RT @sbergel: Two billion pieces of content shared on Facebook each week – http://bit.ly/15tCdQ

The link leads to this InsideFacebook blog post on recently revealed statistics from Facebook.

So there are two billion pieces of content shared on Facebook each week?

So that’s 8 billion items a month. Or 104 billion items a year. Or, with the aid of a calculator, just under 200,000 items shared per minute.

Sheeeeeeeeeeeet! (to quote Senator Clay Davis’s catch phrase from The Wire)

Facebook announced at Nokia World a few weeks ago that more than 65 million people are actively using their service via mobile device. And when they say ‘active’, they mean it. I can’t quite remember the specifics, but it wasn’t some namby pamby ‘logged in this year means active‘ rubbish. It was within the last 30 days or something like that.

Looking at Facebook’s published stats, I find it fascinating to consider what’s coming soon.

Here’s the mobile section:

# There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
# People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
# There are more than 180 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products

What’s going to happen when those 180 mobile operators have actually delivered something?

Where would we be if, for example, Orange’s Motorola DEXT (or ‘Cliq’ in the States) along with their MotoBlur offering (which integrates Facebook directly into the main phone apps), becomes a category best seller?

That kind of future is rather exciting to behold. Where will we be when a full 30 million Britons login to Facebook via their mobile device every day?

Is that possible?

Could we, conceivably, get to that stage, any time soon? I wonder just how many Britons, just as an example, have got a mobile data plan? It’s still a *real* problem for your average consumer who’s still accustomed to the sad reality of 4-5 pounds per meg data pricing.

Facebook came along at the right time. It’s Facebook — way more than any other brand today — that’s galvanising the masses.

“What, you mean I can Facebook on this?” is oft commented when I’ve seen people evaluating handsets in shops. Indeed it’s a popular tactic, to include that as a ‘feature’ when you’re selling some of the more capable handsets.

The company’s efforts to either directly develop (or heavily assist) in the design of a dedicated application for as many device platforms as possible has certainly been useful.

If you thought the rather bollocks looking Facebook widget on the N97 and N97 Mini were a little limited, fear not. I briefly met the chap from Nokia who’s part of a team working with Facebook to integrate it properly (and one would hope, wholly) into the manufacturer’s handsets. The huge consumer draw for status updates and photo sharing is lifting millions out of ‘mobile poverty’. When new handset time comes round, I’m anecdotally seeing tons of normobs (“normal mobile users”) prioritising the feature of Facebook as a key buying decision.

What’s more exciting for me is that these consumers aren’t buying the ‘here’s a bollocks widget’. A lot — again anecdotally — that I’m meeting and interacting with, are specifically choosing their handsets based on how *good* the ‘Facebook stuff’ is on them. Witness, for example, that rather brilliantly integrated Facebook for Blackberry app. There’s many a twenty-something female normob walking about the city of London now, sporting a new Bold or a Curve with Facebook continually on in the background.

This is exciting, very exciting. Because Facebook is showing the way for the consumer. What’ll be really, really interesting is if they make good on the rumours, the conjecture, the potential that many have been talking about for some time — a Facebook mobile platform and framework for applications (and services). You only have to look at what they’ve done with their latest iPhone App — have you seen the second screen ready for an array of Facebook-deployed mobile applications?

We shall see.

In the meantime I’m delighted by the fact that new mobile users, having got hold of their new Blackberry or their new [whatever handset] principally for the purposes of Facebook are, naturally, looking at other applications and services that might be interesting. Since they’ve dealt with the billing/data/worry nightmare that may well have kept them from experimenting in the past, I’d hope that the trickle-down effect will continue to grow and grow. So that once you’ve done your 15 minutes of Facebooking, you might want to go and download a mobile audiobook via GoSpoken or even book a flight, hotel or hire a car with ShopQwik (who, by the way, is doing a roaring trade on flights at the moment).

It’s all good. Nice work Facebook. More of the same, please!

Stop everything you’re doing and fly over to this page at Gizmodo. They have a seriously smart video of the (apparently new) Microsoft Courier tablet.

They report that it’s a real device and it’s in the ‘late stage’ prototype.

If it’s anywhere near accurate — and if it works *like* they show in the video, then it’s going to really change the marketplace.

Bring it on!

It includes no names. No ‘hello, it’s Daniel/Christian/Somebody here’. No personality whatseover.

Perhaps, then, their direct and officious statement underlines the unimaginable panic going on at their Marlow HQ?

Whither the friendliness, the approachable hi-ya, the ‘listen, it’s not like that?’

Indeed, the SLOW response out of Marlow today (it took them until 3.33pm to publish their statement) is perhaps a story in itself. There’s been nothing public out of the company at all before then.

For your average FTSE, that slow, measured strategy is perfectly fine — but from uber-fast-connected-social-media-SpinVox? Disappointing and strange.

This is the day you need James Whatley (their social media chap). So integral is Mr Whatley that the SpinVox statement is actually published on the company’s blog, bearing his name and contact details.

THIS is when you needed James to be right there, laptop burning, showing attention to the legions of interested parties across multiple social media channels. James is smart enough to avoid getting drawn into conversations without having appropriate authority — but he could have at least kept us in the Twitter-sphere (and many of the mobile industry A-list) updated with holding comments. I’m willing to bet he’d have been posting half hour messages along the lines of ‘Official response at 3.30pm folks, standby, all is good’.

That approach would have kept a lot of people from speculating — myself included.

Why?

Because we all know the chap. Because he’s invested time, effort and money (SpinVox’s cash as well as his own) in ensuring that we know him, his relaxed, friendly, confident style. A few words from him — so we knew he was ‘on it’ and ‘dealing with it’ — would have sent us back to our desks to look at The Onion until 3.30pm.

James would have ensured that the SpinVox statement came from a named individual; that there was plenty of notice via Twitter; that inaccurate statements being published all over the social web would have been tagged with a ‘er, not quite — standby for our official response’ immediately.

It just so happens that James is away this week — something that’s terribly unfortunate for SpinVox. I’ve always got the impression that James has been the moderating influence at the company — opening them up — forcibly — to using the new social mediums, assuring and advising as necessary. James knows how to do this because he knows so many of the people — directly — who’re covering the issue.

It’s typical that he’s somewhere in America at the moment just when they could really, really have used his skills.

Meanwhile let’s see how things go over this evening and tomorrow.

My brief advice to SpinVox: Get personal, get in-depth, get multiple film-crews in to the company TODAY, get your agenda up and out over all the social media channels pronto.

So this is a rather nifty addition, isn’t it? If you’re like to really wind up the people you’re emailing (or, hugely annoy your boss), you can have Google automatically do a lookup on your current IP location and stick that in your footer.

It’s only for Gmail at the moment. That’s Gmail on the desktop. I doubt it works for mobile… although that would be an interesting experiment to try out.

Although I wonder at what point will it become highly unnecessary for anyone to actually tell you where they are. You’ll just know. It’ll be built straight into your mobile messaging console in the future. Right?

Sort of.

Maybe in about 100 years…

More details from the Gmail Blog here.

The easiest way to find people and places nearby that you will like. A Rummble can be any place – restaurant, shop, photo opportunity, a favourite walk.

And you must definitely download the Rummble iPhone application. Find it in the App Store.

What, then, does Andrew think about Google’s latest Latitude addition to Google Maps? Well I strongly encourage you to get a cup of coffee, sit back and read this piece below. If you’re running a service with the words ‘mobile’, ’social’ and ‘network’ in it, I think Andrew’s perspective will be hugely relevant.

Over to Andrew:

- – - – -

For the last 3 years now I’ve been crowing at conferences that “Who’s nearby” is not a business. I drew this conclusion from running playtxt, Europe’s first location-based mobile social network.

It started in 2002 and we had an Alpha launch in 2003. It was ridiculously early to market. Back in 2002 most normal people (i.e. those for whom a “tweet” today is still something only birds do) did not know what a social network was, let alone a mobile location-based social network. Thanks to MySpace, Facebook and the inevitable march of technology, even my own mother is now aware of social networking, SMS and GPS.

By 2005 Google had bought our main competitor Dodgeball and although the mobile operators were still charging for Cell ID lookups (ludicrously, they are STILL trying to!) I already believed it was only a matter of time before location became a commodity. It would too easy to do for start-ups to do and even easier for others such as Facebook, which was on its ascent.

I decided that “who’s nearby?” was never going to create a multi-million pound business and I made three predictions, some which are still relevant today:

* GPS will be in every phone as cameras were then becoming. (GPS chipsets are extremely cheap, power consumption is becoming lower, processing power higher and Galileo is on the horizon -literally, haha).
* One of the gorillas (Google, Yahoo et al) will release a free Cell ID/Location API. (Google have and its excellent).
* “Who’s nearby” will also become a commodity

For the last 2 years I’ve been telling any start-up which is building its own Cell ID database, that it must be mad. I see no business model. Google about as likely to charge for Cell ID lookup as it is for its maps API; and that likelihood is slim.

There was (and is) money to be made with tracking and Cell ID technology, but both industries begin with “S” and neither spell the world “Social”. Instead, it is Security (child tracking, staff tracking) and of course Sex (proximity dating, adult services); infact any vertical where a premium can be demanded – we know that fear and shagging both command strong emotions which can result in a buying decision. Wondering “Where are my friends?” does not; unless of course you’re intensely paranoid or have VERY accommodating friends.

There is no mobile internet: there is only the internet.

This has been my other crusade for the last 2 years; and this is probably what Google believes too. What I mean is, that fix-line world-wide-web access is the black & white TV of the internet. Amazing in itself, but without the full functionality of what we recognise as “television” today.

Location, portability and the need for personalisation (a mobile being such a small, personal device) are the three missing dwarfs which give us our Seven Dwarfs of the modern internet. (The first four were IMHO: the web browser as user interface, freedom to publish without government or minority corporate control, always-on fixed cost access, and broadband bandwidth; Snow White being the internet itself).

So in the near future (3-5years?) no one will talk of the “mobile” internet but simply, the internet. You will have an iphonesque device (in size & looks if not in O/S which you take home and plug into your 24″ screen and keyboard …we’ve still a decade to go before we type goodbye to Mr Qwerty and say hello to HAL.

Be under no delusion, Latitude is Googles Trojan horse into the social networking space.

After Googles purchase of Dodgeball it was clear they had every intention to roll out a service such as Latitude and they are perfectly positioned to do so.

Almost by-passing online social networking entirely (aside from Orkut which only took hold in Brazil) I believe Google will pursue a wide-reaching mobile social play. Google will build up a critical mass of users on Latitude; and they will join because:

* It is Google (so its trustworthy; yes still)
* It’s easy to use – simple UI and simple privacy model: Automatic, Manual or Hide your location (or as I prefer: Honest, Lie or Paranoia)
* It has reach (27 countries at launch, lots of handsets, no GPS required)
* It’s free

They will then likely launch an API (in the process solving some of the standardisation and interconnectivity problems – possibly using the new OAuth hybrid or equivalent) but also roll out other functionality enhancements. Although the latter may take longer than you think.

Latitude has lots wrong with it too e.g. Gmail import only (where is XFN Social Graph import or device address book comparison?) status update is crying out for Twitter integration and a hook into FireEagle (with which Latitude does not compete, yet) would all be very welcome (the last two are unlikely for political reasons but would be a fantastic nod to the open ecosystem) and don’t forget part of Latitude’s beauty is its simplicity; and Google have time on their side.

Many of us have been waiting for location-based services to come of age for YEARS! but in reality we’re still in the early adopter curve. In fact, I’d go even further than that. At BeingDigital in 2008 I stated on stage to a deluge of ridicule, that Social Networking wasn’t yet main stream. The laughing continued until I asked how many parents AND siblings of delegates had email? The answer was predictable: virtually everyone. Then I asked how many parents and siblings were also on a social network; over 75% of the hands dropped.

150 million people on Facebook is a lot, but 3.2 billion people have mobile phones: that’s a lot more. Email is mainstream, social networking is still maturing. Eventually it will of course become part of everything we do “online” rather than be a destination, with your social graph becoming portable and also actually owned by you, not FaceSpace.

So what does this all mean?

1) Location is already commodity AND your friends location will become a commodity. Any service will be able to plug in and use this data (with the right permissions). Its already happening – checkout Yahoo’s FireEagle which is an aggregator of location between services.

2) If you’re a start-up building LBS, Cell ID, friends nearby services, or anything else which is being commoditised as we speak, see above. Loopt; west coast startup run by a bright 24 year old entreprenuer – nice guy, flawed business plan. $13million+ in funding, nudging just 1 million users after 3 years with low engagement metrics. Differentiator? There isn’t one. Case closed, game over.

3) If you’re running anything with the words “mobile social network” in the title, lock yourself in a room with your team and work out how you’re going to save your business. That means innovate. Mobile is not a differentiator, its an inevitability.

At Le Web 07 I met with Christian, Founder of Skout. He had built a cool location based mobile social network (LoMoSoSo anyone?). By Q1 2008 when I met him in San Francisco, he’d already realised that competition was fierce and the concept was flawed — and that was before the gorillas had waded in. I implored him to change strategy (something which in fact he’d already started doing). He chose dating. It’s a smart move. Dating generates money-and lots of it. Proximity dating, or in fact “mobile dating” in general has never been done really well (even Mr Arrington agrees).

As a LBS start-up, you need to think about adding distinctive value for users; differentiating on location is an oxymoron. I know some of you are making money, some of the pure play mobile social networks are even profitable – great. But there’s an iceberg ahead and it may be bigger than it looks: just ask Captain Edward John Smith.

The future is relevance; the context of not only where I am but what I’m doing, who I am, where I will be. In summary: It’s about the data, stupid.

And that will be what I write about in my next post.

- – - – -

And I for one, Andrew, am very much looking forward to your next post. Thank you for taking the time.

Get Andrew on Twitter: @andrewjscott.

What is it

eBuddy lets you log into your IM networks like AIM, Googletalk, MSN Messenger and ICQ as well as the Facebook and Myspace social network chat systems from a single account.  The service also integrates with mobile photo-sharing.

Initially the service was based on a PC web messenger but was extended to mobile with the launch of the Mobile Messenger Java app and a mobile web site Lite Messenger which is optimized for XHTML mobile browsers as well as the iphone, ipod Touch and Sony PSP.

eBuddy is truly international with support for 37 languages and offices in Amsterdam, London and San Fransisco.  The company has raised two rounds of funding, Series A (5m euro) from Lowland Capital Partners, and Series B (6.5m euro) from Prime Technology Ventures.

The mobile IM space is really hotting up and eBuddy faces a range of international competitors which we have previously covered here at Mobile Industry Review like Nimbuzz, Mig33 and Heysan as well as some strong local players such as Mxit in South Africa.  However, as the CEO Jan-Joost points out, ebuddy is the one to beat in this space with really massive traction – here are the latest numbers:

- 11m downloads of the ebuddy mobile application, growing at the rate of 1m downloads per month
- average user logs in 30 times per month
- 3m monthly uniques on mobile, growing at CAGR 195% (2004 to 2008)
- processed 45bn messages in 2008

eBuddy was founded in 2003, in the depths of the dot com nuclear winter, at a time when people were writing off mobile internet as a failure – so its a great success story for these difficult times!

Why is it interesting?

As a converged service working across online and mobile eBuddy offers an interesting case study of the relationship between the two platforms as mobile gets stronger and stronger.

In some markets, such as Indonesia, eBuddy’s mobile traffic is 2-3 times its web traffic, providing more evidence to support the view that mobile is going to be the primary online access channel on a global basis. eBuddy is also finding that they are able to build a web brand and web traffic as a result of their presence in mobile – this is the inverse of the way things normally work e.g. facebook mobile building off the strength of the PC site.

Whilst eBuddy haven’t started monetising their mobile traffic yet there is clearly a massive opportunity both from mobile advertising and from user-payments – Jan-Joost mentioned a Chinese IM player called QQ which is already generating $700m p.a. in mobile payments revenue in addition to $300m in advertising.  There are other examples such as Mobile Gametown in Japan which have also successfully proved this model.  With many online web 2.0 sites struggling to build revenue streams it could be services with a big presence in mobile like ebuddy that prove to be more commercially attractive.

The other thing to note about eBuddy is that they are one of the first mobile services to really get viral effects working on a massive scale in mobile.  Historically, mobile services have had to invest in high cost customer acquisition through carriage on operator portal decks or off-net advertising.  With eBuddy, every time someone logs into an IM network using the system their status is changed to show that they are using the service – which has amplified the word of mouth effects of a great service.  As a result, the huge traction that ebuddy enjoys has been achieved with fairly limited marketing spend.

What this all adds up to is a European start-up in the mobile space that could well achieve a major exit in the near future.  ebuddy would be a great fit for an international telecoms company, handset vendor or one of the major online players so watch this space…

You can download ebuddy and ebuddy Lite on mjelly, which is a directory of mobile applications and other stuff.

However, I was watching the news the other day, I think it was CNN or Sky or something, and I was half-heartedly listening; and suddenly something occurred to me about what I was seeing. The old usual reports of a foreign reporter standing with bullet-proof jacket, and some Army guys standing around them are slowly withering away…

And why is that?

Technology!

It was fascinating what it was that I saw, a man had been able to get in touch with a child over in Gaza over the internet, and was having a webcam conversation with them; and through this conversation came a live-feed, and first hand account of what is happening, without the need of invasive, and sometimes misleading (or dare I say biased) news reporters merely saying what they see.

Now this has all come about because of mobile telecommunications, and it’s only ever going to improve with better telecommunications.

What made me smile, and what made me happy is to think with the power of what this industry does, and what some other industries provide, we as a global population may some day have enough power to really create our own media – say a full scale “YouTube Revolution”.

Imagine that! And it all being down to a bit of technology.

Even more amazing than a Media Revolution, would be providing people like those in Gaza with no way to voice what it is that is happening in Gaza, with no means of communicating with the rest of the world what is happening; would be to be able to have an even better communication where civilians caught up in Political affairs such as this, can really communicate to the outside world what it is that needs to be done; and for us to be able to offer hope back to them.

And it’s things like the $100 laptop, working to improve efficiency and output of global communications, and developing new and exciting technology which can achieve this.

What’s more, is that it doesn’t have to end there. On Skype already you’ll see quite a few people trying to find ways to learn new languages via the internet, and others happily teaching in order to learn themselves. Well, why couldn’t that happen more?

“International Online Classrooms” -  I can see it now; the students would be embracing whatever technology they can get their hands on, be it the latest high-speed connectivity handheld phone, or an ultra-powerful Notebook with high-speed wireless internet, and maybe the odd person or two on their desktop… But it could happen, and there is no reason why it shouldn’t!

Maybe I am being am being tad optimistic, but I don’t like starting a new year with pessimism. But I’m also a realist by heart and by nature; I seldom overindulge in beliefs of the impossible, and I don’t believe anything that I have mentioned is impossible; and I’m pretty sure that there are more people out there could find even more better and plausible ideas than mine.

Well, a lot can change in a year, so let’s see what happens!

Samantha.
Samantha@mobileindustryreview.com

So when I got my connection back some time late last week, I was mildly hoping to see something massively interesting to inspire me to write about; some major piece of news – I mean it’s nearly Christmas after all – or just something that might catch my eye.

Now even on my trawl across the internet in search of mobile news, and the latest goings-on in this brilliant segment of society and business I was expecting something.

Did I?
No.

Am I happy?
No.

You see, even I, a relatively technological “young” person/student, who has a keen interest in the world around me, and with Christmas looming just around the corner, just something eh?

Well, apparently not.

Now maybe some good news, and/or surprises are waiting around the corner for the New Year; or maybe something spectacular will happen in the after-Christmas sales. Needless to say though, I was expecting some major news about something; a big price cut, or some other form of attempt to gain more consumer interest in this very dismal financial situation.

I know I’ve said numerous times now about the lack of real spark at the moment, and the generally poor attempts at gaining custom; and although nothing major, I’m quite amazed at how little I’ve read about anything enticing me – as a probable and likely customer – to go and spend money.

Maybe I’m wrong in my presumptions that the mobile market is avoiding the “Credit Crunch” and that when I walked down my high street the other day, Phones4U, CPW, O2, Three, and the numerous other shops which hoard the high street were meant to be relatively empty on a busy Thursday leading up to Christmas?

Hmm…

Well, I’ll try not to be so pessimistic, and I will believe that someone somewhere is planning something out to ensure that the mobile industry remains in-tact.

My Mum gets Carphone Warehouse letters in the post; and the other day I arrived home from School, seeking out any interesting post for myself, when I came across a little Christmas brochure. I expected to see the usual mix of non-interesting and far-fetched mobiles, which have very limited appeal to someone who is as indecisive as I.

Then I came across the LG Cookie.

I’m not an LG fan by any means, yes their phones are nice, and I have to say although I appreciate the minor attempts at creativity with their naming processes; previous experiences of LG’s have taught me that they’re not my cup of tea. Should I mention I’m not a fan of their interfaces, or just generally how they work and feel?

However, the Cookie did catch my eye! It looks nice, it’ll be a new experience, it’s a touch-screen (another learning curve), and also the ability to use an on screen QWERTY keyboard, and importantly its price.

I don’t know what to do.

Now this could just be a sporadic urge to go and spend money, and get something just because I’ve seen it, and I like the price; but then I think… LG. An interface I know I won’t like, and will struggle to get grips with, and I fear I’ll see all the flaws in my purchase just after I’ve broken that “unbreakable seal” on the box.

It’s hopeless! I do this with every wonderful find I come across, and I deliberate an item and a possible purchase so much that it either becomes outdated and therefore useless, or I decide I don’t like it although secretly still wanting it, or I’ll find something else to admire and want.

I know for one, I can’t be the only person who does this; and I know for one that it’s probably a good safety precaution my mind has implemented to stop such impulse buying – a trait I really try to avoid at all costs.

Now I wonder, why is it I find mobiles such as the Cookie, and previously before it the LG KS360 before that, and there was also a Sony mobile before that too; why is it I loose interest, and forget about it, and then find some other mobile-crush?

Could it just be that no matter how lovely one major aspect or feature of a phone is say, it’s price, a new built in gadget or a sleek, slender design; it really isn’t enough to make a mobile good, or at-least good enough to buy.

What I’m beginning to see is that mobiles tend to be about one major factor, be it its connectivity, a particular design focus, a built in application, the camera, the media, the price, or its “technological achievements”.  I don’t want just one particularly above average feature as reason to invest in a mobile; I want a device that has equally good features which aren’t just surfing above the acceptable quality in phone.

So my next mobile-crush won’t be on a weak whim, a spur-of-the moment encounter, it’ll be something which offers more than one better than alright feature, and something I won’t fall out of love with.

Feel free to e-mail me anything at Samantha@mobileindustryreview.com

It has however hit me; I’m beginning to actually resent my mobile phone. As in, I actually don’t like it anymore.

I don’t mean I don’t like my outdated W810i; I’m actually rather fond of the device. It’s certainly better than most things I’ve come across on my bi-weekly visits to the town centre.  No, I actually don’t like the idea (at least for the moment) of being constantly in touch with the world, or at least my friends all the time.

Last week I was on Half-Term. A pleasant one week break from the mountainous piles of work I have to complete, and everything else that goes along with the joys of A Levels. One would expect I would be embracing the free time, and trying as much as possible to get in contact with all my friends…

I haven’t.

In fact, for the entire week my mobile phone was on silent. Now, I have my mobile on twenty-four seven. I actually cannot recall a day when my mobile has been turned off… It just doesn’t happen. This week though, I’ve become rather lax. I keep leaving my phone away from me (which never happens), and I actually try putting off looking at the device.

Now obviously, this could be due to a number of things; but I’ve come to the conclusion now, that I don’t actually want people being able to contact me all the time; and if they do, I don’t want to know about it.

Now this is an argument my Grandparents used against during the populisation of mobiles; “Why on earth would you want people to contact you when and wherever you are!?!” And to me it was as simple as, well, it’s useful for emergencies, and you never know what good can come out of it.

Could this be a phase? Certainly, and I no doubt expect to falling back in love with my mobile, and the joys of constant communication fairly quickly.

The point though, I’ve come to realise how intrusive it is. I’ve pointed out before the annoyances I’ve found with mobile phones in Public Places, and how I found them highly intrusive. But what about our personal lives?

Last week for example, I had fallen asleep rather early for half-term week (I think around quarter to ten). I woke up an hour later; after I found the DVD I had been watching had restarted its self. So I got up, turned it off, got properly ready for bed, and glanced at my phone quickly. “SMS Received From: [name of friend] Read now?”

Now, had my mobile been on its usual “loud” setting, I would have had my very nice piece of Classical Music alerting me out of my sleep informing me of said message. I would have had my sleep disrupted by a text message! Not good.

I can recall a number of similar instances too… Sunday Dinner, and suddenly that ringtone; and blowing candles out on a birthday cake… Ahh, that ringtone again! Plus there are many, many more occasions where this has happened.

So do I resent my mobile?
Well, if anything, I’ve come to realise how intrusive and how bloody annoying the damn thing can be. It’s a sleep disturber; it’s an invited “guest” to special occasions, and just another way in which personal space can be invaded.

Then again, I love my mobile. It goes everywhere with me. It provides me the means to update Facebook wherever I am; to inform my Mum of after school-sessions of Chemistry I am attending. It enables me to contact friends for social gatherings, and family for when they need me.

Maybe I should just try turning my phone off once in a while? Yes, I could… But I don’t see it happening any time soon.

Saying that though, I wonder how well I would go trying going “Mobile-less” for a week? I reckon I could handle it… Maybe.

Do you think you hold any resent towards your mobile? Or, do you find it too intrusive on your personal life?

Once again, if you would like to e-mail me about anything, send them to Samantha@mobileindustryreview.com

Now school’s are a hostile environment (well, at least mine is), and navigating the Sixth Form common room is something like an assault course. But it’s so much more than that too! It’s buzzing with technology, and young people who know things, right?

I’ve been keeping my eye out for mobile news, and reading MIR, and of course the news in general. The Google Android is by no means a small piece of ignorable news at the moment, so how is it then, no one is talking about it?

After the twelve-week summer holiday some people were showing off their new gadgets, namely Sony mobiles, and the odd iTouch; in the three hundred student strong Sixth Form I’ve only seen a single iPhone. That’s just one.

Now before I criticise my peers for being totally unaware about the world of technology, computing and mobile phones; there are some techno-people like myself too; maybe even more technologically experienced. So why then is it that no one is talking?

From what I’ve gathered, no one particularly cares. Of course, I care, the rest of the MIR team cares, and I’ll hazard a guess that you the reader may also care too. The mobile phone industry is of course interesting, fast paced, and constantly evolving. But could this be the problem?

From what I’ve seen is that for those who I know (and you may beg to differ on this), the world of technology is just too fast paced to keep up with; and as a result, they don’t bother to keep up at all. If you ask someone about the new Nokia 5310, you’ll get a blank stare and no hint of excitement at the prospect of free music. Why? Well they don’t know about it!
For me this is quite an interesting piece of news, I won’t buy the phone as it doesn’t actually interest me, or grab me enough to go and spend money on it; but its certainly something of interest, and a product which is really targeting what I do the most – download music.

So back to the Android:
Well, there’s nothing to say. I think the device itself looks good (although for the videos I’ve seen, slightly slower than the iPhone), and if it’s priced correctly it should fly off the shelves. But where is the buzz from the Sixth Formers? The sixteen to eighteen year olds with plenty of disposable income, and a constant desire to keep up with the times just have no desire, or even no knowledge of this remarkable piece of news.

Then I think about this, why don’t my friends know about this? Or even the people who I see everyday, why don’t I hear them talking about the latest mobile phones? I hear them chatting about the new Manhunter game, and Gears of War, and maybe debating what’s best, the Playstation 3 or the Xbox 360? Why, and I’ve said this before, isn’t there more advertising, or promotions for the young people of today?
Obviously there is an issue here. Either my outer-London school and its students are blissfully unaware, or advertising just isn’t doing its job.

For all I know, I could be totally wrong; but in the numerous times I’ve tried to talk about mobiles or something I feel like I’m talking a different language. And, I don’t know about you or anyone else really, but in this day and age, who would expect that? What’s more, how is it, that Nokia with their 5310 which is so obviously designed and aimed at young people, aren’t they targeting us?

So to Nokia, and Google, what’s going to happen? You both have quite possibly big selling devices, but what are you doing about it? The 5310 launches tomorrow and I’m certainly not feeling, nor seeing any of the buzz.

If you have a differing opinion on this, or want my opinion on any particular aspect of the mobile industry please feel free to leave comments or e-mail me at samantha@mobileindustryreview.com

It looks like Nokia’s planning to cannibalise some of the features from Plazes, with the company saying its going to extend its own context-based services with the social presence and time-based activity planning features Plazes has.

Given Nokia has spent a lot of cash mapping and/or navigation companies – think Gate5 and Navteq – it’s little wonder that it’s now looking for new services to offer on top of the maps and new ways to monetise them. Social networking though is mostly an ads fuelled business – I wonder if Nokia will be sticking with that model, or experimenting with charging users a subscription for the geographic services.

Sniff goes live officially in the United Kingdom next month. It’s available on mobile operator o2, so anyone with an o2 handset reading, I’d appreciate you trying it out. I’ve got an o2 Blackberry, so theoretically I can try it out when I’m back in the UK. (I’d be dead impressed if you were able to ‘locate me’ with Sniff and you were sent a map of my Las Vegas location)

That’s what Sniff is all about. Friend Finder. You can, via text message, look up where your friends are in some detail.

Here’s what the release says:

sniff is a permission-based application that lets consumers locate their close friends in real-time, automatically, anytime and anywhere with their mobile phone or from Facebook. Additionally, sniff is the first ever Facebook application to automatically locate friends in real-time using mobile location technology. With seamless Facebook integration, finding friends is just a few clicks away.

Once consumers receive permission from their friends, using sniff is as simple as sending an SMS text message. sniff provides consumers with a detailed map view of their friends’ locations – making meeting up easier than ever before. sniff is already wildly popular in Sweden with over 80,000 users since its recent launch and growing rapidly.

Obviously privacy is a key issue. Every single one of those 80,000 users would have switched off right away if you weren’t able to completely configure your privacy settings. The ‘er, I’m at the office’ explanation won’t work too well when your girlfriend can see you’re at the pub with one text message.

CEO Brian Levin has a handle on it though, commenting:

“We are very mindful of our users’ privacy, with varying permission levels, sniff allows consumers to manage if, when and how their location information is shared with other parties. In addition, users have the ability to set-up notifications via SMS of key events such as being located or invited by another user to be part of the sniff network.”

It’s not a free application. You have to pay for it via a premium rate text message. Fair enough. If Sniff are using location based services, they’ll be paying THROUGH THE NOSE to the UK carriers for this. Off the street, your average LBS lookup costs 10p. Buy in bulk and you’ll get some discount. (But the idiot operators don’t quite get proper pricing strategies, we know this.)

It won’t just be o2 in the UK. They’ll have all major networks live soon — and they’ll be expanding to the States, Canada and France in due course.

I’ve been waiting for a decent location based friend finder style service for a while. Something like Dodgeball but that doesn’t need you to specifically update your location all the time.

Here’s how it works:

50p per sniff, eh? Hmm. I think that might be a leeetle bit too expensive when you factor in the ’standard network message rate’ which may well bring the total consumer cost to near 60/65p per ’sniff’. That would be positively annoying. But it’s the idiot operators charging per lookup that is the problem.

Or it’s a really stupid model. Someone told me you can get ‘unlimited lookup’ queries from the UK networks for a flat 2 grand a month. If that’s the case, charging nearly 60p a go for a lookup is highly, highly silly.

But, let me step back down off my pricing high-horse and see how it gets on.

More at www.sniffu.com.

According to Claes Odman, head of Multimedia Solutions at Ericsson, “We see from studies that the communication patterns are changing, messaging type of services is dominating and the demand for enriched communication is here. With our Multimedia Communication Suite we can take the consumer experience one step further, making it easier with intuitive interface and allow people to communicate in a richer way.”

Sounds good to me. Also encouraging is the fact that MCS is in line with the industry standard of Rich Communication Suite, which is a group of operators, infrastructure, and handset manufacturers which have joined up to make sure the future of mobile communications is interoperable between each other.

Checked out Swirl Connect at all? It’s a location-based mobile friend finder service. It enables users to stay connected with friends, experience what their friends experience as it happens, meet new folk on the go and find out about places of interest nearby.

Speaking of places of interest — that’s what Swirl’s been working on. They’ve now got 100,000 ‘placemarks’ (Placemarks are places of interest than can have shared photos and notes posted to them) which means that almost any US user is going to, I imagine, find a placemark that they’re familiar with. Smart move.

Another smart move? Well, the Swirl team have made sure that almost every single Motorola handset is supported — along with Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson (although no N95 as yet, it seems). Good policy, given the huge, huge handset population in the States.

Here are just some features:

* View connection status for your buddies, and find out if they’re online or mobile
* Find your friends’ locations or destinations on a map
* View the photos your friends have taken and the places they’ve visited
* Get real-time alerts of your friends’ activity
* Instant message friends on their PCs or mobile phones
* Group chat with your friend list
* Use Quick Talk to phone friends (like Push to Talk)
* Share photos, places, and notes with other Swirl members

Just downloaded it…

Link: Jaikido Blog

The key updates:

- The choice between longer battery life or more up-to-date presence (a much requested feature).
- Reading and writing comments from and to your contacts.
- Go back in time! Using the ’stream view’ for your contacts, you can see what they were doing and saying in the past, not just their most recent post.
- More than just Jaikus! You can also see when your contacts have posted to flickr.
- Improved presence view, to make the most of your screen real-estate.
- A whole raft of usability improvements, based on what our users have been telling us they need, including an even easier to use interface, and a progress meter, so you can see what’s happening.
- More optimal data transfer and connection maintenance, giving you more bang for your wireless data dollar.
…and all the essential (but not that interesting) stuff like bug fixes, speed improvements, that sort of thing.
- Oh, and let’s not forget – a spiffy new manual for this client.

Get it on your handset at www.jaiku.com/mobile/ (you’ll need to quickly create an account if you don’t have one already).

i had similar issues w/ twitter and sms coming down the pipe so i created a java client as another alternative… no sms fees, automatic updates, advance features like replying, direct messages, auto updating , etc.

Thanks Kevin, much appreciated! I’ve installed it, had a play, and works a treat so far. You can check it out at www.tinytwitter.com - or go straight to www.tinytwitter.com/m/ from your mobile to grab a copy.

The basic premise behind Twitter is staying in touch with your friends, and keeping them updated with what you’re doing. It’s sort of like Jaiku in a way in the sense that you’re ‘micro-blogging’ your activities, and there’ve been many words written on the similarities – and differences – between the two. I won’t go into great detail comparing the two right now as I’ll be here all day

Having signed up for a Twitter account, I added my mobile by texting in a confirmation code to a +44 long number. It’s yet another service that uses the 07624 Manx numbers, so rather kindly T-Mobile charged me international text rates. Within a few seconds, I’d got a confirmation text back from Twitter, asking me what I was doing at the moment. Another text back, and another 24p, and within a few seconds my current activity was on my Twitter profile.

So far so good, but it’s a lonely existance with no friends on Twitter so I invited myself to Twitter using a different email address, signed up a separate account, and registered another mobile. Then I sent a text to Twitter from the second mobile. One confirmation text back later, and my first mobile beeped with a new text from Twitter, with details of what my ‘friend’ (ie myself on the second phone) had just posted.

I’m quite impressed with the service, but three things concern me. First, cost to me. Admittedly Twitter have recently made some changes so there’s now a mobile compatible site, but that’s a pain in the arse. I mean I have to fire up my browser on the phone, hit the site, login, type in my status, etc etc – unlike Jaiku where I just flick through to the app that’s running in the background and tap a few keys. Playing with Twitter so far whilst writing this post means I’ve racked up about six or seven texts to the 07624 number, and at international rate (thanks, T-Mobile!) I’m down by nearly £1.50. That’s not good, and would be a real barrier to me using the service regularly.

Second, how does it make money? Jaiku have an app, there’s none of this fiddling around with texts. Twitter, however, have rather kindly forked out for a stack of texts to my mobile just in the last half hour. Admittedly they’re likely to be making a penny or so from each text I send them, but no way does that cover their cost of texting me. The more people I add, and the more status updates I sent, the more expensive it’ll get to them.

The third thing is real world usage. Don’t get me wrong, I’m impressed with Twitter. But how long will I realistically use it? I got a bit bored with Jaiku after a week or two, and with the aforementioned costs of running Twitter by text it won’t take long (probably til the next bill comes in) to realise it’s a rather costly way of telling everyone minute by minute what I’m doing each day.

Will Twitter last, or is it just another Web 2.0 mobile geek fad? Only time will tell..

It is abysmal. Ridiculous. Ever tried organising a sodding teleconference on the fly? You can’t. It’s just impossible.

You have to arse around with pin numbers, access numbers, and 0870 take-the-piss-rate numbers.

It only works properly if you’ve got an office decked out in mahogany paneling and a very nice lady called Gemma at your beck and call to sort out all the crap in-between.

Sorry..are.. you… on… is… Is Keith?

Keith?
Yes

Keith?

Are you on Keith?

Right. Is Hetty on?

Where’s Het?
HELLO?

Oh you’re there?

Hi can anyone hear me?

Yes. Geez that’s loud. Sorry HI?

Keith, are you on?

…

God, it is just DIRE. Absolutely DIRE. The worst of it is, you’re often doing this with some of the most important telephone meetings in your business careers. At least, in my experience, anyway. I hardly ever do conference calls for normal business stuff.

The amount of times I have *GENUINELY* been sat for 30 minutes trying to get into a conference call or wait for very important people to get ON to a conference call…. it’s just terrible. It winds everyone up. It takes up a lot of time. And worst of all, it’s stupidly expensive.

It makes everyone look like school children with tin cans and bits of string.

It’s a market ripe for a bit of disruption.

And thankfully, the disruption has arrived. This morning. Today! In the form of Voible. I will be posting a lot on them — I have tombes of stuff on them and what they’re doing. It’s hugely exciting! I’ve been NDA’d up to the hilt for quite a while but now they’re coming out of stealth mode, I’ve been given permission to start rocking with some information.

Chief Executive is Ed Hodges and the two technical geniuses behind it are Dan Lane and Jay Fenton. I’m talking seriously technical. Past the Uber Geek and into the realms of proper double-hard-bastard seriously technical. Dan has a RFID chip in his arm that enables him to open his house front door just by walking up to it. I mean seriously tech!

I know Ed very well and as a result I’ve been able to act as voyeur as their service has evolved and taken shape (strange, watching — as an entrepreneur, I’m used to getting stuck into things not sitting back staring). It’s been quite a trial not being able to talk about them up until now.

If you’re wondering where Voible came from, the background is here on this post from November last year. I was raving about them then. I still am!

They’ve taken the unique voice platform that they’ve been working on for a good few years and have begun to ‘productise’ it for the mass market.

The first out the door is FlashConference. It is a bit of pure sex, it really is. I defy anyone to look at the service and not involuntarily react with an ‘ohhhh, coool’.

Let’s be clear: If you’ve got a mahogany paneled office in Mayfair, you’re probably ok getting your teleconferences setup by your PA. But for the rest of us working in the real-time business world where instant and collaborative communication is critical, the facility to setup a flash conference, from your handset in four clicks is invaluable.

Absolutely invaluable.

Ed explains it thus:

One key feature of the Voible One suite is FlashConference. This allows you to make ad-hoc conference calls instantly with the advantage of taking into account the participants presence and availability, all controlled from the mobile phone. The days of booking expensive conference calls with everybody dialing in are gone. You can now create a conference call from your mobile or participate in a conference directly, all bound together in the Voible One suite.

Here’s how it works.

1. Load up Voible. It’s a 37k applet that sits on your Symbian 3rd Edition handset. (If, by the way, you’re still using a shite Motorola, upgrade yourself from the 14th Century to the 21st Century then come back).

2. Voible interfaces with your handset’s address book. Transparently. You can’t tell any difference from the normal Nokia interface. Just put a check mark next to the folk you want to conference with.

3. Vobile does the rest. Confirm these are the folk you want in your call…

4. Then hit ‘Start FlashConference’ and the applet initiates a conference call to all participants. You’re billed near wholesale rates so it’s very cheap — as cheap as possible, basically.

Or you might like to schedule a FlashConference? If you do, everyone will be notified by text and then called at the appointed time.

Or if you want to invite someone not in your phonebook, no biggie. Just fantastic. I will use this all the time.

I can imagine walking down the road and flipping out the handset and getting both Joanne and Natalie on the phone to see how they both are and deciding when and where we’re going to meet next week.

I can visualise where I’d rely on this service to quickly connect me to the management team of one of my companies, immediately, with priority, without any arsing around.

And let’s not get into mobile presence… some of the features they’ve got coming are just breathtaking.

They’re accepting limited beta applications at the moment so if you’d like to be one of the first to try this service out, fly over to voible.com and stick in your email address.

More, much, much more on them soon.

Link: eblockwatch – Fight Crime using Technology. Connecting U 2 community power!

Eblockwatch has two main functions.

One is to collect information on criminal activity and turn it into intelligent data then disseminate this information to the relevant members.

The second is to assist its members through its members.
We work on the philosophy that a member must look after themselves, their loved ones and those around them and collectively we look after each other.

Eblockwatch is a network of networks. Neighbourhood watch, police task teams, specialized industrial support teams, security companies and police reservists, South African Women’s Agricultural Union with its 10000 members scattered across South Africa, Township patrols, and most importantly over 29000 ordinary South Africans.

Each member is requested to spread the word as the more members in the loop the safer our members become.

While being a member of eblockwatch is free, we do offer a panic button facility for your cell phone and SMS alerts for crimes reported in your area.

Link: Disney Mobile shares subscriber stats | News.blog | CNET News.com

In a press release issued over the weekend, the company said 30 percent of its subscribers make use of its GPS location-tracking services. Parents who use the tracking feature do so about every other day. The company also said that about 30 percent of Disney Mobile’s location requests are made from the Web and 70 percent from the handset.

Link: Demo of photo conversations on Radar.net | ScobleShow: Videoblog about geeks, technology, and developers

By Raimo van der Klein | April 5th, 2007 at 10:51 am Nice.. Big competitor for Jaiku

Nonsense! It’s nowhere NEAR a competitor.

I’m going to check it out. My first instinct is that I want all my pictures on Flickr. Or on Moblog. Not necessarily on Radar.net.

My next issue is I’d like it all on an application, not a mobile web page…..

But. Open mind, open mind. I shall take a look!

I had to text Ed and and tell him to update his Jaiku. Which sort of defeats the objective, doesn’t it?

Everyone else on my list is either offline (shouldn’t be allowed) or … well… yes, they’re offline. My dad is getting it. Now and again, that is. At least he’s got the application on, though.

Hetty, well, she was using it really well with me — and then — disaster! I happened to mention that she should look out for her data bill, being a Vodafone user. At £2.35 a meg, that’s a shocker of a potential bill. So she’s stopped using it temporarily.

I’m a bit alone on Jaiku. No one’s using it yet! Come on folk!

Right, I talked to Hetty about her suspending use of Jaiku. I asked if it was just the data costs that stopped her using it. Her answer?

Yep all cos of the costs. I liked it but would only use it if it was free. Certainly not worth paying for.

Arse. She’s right, of course. At £2.35 a meg, who would? But it cuts deep into my mobile soul to read ‘Certainly not worth paying for’. From a fiscal point of view, she’s correct. But alas she’s applied the costs of the (Vodafone) data to Jaiku and stopped using it. How disappointing.

This is a super, super example of how the data pricing, particularly in the UK, is really nailing the mobile market. When people get bill-shock (or in this case, pre-bill shock), they generally react negatively. In this case, all the good that was being done for Jaiku, for the mobile market in general, was wiped out immediately. The application was simply switched off.

(That is, until she gets a better deal….)

I have created a Jaiku username called ’smstextnews’ (feel free to add). The moment of truth will be when I get to my Hotel in Hartlepool. I want to see if Jaiku picks up the cell id labels from it’s database or whether it is entirely user programmed. I’ve defined all the cells in that area you see.

Ahh, but they’re T-Mobile cells that I’ve defined. Could be a problem. We shall see, eh?