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Posts Tagged ‘Mobile’

Prediction: Google Will Become a MVNO in 2010

Monday, January 18th, 2010

That’s the only logical step.

Laying Down the Ground

Google have GoogleVoice, they bought Gizmo5 and integrated it with GoogleVoice, they already have GTalk and of course, they have the most advanced Mobile OS, Android. Two weeks ago, when Nexus One was announced, many crowned it as an iPhone-killer. Google wouldn’t care less. In fact, iPhone contribution for consuming more mobile-data applications and services will benefit Google plans.

Mobile Voice: Limitations and Challenge

As Mobile becomes more and more integrated into our daily and personal lives, Google would like to be there, in our pockets. So far, they have done very well with their mobile offering. However, the main application in mobile devices is (still) the phone. Problem is, voice is not data (let’s overlook mobile VoIP clients for a sec)! The two just don’t work together. It requires different technologies that can’t co-exist. Voice calls interrupts data while data usage will cause incoming calls to divert to voicemail. So, the only logical step would be to run voice application over data networks. Current data networks, 3G and WiFi doesn’t provide an always-on, reliable and scalable solution for mobile VoIP clients.

Even more important, plain-voice services are sooooooo lame. Features we take for granted on IM and VoIP clients do not exist on the stupid-pipe operators. There’re many examples: the address book is poorly managed. Why on earth we need to manually update it when our friends change their phone number? And why do we need to have phone numbers? I don’t know about you guys, but my friends have names, not numbers. And I want to know their availability. One-line status wouldn’t hurt either. SMB will also benefit from an IP-based voice services. They could set a friendly text-CLID when calling instead of anonymous or un-recognized number. The list goes on and on.

The last piece in the puzzle was laid last September when Clearwire announced the launch of 4G WiMax network in Silicon Valley. Guess who’s one of the partners in this network? That’s right. Now Google has a sandbox network to test mobile voice services running on data network.

That’s all Folks

With all of the pieces ready, I would expect to see Google’s MVNO launch soon. Its scope will probably be limited to the Valley area at first but would expand as coverage increase. I’d imagine the subscription would be free or at least subsidized by pre/in/post-calls advertisement, reminding the GMail model. Oh wait, didn’t Google recently bought AdMob? Now it really all come together. Mobile Software and Hardware, network Infrastructure coupled with monetization solution. That’s it baby!

Tags: Google, Mobile, Nexus one, Wimax
Posted in Google, Mobile, Mobile VoIP, Technology, VoIP | No Comments »

Twitter: Location based Tweeting is Coming Soon

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

Twitter announced today that an updated API will include the option to add latitude and longitude to any tweet. Later on, they will add it to twitter.com site. This is very exciting news. Only yesterday I asked if there’s a twitter client that can filter tweets in my area and after one day only, my prayers were met. The new feature will enable twitter users to search for news or events in their area. For example, I could look for tweets in my area about events or get local trends in my vicinity. To make location-aware tweets, the user has to activate this new feature in his settings.

Twitter have already updated their API documentation about this addition. The data is encoded as geo point in GeoRSS or GeoJSON for the xml and json formats respectively. Since most of us humans can’t easily translate geo coordinates to location, some sort of conversion service will be needed. One such service is Yahoo’s fireeagle which translates lat+lon coordinates to textual location names. I tested this service with coordinates in USA and Israel and the results looks great.If you wish to find out your geo location, try Google earth or sites like this.

As expected, Twitter see potential implementations for the new feature in mobile applications. As such, it’s slightly disappointing they didn’t include the option to send cellID information for non GPS enabled phones. My guess, they’re working on it…

Congratulation Twitter on this important feature!

Tags: API, cellID, fireeagle, GeoJSON, GeoRSS, google earth, GPS, location based, Mobile, Twitter
Posted in English, LBS, Mobile, Twitter | No Comments »

A site for mobile eyes

Saturday, April 4th, 2009

Mobile devices are no longer tools for calling someone. That’s a known fact. You can take pictures with it, read emails, navigate, read web content, check your calendar and more. However, in the mass user eyes, it is still not regarded as an extension to your computer. Sometimes, when I’m outside my home or office, I come across interesting stuff; movie posters, concerts, commercials or even a quick glance at a newspaper’s headline. For example, I can see a poster about Antonio Gades’s flamenco version of “Carmen” and wish to learn when and where it shows.

Until recently, my mobile options to get this information were limited. I’d have to open my browser, go to Google and type something like “gades carmen tel aviv”. Then I’d have to go over the results and look for the information I want. That’s very tedious even if you have iPhone.

Luckily, we have options which are much more fun and easy to use. The first one is Xsights. With xsights solution, the user makes a video call (no need to download an application) and points his camera at his object of interest (poster, news, image, text). xsights understands the image and delivers the user an interactive multimedia response. Currently, the company is focused mainly on newspapers. Mobile readers will point their phone on interesting article and bang, they are presented with in-depth information. For example, point the camera at an article about last night soccer match and get the highlights from the game.

Next comes Nokia. Nokia has recently launched a beta application called Nokia Point & Find. The application, currently available in USA and UK only and for Nokia N95 models, utilizes the compound of phone’s camera, Internet connection and GPS to recognize a real life object and get information relevant to the context and location. For example, users of the service could get information about movie like reviews, local show times, trailers and could even buy tickets on-line. What I like most about the service is the management portal Nokia provides for publishers. Nokia wouldn’t want to have a dedicated professional service team to configure campaigns. Instead, Nokia’s management portal enables the publishers to do it themselves. What I don’t like is that the application is relevant only to N95 models in the USA and UK. Plus, the user will have to download and install the application.

Finally there’s Kooaba. Koomba is a spin-off company from the ETH Zurich, an outstanding science and technology university in Switzerland. Their technology was already used in several campaigns and looks very mature. Mobile users can send images in various ways: email, MMS, iPhone and J2ME applications, although video calls are not available yet. Publishers can use a web-based campaign manager to set up their account. The company also offers API for partners and developers.

Overall, this is very exciting! The products above demonstrate how to use the distinctive benefits that mobile device has to offer to provide new experiences for mobile users and business opportunities for publishers.

Tags: camera, GPS, Koomba, Location based services, Mobile, Nokia, xsights
Posted in 3G Video Calls, English, Mobile, Nokia, Technology | No Comments »

How to create Negative Marketing Buzz

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Com.Vention event took place yesterday in Airport city next Tel-Aviv. Participants in the event were amongst who’s who in Israeli Internet industry including Yossi Vardi, Amos Shapira (CEO of Cellcom, a major Israeli telecommunication company), Ron Eilon (CEO of Yes, Israel sole satellite television provider) and other distinguished guests from Israel and abroad.

During the day, Pelephone, another Israeli-based telecommunications company, had a booth which aimed to create buzz around the company’s new High-speed GSM services. The booth had 3 positions to play Wii game where every 1.5 hours, a Palm Pro was given to the high-point winner at that time.

Well, it so happen that JAJAH’s very own Jasmine Aharon actually won (which is actually remarkable given the fact she failed miserably playing Tennis Wii in the office)! Excited, Jasmine came to the booth to collect her prize, eager to hold the advanced WM 6.1 phone, try its features, twitter away using its qwerty keyboard and 3.5G high speed network, marvel at its beauty, well, you get the point. Only that the marketing guy at the booth had to brush away her dreams and return Jasmine to the hard, cold reality of Pelephone marketing logic. “you have to pay 70 NIS (about 17$) a month for 18 months if you wish to get the phone”. All of Jasmine’s attempts to get the phone for free (again, she WON that phone) or even for a discount were to a vain. Pelephone was insistent that Jasmine, which is a Pelephone subscriber by the way, will pay for her prize. Reluctantly and disappointed, Jasmine had to give up her prize and go home empty-handed. The same thing happen to other winners that day. Pelephone was not going to give the prize for free and so, many other winners decided to give up the phone. True, Pelephone did mention that the winner would have to join a subscriber program for that amount of money. Somehow, most of the people competing at the booth didn’t notice it. Even so, its simply short-sighting

This is a great example on how to create negative marketing buzz. After giving so much effort (and money) in putting the booths to gain attention, it’s really disappointing to see how, at the end of the day, Pelephone treats existing and potential customers. One of the winners, wondered what is the attitude of Pelephone towards her subscribers if that’s the way they treat the event participants which included CEOs, journalists, bloggers and other technology-eager participants. I truly hope Pelephone will come to their senses and give its prizes for free.

Tags: Com.Vention, Mobile, Palm Pro, Pelephone, themarker
Posted in English, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Google Voice – how to make outbound calls?

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

I can’t believe I didn’t mention it in my last post. Google Voice is really great but it looks to me like it’s more focused on getting incoming calls than placing outbound calls (even though they’re free for now). A Google Voice user has 3 ways to make a call: making a callback from his on-line account, calling back people who left a voicemail or manually typing the desired number.

Let’s have a closer look. The first way is simple and intuitive. Google Voice on-line page is based on Google’s famous UI principles thus making it easy to make the call. However, it still requires going on-line with your computer which is somewhat limiting. I didn’t hear about a mobile web version for the service like JAJAH’s mobile web, but I’m sure Google is working on it right now. The second way to make calls is to callback a person back from a voicemail but that’s more a by-product for the voicemail service than a “legitimate” way to place calls.

The third way is to call your Google Voice number, press 2 and then manually type the destination number . That’s a big problem. Most of the mobile calls we make are from the phone’s address book or call log. Typing the number requires memorizing the number and the entire process takes time. The solution is either to have a number mapped to the destination, like JAJAH Direct service, or install a mobile plug-in. A mobile plug-in can be installed on most phones today and use the phone’s capabilities. On smart ~~phones~~ devices like iPhone/iPod, Symbian, Windows Mobile and Android, Mobile VoIP calls can made thus saving you the cost of local call to your operator. In addition, the applications can intercept outgoing calls and route them through Google Voice. The advantage here is that the user doesn’t have to learn new tricks to make calls. She’ll still dial like she used to and the application will make the decision how to route the call. On features phone, which are still the majority of phones today, a J2ME plug-in can be installed to make calls. The plug-in could interface with the phone’s address book, allowing the user to choose a contact to dial to rather than typing the number manually. My guess is that Google will soon launch applications for mobile phones.

Tags: Google Voice, JAJAH, JAJAH Direct, Mobile, mobile application
Posted in English, Google, VoIP | 1 Comment »

How would you use mobile 2.0 years from now?

Monday, December 17th, 2007

Hi there! My name is Tzahi Efrati and I’m manager of mobile & tools development here at JAJAH. The mobile market has changed dramatically over the last years and continues to present new functionality every so often.

Over the last 6 month, two major events happened concerning the mobile industry. The first is of course the release of Apple’s iPhone. What I like most about this phone, besides its functionality is the one-touch-screen-fits-all approach. The user is not constrained to physical keypad and buttons. The phone enable the application to present the user interaction of their choice. I’d imagine that somewhere in the near future, iPhone 2.0 will enable the user itself to choose the UI he/she wishes to use. For example, left-handed people could choose the layout of game controls according to their needs.

The second major event is Google’s announcement of of the Android, the open software stack for mobile devices. The announcement, although not backed-up by actual phone models had already caused fundamental change of hearts with major operators like Verizon and AT&T. These two giants has declared their intention to open up their cell phone network.

Although it still remains to be seen the concrete implications of these announcements, one thing is clear. Mobile phones are becoming more and more a “one size fits all” machines. It already started with the introduction of camera and music players to the phones. The iPhone and android present a notion of having a device that can do almost everything. Want to hear your favorite song? Go to the iPod on your device and finger-scroll your way. Interested in checking how much your stock did lat night? open up the stock widget. Care to change the layout of the phone software? use your mobile browser to find and download the latest calling application.

Still, a couple of questions rise from this “all-you-can-swallow” wonder machines. “Can we handle it?” and “do we really care?”. Talk to your parents and your friends and I’m sure most of them will tell you that all they want is a simple device to make calls and send SMS. Anything else just complicates. Let’s face it, even technophiles, who take their cereals with a GigaOm.com on the side don’t master the entire functionality of their gadgets or the latest cool addition to their Firefox browser (so 2006).

I’m not sure that even teenagers who has more virtual friends on facebook than actual homosapien could master so much technology in one device or even care to use it. What do you think? is it just the beginning? should we expect mobile devices in the near future to be even more featured-pack? Or perhaps, this will cause the exact opposite. People will become so antagonized that they’ll stick to their old mint-condition 2G phones?

Tags: android, future, iphone, JAJAH, Mobile
Posted in English, Mobile | Comments Off

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