5 posts tagged “verizon”

For those of you that disconnected during Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year, etc…  Welcome back. Here’s a summary of the most interesting social media and mobile news I read in the last few weeks:

Apple:

• 1/6/09: At Macworld….
• Apple announced tiered pricing for songs on iTunes that allows record labels to charge higher amounts for more popular songs… Their new pricing scheme, which will launch in April will offer songs at 69 cents, 99 cents, or $1.29.  When I heard this, I couldn’t help but think of the old Taco Bell commercials of the early 1990s… “.59, .79, .99”  I know record labels need to make a buck, but I’m more inclined to pay $1.29 for a taco than I am for a new song on iTunes.
• On a happier note, songs will finally be DRM free and 256 Kbps AAC by the end of Q1. Today, iTunes store has 8 million DRM-free songs. By the end of March, they’ll have 10 million.  
• And, if you’ve got an iPhone 3G, you’ll be able to download songs directly to your iPhone over the 3G network, and the songs will sync between your computer and your phone….Ahhh… Finally!
• In FY 2008, Apple sold 9.7 million Macs, and Mac sales increased at two times the rate of the overall PC market.
• The new version of iPhoto within iLife will have facial recognition software, which allows you to pick photos of a specific friend from your album without a text tag.  And, iPhoto will be Facebook and Flickr compatible!
• 1/5/09: Steve Jobs told the world that his recent rapid weight loss is due to a hormone imbalance and not a return of pancreatic cancer.

Facebook:

• 1/2/09: Facebook sued Brazilian start-up Power.com for trademark and copyright infringement, violation of the computer fraud and abuse act, and unlawful competition.  Facebook’s complain states that Power.com “is offering a product that solicits, stores and uses Facebook login information to access information stored on Facebook computers without authorization and to display Facebook copyrighted material without permission.” You can read the NY Times article that describes the suit here.
  

Microsoft:

• 12/31/08: Proving that the “blue screen of death” is alive and well, Microsoft’s 2006 30GB model Zune experienced a massive failure on the last day of 2008, and users were not amused. The bug appears to have been fixed, though users are still unhappy about it.
  

Twitter:

• 1/5/09: Twitter was hacked over the weekend, and 33 high profile accounts were hijacked. There was also a separate phishing scam through the direct message capability.  You can learn more about it on Twitter’s blog.
  

UIQ:

• 1/5/09: Symbian partner, UIQ filed for bankruptcy.
  

Verizon:

• 1/5/09: BusinessWeek reports that “The $5.9 billion acquisition of cellular carrier Alltel Corp. by Verizon Wireless will close on Jan. 9”.  This will mean that Verizon trumps AT&T as the largest US mobile operator with ~ 78 million subscribers.
  

Xobni:
1/5/09: Xobni (inbox spelled backwards), the company behind a very cool outlook plug-in that turns your email inbox into a social network, announced $7M in Series B funding from new investor Cisco Systems and Xobni’s existing investors.

Layoffs:
1/6/09: Clearspring, which plays in the widget distribution space laid off 20% of its workforce in early December, and their President/COO, Jay Rappaport is leaving.

Misc. Social Media & Mobile News:

• I just learned about Twtpoll, which lets you poll your Twitter followers.  Looks like a great idea if you’re a brand that wants feedback from its community of users.
• 1/1/09: California passed a no-text messaging while driving rule, which became legal on Jan 1. I can’t help but wonder how it can be illegal to text while driving, and yet, it’s perfectly okay to fiddle with your radio, AC, or GPS.  Not that I’m advocating texting while driving. It just seems like an inane law, given the many distracting things you could be doing while driving.
• 1/3/09 The 1.0 version of a Firefox add-on called Power Twitter launched, allowing “search, search scoped to a specific user, status history peeking on mouseover, Facebook status updates, inline YouTube, Flickr, and TwitPic, url expansion, url translation to page titles, and open web update (news feed) mapping.”  It sounds interesting to me and gets good reviews, but I’ve heard a few complaints from people I follow on Twitter, so I’m waiting until the next release.
  
• 12/31: TechCrunch did a great piece on the Top Social Media Sites of 2008, which summarizes data from comScore.  Top Social Media Sites (ranked by unique worldwide visitors November, 2008; comScore):

1. Blogger (222 million)
2. Facebook (200 million)
3. MySpace (126 million)
4. Wordpress (114 million)
5. Windows Live Spaces (87 million)
6. Yahoo Geocities (69 million)
7. Flickr (64 million)
8. hi5 (58 million)
9. Orkut (46 million)
10. Six Apart (46 million)
11. Baidu Space (40 million)
12. Friendster (31 million)
13. 56.com (29 million)
14. Webs.com (24 million)
15. Bebo (24 million)
16. Scribd (23 million)
17. Lycos Tripod (23 million)
18. Tagged (22 million)
19. imeem (22 million)
20. Netlog (21 million)

• 12/31/08: TechCrunch has an interesting article on the rise of Y-Combinator, start-up Scribd.  Scribd allows users to post and share documents online.  TechCrunch reports: “According to the comScore numbers, it has more unique visitors worldwide than imeem and almost as many as Bebo, with 23.5 million visitors in November, 2008. (In the U.S., it had about 4 million visitors).”  And, Scribd grew “218 percent from November, 2007.   Pretty incredible stats for a company that initially only raised $300,000! “
• 12/31/08 The UK loves watching the TV show “Big Brother,” and rumor has it, they may be forced to live a frightening real-life version of it in the future.  The Guardian reports,

“The private sector will be asked to manage and run a communications database that will keep track of everyone's calls, emails, texts and internet use under a key option contained in a consultation paper to be published next month by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary.
A cabinet decision to put the management of the multibillion pound database of all UK communications traffic into private hands would be accompanied by tougher legal safeguards to guarantee against leaks and accidental data losses.”

Even though the report hasn’t yet been published, critics of its rumored contents are speaking out against it including Sir Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions.

• 12/31/08: Obama’s Change.gov site is getting great use.  According to TechCrunch, “more than 74,031 people have submitted more than 53,369 questions (and counting) for his administration and voted 3,122,015 times to prioritize the questions in a Digg-like fashion.”  You can see the top list of questions here.
  
• 12/30/08: Hitwise reported 3 interesting holiday social media trends in the UK:

1. “Facebook accounts for 1 in 22 UK Internet visits on Christmas Day”
2. "Video site YouTube received more UK Internet traffic than Microsoft Windows Live Mail (Hotmail) for the first time during Christmas week 2008.”
3.  “social networks accounted for 1 in every 10 UK Internet visits during Christmas week.”

• 12/26/08: Amazon.com announced it’s best Christmas season ever with “6.3 million items ordered worldwide on the peak day, Dec. 15, which is a record-breaking 72.9 items per second.”
  
• 12/15/08: BusinessWeek reports that Palm will launch its new Nova OS at CES.  After several layoffs, many ups and downs over the years, I find it amusing that they decided to name it Nova (“no va” means “no go” in Spanish.)  Chevrolet learned how disastrous that name could be when it launched the Chevy Nova years ago.  I’m not sure if this was lost on Palm’s marketing team, if it was an inside joke, or if they knew about it and decided to buck tradition and go with the name anyway. I love Palm, and I’m keeping fingers crossed they find a way to make this work. I think it’ll be tough in to re-gain developers’ trust after several false starts in recent years.
  

Today, Verizon reported (gasp) that it is "opening" up its network to any device and any application...that can meet it's “minimal technical standard”.  I'm prepared to swallow my words (see my previous post "Will Verizon Become a More Open Mobile Network for Developers?"), assuming Verizon's standards (to be published in early 2008) are as reasonable as the press release implies:

Any device that meets the minimum technical standard will be activated on the network. Devices will be tested and approved in a $20 million state-of-the-art testing lab which received an additional investment this year to gear up for the anticipated new demand. Any application the customer chooses will be allowed on these devices...

While most Verizon Wireless customers prefer the convenience of full service, the company is listening through today’s announcement to a small but growing number of customers who want another choice without full service.  Both full-service and “bring-your-own” customers will have the advantage of using America’s most reliable network.

I want to believe that the world is becoming a more open and mobile place and that Verizon is championing the effort, and Verizon's release makes it sound like the company is moving in the right direction, but I'll remain cautiously optimistic until I see Verizon's execution.

If the 'minimum technical standard' is reasonable, it will be a huge step forward for the mobile industry and consumers. However, if that standard includes a requirement for handset providers to put bandwidth constraints on third party applications (i.e. purposefully limiting the performance of 3rd party application "bandwidth hogs" like streaming video apps), the network won't be truly "open". *

Here's the part of the Verizon release that triggers my (ahem) skepticism:

Following publication of technical standards, Verizon Wireless will host a conference to explain the standards and get input from the development community on how to achieve the company’s goals for network performance while making it easy for them to deliver devices.

On the one hand, Verizon says the technical standards they're introducing are 'minimal'.  On the other hand, they're going to have to "explain" them to hardware developers in conjunction with their "network performance" goals.  Verizon has always closely guarded its network.  While it's possible that Verizon will throw caution to the wind in the New Year as they announce their new standards and become truly open, it's also possible that they'll establish a not-so-open standard that hardware developers must compromise to meet.

Here's hoping that end result of Verizon's announcement is a truly open network.

*Don't get me wrong - I understand why Verizon (and other carriers) would want to limit bandwidth heavy applications... They suck resources and if used concurrently can negatively impact performance of a fragile or overstressed network.  But, with the amount of money consumers pay for wireless data and calling plans, networks should be investing to ensure robustness.  And, it sounds like Verizon is doing that.

Last week at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2007, Ryan Kim of the San Francisco Chronicle sat down with Lowell McAdam, the CEO of Verizon Wireless.  If Ryan Kim were one of my Facebook friends, I'd "high-five" him for putting McAdam's feet to the fire during their chat.  In his Saturday post on the "Tech Chronicles" blog, Kim writes:

I asked [McAdam] about Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg's blog comments about the big carriers acting like the old Soviet government restricting the freedom of their users, namely what kind of phones and services they can use.

McAdam said he had heard Mossberg bring this up repeatedly. He said that the U.S. mobile industry has nothing to be apologetic about in terms of innovation and competition but that Verizon Wireless is considering opening its network to new devices and applications, as Mossberg advocates.

"The industry is so innovative, and there are so many applications and devices coming, we'd be foolish not to respond to the market," McAdam said.

Reading McAdam's response to Kim's question several times, I couldn't help but think it could be interpreted one of several ways.  Will Verizon completely open it's network? My bet is 'not anytime soon.'  Will Verizon introduce cooler devices and increase the size of it's developer network?  To remain competitive, they'll have to. 

While I won't be surprised if Verizon introduces an increased number of apps - especially social networking applications and services in the next couple of years, I'll be really surprised if they open up their network to the masses, voluntarily.  Verizon's 'walled garden,' "V Cast" is the most fiercely defended 'service platform' I've seen in the mobile industry.  It's going to take an unprecidented amount of pressure from mobile industry evangelists and critics including journalists like Walt Mossberg, entrepreneurs like Dustin Moscovitz (co-founder of Facebook who talked about the need for more openness in the mobie industry at CTIA), innovative OEMs (Google?!), ISVs, and customer advocacy groups to knock it down.

Yesterday, inCode Telecom Group Inc. announced its "Top 10 Global Wireless Predictions for 2007".  Topping the list as the number one trend for wireless operators in 1007 is Social Networking:

"Social Networking Gets Mobilized. Mobility is added to existing Internet business models, services and behaviors, driving traffic for wireless operators. Teens and twenties accustomed to constant connectivity and habit-forming Web sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, lead a wave of membership in mobile social networks. Location social networking including friend and event finder services gain popularity, even in the professional and over-50 segments. Google, Yahoo and Skype are more compelling for users than wireless brands, which are hard-pressed to compete. As customer appetites for social data and video services spike, wireless operators offer more “all you can eat” pricing for high-end data packages. Social networking applications initially are preloaded on many mobile devices sold and later become downloadable."

On the handset side, inCode predicts that in 2007, "Multi-Function Devices [will] Become Cheaper and More Versatile".  This includes the introduction of video-capable devices to the masses.  They also predict that location-based services (LBS) and GPS will become mainstream.  According to the article:

"GPS is the location technology of choice for the wireless industry. Handset manufacturers continue to push GPS-enabled handsets as the technology evolves from popular in-car satellite navigation systems like TomTom to a broadly accepted feature in wireless phones. With Nokia having launched its first GPS-enabled handsets in early 2007 and bandwidth available to support new multimedia services, location-based service providers build critical mass. Since there are 10 to 20 times more mobile phones sold than any other consumer electronics device, wireless is a huge driver for GPS adoption. That’s great for users and handset vendors, but the benefit to operators isn’t clear."

Another of inCode's predictions is that "Mobile Advertising Breaks Loose:"

"Major brands shift from basic SMS marketing to more sophisticated multimedia advertising. RBC Capital Markets expects mobile marketing revenues to balloon from $45 million in 2005 to $1.5 billion by 2010. With the technological ability to target and measure the effectiveness of mobile advertising, brands are more strategic in their approach. Operators under increasing price pressure set limits on current handset subsidization. Brands take up the slack, subsidize handsets and services for target demographics and take direct ownership of marketing channels. Rich 3G content and video services and accuracy advancements in GPS-based location services deliver further value to brands targeting existing and potential customers in innovative ways."

This prediction, is already starting to come true, with MVNOs like Virgin Mobile USA and Amp'd Mobile planning to offer discounts to customers for viewing advertisements on their mobile phones.  Cingular Wireless, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel have also said they're going to test the concept of mobile advertising.  And, according to CNET, mobile advertising services company, Millennial Media, which was founded by Paul Palmieri, a former Verizon executive recently received $6.3 million in Series A funding.

inCode is on the money with their predictions for 2007.  Tying together the above predictions for 2007 and thinking about the future, I predict that in 2008, mobile operators will further realize the power of social media - extending beyond simply social networking to all forms of social media.  If all goes as I predict, in 2008, Mobile Operators, MVNOs, OEMs, and ISVs will harness the power of social networking, GPS (LBS), and multi-function handsets and incorporate the power of social media, adding applications and web-based services to handsets that add value to consumers.  Services/ applications like Helio's Buddy Beacon, Dodgeball, etc. will increase.  I predict that large mobile operators and OEMs will begin to pre-load devices with social networking-focused applications that incorporate GPS.  I also believe that mobile advertising will increase and that the value of GPS to mobile operators will be realized in the ability to either charge for LBS social networking services and/or offer interactive mobile advertising via these LBS-enabled social networking applications.

Collaborative and community-based entertainment like YouTube on the go will evolve and continue to be popular.  I also expect that sites that monetize video footage (of, say, news events) that users take on their mobile phones will become increasingly popular....Think sites like: ScoopLive.com, Scoopt.com, and SpyMedia.com.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Optimisation (SMO) will also play a big role in mobile social networking AND mobile advertising in 2008.  Though, I expect to see real advances in and popularization of this area happening towards the end of the year and into 2009, once mobile GPS and mobile advertising are better established.  I see this happening in several ways:

• When users search for friends, that mobile advertising will be well integrated so that suitable meeting locations and activities will be suggested (e.g. restaurants, coffee shops, stuff to do, sites to see, etc.)
• Based upon users mobile searches, social networking behavior, and text written in the emails they send via mobile phones, mobile LBS and mobile ads will generate new advertising content.

These are my initial thoughts for 2008, and all of them are predicated on inCode's predictions for 2008 coming true.  If you've got any additional predictions for 2008 and beyond, post a comment!

On Tuesday, Verizon announced that it will be adding YouTube content to its V Cast line-up, as part of its V Cast Video Service. Yesterday (Nov 29), it announced that it in early December some (not all) Revver content will also be available on the same service.  Users will need to spend $15 a month to access these video services.

$15 seems expensive for the current V Cast video lineup - even with some Revver and You Tube clips.  Keep in mind, Verizon won't be offering unlimited access to Revver and YouTube clips - just a select number of pre-selected clips.  If I were a Verizon customer, to spend 15 bucks a month, I'd expect to be accessing a whole lot of YouTube, Revver, and a TON of free cached TV shows and movies "on demand" and live streaming TV.  I'd also want to upload and download video from my phone to both services.  In the case of Revver- I'd want to be able to upload my videos from my mobile phone and cash-in on opportunities to make money in the process, which is part of Revver's business model.  In addition to offering only partial YouTube and Revver content, there is no live TV with V Cast - only video clips and a limited number of shows.  Plus, V Cast only works on some of Verizon's phones.

Paying $15 a month when you can use your phone as a modem on another mobile network, connecting it to my PC and accessing the entire internet of social media sites wirelessly for FREE sounds like a better bet.

Alternatively, MobiTV, which is available on Cingular in the US for $9.99/ month (also available via Sprint branded as Sprint TV in the US and on Orange in the UK), streams live (well, short delays) TV to your phone. Okay, so you can't see videos from Revver or YouTube through MobiTV, but you can see the very latest news, weather, etc. Similarly, if you're on other networks, there's no shortage of cheap live TV options.... Vodafone offers a great TV service called Vodafone Live.  And another ISV called ROK offers 21 channels of mobile TV and SD cards with movie and TV content pre-loaded on them.