registered about 50m downloads.

Airtel recently launched Easy Music services, in which its subscribers can visit the 100,000 Easy Music outlets and choose their favourite music from catalogue. The company has 18,000 songs in 20 languages.

What is the current size of Indian VAS market at end of the fiscal, considering mobile music alone accounts for 720 crores. Previous estimates put the total size of the industry around 500 crores.

Source: ET

1:46:32 AM    comment   

ET reports that Bangalore-based Mobile VAS company OnMobile is looking to raise a second round funding of $100 million. CEO & founder, Arvind Rao confirmed that company is in the process of raising money but did not reveal details.

The estimated value of the company is $270 million. OnMobile is believed to have an annual revenue of about $50m, so the valuation is more than five times its revenue.

Infosys incubated the company 4-5 years ago and has around 12% stake in the company. Other investors include venture fund Argo Global Capital Partners, whose investors include France Telecom Deutsche Telecom, and Singapore Telecom.

Most of the $100m being sought will be used to fund the company[base ']Äôs future growth and expansion, while a small portion is expected to be used to purchase one of the existing investors. The identity of the seller could not be ascertained but sources said it is not Infosys.

OnMobile is a leader in voice based VAS platforms. Voice portals of most Indian operators are powered by OnMobile’s technology. The company is trying to make inroads in other delivery channels like WAP/GPRS and becoming a “end-to-end” VAS solution provider. Competitors include IMI Mobile, Cellebrum, Mauj.

$100 million is a lot of money. With this kind of moolah, OnMobile can not only strenghten its offerings but also buyout other players. Indian mobile VAS industry is hotting up with a spate of investments. Mauj received $10 million from WestBridge Capital Partners, Intel Capital and Sequoia Capital this year. Nazara, mPortal, Openera, ConvergeLabs have all received funding in the last year.

1:46:08 AM    comment   

Reliance Infocomm has always touted its CDMA network’s data advantage over GSM operator’s GPRS offering. There is no doubt that Reliance’s CDMA2000 1x network is better suited for carrying data traffic than most GPRS capable networks of GSM operators in India.

But here is the irony - Reliance has the right data technology but wrong customer base. It entered the market late as an operator and by then the cream of users was already taken by the likes of Hutch and Airtel. With lack of international roaming on CDMA networks and absence of number portability, there is very little reason for the top end users to move to Reliance. On the other hand, GSM operators have the customer base capable of using and paying for better data offerings but their GPRS networks are too slow. And they are too busy acquiring new customers to waste time in upgrading their existing networks to EDGE. Besides there is a dearth of necessary spectrum also.

This is validated by COAI secretary general TV Ramachandran’s statement in this Business Standard article on Reliance’s data (mobile and broadband) plans.

Sure Reliance’s main thrust has been on data, but their revenue from non-voice services as a part of their total revenue is half of that of the leading GSM players.

Non-voice (VAS) revenues of GSM operators is believed to be around 10% and a large part of that is P2P SMS (7% approx.) alone. According to TVR’s statement, Reliance’s VAS revenues comes to 5% of total and P2P SMS should be taking lion’s share of that 5%. So what does it leave for non-P2P SMS VAS revenues - R World video clips et al - which Reliance claims high usage of.

Reliance’s advantage is its ubiquitous data network and pervasive availability of R World. I would recommend a Reliance data card for your laptop because of its nationwide data network, sensibly priced data plans and workable speed of connection.

It currently has its network available in over 2.4 lakh towns and villages across the country constituting for 42 per cent of the rural population. But by the end of the year, it wants to nearly double the rural coverage to four lakh villages - about 50 per cent of the rural population.

That is far more ambitious that the best GSM player in the marketplace. For instance, according to Cellular Operators Association of India(COAI), coverage of the most aggressive GSM player in villages is around 1-1.5 lakh (much lower than Reliance) and is expected to hit about three lakh by the end of this year. However, if Bharti figures are anything to go by, till December last year it had reached over 58000 villages and non-census towns around the country.

But to cater to the rural market would need specialised content apart from the popularity of entertainment (movie clips, song downloads, etc). The company has already worked out a bevy of such services - like online price of cops in mandis, weather report at local levels and of course introduction of virtually all the regional languages to surf information.

• Customer base: 18 million
• Number of data enabled phones: 10 million
• Wireless traffic per day: 320 million minutes
• Wireless multimedia users 5.3 million
• Coverage: 3700 census towns and 240000 non-census towns and villages
• Rural population covered: 42%
• Urban population covered: 97%

1:44:55 AM    comment   

A security guard settling into another hour seated in front of a closed store in South Delhi (above), motorcyclist checking text messages whilst smoking a cigarette in Tokyo (below) and a bus stop indicating how long before the next bus arrives, Brighton (end photo).

Micro and macro breaks are the time we have between defined tasks: waiting for a bus to arrive; for a traffic light to change; for friends to turn up; to smoke a cigarette (assuming the act of smoking is not seen as a primary task). If you design mobile devices, applications or services you should be interested in micro and macro breaks - as a commonly carried mobile essential there is a fair chance that the mobile phone will be used during that break.

Not all all breaks are equal: some are planned, some not; the ability to predict how long a break will last affects how the time is used and whether tasks are started; some we have degree of control over how long they last; and the contexts in which breaks occur can vary considerably - just think of the range of situations you find yourself in.

What are the characteristics of micro or macro breaks? How do they differ between cultures? For that matter, how does the pace of life, the perception of time and how it 'should' be filled differ between cultures? How long do these breaks last compared the time it takes to complete a task such as sending a text message, locating information on a mobile web site or to go to a more topical application - tuning into signal for a mobile TV station?

And why the bus stop? Quite simply - knowing when the break will finish affects what tasks will be started.

1:25:33 AM    comment   

This small, simple and relatively elegant Sony Ericsson phone belonging to a tea-house owner in South Delhi. The product design team will have spent countless hours massaging the components into the smallest possible form factor, selecting materials for the optimal tactile experience, and making the detailing just right. The overall elegance and perceived thickness of the device may have been a factor in its purchasing decision but ultimately this consumer bought a thick plastic cover to protect it from dust and scratches (photo below).

The need and consequent practices of covering and protecting consumer products varies according to cultural practices, individual tastes, climate and contexts. Whether it's a plastic coated car seat in New Orleans, individually wrapped sweets in Japan (in part to cope with intense summer humidity), plastic sheets on a hospice bed, or covered calculators and phones in India. The advertisement for dust free switches in South Delhi (photo, below) is only enhanced by the extremely dusty shop backdrop.

Of these products mobile phones are somewhat unique in that they have to cope with conditions in a wide range of contexts - from when the owner gets up to when s/he goes to sleep and everything in between. Whilst women are most likely to be carrying phones in hand bags the desire to be contactable and to communicate often leads them to be carried in the hand for short periods of time. For men the situation is compounded by the extent to which the phone is carried in pockets - close to the skin and consequently exposed to more human moisture & sweat.

There is currently a lot of noise about who has the thinnest phone, and the thickness of the RAZR was undoubtedly a factor in its worldwide success. But as the adoption of mobile phones spread the reality for many of the world's population is that protection is paramount. My personal take on device thickness is that thin devices have their pros e.g. perceived elegance and cons e.g. an tendency to break more easily, but that things will only become genuinely interesting in this space as and when true flexibility is introduced.

The after market for protective phone covers in India is well developed and is quickly able to cater for new phone form factors, even down to coping with sliding mechanisms. How can mass market products be re-designed to cope with the need for greater protection? (the dust free keypad on the 1101 is a good example). And given that the two factors are often mutually exclusive, is it possible to design products that are able to offer increased protection when needed, but can shed their protective cladding when the need for elegance is paramount? Finally, when new materials and manufacturing techniques enable forms of protection that are not visible to the human eye how important will the design be to the perception of protection?

[Jan Chipchase - Future Perfect]
1:23:08 AM    comment   

In honor of the Maker Faire going on this weekend in nearby San Mateo, here's a DIY project to track someone from an ordinary cellphone. Using the $100 kit from Mologogo and a $6 a month data plan, a java enabled phone will upload its GPS coordinates to the Mologogo server every few minutes. You can then view the up to 100 of the last reported spots the victim has been on a google map. There's a review up from Phillip Torrone detailing how well it performed around Seattle.

Instructions [Pop Sci]

DIY Cell phone tracking [Make]

12:36:51 AM    comment