Social Hallucinations

Social Hallucinations Goes Mobile

Thanks to Neil I've found a smart service that allows you to create mobile site for your blog for free. It is called MoFuse.

I like applications that a so easy to set up.

Here is link to Social Hallucinations mobile site: http://socialhallucinations.mofuse.mobi/ . There is also a MoFuse badge in the sidebar.

mobile internet, MoFuse

3G Telephony and User Experience

Sometime ago, I have read an article in the IHT an article about 3G telephony. There were billions dollars spent on "third - generation" licenses, in the pursuit of the "technology oriented" consumer, who was suppose to use without limits many features 3G telephony has to offer: email, Internet, video calls, music, videos, just name it. 3G were suppose to become our mobile window to the world. But the truth is that most people use their cell phones just as they did in 2000 - to make calls and send text messages. They use their phones to communicate with their peers.

So much money has been invested in promotion of the 3G services but it didn't get the people to run to stores and book plane tickets and have a video chat with mother over phone. Why? I guess it can be a good example of lack of consumers insights and understanding the relation between humans and technology.  Apparently the world isn't ready to put the everyday matters and connections into a small phone. The companies missed the important part of "user experience" .

   

‘When we talk about the “user experience” the main emphasis is often on an individual’s experience with a particular technology. Even with a purported social technology, for example a social networking site, we still tend to create for the individual’s interaction with the site (how does someone find their friend, how do they access this site easily from a mobile device).

   

However, designing for sociability means thinking about how people experience each other through the technological medium, not just thinking about how they experience the technology. The emphasis is on the human-to-human relationship, not the human-to-technology relationship. This is a crucial difference in design focus. It means designing for an experience between people.

   

Of course designing for an experience between people doesn’t mean ignoring the interaction with the device, but it calls for taking something else into account. That “something else” is often another person or people. How do we, as developers of communication technologies, make the communications more interesting, more exciting and more stimulating for the receiver? How do we help our users meet the needs of the other people in their social network? How do we create a shared experience that is equally compelling for all participating parties? When we begin to think like this, we truly start to think of designing social software, social applications, social media.’ 

   

                Crysta Metcalf of Motorola (Found at experientia)

Tags: 3G, Mobile Phones, Consumers

Intel about Future Communication

Wireless future according to Intel ...it lets you be. Funny enough, all phone devices look like iPhone :-)

Tags: wireless, intel, future, communicaiton

Demand for MobileTV is growing

eMarketer forecasts that the total number of mobile TV and video subscribers globally will rise from 40 million in 2006 to over 750 million in 2011...

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..and worldwide paying subscribership will go up to nearly 200 million, and revenue will reach nearly $13 billion.

There is optimistic forecast I'd say and there are some money to earn.

But what interested me most in the eMarketer article was a 2006 Nokia survey that showed pretty significant differences in phone usage preferences amongst 18.35 years old. Not only the enormous gap between 46% Saudi Arabians and 3% Japanese in  interest to watch Mobile TV.  What caught my attention is generally very low percentage of Japanese who would like to use mobile phone to anything else but sending and receiving emails (76%).

I must admit I had a picture in my head of Japanese youth using mobile phone to everything, music, photography, TV, Internet...but to my surprise those features seams to be the way more interesting for Chinese people or Europeans.

The table below shows how important is finding the right business model for mobile services and platforms within every country / culture. Despite globalization and uniting power of Internet, the differences grow as fast as similarities.

Tags: mobile, wireless, TV, Nokia, research

iPhone - It's Official

Finally, iPhone has arrived! After many rumors, Apple has announced its new so long awaited product today - iPhone mobile phone.

The iPhone is a gorgeous little device. It is very sexy and it includes a 3.5 inch touchscreen with a virtual keyboard, a 2 megapixel camera, runs EDGE + WIFI (connects automatically), runs OSX and has plenty of killer features, like for example motion sensor that rotates photos when you turn the phone, and voice mails displayed visually that you can click on and listen to.

iPhone ships Europe in fourth quarter of 2007, it will be available in 4 GB ($499) and 8 GB ($599).

I like the way it looks and what it can. I was wondering for a while why actually iPhone doesn't support 3G, but it may be Apple has skipped the middle phase between traditional 2G access to Internet via mobile phones and WIFI. And has chosen to use so called 2.5G EDGE and WIFI. Clever? Looking at the problems 3G telephony is coping with across the Europe, it is a clever solution.

I can imagine iPhone will appear on my and my  X-mass wishes list this year.

It seems like Steve Jobs has caught a good wave once more and iPhone will prove to be very successful -Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas focused on mobile phones as the biggest development area in the coming year.

Approximately 3 billion people will have a mobile phone by the end of 2007, what will make mobile phones the most widespread electronic device. Mobile phones can integrate many features and services: traditional telephony, music, film, TV, Internet and allows us to reduce the number of devices. Mobile phone can be your communication device, both voice and data, your digital camera, your MP3 player, and finally your cyber window to the world. High mobile penetration and advanced mobile technology allow also to open the new communication window for marketers, that can be very successful when used wisely.

eMarketer predicts that the global market for mobile marketing and advertising will grow from about $1.5 billion in 2006 to $13.9 billion in 2011. Mobile phones are the new lifestyle technology and the part of our social life. We need to understand their role in peoples life before we begin to use them as advertising channels. As well as to understand the need for developing the content, that is relevant and satisfy people's needs and expectations. We can easily cross the thin line and become intruders on the private territory. Mobile marketing must be about involvement and respect to people's privacy.

"A survey of 50 leading brands in Europe by Vanson Bourne found that the top three categories for tactical responses that brands look to drive through mobile marketing included requests for more information, making a purchase or booking, and discovering new attributes about a brand."

Via Engaget

Read more on iPhone website

Tags: iPhone, Apple, Mobile phone, Wireless