Back in January I was writing about how people actually use technology and why certain ìsure fireî services fail to take off. As an example, I quoted Mobile Video Calling.

This is a classic example of technology-led marketing, a process that starts like this:

1. We have the technology, therefore people will want it.
2. Weíll do some research and people will say they want it (after all, they only have to SAY they like it).
3. We launch it and people donít use it. Are they mad, donít they know how totally cool this technology is?

Clearly the wrong approach (but hey ñ it worked with Post-It Notes, so itís not always doomed!).

The problem with Video Calling (apart from the complete lack of evidence that anyone wants it ñ landline calling has never exactly exploded) is that many people actually use their mobiles as alibis.

For instance, there’s the old “working late in the office but actually in the pub” scenario. Not to mention “I’m stuck in traffic but actually still with another customer who’s your major competitor” scenario. Plus a whole host of other white and not-so-white lies that make up many peoples lives. Obviously, present company excluded.

And the same applies potentially to Location Based Services.

Well it seems that someone was listening As Wired reports, thereís now a plethora of Alibi Services, ready to lend technological hand to your untruths.

As an example we have:

ì “It’s a way to make jokes,” said Liviu Tofan, the CEO of Simeda, the German company responsible for the SounderCover application.
SounderCover lets mobile-phone users download prerecorded sounds that mimic the noises of a traffic jam, a circus parade, a thunderstorm, a ringing phone — or even a self-created sound. It’s compatible with certain Nokia phones, which mainly run on the cellular-phone networks in Europe.î

There must come a point though, Iíd have thought that the lengths youíre prepared to go to to validate a lie, might start worrying you a little!

But thereís also a serious point here. It would clearly be wrong to try to launch an operator network that had as its major benefit Video Calling. So Iíd strongly advise anyone thinking along these lines not to.

Ahhh. 3 (the UK Hutchison 3G network) already have. Did it work chaps? I think not.

Once a upon a time, a couple of mates had an idea for a mobile company. ìHey, wouldnít it be cool if you were shopping and you could use your mobile and the barcode to find out if the book/CD etc was cheaper on lineî they said.

They quickly mocked up a demo (in those days the user had to enter the Universal Product Code) and raised a couple of million in VC funding ñ no, this really isnít a fairy story, VCís did used to invest in good ideas
Sadly, Scan went under a couple of years ago, having gone through the inevitable ìErr, this B2C stuff is slow to take off, letís try B2B and then shut down!î.

And proving that thereís few truly original ideas, two companies (one spookily called Scanbuy) launch the same thing, according to The Feature.

“Scanbuy and Neomedia have both proposed using barcodes for comparison shopping and other applications. To use these applications, users snap a picture of a barcode with a cameraphone, and send the data to Scanbuy or Neomedia, who then return the price or URL or other data.”

I wondered if they knew about Scan? And if theyíve talked to Jon or Robert, the ex-Scan guys. Youíd like to think so.

One of my pet theories is that business success is mostly about timing. Catch the wave and an indifferent idea and poor management can make a lot of money. Get the timing wrong and the best team in the world will flounder. I think Scan Iís problem was mainly timing, so maybe the new guys can make it happen this time around.

That doesnít mean to say that they shouldnít be picking the brains of the giants whose shoulders they could be standing on.

I’ll put them in touch methinks. My good deed for the week.

I know this is a little off topic, but I thought youíd indulge me
Actually, itís only a matter of time before social networking software goes mobile. In fact, Dodgeball in New York already has, so itís ON topic. Phew, glad we cleared that up.

Anyway, inspired by TJís Weblog round up of the scene, I got to pondering:

Based on my experiences, I think that there must be a new law that goes approximately “A network is inversely proportional in effectiveness, the more you have in your network over X” Not sure what X is yet!

By this I mean that if you focus on increasing the size of your network, you are de facto neglecting the members of your existing network. Thus by increasing your network, you actually become a worse networker.

I’d guess that the number is somewhere between 150 (the “natural” number
that most people have unsupported by networking tools) and 500. I think that itís possible to increase the number as this software is designed to make you more efficient in your networking. In the same way that Word made us all perfect typists or Excel masters of complex maths or financial problems.

Finally, for what it’s worth, I think the winner in the space (for business
oriented networks) will be the one who cracks reputation management tools.
If the software can somehow guarantee you’re a good person to do business
with…. the world is your oyster! This is easier said than done, once you start to ponder it. But the LinkedIn system of referrals is a good work around.

FinallyÖ a new acronym for you ñ YAFRO. Overheard in VC circles ñ Yet Another Friendster Rip-Off.

ìCutting the cordî, “Going Mobile” or “Mobilisation” is something weíre going to hear a lot about in the next 5 years, I predict. Or words to that effect.

Increasingly, younger people in their 20ís donít bother getting landlines installed for their phones. They just stick to their mobiles. To this generation their phone number IS their mobile number ñ why do they need another?

Obviously, they still need an Internet connection, but thatís changing too. A broadband connection can be shared by quite a few households in urban areas (subject to their contract with their ISP) and with new technologies coming on stream (like Wi-Max), the reach of a wireless network is getting far greater.

So the mobile operators are going to start, sooner or later, to try to get us to cut the cord and go 100% mobile.

Just as the phrase ìyou sound like a broken recordî has no meaning to anyone under 25, ìhold the lineî is history.

Actually, Iím going to claim the idea of thinking up the need for, and then employing the worldís first, SMS copywriter. Back in the old days of 2000, I gave a job to Brad Arnold, now a DJ in Australia ñ can anyone beat that?

But the Chinese have taken it one step further as this article in China View describes. After outlining the explosive growth of SMS, they write:

“Like Hallmark Cards, Inc, some telecom and Internet firms in China have hired professional writers to churn out more polished messages that fit a variety of moods and occasions.

It is estimated that Beijing has over 100 short message writers, the highest number of wordsmiths for this particular purpose, and Shanghai has about half of that.

Some of them are full-time employees, but most are “special contributors” who are paid by how much they can write and how popular their messages turn out to be.

For example, anyone can join Sohu’s short message scribe club. After paying 2.5 yuan, or 30 US cents, to register, one gets a personal code and can post his or her contributions.

Whenever a message is “bought,” the writer gets a quarter of the proceeds, presumably 2.5 RMB cents on average. Multiply 2.5 cents by thousands and you’ve got a pretty well-paid job going.

Some companies have designed very complicated pay scales, with the writer’s take varying according to different brackets of user popularity for each message. Overall, media experts put the monthly income of a full-time short message writer at 4,000-5,000 yuan (US$483-604). Some star writers earn much more because their compositions tend to attract the highest number of customers.

They also call SMS ìthe fifth mediumî which is a new one on me. China View speculates that itís fifth after TV, Print, Radio and the Web.

I wonder if the expression will take off, inaccurate though it is ñ after all mobile will be the FIRST medium.

There’s an interesting article on Adverblog today, reporting on a survey by Empower Interactive.

“Eight out of ten mobile phone users in Europe wouldn’t mind receiving promotional offers and marketing messages via SMS.” I donít like research that so transparently supports the interest of the company commissioning it. (ìPope reveals soaring use of prayer as consumers errrÖprayî type of thing). But this has a ring of truth about from my experience of actually working in this field.

But as Martina points out ìPeople might be willing of receiving mobile coupons, messages concerning text & win campaigns, but we can’t consequently assume they want to get messages simply saying “the new XXX product is out” or “wash your hands with XXX they will be softer than ever”.î

This is an excellent point. What many marketers don’t appreciate is that the mobile channel is a *promotional* one, not an advertising channel.
Having overseen 1500 of these types of location based campaigns, I’d say that this is pretty much established. If you use the channel, your point of view as a marketer must be how you can add value to the consumer with your communication. This can be a coupon, for sure. But if we start getting creative, there are other ways. News, information, jokes and inside knowledge of something, are all examples.

But if you simply send “Our brand is great” type of advertising, not only will it not do you any good, but you’ll end up harming your brand. “Why did you text me to tell me that?” they say.

And if you do go down the offer-led route, it needs to be an exclusive one, not just one available to anyone who happens to be passing the shop. Again, this leads to a negative, not a positive response.

But the overall findings of the research are very positive, if unsurprising. We had 85,000 people opting in for local messages when we launched this kind of service.

If youíd like to find out more on this, email me for my free White Paper on the subject.

Is the current rush to put up hotspots a legitimate strategy I wonder? Or is it another case of “business follow my leader”?

The rules of this game is that one Dufus CEO in one company has a stupid idea. And everyone else in the sector assumes the thinking must be brilliant and copies him/her, little understanding that they’re following a moron.

There’s lots of examples of this type of thinking. For instance, in the 80’s lots of banks and building societies in the UK ran off and purchased Estate Agents for vastly inflated prices. This resulted in a lot of mediocre jack-the-lads getting very rich, all because of a stupid mistake. This mistake assumed that coz people saw an agent while buying a house, they could sell them a mortgage too. WRONG! Maybe something to do with the fact that the average punter trusts an Estate Agent as much as they trust crocodiles - and hungry ones at that.

A more recent example is the ludicrous price operators paid for 3G licenses in the UK. Actually, in fairness, this was a “no win” situation. Even if the management knew in their hearts and brains that they were overpaying, if they hadn’t got a license, they’d have been crucified in the City. And the management wouldn’t have been able to hang on to their jobs to say “I told you so”. There’s scant satisfaction in being right if the price is your career.

So are Hotspots similar? On one level, I think the answer is yes. The model assumes that there’ll be hordes of us willing to pay for premium access to the net when we’re out of the office or home. More precisely, they talk about data - email and internet access to you and me. To which I say - bollox. It’s never going to happen, not in any significant numbers anyway. Additionally, I believe that providing a free wifi hotspot will soon simply become a cost of being in business for hotels and coffee bars.

Actually, as an aside, they don’t all talk about data. The Cloud (who have a network of wifi in pubs) say that they have no idea what people will use their network for and it’s not their job to figure it out anyway. To me, that’s like building a network of railways, hoping that someone will figure out what to use them for - not even imagining (or bothering to imagine) a railway engine.

So, where is the revenue going to come from? I assume it’s going to come from voice calls. VOIP (or voice calls over the Internet to the uninitiated) is getting increasingly better nowadays and will continue to do so. So if you can patch calls though wifi, rather than the hugely expensive network operators, at a discount to the consumer, you could make a lot of money. With the added benefit that the brand doesn’t necessarily get to pay for the infrastructure.

Already there’s phones offering dual access to network and wifi calls, so that must be the game plan. Or serendipity for the hotspot owners perhaps?

Back in the 60’s the Americans spent billions on developing a writing instument that could work in space ie in zero gravity. The Russians used pencils.

The pencil users in this case are a very clever company called Quarterscope.com. They have come up with a way of tracking location based on your position in relation to wifi hotspots.

Rather than spending billions on satellites and infrastructure, like GPS, they spend nothing. They just use other people’s wifi hotspots to triangulate your position.

Not only is it clever commercially, but it works better too. Most people live in urban areas and GPS doesn’t work very well in errr….urban areas. The thing is that your device must be in line of sight of a satellite in order to work. So it doesn’t work in heavily built up areas, in buildings or in tunnels. But that’s where wifi location works best, as there’s a lot more hotspots around.

Pure genius.

Now all they need to do is figure out that what people want to use location based services for. And if anyone whitters on about restaurant and ATM finders, I’m far from convinced.

Vodafone have launched a Karaoke mobile in Japan.

“You download backing tracks to the phone from the web, plug the handset into your TV, and sing into the mouthpiece.” Apparently, you can also play the music via external speakers.

In Vodafone’s defence, karaoke is obviously much bigger in Japan than anywhere else - with good reason. But the idea of a world with “instant karaoke” fills me with horror. And if you heard my signing voice, it should you as well.

Let’s start lobbying now for a ban!

Another creative experiment that has practical uses is GPS drawing

Essentially, people carry GPS devices and their movements are then tracked as drawings published on the Web.

As mobiles increasingly incorporate tracking facilities, we’ll all be able to look back at our movements over a specified period off time. I wonder what a 5 year pattern would look like of your life?