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ARTICLE
By Jeff Orr, Senior Analyst - Consumer Electronics
More than 2,200 attendees from 45 countries recently converged on Boston for the first Mobile Internet World conference and exposition. Prominent keynoters included World Wide Web Consortium, MTV Networks, Sprint Nextel, Yahoo!, and Google. The conference covered a broad range of subjects including technology decisions, handheld software operating systems, financial transactions, social networking, application compatibility across devices, and rendering mobile content. The strong attendance is an indication of interest in this emerging market. Mainstream mobile Internet applications are still to be developed. A pre-conference panel on “anywhere transactions” looked at enablers for a new generation of mobile commerce, location-based wireless transactions, and anywhere investment management. When asked to describe today’s best mobile Internet application, the panel of three – consisting of executives from the content group at AT&T Mobility, the online arm of magazine publisher CondeNast, and advertising agency Euro RSCG 4D – named American Idol as their sole example of a successful implementation. Viewers of that US television program are requested to vote for their favorite singer at the end of each episode. One option for viewer voting is to use text messaging on one’s cell phone. While it was disappointing to hear that this is the industry’s best example of a successful mobile application, it reinforced that the market is still very young. For example, if the three panelist companies were to work together, a mobile marketing campaign could be architected by Euro RSCG 4D and delivered over the AT&T wireless network using CondeNast content. At this stage of mobile Internet, the supply chain is not yet in place. The lack of working relationships among companies inhibits contacting one another to create a big idea. The social networking panel sought to address the burning question, “Does the world really need more social networks?” The answer was a resounding, “Yes.” Most mobile users are not PC users, noted multiple panelists. While social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn are often discussed in computer-based circles, these applications do not exist in the mobile Internet space. As the next billion Internet users come online for the first time, many will experience the Internet via mobile devices without ever having used a personal computer. The developers of social networks contend that these new subscribers desire to establish communities. The largest challenge that mobile application developers face today is cross-platform compatibility. An application developed for one manufacturer’s device may not function properly or render as intended on a different manufacturer’s product. Google hopes to ease application development through its Android mobile software development kit. Android enables Java applications to be developed on top of the Google SDK. The Google emulators and tools provide debugging assistance and ensure that applications render consistently across different supported platforms. Of course, this advancement still relies on device manufacturers to adopt Android. At the Monday reception, Google engineers demonstrated simple creation of a web-browser application in about 10 minutes using Android. Elsewhere at the conference, W3C announced its mobile web initiative to assist application developers in coding mobile content and applications that conform to a common set of standards. Internet pioneer and W3C director Tim Berners-Lee predicted that today’s widely used Internet platform and the emerging mobile platform are poised to come together under one web regardless of device and location. The panel on competing and complementary mobile broadband technologies was predictable. Panelists from the CDMA Developers Group (CDG), Navini (which is being acquired by Cisco), Qualcomm, Redline Communications, and TI took turns answering questions about air protocol technologies and what advantages are provided by each for the growth of mobile Internet access. As expected, each panelist proclaimed their company’s solutions to be the most appropriate for mobile Internet access. While most panel experts described the enabling of a broadband Internet experience on-the-go as the initial killer application, the Qualcomm panelist said, “The killer application [for mobile Internet] is voice....Since voice is the major application today in cellular networks, it will remain the primary application in the future.” Usage behavior observed by Maravedis from EV-DO and HSPA deployments suggests that PC-driven Internet activities, such as email and web browsing, are the dominant initial applications. A significant change in content delivery, user productivity, or overall experience is necessary to produce a shift in mobile Internet applications. Businesses and consumers alike have shared several remarkable ideas for enhancing communications, improving productivity, and simply offering entertainment within a mobile context. Yet these ideas remain little known. The Mobile Internet World conference reiterated that the mobile Internet industry is still in its infancy and has not yet become an ecosystem where ideas translate to services and revenue opportunities. We look forward to the 2008 event and the progress that will have been made. For more information you can contact the author: jeff@maravedis-bwa.com
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