Digital Korea

I spoke earlier this week with Jim O’Reilly, co-author of Digital Korea, to prepare my upcoming trip to South Korea to work on LIFT Asia (3-4-5 sept. 08). This book shows how different and advanced Korean society is, and the argument developed in the book are supported by stats like these, found on the Cnet Asia blog:

• 63 percent of South Koreans make payments using their cell phones.
• The second most desired car is not a Ferrari but a “Solid Pro”, a virtual car from the online game Kart Rider.
• In 2006, 57 percent of South Korea’s music sales were digital compared with 10 percent in the US (source: IFPI January 2007).
• 37 percent of South Koreans download cell phone games (source: NIDA 2005)
• Over 30 percent of South Korean students send 100 text messages a day (source: Korea Times, February 9, 2006).
• Average amount of daily consumption of DMB digital TV on cell phones in South Korea was 129 minutes per day (source: MIC January 2007)
• 97 percent of South Koreans buy ringtones (source: NIDA September 2005).

Link

These stats show very clearly the opportunities that mobile brings to the table. Mobile payment, gaming, music, instant messaging, this is very we companies should invest their money and time these days, much more exciting (and lucrative) than the crowded web 2.0 space. And did you notice the 129 minutes spent watching TV? Further proof television’s death has probably been widely exaggerated.

Android

I am sitting at the ITU Africa Forum Committee Meeting, about to engage in two days of discussion around the format and program of the event. In his welcoming address, Dr. Normal Lewis, chairman of the committee, talked about the importance of initiatives like Google Android which I hadn’t really checked until now. A Youtube search later I am impressed both by the technology and by the strategy.

What is Google’s objective? Get their search product in our hands.

How to manage the transition to mobile? Invent a Google phone? Very tempting, but then Google has to acquire new competencies, start a customer support service, manage broken phones, etc… And at best they get 10 or 20% of the market, and lose a few friends over at Motorola, Samsung and Nokia, people you prefer to have on your side. The right answer is to go software. Make a phone OS that is both sexy and free. Get all manufacturers to use it. Focus on what you do best, and let others do what they do best. Everybody in their place, and Google gets a shot at a much larger number of users at the end of the day.

Now to be impressed by the technology simply click on the play button below.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/g4m73NXn7hY" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Google continues to make perfect sense.

Sociological study on mobile phone in France

The Experientia tribe translated a study published by the French association of mobile operators about the evolution of phone usage in recent years. In the early days, mobiles were accused of plunging users in hermetic bubbles. Truth is phones developed more collaboration and reinvented interactions.

This study shows the gap that exists between the anticipated impact of technologies and their real effects. It exposes a part of our intuitive resistance to progress, a mechanism where we tend to think that every new way of interacting with others is fatally less rich that the ones we grew up with. I am convinced my grandfather thinks our generation’s social life is dehumanized when he sees us express deep feelings on SMS. But the facts – and a few years of usage – seem to prove different. How long will we claim that people who build their friends base on Facebook are not enjoying a proper social life?

Findings from the French study:

1. The mobile phone is no longer just a personal device, it is integrated within collective practices both in the family and between friends.

2. The mobile phone goes from being personal to transitory, from intimate to visible.

3. New social conventions are being established around the mobile phone

4. The use of the mobile phone is governed more by example than by rules and prohibitions.

5. While the mobile phone is often presented as the token of an individualistic and atomised society, in reality one observes collective and collaborative behaviours around the mobile in the family and between friends.

6. The mobile phone is seen as a “average medium” that renews amateur photo and film practice.

Link

iphone.ch

The iPhone now works in Switzerland thanks to a small piece of software that will void your guarantee but allow you to enjoy the world’s best phone, an absolute evolution in the mobile world.

Commuter writes novel on mobile phone

Marketing or true story? If I had such an idea, I would probably type the whole thing on my computer, then upload it to my phone 5 minutes before the press conference, adding a band aid on my thumb to make the whole thing look more real :)

An Italian IT professional who commutes to work each day decided to use his spare time to write an entire book on his mobile. The result, Compagni di Viaggio (Fellow Travelers), clocks in at 384 pages.

The writer, Robert Bernocco, used the T9 function on his phone, but opted for normal Italian rather than text-message shorthand.

Link

iPhoned

Got my hands on the iPhone today. Amazing. Simple. Beautiful. A shame it doesn’t work on our European networks.

Mobile TV adoption

We always talk about mobile TV, and how “we will never watch TV on a small screen”. Yeah yeah…

Mobile TV users surpass 6-millions in Korea

It’s a shame we have no DMB in Europe, it looks like a much better technology for mobile TV than 3G.

Mobile Africa: concrete examples

I did a bit of research and found an article listing concrete examples of Africans innovative usages of mobile technologies:

“The ingenuity of some Africans to make sure they have access to communications cannot be underrated. In Ghana some build towers out of wood and stone on hilltops (‘cell phone towers’) and charge callers to climb to the top of the tower to access mobile phone signals that are blocked by the hill.”

Link: Wireless Technologies and Development in Africa

The article cites other unusual initiatives, like motorcycle phones, communal phones (one phone for the village, one sim card per citizen), price tracking for farmers, beeping (dialing a number, hanging up before the call is connected to elicit a call back response from the recipient), etc…

See also: Nathan Eagle’s: presentation at LIFT07 on his observations of mobile phone usage in Kenya.

The phone of the future

The economist is brainstorming about the phone of the future. Good food for thought.

• Chances are that phones will not only look very different – they may not even be seen. They may be hidden in jewellery or accessories, or even embedded in the body.
• In a decade’s time a typical phone will have enough storage capacity to be able to video its user’s entire life.
• Researchers at Nokia speculate that within a decade, the cost of storage will have fallen so far that it might be possible to store every piece of music ever recorded in a single chip that could be included in each phone.
• Tiny projectors inside handsets could allow walls, tabletops or screens made of flexible materials to be used as displays while on the move.
• Today’s earpieces may give way to smaller devices hidden in earrings or worn as minuscule patches on the skin near the ear.
• Voice may turn out to be an interim technology. Researchers are developing sensors that pick up the subtle changes in the larynx and mouth when words are formed, even if there is little or no air going through the windpipe. So future phones might simply be able to lip-read using a sensor hidden in your collar.
• Today the idea of “approximeeting” – arranging to meet someone without making firm plans about time or place, and then finalising details via mobile phone while out and about – is commonplace.
• The ability to superimpose images and sound upon reality means that future phones will create layers on our world.

Link from Bruno Giussani’s blog.

The next web servers

In some African and Asian countries, GSM is the only networked technology available. As you can cover an important area with one single antenna, it’s not very surprising to see GSM ahead of ADSL, fiber or cable. These countries are (slowly) leapfrogging directly to the mobile era.

Now GSM – and the mainstream mobile terminals – come with huge limitations when it comes to exchanging written information: you can only be a content consumer. You can not distribute anything.

Not anymore? Maybe! The guardian reports that Nokia has managed to turn cell phones into web servers that can be accessed via bluetooth.

Nokia has ported the Apache webserver to Symbian, in order to enable mobile phones to serve content on the World Wide Web.

Link

The first mobile web servers? It is not fully working yet but there is hope. And an interesting proposition that would open a lot of possibilities. What could happen in the developing countries? A few ideas:

• site access reselling
I mirror a famous websites (wikipedia?) on my phones and give you access on demand. As phones don’t offer infinite storage, you would have the wikipedia guy, the NYT guy, the country’s newspaper guy. Completely new market. Business model: pricing per page.

• asynchronous relay
You write your blog posts on my phone that I will sync with the web next time I hit a town with broadband. Same with emails. Pricing: price per action (post, email) with supplements depending on size.

• not on-demand distribution of on-demand content
I compile a few videos from google videos (around a specific theme for example), put them on my phone, and distribute them at previously arranged hours with my community. Business model: pay per view.

It will be interesting to see where this technology – mixed with people’s creativity – will end up. (thx nico)