Mobile 2.0 and Emerging Mobile Media Services

Ofir Leitner, this weeks Carnival host, has selected a nice mixture of content: App Stores, Mobile Applications (Web 2.0, Browsers-Based ), Application Environments and User Experience and Design.

Check out Carnival of Mobilists #142 at Next Generation of Mobile Content.

Given recent announcements such as T-Mobile’s abandoning of their deck as well as T-Mobile’s much anticipated launch of the HTC Dream running Google’s Android (i.e., the elusive gPhone now called T-Mobile G1), the idea of open devices, networks and markets continues to capture the media’s imagination.Yet, it is the closed application vending environments that have a proven track record to date, most notably Apple’s iPhone / App Store followed by Verizon’s Get It Now built on Qualcomm’s BREW Distribution System (BDS) and then Sprint’s Vending Machine, AT&T’s Media Mall, and the various Smartphone stores (e.g., Handango, Handmark).

I thought it would be useful to look at the types of “app storesâ€, review the economics, revisit the concept of openness and consider the likely impact on driving application sales, and draw some conclusions.

Pre Apple: Application Storefronts

Starting with NTT DoCoMo’s i-Mode in Japan, the discovery and acquisition of mobile content was conceptualized as virtual convenient stores and vending machines. Similar to purchases made at a convenient store, mobile content was considered to be digital snacks given both the price point and amount of content (duration, size and packaging). In the U.S., the use of virtual vending machines and storefronts have been the dominant paradigm for enabling consumers to find and buy mobile downloadable content and applications.

Carrier-based Vending Machines, Stores & Malls

In 2002, Sprint released the Java Vending Machine with the ability for users to download games, ringtones, screen savers or applications for the Vision-enabled PCS phones. The goal of the vending machine was to make it easy for both the consumer to download rich digital content but also reduce of barrier of entry for developers by being able to easily registering content with Sprint.

In 2002, Verizon announced that there were launching Qualcomm’s Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW), which enabled consumers to download a “variety of entertainment and productivity applications over the air.†Paul Jacobs claimed, “It’s like having a software store in your hand.†To be clear, Verizon’s Get It Now was the consumer-facing commerce experience but the underlying application environment and content delivery system was and is BREW. Similarly, Cingular’s MEdia Mall was based on underlying platforms provided by Mforma (now Hands-On) and later Motricity.

Although on-deck storefronts have been responsible for driving a majority of the content and applications purchases for mobile phones in the U.S., they have been heavily criticized:

Smartphone Storefronts

There have been a number of smartphone storefronts prior to the launch of the Apple App Store that handled the marketing and distribution and applications for Palm Devices, Microsoft Devices, Symbian and Blackberry’s. These storefronts are powered by companies such as Handango and PocketGear. PocketGear was recently spun out of Motricity and includes PocketGear.com, SymbianGear.com, PalmGear.com and other smartphone-based destinations.

The Apple Effect

To state the obvious, Apple’s App Store for the iPhone has caused a resurgence of interest in Smartphones, applications and application storefronts. Regardless of recent frustrations voiced by application developers towards Apple’s policy for approving applications, the end-to-end experience from discovery to purchase has driven significant demand for applications and creating a significant gap between both the existing Smartphone storefronts as well as the carrier-based storefronts.

Apple managed to solve a number of the problems associated with carrier decks. Early reviews have been glowing:

“Arguably more amazing is how easy it is to install the apps from the iPhone / iPod Touch itself. Assuming you’re connected to a Wi-Fi connection, simply load up the App Store, find the app you want, click on its price, click install, enter your password and in seconds it downloads and install and you’re done.†Full review here.

From an economic perspective, the numbers seem to speak for themselves. On July 11, Apple announced 100 million applications have been downloaded by iPhone and iPod touch users. Apple is arguably on track to generate nearly as much revenue in 2009 as all the carrier-based storefronts combined! This year, according to Nielsen’s Q2 2008 Mobile Media Executive Overview, the size of the on-deck application and game download market was just under $1.6 billion. According to Piper Jaffray, the Apple App Store could become a $1.2 billion market by 2009. Granted that this is world-wide, but even if it hits a third of that number for the U.S., the impact is quite stunning as evident by the stir this has caused in the industry:

Google: From Stores to Marketplaces

In the next couple of weeks, Google’s Android will make its first appearance presumably along with the Android Marketplace. In contrast to the closed storefront model adopted by Apple and the majority of the operators, Google chose a more open approach and used the term “market†rather than “store†to distinguish this less restrictive approach towards distributing applications. According to Techdirt, they have adopted a model along the lines of YouTube.

Google will let developers post applications to the store in a matter of minutes, without going through an approval process. But that will make it hard to vet bad, glitchy, or inappropriate applications. To weed out bad apples, the Marketplace “features a feedback and rating system similar to YouTubeâ€

Apple’s Store (closed) versus Android’s Marketplace (open)

In the world of “brick and mortarâ€, a consumer has the choice of purchasing goods and services from vending machines and retail establishments ranging from the local 7-11 to Walmart. These retail establishments are “closed†in the sense that they control what goods are services are distributed and promoted by a given retail location. In contrast, consumers can go to a flea market or bazaar or buy something via an auction. These exchanges tend to be more open. For the producer of goods, the barrier to entry for a flea market or exchange is much lower than a retail store. But, those producers that get carriage and placement from Walmart will likely generate greater revenue and exposure.

Along these lines, Ted Wugofski has conjectured that “For people building high cost high value applications and services, the Apple model with ‘one click’ purchasing will be very attractive. For people building lower cost lower value applications and services, the Google model with transparent advertising will be very attractive.†Indications from T-Mobile are that free applications will not be able to use advertising. It will be interesting to watch this development and whether it will apply to the upcoming Android phone.

Another distinction is whether Google will be able to control the end-to-end service in the manner that Apple has come to perfect. In his post ‘Do Androids Dream of Killer Apps’, Paul Golding has argued that “it is ‘iPhone ecosystem’ that is the killer. The device, the early adopters (and now hoards of smart followers), the flat-rate tariff, the apps store, the Apple marketing machine, the SDK.â€

As noted above, this very iPhone ecosystem, being closed, has created a ground swell of criticism.

Techdirt: “The list of removed App Store downloads include Tetris clones, harmless but expensive novelties, movie listings and useful wireless applications. Although many have sung the praises of the new system, this trend of contingent generativity – Jonathan Zittrain’s term for intermediaries exerting control over new creativity – has some worrying implications. An ecosystem with perfect enforceability of rules will come to preempt the creativity, which comes from the edge (and even piracy).

Open / Closed – The operator’s vantage point

It is quite evident from a recent CTIA panel discussion that the major U.S. mobile operators are focused on different types of openness to make the case that they, as a network, are in fact truly open.

CEO of Sprint Nextel Corp Dan Hesse “The Internet is one of those great things that are still unregulated and people are looking for ways to regulate it … but openness can be defined in three contexts:†open for the end user, open for the developer and open for the device. “Consumers want the whole internet not a walled garden one .. Quite frankly, what the industry did from a brand point of view was ensure that the user experience was a good one [by using walled gardens].†Excerpt from CTIA: Carriers attempt to define “openness.â€

CEO of T-Mobile USA Robert Dotson “Being open means unleasing innovation for users†Dotson “T-Mobile USA will advocate an open source operating system through its relationship with Google’s Android OS. Excerpt from Carriers talk “open†network but no clear definition.

Dotson “if you look at just unfettered access in an open world, all of us would probably agree that you probably poor experience at the end of the day.†Excerpt from U.S. carriers hedge open network claims.

CEO of Verizon Lowell McAdam “Openness should go hand in hand with quality experience and security and privacy of the consumer.†McAdam wireless carriers need to “open the doors but protect the network.†Excerpt from Carriers talk “open†network but no clear definition.

Open / Closed – Some further distinctions

Per Hesse’s comments above from CTIA, it is more useful to think of openness in terms of the developer, the end user and the device. I’d argue that “network†is conspicuously missing from his remarks. I find it useful to make further distinctions in the types of openness between devices, networks and developers.

1. Open Devices

Andreas Constantinou from VisionMobile has described in detail a wide range of application environments.

2. Open Networks

3. Openness from the developer viewpoint

This elaboration on types of openness is a continuation from my previous blog posts on Verizon’s Open Development Initiative and Two by Six Degrees of Openness – Apple and Goolge’s impact on the mobile ecosystem.

Some conclusions

Open devices, networks and markets will likely, at a minimum, have the following impact over the next 2-3 years:

However, it is still not clear whether in this time frame, that the various open initiatives and marketplaces will drive the number of purchases for applications, and corresponding revenue for developers, that we will likely continue to see from Apple.

I wanted to thank Wendong Li, a Principal Software Engineer at Nellymoser, for his comments and suggestions for the types of openness from the point of view of the developer.

Carnival of the Mobilists #120 is now up at Skydeck.
- a great collection of writing as usual.

Mobile Widgets

On the web, widgets have helped transform the way people create and distribute applications and services. Not only have widgets helped democratize the creation of web applications (i.e., accelerated the ability for end-users as well as software developers and engineers to create web applications), they have been instrumental in reinforcing a more distributed web strategy that has increasingly shifted the power of impressions from the portal to the network. Granted, not only have widgets introduced problems related to fragmentation, lack of inoperability between various engines and distribution outlets, they also lack effective and reliable methods of measurement and monetization. As with other nascent technologies and markets we can presume these are temporary setbacks.

In mobile, however, widgets not only face issues of fragmentation and monetization but they themselves have been targeted to solve another problem endemic to small screens with constrained interfaces: user experience. While there are certainly dreams that widgets will one day bring frictionless distribution to mobile, they are primarily being used to address the relatively poor user experience associated with having to navigate the world of networked content via URLs.

I would suggest that looking for widgets to solve the user experience problem is akin to treating a symptom and not the core problem related to user experience. Mobile widgets, I would contend, have other traits and characteristics – other than temporarily solving the usability problem related to mobile user interfaces – that will make them worth watching as they evolve.

Widget 101

Widgets can be defined in general as self-contained, portable, mini applications that often provide a narrow range of functionality (e.g., temperature) within single context (e.g., weather) in a format that can be installed and utilized across many distribution points (e.g., home pages, blogs) by end-users (i.e., without additional software development, compilation or integration).

The following types of widgets are often distinguished:

It is worth noting that in mobile both phone-top widgets and mobile web widgets already exist.

The origins of widgets can be tied to a number of preceding capabilities, e.g., (i) early web page add-ons such as link counters and later banners, (ii) Apple’s accessories on the 1980’s Mac that included small apps like calculators and notepads, and (iii) the personalized “my homepage” capability enabled by Netscape Navigator and popularized by Yahoo!. Niall Kennedy has more details on the history of widgets as well as a nifty timeline here.

Widgets are part of what Lawrence Coburn calls “The Four Pillars of a Distributed Web Strategy” which, in addition to widgets includes (i) toolbars / extensions (e.g., Google, StumbleUpon), (ii) Facebook Apps (e.g., iLike, RockYou), and (iii) APIs (e.g., Yahoo! Maps).

Scott Weiss contrasts widgets with applications in the following manner:

Not a lot has been written on the size of the web widget market - let alone the mobile widget market - other than suggestions by Will Price (CEO of Widgetbox) that roughly $20 to $30 million is spent on services to build widgets. This obviously doesn’t take into account any ad revenue or traffic generated, or transactions that they drive to various networks and sites.

Widget Creation

There are primarily three main vehicles used to author widgets:

Of course these techniques can be combined in numerous ways, e.g., a widget can include both markup and scripting or scripting and Flash. Niall Kennedy has more details on the basic widget formats.

Mobile Widget Enablement

Regardless of how a widget is designed, created and implemented, there are primarily three main vehicles on mobile devices for presenting and “housing” the widget for end-users to find and use. They are:

Browsers

Browsers, in general, are used to navigate and view various types of content that is typically resident at remote locations and accessible via a network. Most common are browsers that enable users to navigate content available on the World Wide Web. These browsers were based on a content model that assumes a collection of linked pages (i.e., collections of images and text). With the addition of scripting capabilities (e.g., Javascript), browsers have moved beyond the page-based paradigm.

In mobile, there are essentially two types of browsers: WAP and mobile Internet browsers. Primarily mobile players like Access and Openwave have provided WAP browsers whereas Mobile Internet browsers are and will be provided by both mobile-specific companies as well as more traditional players like Opera, Apple, Nokia, Mozilla and Microsoft.

Players

Players, in general, are most often used to play back and render media or serialized scripts. In mobile, there are essentially two main types: Media Players and RIA Players. RIA Players originated as embedded plug-in objects for browsers. Media Players (e.g., most notably Real, Quicktime, Windows) have been primarily used to playback music and videos.

In mobile, Media Players are provided by both operators and others. Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T all have players that can be utilized stand-alone or launched via video links in WAP / xHTML sites. Companies like Real Networks, Microsoft and Apple also provide Media Players in mobile.

On-Device Portals

On-device portals (ODPs) are mobile applications that have been optimized for accessing and interacting with content and information without necessarily using the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) or other markup languages (e.g., HTML) and associated protocols (e.g., HTTP). The two primary types of ODPs are Homescreen Replacements and Portal / Portlet Applications. They can best be distinguished by their method of distribution and core functionality.

Homescreen Replacements are ODPs that primarily pre-ship with the device and provide the primary user-interface from which the user accesses content and information directly from the phone-top. Portal / Portlet Applications are ODPs that are typically acquired over-the-air (OTA) and provide a self-contained application for content and information discovery and viewing. ODPs came about in response to problems associated with WAP browsers such as compounded network latency issues, poor user experience, and the high number of clicks required to access relevant data and content.

It is worth noting that the Portal / Portlet Applications are sometimes called “browser-less” solutions, which really means a network-based application that lets you interact with content but is not a full-fledged browser.

We are seeing both browser-based solutions and ODP-based solutions used as widget frameworks in the market. There has been less traction with the “players” in enabling widget discovery and usage.

It is still much too early to predict whether browsers or ODPs or some other, yet-to-emerge solution, will become the dominant vehicle for navigating and viewing content from the Mobile Internet. The enthusiasm accompanying mobile advertising and the growth in Mobile Internet traffic has led many to side with a browser-based view of the world. Yet, alternative approaches that do not utilize a browser are gaining traction (e.g., Yahoo! Go, Alltel’s Celltop) which could indicate a future in which the browser is present but not necessarily the dominant form of access to rich, interactive content. ODPs, which were declared dead several years ago, are still getting press and are getting design wins from operators and customer deployments. Other evidence of operators looking beyond the browser to provide a better user experience is the recent announcement that AT&T’s Media Mall 2.0 is to be delivered as an application rather than a WAP browsing experience.

User Experience

Widgets, and the collection of various enabling applications and frameworks (e.g., browsers, players, ODPS – defined below), provide an alternative approach towards addressing the user experience for networked, content-based services in mobile.

Both users and service providers have become attracted to the grid-based (i.e., tile-based, box-based) UI method for navigating applications and content packages. This type of intuitive UI has been utilized in a wide range of interfaces ranging from Zumobi’s to Apple’s iPhone. I’ll have to take my hat off to Harry Kargman (www.kargo.com) who not only has a patent on what he calls the 9-grid but has been a strong proponent of this method of navigation for over 8 years. This method of UI has also become the de facto standard for presenting and enabling the discovery of various mobile widgets.

While the user experience is primarily determined by the design and implementation of given application or service, it is also driven by the underlying technology, which in return is driven by the “paradigm” of the approach (i.e., browser, player, ODP). Beyond the core elements of design, which is not my direct area of expertise, I find it useful to distinguish between the core elements of user experience and the underlying technology critical to enabling the user experience.

Core elements of user experience related to rendering and presenting widgets and widget frameworks / containers:

Underlying technology critical to enabling user experience via widget enabling engines:

Creating and Finding Mobile Widgets

Methods for creating widgets are relatively straightforward and the leading mobile widget providers have essentially based this on what has worked on the web (e.g., Yahoo! / Pixoria’s Konfabulator).

The methods for distributing and enabling end-users to find mobile widgets, however is messy and extremely fragmented. Not only does the problem of distribution and findability relate to the other general problems of finding content via mobile devices, but also contains additional complexity. I have written about the findability problem in mobile.

Part of the complexity surrounding mobile widgets is due to the fact that widgets often require a “container” application for their discovery and utilization. I find it useful to distinguish between empty containers and full containers when it comes to distributing widgets within mobile. In a full container model, you have an existing portal that has a variety of content (e.g., Yahoo! Go). Presumably, given that it has content, the application has been downloaded and has achieved relatively wide distribution. Then, widgets become an add-on to this “full container”. In this model, the widget provider benefits from the fact that the container is widely distributed and already exists on a number of handsets. In an empty container model (e.g., Nokia Widsets), the widget itself must be so compelling that the user is enticed to download the entire widget engine in order to utilize it.

In their white paper on mobile widgets, little springs design articulated areas that are impeding traction with widgets: (i) lack of common terminology – users need to know what exactly they are getting, (ii) lack of perceived value – what the user is getting of why is it relevant to them, and (iii) lack of immediate access by the user, i.e., remove their dependence on a separate free-standing application and therefore ability to use them directly from the phone top.

Mobile Widgets – the Net Net

It would be short sighted to believe that the main purpose of widgets is to solve the user experience problem in mobile. Providing a better user experience comes down to people that truly understand the combination of design and mobility. I would contend that the value widgets could bring to mobile comes down to the following:

Mobile service extensibility includes a wide range of vehicles for being able to add value to a service or application after it has been deployed. This includes not only widgets but other forms of micro-sites and integrated add-on environments.

With regards to the democratization of mobile application creation, I believe it is imperative that people are able to create mobile applications and services using their own tools and that they are based on standard web technologies. Furthermore, similar to the power that Frontpage brought to web site creation; widget-authoring environments (e.g., the web-based tools for creating and distributing widgets) and aggregation sites will increasingly enable end-users to more easily create, personalize and distribute applications and content.

When contrasted to the desktop or laptop experience, (i) the user interaction model is fundamentally different on mobile (i.e., without a keyboard and a mouse), (ii) the consumer touch points have the ability to be more tightly integrated (e.g., talking, texting, sending, receiving, listening, viewing), and (iii) mobility itself is an entirely different experience than being portable and / or always-on.

It seems self-evident that the mobile experience will certainly lead to more medium-conducive forms of content and service syndication. The question is whether widgets will round out this trifecta – I am still coming down after being in Vegas for CTIA – by providing better mobile service distribution and syndication.

Carnival of the Mobilists 118 is now up at Mobile Point View by Paul Ruppert.
- a great collection of writing as usual.

I propose using the distinction between “place” and “location” as a useful framework for making comparisons between Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0 in general, and location and locale, in particular. During a roundtable (”Web 2.0 Hits the Handset”) this week hosted by Airwide and Mobile Messaging 2.0, Tim Solt (from go2 media) introduced the distinction between location and locale to highlight the difference between a geo-location and where you are at a given point in time (e.g., Caesars in Vegas).

This clearly relates to the importance of “context” in mobile, which I recently wrote about in Context Is King. It also relates to the difference between the general and the particular, the objective and subjective, etc.

Post-modern geography highlights the difference between a place (my house) and a location (Princeton, NJ is located in the Western Hemisphere at 40.5 degrees latitude and 74.3 degrees longitude). Location is essentially a set of functional relationships whereas place captures the specificity and subjectivity of location. My house is much more than a location; it is a place that is infused with meaning and context.

Location is one element of place. Similarly, listening to music is not merely sound waves within some three-dimensional environment - a Cartesian space where everything can be located on a uniform grid. For me, listening to Scott Joplin’s Heliotropes, John Zorn’s Naked City or Bill Evan’s A Simple Matter of Conviction all connote distinct spaces of listening infused with past experiences of listening, performing and experiencing this music in particular places and contexts.

I contend that Mobile 2.0, when compared to Web 2.0, has more to do with providing users a personalized, localized and ever-present experience to the social web. On the phone you are able to create and consume content in a much wider array of places and contexts. Connecting wirelessly via a laptop is certainly liberating because it is portable but remains an entirely different experience; being mobile is more than simply being un-tethered.

Internet vs. Mobile

Prior to the roundtable on Web 2.0 on the Handset, Steve Bratt (CEO fo W3C) presented the following comparison between the Internet in 1994 and Mobile Data Services as of 2005.

Web 1.0, 2.0 vs. Mobile 2.0

To continue with this style of comparison, I suggest the following distinctions between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0.

W3C and the semantic web

According to Steve Bratt and the W3C, we are moving from a Web of linked documents to “one web” of “creators and consumers” (i.e., Web 2.0) with linked data and services from everyone to everyone (Web 3.0 – the semantic web).

With regards to mobile, I contend that concept of “one web” does not presuppose a browser-based solution on the phone. Steve reinforces this concept by suggesting that the “one web” may involve different user interfaces and experiences but what is common across platforms is that people are accessing the same data with some type of “thematic consistency.”

Widespread adoption of Mobile 2.0

The overarching question that was posed during the Airwide Solutions and Mobile Messaging 2.0 roundtable (“Web 2.0 Hits the Handset” video coverage here), was what does the mobile industry still have to overcome in order to achieve widespread adoption of Web 2.0 from the consumer market?

My answer to this question was consistent with other posts I’ve done on Mobile 2.0. The enablers and drivers for Mobile 2.0 are:

The industry also needs to continue to push for standards and interoperability, i.e., consistent interfaces to ad platforms, social networks, messaging infrastructure and content across mobile and PC).

The Web 2.0 Round Table Final Comments

I had the good fortune to sit next to Rudy De Waele and was at a table hosted by Paul Ruppert.

Steve Bratt provided a succinct summary of the observations raised during the roundtable:

These comments are consistent with Arun Sarin’s (CEO of Vodafone) CTIA keynote. Although he made a similar speech at the Mobile World Congress in February, his points are worth reiterating.

Sarin’s main point is that “the Internet on mobile is the new, new thing.” The increase in data revenues across the Vodafone properties certainly reinforces this contention. Furthermore, “the mobile phone will be the primary touchpoint for continuous use of web services.” He outlined the following challenges to the industry:

Finally, Sarin succinctly summarized the key drivers for mobile data services, whether they are communication, entertainment, or mobile Internet services

Carnival of the Mobilists 116 is now up at Situational Marketing
- a great collection of writing as usual.

Verizon Wireless is essentially pursuing a two-pronged strategy. They continue to pursue their existing retail wireless business that is likely to remain a somewhat walled-garden approach to content (e.g., akin to early AOL or akin to a Cable model). In parallel, they will pursue what they are calling their Open Development Initiative (ODI).

This post will focus on putting their ODI in context in terms of the long-standing discussion about openness in mobile.

Verizon’s ODI

The following summary is based on my notes from yesterday’s Open Development Conference in New York City. If you viewed the webcast or attended in person, feel free to skip to the next section.

Verizon has announced three models as part of their Open Development Initiative (ODI):

In the retail model, a third-party can be responsible for creating, marketing, distributing and selling of new devices, but not the actual voice, data or content service. After the device is certified and is activated (e.g., by some retail outlet), Verizon handles the billing and customer service directly with the subscriber. The third-party is responsible for submitting and responding to the Verizon testing and certification procedure. In short, the retail model enables companies to create and sell new devices that run on the Verizon network.

In the wholesale model, a third-party is can be responsible for creating, marketing, distributing and selling of both devices and services. The certification process is similar to that described above. With regards to billing, content and customer service, Verizon provides the reporting and subscriber information to the third-party, who is then responsible for handling the billing and customer service with the subscriber directly. In short, the wholesale model enables companies to create and deploy devices and services that utilize Verizon’s network. We have seen aspects of their wholesle ODI strategy already via their wholesale network relationships (e.g., Amp’d).

The custom model is a bucket for anything that does not fit squarely into the retail or wholesale model. One example of a custom model would be a device that comes bundled with data capabilities and as would not require a Verizon service contract. Another example would be third-parties that not only wanted to create devices and use Verizon’s network on a wholesale basis but also want to access various Verizon platforms should as location, messaging and content (e.g., music catalog).

Verizon is positioning the value of its networks and platforms. They will provide a voice and data network and will ensure a stable core IP network that will operate consistently as they evolve from their 3G to 4G RF networks.

According to Verizon, the key things they want to accomplish with their device requirements is to (i) protect their network and their customers, (ii) make sure the specs were not more rigorous than their current retail specs, and (iii) want to base it on industry standards as much as possible. The certification process is likely to be two 4-week processes (depending on the readiness of the device). The device certification process is divided into three stages: pre-certification, certification and maintenance. The remaining four weeks is dedicated to network certification which will likely be handled by third-parties on behalf of Verizon.

Often when describing open networks such as the Internet, the OSI “stack” is used as a point of reference. In this case, 4 of the 7 layers are most relevant: the application layer (e.g., the Web), the transport layer (e.g., TCP), the Internet layer (e.g., IP) and the physical layer (e.g., Ethernet). Using a variant of the OSI stack, Verizon has articulated the four layers that they focus on in their current wireless retail model: applications, middleware, operating systems and radio hardware. They emphasize that the focus of the ODI specification will be in the hardware and network access.

Openness Revisited

In my earlier post on openness, Two by Six Degrees of Openness, I articulate six types of openness from which to distinguish various “open” mobile platforms and services. This has been further refined by Epiphany Vera and used as a basis for discussion at Sprint’s strategy session led by Russ McGuire, director of corporate strategy at Sprint.

Here are the updated types and metrics of openness:

How open is Verizon’s ODI?

With regards to the simple taxonomy suggest above, here is how Verizon’s ODI can be described in terms of the types of openness:

In terms of metrics, we can expect the following:

Some Final Thoughts - Open / Closed vs. Control

I’ve been digging into Galloway and Thacker’s The Exploit: A Theory of Networks over the past couple of days. I’ve been dissatisfied with the ability to use an open / closed distinction as a vehicle for elucidating various emerging mobile services and platforms.

Some key points that Galloway and Thacker make that relate to openness include:

What I draw from this is that the logics of control must be articulated together with the degree of openness. In the case of Verizon wireless, there are two key areas of control that Verizon maintains in their ODI: (i) the certification process and, (ii) the use of their network (i.e. controlled by their wholesale pricing and use of proprietary technologies and standards that they select). The amount of control and types of control an operator wields over their network is far more indicative of how it will evolve, the rate of growth, and the types of services and innovation that will emerge. Clearly, openness alone will not yield transparency and freedom.

Verizon’s ODI is a welcome step forward and will certainly drive more innovation than the mere Carterphone style openness that gave us the FAX, PBX and the modem. Yet, it falls short of a fully open devices / networks coupled with open platforms / services. The goal of ODI is to drive innovation by enabling devices and services at the edge of the network. The rate of innovation being driven on the Internet via both networked devices and “open runtime” platforms is staggering. Galloway and Thacker describe an “open runtime” as an “open articulation, open interoperability, open practice, open becoming.” Marc Andreessen, in his post on The Three kinds of Platforms You Meet on the Internet, would call this type of a “runtime environment” a “Level 3″ platform.

We have clearly seen the power of the “web as platform,” will mobility come to represent mere access to this platform or will we see something more powerful emerging at the intersection of these “open runtime” platforms / services together with open devices and networks.

Carnival of the Mobilists 115 is now up at blog.andrewgrill.com
- great collection of writing as usual.

I had the opportunity to hear Anssi Vanjoki (Nokia Executive VP) speak recently at GDC Mobile. In the past, I’ve written about rich Internet application platforms and mobile device middleware. I thought I would take this opportunity to begin to address the various managed service offerings emerging in mobile, starting with Nokia.

I will focus most of this post summarizing my understanding of Nokia’s strategy and then attempt to put “context” in context.

As a matter of convention for this post, when I use italics I am quoting Anssi verbatim (at least according to what I wrote down while taking notes during his talk).

Some terminology and some data

Throughout Nokia’s recent history as a device manufacturer they have endeavored to emphasize that they are no longer merely selling phones. This makes sense since the term “phone” connotes voice and talking. As such, they have gone to great lengths to assert that they are the largest provider of portable music players, the largest multimedia computer manufacturer, consumer durable product distributor, etc. Mobile devices have become powerful multimedia computers.

The emphasis of late for Nokia is “screens”. I am not going to talk to you about phones but about screens. The mobile phone is the 4th screen. Welcome to the 4th screen. By using the term “screen,” Nokia is able to unite the “screens,” i.e., the multiple communication and media platforms.

Nokia’s Vision

Nokia is a world leader in mobility driving transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. There are 1B consumers with a Nokia device in their pocket.

Nokia’s vision is a world where everyone can be connected. I’d add that this connectivity will happen via a small number of screens that mediate our experiences. And, of course Nokia plans on playing a central role in providing services to these screens. Nokia provides 1B of the roughly 3B phones worldwide. They estimate that there will be 4B phones by 2009 out of a total of 6.5B people.

The opportunity for Nokia is to capitalize on their 1B consumers. They want to make 1B consumers upgradeable and into a new environment. This new environment resides on the web and is called “Ovi” - which means “door” in Finnish. This ambitious plan includes using Ovi as an umbrella brand and destination for Nokia’s services - games, music, videos & tv, contacts, maps, photos, Internet, etc. Ovi will be accessible on the web via a PC and also be tailored to be accessed from the small multimedia computer. Ovi will be accessible through non-Nokia devices.

The Internet and the Web NG

To state the obvious, Nokia has observed that mobile device will become our primary interface to Internet and social networks. Mobile devices are mobilizing social networking and Web 2.0. Nokia uses the term “Web NG” to denote the emerging online experiences in which we mix up reality with virtual reality.

The concept of Web NG (or Web-NG) has been around since 2006. More recently, GTF “coined” the concept to designate the point “when web consumers can directly access the source data they need, manipulate it in the application of their choice, on the device they have to hand.

Context and Maps

According to Nokia, the mobile phone is a 24/7-presence machine through which I can reflect my context (awareness) to other people. I am aware that I am in San Francisco at a developer conference. I am aware that I my heart rate is about 150 cause I am excited. (NOTE: recall that the italics are quotes from Vanjoki, not that I wasn’t excited listening to the speech. In fact I found it quite exciting, just not to the point where my heart rate ran to 150).

It is about context. Bringing context to Web 2.0.

One core tenant surrounding Nokia’s concept of “context” is the map. The highest and lowest level of abstraction is a map.

We should probably take a moment to briefly digress into maps and simulacra. Baudrillard, in his essay “The Precession of Simulacra”, recounts the Borges fable in which a cartographer draws a map in such detail that it ends up exactly covering the real territory of the empire (i.e., 1’ = 1’).

In this fable, neither the representation (the map) nor the reality remains. For Baudrillard, a simulacra is a copy that has no original. Much like the concept of Web NG, Baudrillard uses this fable to illustrate that there is a blurring between the map and the territory, reality & virtual reality. As such, he coined the term “hyperreal” to convey the idea when we cannot distinguish reality from fantasy, e.g., in which the map “precedes the territory.” While this sounds quite academic, it does not take much to imagine that media can radically alter (shape and filter) events and experiences.

Back to context … there seems to be an interesting “give and take” between mobile phones providing a context (i.e., a grounding in reality) and them aiding in the blurring of reality / hyperreality. The use of contextual information should simplify the process of content discovery, i.e., discovering content in context. Furthermore, mobile phones will enable us to annotate media (e.g., photos, recordings) with contextual information. We can annotate, stop and recall based on time, place and other contextual information. When it comes to gaming, “context†becomes a method for controlling and enhancing an experience in a multi-player online world / game.

Mobile NG / Mobile 2.0

I have written other posts about Mobile 2.0 and the social web. The social web allows consumers to freely consume, create and combine content. Mobile 2.0 services integrate the social web with the core foundations of mobility – personal, localized, always-on and every-present.

I think Nokia is spot on by asserting that mobility itself is just an element of context.

I remain optimistic that Mobile 2.0 services, if done right, will integrate the full range of mobile consumer touch points (talking, texting, capturing, sending, listening, viewing) in context.

As a final thought, there seems to be some inconsitencies that arise when you combine context and Web NG. For example, if we conceptually mash-up Nokia’s idea of context and their belief that devices (formerly known as mobile phones) will drive Web NG (i.e., the concomitance of reality / virtual reality), you end up with a pardox in which it is essentially impossible to ever be out of context.