Market statistics: “Out with the Paper Shopping List, in with the Smartphone”

We, mobile and internet professionals, too often follow only news and stats etc. of our own industry and thus can’t see signs of market and other developments outside our core businesses until those signs becomes actions and acts and then we start furiously tries to catch up and to dive – sometimes too late – into sea of new opportunities. Uh, that was long complex sentence and I’m not sure if I can even follow it ..

Anyway, one of my colleagues forwarded me one press release from the Nielsen, one of the leading companies providing market research and statistics. Forwarded press release was very far from the ones I usually read but the kind of I should be following and reading even more than mobile and internet industry related ones.

In Nielsen Company’s Retail 2015 Forecast (shortly: about the future development of consumer packaged goods industry, ie physical things and stuff we do buy) press release (and in the report itself) one of the major conclusions and predictions is that catchy sentence I am using as title of this posting: “Out with the Paper Shopping List, in with the Smartphone.”.

By 2015, as Nielsen predicts, smartphones will be primary enabler of consumer shopping engagements. To say it more simple way: people will use mobile phones (smartphones) to search for the information, compare prices and use other services to make decisions before purchases as well as help them to shop better, cheaper and easier. And naturally to shop (=buy) too.

When been talking with clients, retail companies have been very interesting about the possibilities with mobile phones and mobile internet, and applications too, but still pondering if the services what they want can be “fitted” into mobile phones. Sometimes them cannot, but isn’t retail companies’ web sites basically about publishing information? Of their services and products, including texts, images, videos. Simple basic digital content added with purchasing possibilities.

Adding puchasing possibilities (possibility to pay by using commonly used payment methods) is not so big deal anymore and even more complex services, like customer’s account management etc., can be completed fairly straight forwarded way without losing the usability in the mobile phone. Technology and users are there, and  consumers are willing to shop!, but retailers are not yet, in this mobile internet space… some will be soon …

Wanna get your shop or store into the hands of the consumers? There’s only one right answer and when you have figured it out, give us a call…

Back to basics, finally?

Last year and a half or so has been quite funny in this mobile business space. Latest hype word has been “applications”, especially iPhone ones. Can’t count by my fingers anymore how many times there has been situation where client has been interested in to get (iPhone) application as their mobile solution. Just because “everyone” has one. And that “everyone” has been the rationality behind what they want, not thinking a bit further like total market share of iPhone users in their own home markets, how to serve other mobile phone users, how to market their mobile phone (application) services and so on.. “applications, applications, applications” has been the mantra of the day.

Adobe just released survey they did in July and it has quite interesting findings about the companies and their mobile service and mobile commerce plans. 80% of those companies have or are planning to have mobile internet sites and only 8% are planning to have mobile phone applications. Hopefully this is a sign that companies are – finally – looking to take mobile steps in the right order, first getting basic stuff (mobile internet sites) into an order and then looking to enchange and extend their functionalities (via applications). Well, we’ll see what will be the mantra of the fall…

Public (non-existing) mobile services, mobile commerce and mobile people

Recent finished small survey we did got me to do some research. Perhaps the day has been just one of those bits and pieces kind of day which are sometimes nice to have as provides also possibility just to browse around, wonder, sometimes even wander, letting brain to rest and work at the same time. Because of the results of done survey, I started to look around what’s done and coming up in area of so called mobile commerce.

One of the reasons was many contacts and discussions lately with clients and prospects about setting up mobile internet services, and not only for distributing information but also monetize them by selling companies’ products and services via mobile phones. This research I was doing did lead me into one interesting article about Government of Arkansas (yep, that state in USA) mobile services, especially about possibilities to pay for different state’s and government’s services via mobile (smart)phone. This specific service is nowadays the most popular service of the whole Arkansas’ Government’s mobile services!

Well, that’s good news, especially for the industry, as shows that public sector is not only sitting and waiting things to pass or happen, acting only when forced. Or, actually, is it so? Example, in Finland there’s lots of progress going on to provide different kind of public services online, from dentist time bookings to car registration information services etc. And on the mobile internet side there’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland’s old fashionedly named mobile service for travellers, wap.formin.fi (well, have chatted with them few times and seems that implementing handset recognization for easier access is not their highest priority to develop those mobile services..). Then there’s.. well.. just a sec.. well.. oh yes, there must be other public mobile services in Finland.. or in Europe.. eh.. well.. them are a bit hard to find, I must admit as there must be.. at least some.. somewhere.. anybody can help me here, please?.. just wondering a bit what means those words usability and accessibility, especially latter one.. it did mean larger fonts or screen readers and other nice things for disabled but shouldn’t accessibility mean nowadays freedom to move of ordinary people, citizens?

Oh, I almost forget that my original thought, mobile commerce. Sorry. Basically having mobile commerce site means simply publishing content, like texts and pictures and so on. Only challenge is collect payments (unless using accounts and invoicing) but that’s not magic as haven’t payments for the goods taken care on the web for years now? Ofcourse we can integrate different payment methods as part of our solutions but sometimes it’s best to co-operate, with companies like paythru, which help to set up payment possibilities more faster and easier, when needed. This co-operation allows us to provide fast and cost effective possibilities for our clients to start selling products and services via mobile phones, from pizzas and admission tickets to games and what ever company wants to sell. And consumers are out there, literally..

People have spoken and wishes taken into actions

During the summer we have been running “mobile internet survey” on our mobile site where people were able to tell more about how they use mobile internet services and what kind of the services they like to use with their mobile phones.

There has been great bunch of people taking that survey, especially as it was only available via mobile phones (btw, Juhani was the lucky one to win Apple iPad which was drawn between all those who left their contact details – congratulations!). Survey results were actually in the line of our own thinking, especially when it comes how and what kind of services people like to use with their mobile phones. Two different kind of needs or wishes were clearly over others: to buy stuff and services the same way as done on PC, and to access company or personal data via the mobile phone. Quite natural and logical wishes, aren’t those?

So, that just means we roll our sleeves even higher and dig more deeply into our products to develop them to serve those needs and wishes. Stay tuned what will be released…

Oh, those ones who want to see the survey results (in the case you can read Finnish or are willing to play with different language translation tools), just send text message KYSELY to +3584573950012 and you will get mobile internet link to the results.

People are changing their habits faster than companies believe

Few weeks of my summer vacation are done, few more to be spent in August. And ofcourse, as any sensible (?) human being does, tried to stay away from computer as much as possible. But was not able to help myself, because of my prefession, interests and so on, so there was need to get online, still. To check emails, news, communicate with the people. All those things I did with my mobile phone, instead of computer.

While reading the news last week’s Monday, I turned into one interesting one at Kauppalehti’s site. About those problems Iceland’s ash cloud caused last April (Beating ash problems with mobile technology). Seems that this specific event has been real driver for people to use mobile services here in Finland. As Kauppalehti wrote, based on TNS Gallup‘s research, mobile internet use in Finland has double during the first half of this year. And especially during the “ash problems” the use of mobile internet and mobile applications peaked, over all usage development has been far much more faster than anybody could have expected.

It will be interesting to see how fast companies can react, when the vacations are over… can and will they serve their customers, that big audience who’s willing to use mobile phones with network based services. Some of them will, but about those things we will tell you later on when we can …

National mobile site statistics are hard to find

Actually, seems that hardly exist at all..

I spent about an hour or so trying to find information and statistics about different countries’ mobile sites (popularity, number of visitors and impressions etc.) but damn hard to find anything outside some random research reports and press releases.

Few weeks ago TNS Gallup included mobile site stats as part of their publicly available TNS Metrix service (choose “Mobiilisivustot” from the “Kategoria:” at the top of the table). Good move and service, especially for advertisers, except there’s currently just five (5) sites measured..

Alexa, that nice source for information of different sites (categories, countries etc.) and their popularity, has no mobile category at all..

comScore and GSM Association has jointly developed and launched GSMA Mobile Media Metrics (MMM) service in UK. Not free of charge service, though..

My research did lead into simple conclusion: there’s no actual up to date data available of how much, and what, mobile sites are used, visited and so on. Ofcourse all (or at least should have?..) site owners have their own statistics but that data is not available publicly. So, for many ad agencies and/or media agencies its hard to sell any idea of mobile advertising as they can’t plan where to advertise or can’t have any exact information needed for planning. Or, ofcourse they do have some data and information which is.. well.. quite often outdated, lent from some company’s marketing & sales slides or some other bs..

Oh well, this mobile internet world is still taking it’s baby steps…

Apple MobileMe Free Trial – IT’S A TRAP

Watch out for Apple’s MobileMe service. I wouldn’t have believed Apple uses so cheap business tactics as they advertise “Free Trial” but end up charging your credit card for 79 €.

A credit card is required to start your free trial. After your trial ends, your card will be charged an annual subscription fee of €79.00*. Don’t worry, to avoid these charges, you can cancel your subscription online at any time during the trial.

Bastards! Don’t go for MobileMe. YOU SHOULD WORRY.

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There’s buyers out there but do you want to sell?

After my lunch I usually browse few news sites, read some reports etc. while waiting the consumed food to settle down before getting back to work. This time I grabbed short report prepared by Gigaom with the title Why the Mobile Web (Not Just Apps) Is Critical for Retailers. I fully agree already with the report as the title says it all… met so many clients who are just asking for apps for this and that, somehow blinded by the media which has been writing quite much about the apps…

Well, mostly clients has been asking for iPhone applications… well, lets see… here, in this small country (Finland) is some 6 million mobile phone numbers (5,3 million people but quite a few have two phones, one for work, one for home, and then all those “sticks” providing 3G wireless lan for laptops). And quite much less than 100.000 iPhone’s… and Nokia’s market share here is between 80-90%… and any iPhone application for the Finnish market will quite easily climb up to Top10 download list at App Store if just downloaded 50 times per week… woo hoo!.. sure, lets make app for iPhone first before anything else…

How about taking care of basic things first? Like, serving “all” possible consumers and buyers first, via mobile web? Hmm.. why? Well, that report I did read had few interesting numbers which should raise anybody‘s and everybody‘s interest: eBay is looking for $1.5 BILLION in mobile sales this year (last year $600 million). Amazon’s mobile site had 3.5 BILLION visits during the first nine months last year… yeah, who cares… lets make that iPhone app first…

Interested to hear more? Or even make mobile internet, mobile commerce too, reality? Contact us and lets get yourself and your company into mobile age!

Beating ash problems with mobile technology

I guess everyone, at least in Europe, has been touched one way or another by this hot volcano in Iceland. People stranded in foreign cities, trying to find their way back to home and work. Even this damages economy, especially airlines’, a lot, it has been great to see how people are willing to help others, share information, arranging group transportations, even providing accommodation to foreign people. That’s simply great! And quite much those activities have been arranged by using technology and different services smart way, especially Social Networking services like Facebook.

But could be better…

This morning I was reading daily newspaper, those articles about current situation, different stories how people has gotten back home and other challenges in the world because of Eyjafjöll volcano and it farting lava and ash up to the sky. One piece in one article catched my eye: one big plane did fly back to Europe from USA just half-full – or should we say half-empty? – because airline did not reach waiting passengers in time, even there was hundreds of them waiting… airline representatives were calling each waiting passenger by phone, with a simple message: “If you wanna fly, get your ass to airport now!” (note: not direct quote..).

It is understandable that they called each passenger as then airline was able to control how many will be taken into that flight, and no fear ending up to situation – like if using just simple one way text (SMS) messaging service informing about the flight – where check in would be full of angry passengers, all wanting to catch the flight but can’t because plane could not carry everyone.

This could be done smarter, very simple, way, though… Example, by using our Sales Activator (or any similar solution), this airline could have sent one text message (SMS) to every waiting passenger, providing them easy and simple way to reply if they can or can’t make the flight, and still controlling the number of passenger allowed to the flight. Result would been better customer service, less costs and more passengers on the flight back home… and, oh, more happy families…

Contact us for further material about Sales Activator and other business supporting mobile solutions.

Why C# / Javascript will be allowed and Flash won’t be as App Store programming language

All the Flash developers of the world wet their pants on 8th April 2010 when Apple announced that Flash based application won’t be approved in the Apple’s App Store. This essentially destroyed the easy opportunity to monetize existing Flash development skills and the huge Adobe expansion potential into mobile markets, pissing a lot of folks who had bet on Adobe’s technology, leading developers’ rage on Internet forums.  Bad news for those who had already building iPhone apps on Flash CS5 even before it was released…

Unfortunately it was not only Adobe and Flash who got in the line of fire: popular frameworks like Appcelerator, Unity 3D and Monotouch apps are theoretically excluded to enter App Store by the new developer agreement which states that the original source code of the application must be C, C++, Objective-C or WebKit/Javascript.

I belive Apple does not hate certain programming languages. Apple does not either want to force you to use their development tools. Only by understanding what Apple really meant with the infamous 3.3.1  clause in the developer agreement, we can start building a bridge to get MonoTouch et. al. to be Apple’s favorites again.

History of Flash (Lite)

Adobe (Macromedia) and Flash have been into mobile business far before iPhone was published. The thing is called Flash Lite run-time. It runs on billions of phones.

The problem of Flash Lite is that it does not very well integrate with its host environment. It does not even have so simple user interface component as a “menu” out of the box. Which means that every developer must create their own menu implementation. Which means that there exist hundreds of shitty Flash Lite menu implementations out there, each behaving differently and each not resembling the native menu component. This is not a very nice thing if you consider the user experience of the application and iPhone  is all about user experience. Note that this is not so big thing for games, as games have radically different user experience anyway.

Flash does not communicate with its host platform either. You wouldn’t be able to access native API features even if you fully controlled the deployment environment of Flash application, as Flash is a binary blob into which you cannot plug-in more parts. There even exists a product for mobile Flash whose sole purpose is circumvent the limitations of  Flash by using a localhost TCP/IP socket connection and a native server application. If developers choose Flash they choose to lock themselves into Flash and what Adobe gives for them.

This crippling of your platform potential with Flash is not limited to Flash Lite and mobile. I have personal experiences from a project done with Adobe Air for Windows. We wisely chose Adobe Air as a desktop application development platform, because it would guarantee the future portability of our code. However, this nice idea did not really interest in the point when we noticed that we e.g. couldn’t control how File Open dialogs behave (file mask, remember start folder, etc.), severely reducing the user experience of the application.

So, Steve Jobs definitely is on something when he says “intermediary translation or compatibility layer” is bad for your platform.

Note that the same limitation concerns Java ME also. Desktop Java has JNI interface for building extensions, but mobile Java doesn’t.

How other frameworks differ from Flash

Let’s take a MonoTouch for example. MonoTouch is Novell’s open source Mono project based development tool which allows you to create iPhone applications in C# language. Compared to Objective C, development using MonoTouch  has several advantages for certain audience: you don’t need to learn new programming language, C# is closer to traditional Java/C++ languages than Objective-C, you can leverage the full potential of existing C# ecosystem out there, the standard library has more functionality and of course, it is easier to port the core of the application from a platform to another.

Note that the porting part concerns core i.e. application logic only. MonoTouch does not try to separate you from Apple’s platform. It does not reinvent platform services or user interface building blocks, or force something like Windows user interface into your shiny iPhone. In fact, MonoTouch seamlessly integrates with Apple’s platform. You even need to use Apple’s own Interface Builder tool to create user interfaces, which will be exposed to MonoTouch’s C# code. Binding with native API is breeze: below ten lines of code guaranteeing that whenever Apple releases a new platform feature it will be instantly available for all MonoTouch developers.

MonoTouch embraces the platform. You can pick Objective C or C# depending on taste. The resulting source code is similar in idea, different in syntax. There is no “compatibility layer” so to say. Not even technically, as C# is compiled to native ARM binary. There is no way how a person could distinguish a MonoTouch application from an application build using Objective-C.

Open source philosophy and platforms

Appcelerator, PhoneGap and other open source / Javascript frameworks are also protected from Apple’s wrath. They are open source which means that you can tap the full potential Apple’s development platform as long as someones writes a little binding code. Also, they try to use native look and feel and components as much as possible, just to make the applications slick. The frameworks do not have conflicting interest with Apple; the frameworks provide portability to a certain point, but they do this respecting their master.

Flash does not enjoy this freedom; developers can’t change Flash or venture outside Flash’s sandbox.

The Future

There is no point of technically counter App Store’s developer agreement, like saying “hey I’ll just compile all my Flash source code to C so it is C code.” It’s Apple’s game. Apple can do anything they wish and they can also change the developer agreement. So when Apple sees something happening in its ecosystem which might damage it, it simply pulls the rug under your feet again. But Apple can also change the agreement in a positive way. PhoneGap has already went through process of becoming App Store approved framework once. I hope that development communities will not burn its bridges with Apple, but try to communicate this matter with a meaningful manner and come to a development agreement resolution based on ideas given in this blog post. Below is my proposition (IANAL. It is left to the reader to come up with something smarter):

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be written using Apple’s guidelines and best practices to express Apple’s intend how the application should behave.

iPhone is not a monopoly. You are free to build and run your Flash application on a device like N900 on any day and sell it in Nokia’s OVI store. If this is a problem for your business then maybe you should reconsider your business model to be less iPhone centric and promote heterogenicity of mobile platforms and application stores.

Until Flash is fixed so that you can mix-in native code, instead of it being a barrier between the expression and the hosting platform, I find it unlikely any company based their reputation around the user experience would allow Flash on their platform.

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