I HAVE MOVED!

I have now moved!! Please come with me to www.OurOwnDevices.com If anyone knows how to set up an auto-direct from this blog to my new one, please let me know by email (available on my new blog). Thanks for your interest in MobileMediaBusiness!

Moving

My blog is moving. I know Blogger has never been the most advanced platform, but recently they introduced a number of changes to the service that make it considerably less user friendly for mobile bloggers. Hence the rapid decline in my postings (and my readers!). I am re-designing for TypePad. More details soon!!

Wireless Influencers 2006

Over 500 of the leaders and influencers in the wireless industry have gathered for 2 days of intensive discussion, debate and networking at Dana Point in southern California. The participants are a great mix of media and content owners, carriers and application providers. Many of the debates so far have focussed around how hard it is for consumers to enjoy content on mobile devices. Most agree the problem but few agree the solutions and few at all appear willing to share revenues or brand exposure - forcing users to use individually branded, inconsistent user interactions to get access to content from different owner groups. This fragmented approach does not respond to mass consumer needs and is ultimately doomed to failure at worst or to a limited and slowly growing market at best. ShoZu is forging new ground in a more integrative, open and collaborative approach. As our positioning and strategy becomes more widely known we are receiving terrific responses from content owners, handset manufacturers, carriers and web communities & portals.

Wireless Influencers 2006

The second day of Rutberg's event included a lot of discussion about ad funded business models. Many agreed there is no one right model and no really good example of a robust, proven model exists today. The coexistence of transactional and ad funded models was a common theme to many debates.

What Happens When A Billion People Worldwide Become Equipped With The Tools Of Visual Communication?

In the past four years the number of cameras in people’s hands worldwide has increased by 600%. It will double again over the next five years. Total number of cameras of all kinds sold in 2000: 85 Million units. Projected 2008 sales: One Billion units. Pervasive, web-connected imaging and the explosion of user-generated visual content are transforming how we communicate with each other in our personal, work, and community lives.” - www.6Sight.com, October 2006 This was the topic of a recent event – 6Sight - hosted by Future Image, and co-hosted by the two leading imaging associations – the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A) and Photo Marketing Association International (PMA). As a Gold Sponsor and leader in the Mobile Media Service industry, ShoZu’s participation was extensive – lending fresh insight into how brands – from large media and content companies to personal, user fabricated brands, are utilizing technology like that offered by ShoZu to extend their consumer reach in interactive ways. ShoZu’s participation included: LiveFrom6Sight.com – A TypePad blog dedicated to 6Sight – . ShoZu created this blog, and provided a blogger during the event, to ensure this site became a go-to-destination for everything 6Sight. LiveFrom6Sight.com includes live video coverage of selected sessions, interviews and commentaries from keynote and panel speakers as well as industry news and updates from 6Sight. 6Sight Theatre: During two 45 minute sessions, ShoZu showcased a dynamic presentation of user generated content posted to web destinations using ShoZu. Highlights included how brands like Paris Hilton, Allure, The Veronicas, and Vans Warped Tour, have used ShoZu to interact and connect with their consumers. Speakers: - Andy Tiller, ShoZu CTO, spoke on a panel titled: Smart Pictures, Smart Devices – This session addressed how embedding a camera in another product shouldn't mean that you now have two separate products in the same form factor. Image capture and display should be tightly integrated with the device's other functions -such as entertainment or productivity - to deliver superior customer value. - Bob Morgan, ShoZu VP of Business Development, participated on a panel called: The Visual Conversation – Here panelists discussed how remote communication is becoming visual, and it turns out that seeing the people at both ends is just a small part of the picture. Prior to the event, I had the chance to sit down with Alexis Gerard, Founder and President of Future Image, to discuss 6Sight and how ShoZu is enabling brands to interact with their consumers in innovative ways via their mobile devices. Click to hear the interviews.

Think small to create big revenues?

InformationWeek recently published an article exploring how content owners ranging from TV, Movie and other production houses are needing to change the focus of the bigger better image and sound experience to scale down to the limited screen and audio capabilities of the mobile phone. Do you think that the effort to downsize will pay off? I don’t think the majority of mobile phone users are ready to watch full length feature films on their mobile device, not to mention the lack of adequate mobile networks and device hardware ready to deliver such content in a satisfying way around the world. That is one reason major brand and content owners are finding ShoZu such a great alternative to the ideas of live streaming and the TV experience on the mobile phone. ShoZu believes the mass consumer IS NOT ready for the mobile internet as it exists today, nor will many of the demographic segements have a sustained interest/patience for streamed TV content.

ShoZu interview by CNN

CNN tv cameras were at CTIA IT and Entertainment in Los Angeles. Apparently the hot topics include ease of use, user created content and making video entertainment enjoyable on cell phones. All things ShoZu does well. The mobile internet is not yet ready for the mass consumer. ShoZu solves that problem now for big brands and consumers alike. - Taken at 6:52 PM on September 12, 2006; cameraphone upload by ShoZu

Billboard Mecca, Los Angeles

Billboard Mecca organized yet another awesome event in LA this week. The program and participation included a terrific of mix of both the established and the up and coming in the mobile space. This year seemed to have high representation from the mobile gaming community and the user generated content worlds which provided a unique platform for discussion. Recognition for ShoZu from Anthony Bruno, Billboard editor, and others left the ShoZu team eager to tackle CTIA over the following 3 days.

UK Trade Mission to Canada Creates Valuable Business Opportunities

The UK Department of Trade and Industry organized an excellent set of business development meetings in Vancouver. I was particularly impressed by the Wireless Innovation Partnership initiative and enjoyed meeting companies such as EQO and NowPublic. It was also useful to gain an insight into the variety of ways the DTI can help companies enter new markets all over the world. I will definitely make more use of them to help grow ShoZu as we continue on our international expansion (next Monday we will be announcing our US regional headquarters in San Francisco).

Mobile Monday Vancouver

I enjoyed meeting the folks at this month's Mobile Monday Vancouver event. The main topic of the evening was mobile search. There are clearly many interesting developments in the space. I had the opportunity to talk about ShoZu and was pleased with the positive response to my two main points: 1. The mobile internet is not yet ready for the mass consumer market (too many clicks, too confusing, too slow, too frustrating and generally too poor an experience to create usage levels anything like those on the traditional web). 2. The mass consumer market is not yet ready for and will not respond positively to random push mobile advertising (their phones are very personal devices and consumers will not enjoy paying carrier data charges to download unwanted ads to their phones). Fortunately ShoZu addresses both of those barriers today for our web, handset manufacturer and content owner partners!

UK Trade Mission to Canada Creates Valuable Business Opportunities

The UK Department of Trade and Industry organized an excellent set of business development meetings in Vancouver. I was particularly impressed by the Wireless Industry Partnership initiative and enjoyed meeting companies such as EQO and NowPublic. It was also useful to gain an insight into the variety of ways the DTI can help companies enter new markets all over the world. I will definitely make more use of them to help grow ShoZu as we continue on our international expansion (on Monday we will be announcing our new US Regional Headquarters in San Francisco).

News Flash - Paris Hilton posts exclusive video to YouTube using ShoZu

ShoZu’s recent favorite pop queen has flown off the charts with her recent promotion of “Paris” the album. Launching her debut album this week, Paris Hilton has traveled across the world to Tokyo, Japan where her fans have flocked to catch a glimpse. Fear not loyal fan, you can see Paris Hilton in full glory at her dedicated YouTube channel. Warner Brothers are on the scene using ShoZu to document Paris in live video clips posted from ShoZu phones. Log onto YouTube and view these exclusive clips taken by mobile phones where press video cameras can’t go. Thousands have already viewed these unique video clips, making this adventure with Paris Hilton in Japan a huge success for ShoZu and our partner Warner Brothers Records!

San Francisco Giants win 5 - 0

The Giants not only beat the Arizona Diamondbacks last night but Barry Bonds hit one into the San Francisco bay - the 41st splash hit since the park opened in 2000 (33 of them by Barry Bonds!). I am looking forward to being able to watch baseball highlights as a ZuCast on my mobile phone no matter where in the world I am.

Vic Keegan, The Guardian

Vic Keegan never ceases to amaze me with his ability to investigate, evaluate and remember so many of the diverse and rapidly changing developments in the technology space. Vic has been a regular user of ShoZu for many months and we talked through the recent enhancements including support for YouTube and the launch of ZuCasts. We also discussed the need for mobile operators to offer more attractive data pricing to help further stimulate the market increasing consumer enjoyment of digital media services while at the same time making the revenue grow, not decline, for all players in the value chain. We had a good discussion about some of the other innovative companies in the mobile space such as Sarah McVitties' 82ASK.

Citizen Journalism- the Fate of News as We Know It?

CNN reports that it has created a website where viewers can send in video and audio clips related to breaking news. How will citizen journalists change current newscasts and how does ShoZu fit in? Well, similar to the way MTV Flux will change the way people think about the relationship between television channels and those currently called 'viewers', I think there will be rapid change when ShoZu becomes the ubiquitous means to view and contribute to news from the mobile device. ShoZu already supports sending photos, video clips and text to sites such as CNN News, BBC News, Scoopt and others. The idealist might argue that ShoZu facilitating the news industry will change news to become for the people, and about the people. Citizens and professionals alike can send quality content to the news desk instantly and directly from the source of the news.

ShoZu in Rolling Stone

Thanks Rolling Stone for recognising ShoZu in this month's article "Beyond YouTube". This is particularly relevant as we publicly announced our relationship wth YouTube yesterday.

David Smith, The Observer

I had a great lunch discussion with David Smith of the Observer - a big Sunday paper in the UK. We discussed the explosive growth in user generated content sites - including YouTube and others supported by ShoZu.

Wireless Carriers Need to Focus on Customer Experience

CRM Today: Consumers experience mobile communities on their computers for free and expect the same on their cell phones. Instead of searching out the perfect, one-size-fits-all revenue model to fit the mobile community, consumers want the same experience - free…at least at first! At ShoZu we also believe a focus on customer experience is essential, but at the same time we believe the medium term opportunities to generate significant revenues and return on investments are immense.

Mobile Music Users Could Surpass Online Music Users by 2010

IDC Wireless recently ran a story explaining how over-the-air (OTA) music services offer mobile phone users a convenient way to buy music and provide the music industry with an exciting new distribution channel. While adoption remains low today, IDC forecasts that U.S. wireless music services will have over 50 million users and generate more than a billion dollars in revenue in 2010, just 5 years after appearing in late 2005. This kind of tid bit is VERY exciting news for ShoZu as we maintain relationships and engage with new music labels across the globe. We are privy to many discussions about how mobile music is one of the big waves of the future and video clips downloaded and cached on your cellphone will only enhance the experience. ☺ Jump over to ShoZu and start to ride that wave today.

WIRED Magazine Tackles the Question of the Hour- What Role Will Censorship Play in the Evolution of Communication?

I found this WIRED article very interesting because we at ShoZu have recently been met by several questions from content partners concerning censorship. As we are moving into this new mobile play, there would seem to be little standard or precedence concerning the issues of censorship. We feel very strongly in favor of some type of censorship to make sure that certain content does not get onto the phones of children and that certain other content does not get onto any phones. Does this mean that only family friendly content can be pushed down to cellphones or is there a method to filter content to different phones located in different parts of the world? I participated in a conference in Berlin earlier this year when the complexities of the topic were discussed at some length, but no one appeared to be aware of an effective, efficient solution. Anyone out there who has wrestled with this issue, I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts.

Can Your Mobile Phone Get A Virus?

Cell phone virus looming in 2006 for smartphones. According to a recent Red Herring article , smartphones are now susceptible to viruses. I guess this is an FYI… don’t open content on your smartphone when you don’t know the source. ShoZu has taken care to provide clean content to your phone via ZuCasts… but what will the industry do to combat phone hacking?

The Rise and Rise of MySpace

Reuters reports that MySpace.com is the most visited site on the internet. How big can social networking get?

Will IM / Text Messaging Replace E-Mail?

A recent AP article reports that e-mail is being replaced by IM/texting as primary form of communication for young people. With the rise of social networking sites, kids have learned to type like demons and rely on friends based in CyberSpace. The article goes as far as quoting a young woman saying, “…e-mail has become the new snail mail.” The question begs to be asked, “What does that mean for ShoZu/the mobile lifestyle?” Well, I think it only confirms that the growing technology savvy young generation craves everything immediately with instant gratification. If they can connect with their friends and share / consume the content that interests them from their mobile phone, then we will satisfy and continue to feed that demand.

“Push Media" is Back

The 90's concept of ‘pushing’ or downloading content to a computer is making a comeback. Now, according to CNNMoney.com, users want to have news, entertainment, and other information downloaded automatically to their mobile phones. For the first time in history, big handset manufacturers and a variety of new start-up companies are in advanced conversations to offer a solution for mobile users to get the content they want downloaded on their phones. This will continue to be an industry of exploration, but reading from the big media players that ‘content push’ to mobile phones is what consumers are looking for reinforces our understanding that ShoZu fills a very real and rapidly growing consumer need. In addition, combining push media with user generated content in smart ways opens up entirely new value chains and ways to monetise both types of services. This will lead to some very interesting and powerful new business models in the converging media, consumer brands, internet, community and mobility spaces.

Iain Mackenzie, Radio 1

We had a great lunch discussion wit Iain from Radio 1 today about the emerging trend of user generated content and mobile social networking - further fuelled by the launch of the MTV Flux site today.

UK Mobile Carriers Take a Stand Against Street Crime

I found an interesting article today posted by Times Online. Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile, Orange and 3 have signed up to an industry charter agreeing to blacklist 80 percent of stolen handsets within 48 hours of being reported stolen, a move that industry bosses said will cut crime by making the phones less attractive to thieves. I really like to see major players in the industry banding together to do what they can to fight crime and if this initiative deters thieves from approaching innocent victims on the street I’m all for it. I applaud the carriers for this commitment to do what they can to improve our lives - especially having had my Blackberry stolen while I was on the London Underground last week.

Mobility meets Television

Extracts of my brief notes from the Mobile Marketing Association speeches in NYC back in June: - Beyond channels dedicated to user generated content, mobility will bring interactivity to the vast majority of television channels within the next 5 years - Mobility brings interactivity to television - Mobile TV creates a new level of affinity and adpotion - Enables audience to influence programming to match their needs - Shift from one way broadcast and attempts to trigger action, to customer responsiveness - Creates onus on TV channels TO LISTEN to their viewers

Thank you Sarah at 82ASK

Sarah McVittie of 82ASK recently gave ShoZu excellent recognition in an interview with SMS Text News. Sarah started by saying this was one of the top 6 blogs she reads on a daily basis (which puts me to shame due to the lack of posting lately!) Then she went on to comment that ShoZu was one of the two most innovative mobile services she has found in the last month. And of course last, but not least she actually mentioned that I was one of the top four people in the industry she thinks highly of: “Mark is a smooth operator. He has successfully grown the ShoZu brand from its Cognima heritage, winning countless international awards in less than a year. Mark is a good example of what the mobile industry could be capable of, if it threw out conventional thinking and focused on what users really want. His blog is always insightful and well informed.” Wow, enough self promotion by me, but thank you Sarah for the compliments, I echo the sentiments! Everyone - text any question to 82Ask and be utterly amazed at what this company has accomplished. I am a regular user and have never, ever, been disappointed by the service. I have even heard within the industry that some people are so keen to be subject specialists for Sarah's company they are willing to work for free - THAT is smooth, Sarah!

MTV Flux Points the Way

On July 24 Angel Gambino on MSNBC Power Lunch made a very exciting announcement of a new TV channel from MTV. MTV Flux will be the first 24 hour channel based almost entirely on user generated content from cellphones. I am looking forward to the official unveiling at the MTV 25 Years celebration event next week! Will be sure to post a video clip from there! But this is just the start – at ShoZu we know that major brands across record labels, publishing houses, newspapers, film studios, retail empires, and others are actively planning to deploy mobile solutions, and we plan to be there every step of the way.

Cameraphone Numbers Rapidly Crossing Threshold of Action for Big Consumer Brands

According to IDC, 92 percent of cellphones sold in Japan in 2005 were cameraphones. In Western Europe the figure was 55 percent. In USA the figure was only 47 percent, but that is an increase of 24 percentage points compared to 2004. Gartner predict 750 million new cameraphones will be sold every 12 months within 3 years (yes, more than 2 million new devices bought every 24 hours!), roughly split as follows: 145 million in North America, 145 million in Western Europe, 45 million in Japan plus a whopping 280 million in the rest of Asia-Pacific, and 135 million in the rest of the world (many of those in Latin America). That’s a lot of new eyeballs looking at high quality cellphone screens every day! With cameraphone resolution already exceeding 3MP in many regions (10MP cameraphones available in Japan), 3-metre flash range increasingly common, and a drop-test robust, 3x optical zoom not far off, it’s easy to see why cameraphones are rapidly becoming the camera of choice for a surprisingly large portion of the consumer market (see my earlier post on Nokia’s study results). Given that the vast majority of these cameraphones are also rich media capable (i.e. able to play high quality audio and music, and able to show increasingly high quality video and photos) it is also easy to see why cellphones will soon be one of the largest markets for all big brands to reach out to and even to interact through with their consumers – and why so many big consumer brands have already moved from tracking the potential of cellphone users to taking action to make more money. Web 2.0 meets Mobile 2.0 meets Media 2.0 meets Brand 2.0 meets Money 1.0 = ShoZu ShoZu - Your Cellphone. Your Media. Your Way

Vacation

I am on vacation for the next 10 days. My next post will be during the week beginning June 26th (when I'll be in New York City for Summer in the City: The Digital Experience! Pepcom Event, and various business development meetings).

Steve Wildstrom

I had the pleasure of meeting Steve Wildstrom on a recent trip to Washington DC. Steve writes an excellent column for Business Week that I have read almost every week in life since the late 90's. We had a great discussion about the adoption of video and photo sharing by mass consumers being dependent on simplicity, reliability and choice. ShoZu's one click support for everything from simple upload of a photo to an email address, mobilization of online social networking sites, support for blogging directly from cellphones through to citizen journalism and ZuCasts - much like podcasts for cellphones - is gaining increasing awareness around the world precisely because of those benefits. I showed Steve how easy it was to make a post to my blog directly from my cellphone in his office (although there was a delay in this post appearing due to some challenges Blogger have been experiencing with any type of image upload.)

Cameraphones become the camera of choice

Almost one in two people around the world now use their mobile device as their main camera. Nokia recently announced this fact as a part of the results of an 11 country research study. Nearly half of respondents (44%) use their mobile device as their primary camera, with India being home to the most prolific mobile photographers (68%).

Driving Mobile Media into New Territory

Recently ShoZu announced the imminent launch of ZuCasts --- a free digital media delivery service for mobile phones from ShoZu. For the first time, photos, video clips and a variety of other professional and user-generated content can be delivered directly to the cellphone on a regular basis without any manual intervention or download downtime. I knew these were a powerful addition to an already smart, compelling service, but I have been positively amazed by the response from record labels, TV channels, publishing houses and othes who want to use ZuCasts to reach out to their consumers world-wide. I have begin to appreciate more fully over the last few weeks just how much pent up demand exists among big brands wanting to reach out to consumers through off-portal, simple to use services but delivering rich content to cellphone users, in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Based on a recent wave of meetings I have been involved in across mutliple countries in Europe and both the East and West Coasts of USA since ZuCasts were announced, I am convinced without a shadow of a doubt, mobile media will enter the mainstream consumer markets in a variety of different, but equally exciting ways within the coming year.

Mobile Video Keynote Speech at MEM '06

Freemantle, the largest tv production company in the world, are not only re-purposing existing tv media for mobile phones, building further revenue for new productions as well as enabling new revenue to be created from old library content, but are also creating programmes specifically for mobiles. Examples of mobile only content include Thumbs Dance - a movie for viewing only on cellphones - and Mobile Idol - "the ultimate user generated entertainment show" where users submit video of themselves to enter and compete in the Mobile Idol program! Another example of new types of programs are where the direction a program takes is decided by the phone users at certain points creating a non-linear experience. Interestingly, professionally re-produced user generated content was only alluded to and yet represents a massive opportunity for production companies like Freemantle, and others in the value chain. It was discussed in Q&A that there are many tensions in the value chain about how best to grow and tap into the user generated content market.

The Music Industry Keynote Session at MEM '06

Warner, Sony, EMI, and Universal Mobile Music had an interesting debate on pricing models and trends in the mobile music space. Warner suggested there is a big opportunity to tap into the large market of below average music consumption consumers by, for example, offering bundels of different types of music assets such as full music track plus realtone ringtone plus video etc for one price. Its interesting to consider what impact the growing social trend of many markets frowning upon ringing mobiles. Will this impedeing social pressure drive the young ringtone users to permanently set their phones to vibrate? Will the massive ringtone market level off or even decline due to the distractive nature of the ringing cell phone in public places? I have been influenced by several people to permanently set my phone on vibrate - and i like it!

Ad Funded Mobile Entertainment Roundtable

The Mobile Entertainment Forum held an interesting roundtable on the potential for ad funding to support mobile entertainment. It was generally agreed ad funding represents a great opportunity for existing and new players. The biggest opportunities for ad funding were thought to be for streaming video services and video download services. It was clear from the discussion operators feel under threat and one of the biggest current barriers is attracting advertisers to the fragmented market and variable user experience. This is caused by the large range of capabilities of handsets in the market at any point in time - and lowest common denominator services not being sufficiently appealing to create an engaging user experience. Problems with spam and unwanted/irrelevant banners have been causing problems in Japan. Vodafone Uk are apparently one of the first carriers to offer special tarriff packages for off portal service providers. An interesting observation from some was that in this particular area of mobile the USA is ahead of Europe. People have to want to get this rolling and clear metrics are needed to help drive demand within the ecosystem. Vodafone suggested there is a need to prove to advertisers the promise of mobile advertising can be delivered - and to avoid fragmentation of standards in this area around the world. . . . I posted this blog from my phone while the discussion was still running.

Rafe Neddleman

Further to my last post, check out Rafe's posting on the CNET Alpha Blog for some comments on ShoZu following our discussion this week.

Will User Generated Content Cross the Chasm?

I had an interesting discussion with Rafe Needleman from CNET (click on his photo to see him) earlier this week in San Francisco. One of the topics we discussed was whether there was interest in the mainstream market for user generated content solutions such as sending photos and videos from cellphones to web community sites and other online destinations. I suggested the industry will start to break out of its mainly early adopter confines as we move away from talking about the technology and cool features on sites and cellphones, and instead concentrate on what people can actually do with the services to improve their lives and their relationships with those people and things that matter to them. Buzznet is a great example of a web service focusing on people’s interests – like music – and they are seeing some excellent growth in their user base coming from people who know or care very little about cellphones and websites, but love their music festivals and bands.

LA meets SF - Rich Media meets Mobile

I love the contrast between Los Angeles and The San Francisco Bay Area – between those thriving new ideas driven by content-oriented thinking in LA/Hollywood and those driven more by the technology-oriented thinking in The Valley. It is exciting being one of the players actively bringing these two worlds together to create compelling new ways for consumers to express themselves, stay in touch with those people that they relate to in life, and to enjoy all sorts of entertainment and other media on their cellphones. Next week at the Mobile Entertainment Market ’06 event in London, ShoZu will make the first of several announcements in this converging space.

Art Exhibition in Union Square, San Francisco

I spent the weekend in San Francisco between last week's meetings in LA and the coming week of meetings in The Valley. I love this city. So much variety, so much energy - and one of the world's epicentres of entrepreneurialism. Excellent!

Monetizing User Generated Content

I had a great dinner meeting with Scott Dudelson (Music for Charity Productions/Auctions for Change) in Malibu, CA. We discussed a variety of interesting ways to monetize user generated content. Naturally the details are not appropriate to reveal at the moment, but I hope ShoZu will be one the channels to help convert Scott's wonderful creativity into hard revenue. The photo is of Scott's Landlady - she dated Elvis in 1956. And, if you happen to be in Malibu check out Cholada: 8763 Pacific Coast Hwy. Having lived in Asia for a few years I can assure you it is authentic Thai - but be warned, it comes in USA sized portions!

Warner Brothers

Warner Brothers' massive wall mural in Burbank. Warner Brothers are developing a variety of excellent new ways to reach out to their customers through the web and mobile channels. I had a great set of discussions with the Warner team this week - ShoZu and Warner will be making joint announcements about mobile promotion and entertainment over the new few weeks. I will keep you posted.

Blatant Copying – Best Form of Flattery?

Excerpt from MobileGlu public email April 2006: "One last thing, the development of MobileGlu mirrors a lot of what the guys at Shozu are doing as a lot of you may have noticed. I make no apologies for this, as I think competition is a good thing, and I am adding some of the things they are doing to the MobileGlu client as we go along because they are just good features" It’s great being the CEO of the leader in this industry and I am confident that we will continue to provide the best offering to our users and our partners. Watch ShoZu for some interesting announcements that will be increasingly hard to copy.

Cameraphones – Seeing is Believing

I recently printed out photos from my cameraphone. I didn’t believe the quality – they were amazingly good. You won’t believe it unless you do it for yourself with your own images. My opinions of the image quality changed when I first printed 4x6’s of images taken on my Nokia 7610. Despite only having a 1.3 mega-pixel sensor, many of the images were surprisingly good. Over the last year I have shared over a thousand photos and video clips from a Nokia N70 phone with friends, family and colleagues around the world by sending them to various sharing sites, email addresses and blogs. I know some people have printed out my images but it was only recently I was prompted to order some prints myself. I was stunned by the quality improvement in comparison to the 7610. I am expecting to receive a 3MP Nokia N80 soon – I really don’t believe there will be a need for consumers to carry a separate compact digital camera once that quality of device is in your pocket anyway as part of your mobile life.

Asia - Driving Mobile Media Adoption

I recently posted a comment on the growth of user generated content in China. On a flight to LA today I came across some interesting stats in an email by the Mobile Entertainment Forum to their members. "As we all know technology adoption happens in our youth: - 51% of the Asian population is below the age of 20. - Almost 50% of all mobile subscribers live in Asia - 25% of mobile revenues in Asia are generated from data services. - In China, roughly 80% of digital music revenue comes from mobile"

Citizen Journalism Finally Set for Take Off?

I was wandering along Regent St this morning on the way to my London office, via my regular Starbucks fix, when I noticed the BBC logo flying on top of BBC House (the lighter colored building to the left of the church – click on the photo to see more detail). The BBC have recently announced a citizen journalism competition jointly with Nokia. The potential power of citizen journalism has been discussed for some time, but the reality has been disappointing for many – often due to the appalling quality of MMS images or the frustrating user experience of getting the image out of their cellphone and submitted to the right address at the appropriate site (like web communities, no one journalism site can cater perfectly for everyone). After the July bombings in London last year the police took possession of many phones and held them for days – just to be able to get the full resolution images and associated time stamp and location data! This is changing. For example, ShoZu now makes it compellingly simple to submit full resolution photos, videos and narrative to the BBC, CNN and similar sites. What’s more, if the ‘citizen’ has already saved the image to another site (such as their blog) there is no material cost involved for submitting to several news sites. Soon people will start to realize their potential to influence the media using the power of immediate, on-the-spot, candid coverage of events – and to make their contribution without having to hand their personal phone over to the police!

Is Blogging a Fetish?

Catalysis organized a breakfast briefing in The Firevault, London on blogging. Ashley Norris, Shiny Media, and Neil McIntosh, Guardian Unlimited, led a great discussion. One interesting debate was around the rise of 'the blog fetish' and the potential risk that almost everything even slightly resembling a reverse diary starts to be called a blog - similar to the increasing abuse of the term 'podcast' - and the risk that the buzz around blogs will be rapidly watered down as a result. It was also suggested over the next few years some of the larger media blogs will be integrated back into their main publications by those publications adopting some of the blog principles such as linking out, reverse diary, informality and brevity. This may well happen but I believe the power of online blogs, mobile blogging and citizen journalism will drive further exciting evolution and blogs will continue to drive change in how people communicate and relate in their online, offline and mobile lives.

China – 100 million people aged 20 to 24 create new markets

The desire for personal expression is creating markets world-wide. Cellphone services such as ringtones, wallpapers and ring back tones, as well as using cellphones to create user generated content such as photos and videos, are already large markets and they are growing exponentially. In an interesting article on user generated content in China by Dongming Zhang, Research Director, BDA, I learned there are 100 million people in China between the ages of 20 and 24! There just aren’t enough pop and other music hits and associated images to allow everyone to express themselves as individuals, so the user generated market is exploding. And that’s just China. I lived in Hong Kong some years ago when the major challenge facing all of us in the cellular industry in the Asia region was simply providing adequate coverage for basic voice services for urban areas. It is exciting to see massive populations in China, Indonesia and other countries, combined with the very personal nature of cellphones, spawning significant new business opportunities. ARPU levels in China may only be one tenth of those in, say, South Korea, but it is interesting to note even if 95% of the country are uninterested in, or unable to access, any particular service, the remaining ‘fractional minority’ still exceeds the total of every single subscriber within even the biggest domestic carrier in the USA.

ShoZu Simplifies Coachella Coverage

During the weekend ShoZu helped Buzznet make it really easy to provide on the spot coverage of the Coachella Music Festival (held at Indio near Palm Springs, USA). You might like to check out the photos and videos as well as the Coachella blog. Some of the people covering the event with ShoZu included: Marc Brown, (Co-Founder & President, Buzznet) Lizy, CoachellaFan, and Coachella06. Thanks to the whole team involved for creating a great weekend of content that made it possible for the rest of us who couldn't be there to share and interact - and enjoy a real sense of participation in the festival despite the miles and time zone differences between us!

May Day Holiday Weekend

Beach huts on the Southern English coast. . . . It's a holiday weekend here in the UK and across most of Europe. My next post will be on Tuesday 2nd.

World Cup Soccer on Mobile Phones?

Hamburg Rathaus - The City Hall -- World Cup Soccer promotion in Hamburg kicks off here this weekend. I have been in the city for several excellent media meetings. In one of the meetings we discussed the question of what makes great mobile media content. Is World Cup Soccer great content because so many people are interested to follow the competition, or is it poor content for mobiles because it will be covered to the point of saturation by almost every other form of media? The same question came up in The World Telemedia Conference earlier in the week in Berlin. Interestingly, the clear, almost unanimous, conclusion was that soccer is excellent content for mobiles because of the appeal to consumers of being able to enjoy the photos, text and especially video clips at any time, any where. Some challenges to tackle include: (i)producing the content in suitable format for mobile devices, (ii) making the content easily available to a large number of interested users, (iii) removing the frustrations of 'wap-waits' and similar poor user experiences on mobile devices. Fortunately the technology to overcome all of these challenges exists today. Unfortunately it is not yet available as a global consumer service. I believe we will see rapid progress in delivering compelling content and excellent user experiences in the months and years between now and the next Soccer World Cup. You may be interested to know I made this post using my phone during a flight from Germany to England (with my phone in offline mode I hasten to add!).

Product Pitches - A Creeping Disease in Tech Conferences?

Earlier this week I attended The World Telemedia Conference in Berlin. The conference discussed a number of interesting topics including the various business models emerging around mobile content, and some of the issues involved in mobile marketing and mobile brand building for big brand goods and services. In addition to the conference sessions I had many valuable discussions at the various networking sessions. I was disappointed, however, to see further evidence of what appears to be a creeping disease of product pitches in these senior level conferences. We all hate blatant product pitches and many conference organizers have done a great job of responding by setting up well moderated panels. For example, Sue Marek did a great job of that at the Mobile Entertainment Summit in Las Vegas earlier this month. Unfortunately at the World Telemedia event, many of the so-called 1.5 hour moderated panel discussions involving senior and well informed people became a serial set of product/company pitches with only 10 mins or so reserved for some panel discussion and audience questions at the end. Such a short window made it impractical to ask many of the more generic industry questions on my mind -- and I know others felt similarly. It was a lost opportunity for everyone who had invested the time and money to be involved.

ShoZu review on Mobile Crunch

Oliver at Mobile Crunch posted a great review of ShoZu a few days ago. The post triggered a few questions around the business model for the service and today I responded directly on Mobile Crunch. I have been reading various blogs for some time. I like the powerful opportunities for rapid and broad communication the whole blogging thing creates. Actually entering into this type of dialogue myself, however, directly with others in the space has really helped to bring home to me just how simple, effective, and valuable it can be.

Berlin Tiergarten

Beauty without walls . . .Click on this and any of the other images in my blog to see the full size photo.

Berlin Wall - similar to Walled Gardens?

Perhaps in the not so distant future walled gardens in the mobile communications industry will seem as much a part of dark history as the Berlin Wall?

Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

I am in Berlin for The World Telemedia Conference. Topics include rich mobile media, mobile search, premium content business models and othe mobile media business issues. It fascinates me how so much has changed in Berlin and so much has changed in the mobile industry since I was last here in the early nineties. Back then we were discussing the almost unbelievable notion that photo images and video might one day be accessed by mass consumers using personal computers using something amazing, known as the world wide web. As for colour images and videos on cell phones - well that was simply science fiction! You may be interested to know this post was made from my phone while I was sitting enjoying the spring sunshine in Tiergarten - Berlin's central park - looking at the Gate.

Mobile Messaging on The Incline

I learned a lot about cellphone users and life during two days in Colorado last week. I was there for a workshop to improve messaging around ShoZu. It involved a fellow exec and a great team of communications specialists from across the USA. I did my assigned ‘homework’ (unlike me, but I was warned I would suffer a fate worse than death if I didn’t) and, to be honest, expected yet another useful but mediocre discussion about brand values and improving appeal to our target demographic, blah, blah. And so it began…. At 6am on the morning of the second day the team was en-route to tackle the challenge of making it to the top of The Incline. Our host taught me a lot about team building through shared experiences, setting ourselves stretching targets (in my case simply surviving the climb!) and creating achievable stage goals. It was also a great illustration of pleasure being the journey not the destination. Very similar to running a start-up but illustrated within a few hours in the thin Colorado air and wonderfully warm morning sunshine. As a result, on the second day we had an enlightening and thought provoking debate on the powerful segment of consumers that have a ‘mobile life’. Creating compelling mobile media solutions is much less about mobilizing one’s web life — although that is part of it — than about enhancing the mobile (cellphone) experience itself. The distinction is subtle but critical.

CTIA Wireless 2006 Photo Blogged – but not as much as SXSW

I met Justin Obermann on the top of the Rio Hotel while taking photos of the Las Vegas skyline at night . Justin has been a great ShoZu user for some time and we chatted about how compelling it is to be able to share decent quality photos and videos directly easily and immediately with our friends and family right from your cellphone.. I tend to take a few photos on my business trips. I only realised just how keen a photoblogger Justin was when I came across his CTIA Las Vegas set on Flickr – 144 photos! CTIA Las Vegas has certainly been photoblogged by many people – a recent search of several popular web communities produced more than two thousand photos, a large proportion tagged ShoZu or cameraphone. Interestingly the number of mobile generated photos on the web of SXSW, the recent music festival in Texas, far exceeds those of CTIA. It might have been expected the wireless industry event would have had a very high proportion of early adopters, but perhaps it is not surprising given there are only so many photos that can be taken of an exhibition and some amazing hotels. I believe, however, it is indicative of an emerging trend around the world – mobile media is shifting from being an early-adopter driven activity to entering the mainstream and being stimulated by mainstream interests such as music and movies. More of that another day…..

Las Vegas Skyline

Las Vegas at night from the top of The Rio Hotel

CTIA Wireless 2006 – Walled Gardens Continue to Crumble

Jim Ryan, VP Consumer Data Products, Cingular, made a wonderfully provocative speech at the BillBoard MECCA event in Las Vegas earlier this month. Jim argued that mobile carriers have done a poor job in meeting the needs of their subscribers when it comes to data services. I totally agree. Rather than locking people in to walled garden Portals, Jim argued that carriers should embrace an open environment, allowing end users choice of on and off deck content; personalized home screens and interoperable with Web and Desktop e.g. MP3 files should not be locked to the handset and should be fully portable between the three environments. In facilitating this kind of open environment and providing access to billing and other network services, Jim argues Cingular is a key component of the data services value chain and does not risk becoming commoditized as a “bit pipe” . All great stuff – and an argument supported by T-Mobile Europe and other large carriers around the world. Unfortunately Jim also tried to justify the USA was not lagging Europe or some other parts of the world in terms of mobile media services, but maybe he hasn’t had much of a chance to travel outside North America for a while. I know from my own twenty-something years in the tech industry that it can be incredibly difficult to keep in touch with the various ground swell developments across geographic and generational distances.

CTIA Wireless 2006 – Mobile Media and Advertising Breeds Innovation

Mobile media and mobile advertising took centre stage at CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas earlier this month. Mobile media was also the key theme at many of the related events including the Mobile Entertainment Summit and the BillBoard MECCA conference. I spoke at both and was delighted to be a part of tangible signs of the global trend of the wireless industry shifting from being an introspective and closed garden (albeit a fruitful garden for many!) to becoming a healthier mix of wireless, media, entertainment, web portal and mainstream consumer brand players. This growing trend is starting to create more appealing services and real choice for consumers. It also creates many opportunities for innovative new companies – to tackle some of the very hard problems to be solved to be able to deliver easy to use services to the consumer. My own company is one of those riding the wave being generated by the emergence of mobile media and advertising. More on that another day….

Sean Paul Video

A clip of Sean Paul at the Warner - MTV event in Las Vegas. Awesome.

CTIA Wireless 2006 – A Whirlwind of Pain and Pleasure?

They say it is a fine line between pain and pleasure. CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas delivered both in bucket loads:

• The pain of the opening keynote speeches – amazingly USA-centric for a supposedly global event, mixed with those that were more international in scope yet seemed at odds with the agenda.

• The intense pleasure of winning an e-tech award for ShoZu – alongside other winners such as Google, Dell and Samsung

• The pain of the award ceremony – slotted between mobile fashion shows one morning, on a small stage, in a remote corner of the exhibition floor – it was bordering on the excruciating…

• mixed with a good measure of disappointment at a lost opportunity for the CTIA and the prize winners – especially in comparison to receiving a similar award at the 3GSM Gala Dinner in the Barcelona National Palace.

The pain continued every time it was necessary to line up for another taxi to another meeting in another hotel – and yet there was true pleasure in having so many valuable meetings within just a few days in just one city. The networking opportunities pushed the limits of jet lag pain but were excellent – including the Mobile Entertainment Forum event at the Voodoo Lounge on the top of the Rio Hotel and the joint Warner / MTV event at The Hard Rock Hotel. Overall, much more pleasure than pain – but it was often a fine line!