Yesterday Camerjam events hosted another great mobile service focused conference. The event titled ‘M-publishing’ focused on the future of publishing in the mobile environment.

The event opened with a great key note from the effervesent Jonathan MacDonald. Below:

As you can imagine there was a lot of talk about applications, I don’t how many times the iPhone was mentioned (a lot). I sat on a panel talking about the iPad, a core question – would the iPad market change the publishing industry? 

In short NO - publishers are the ones that will/should change the industry not a device! Why? - relying on  traditional models will simply not work in mobile the business approach and mentality needs to change, and fast. I have previously written about: Real Reasons Why Traditional Media (& publishers) Can Really (Still) Win Big In Mobile. 

Following on from yesterday there were a lot of topics covered, different approaches spoken about; native applications, web applications, paywalls, freemium, advertising… there were also some areas that were not really addressed, context (service and advertising), hybrid applications, user retention…  I felt compelled to share some thoughts. 

My advice to media owners and publishers when progressing a mobile strategy:

First of all: Mobile is a proprietary environment that is emerging and fragmented – there are NO right answers! There are methods to approaching mobile that will enable you to build a sustainable foundation and trial elements that establish the right strategic approach for your business. Having defined, delivered and successfully taken to market mass audience services in three continents there are many challenges and barriers that organisations need to understand. There are some methods that you should not use to approach the market. (See: Mobile: Why Run before you Walk…).  Start point:

MOBILE is another channel but it has very different characteristics to fixed online

• Reality of mobile – device is very personal, lifestyle orientated, user is paying (or percieves to be), no-one ever reads a manual, device is generally difficult to use (relatively poor interface)…
• Consumers when mobile – typically want something, immediacy is often critical, relevance is key, pulling information is not an issue, actionable is a pre-requisite…

MOBILE = COMMUNICATION & SOCIAL (Both natural parts of our life)

• Offer – unlikely we will find a new use for our mobiles so more than likely any service or product has to dovetail in to our existing habits and activities and offer value (or fun)  

PRESENCE = LOGICAL, RELEVANT & TRUSTABLE (The ’how’, ’why’ and ’what’ is so important) 

• Why? – Why are you interesting in mobile and why is your offer relevant to a mobile user (not just because it is a big audience!) 
• What? – What do you want a consumer to do as a result of interacting with your service
• How? - A common mistake that many make is to focus on the device or platform - iPhone, Andriod and now iPad etc. – tactics come into play as you consider execution, not from the outset.

Thinking tactically is fine if you wish to progress a niche path into the market – or develop a showcase service. If you wish to establish as strategic foundation this can be fatal. Don’t get caught up in the hype and technology. (See: ‘iSyndrome’ – Why limit your slice of the pie?) 

ENGAGEMENT = ATTRACTIVE, FUNCTIONAL & EASY TO USE (Services have to offer utility and deliver results)

• Features – Can add value or create barriers (i.e. some carriers/operators in the require applications to be individually signed if they use device features like PIM (contacts book) 
• Retention – Roadmap and adding new features/funtionality is important otherwise users will not comeback (See: Flurry of stats paints shocking picture of Application loyalty)

DISCOVERY = ACCESSIBLE, COMPATIBLE & PERFORMANT (Steps simply represent barriers) 

• Approaches – Re-directed, Leveraged, dedicated, unchartered, in-direct (each can play its role)

REPORTING = KNOWLEDGE, COMPARISON & EVOLUTION (Everything in mobile is potentially measureable) 

• Metrics - distribution, in-service activity, campaign tracking

REVENUE = RELEVANT, INFLUENCING & ACTIONABLE (Everything should firstly deliver value)

Key is to understand limiting factors – potential barriers – from the outset develop a mobile approach that can be controlled by the individual organisation and built from a consistent foundation, not one reliant on or constrained by third parties.  Get as much out in the open from the start! Think about the market – not individual devices and platforms – think about the consumer and the offer.

At Indigo 102 we specialising in bringing out the realities – communicate the benefits and risks – at the early stages. We work with organisations to build mobile strategies that deliver value over time and develop services that are sustainable. If we can support you to invest wisely and establish a sustainable mobile platform get in touch (martin@indigo102.com).

Greetings and welcome to the 219th Carnival of the Mobilists. This week created and hosted by AntoineRJWright.

Our Indigo 102 post on the iPhone was featured and received a best ‘nod’ from Antoine. For the full Carnival visit: 219th Carnival of the Mobilists

The excerpt:

“Indigo 102 diagnoses the “i Syndrome” that’s unfortunately too common in what passes for mobile strategies these days. In the same diagnosing vein, Tomi Ahonen writes a v-e-r-y long post detailing why he thinks Apple’s iPhone marketshare has peaked. And then there’s WIP Connector with another iPhone-centric piece which points to the question of whether developers for iPhone applications will sit in a now fragmented iPhone world, or port their applications and services to other platforms which offer more freedom for developer skills and tools.

Of these three, my one would have to be the post from Indigo 102. Besides being shorter than Tomi’s and a little more descriptive than WIP Connector’s, it diagnoses the reality that mobile is indeed bigger than any one device or service (except probably SMS).”

iSyndrome (ai sindreum) n. a symptom, characteristic, or belief, that building an iPhone application translates to = mobile strategy.

In conversation with leading mobile search expert Peggy Ann Salz, of mSearchGroove (of which I am a Guest columnist), we ended up talking about some of the fundamental challenges that organisations face when defining and developing a mobile strategy. Having delivered mass market services in three continents – trust me there are many!

(Peggy has challenged me to make my next mSearchgroove column post around this topic).

After the conversation I was making some notes – a phrase sprung into my mind ‘iSyndrome’, as I was thinking about how many individuals and organisations that have been drawn in by the hype, media, technology buzz surrounding mobile – caught in the iPhone trap.

I shared on Twitter, leading Author Tomi Ahonen was quick to respond with a ROTFL – Rolling On The Floor Laughing – and will provide the great honour of attributing the phrase to me in future presentations.

So here is What I meant…

Having been involved in supporting the development, delivery and launch of mass market mobile services for customers around the world I wanted to highlight one of the fundamental issues I continually witness. 

I see so many organisations investing in mobile without really understanding what they are getting themselves into. Many are spending large sums of money and sadly will likely see very little return (or even worse create negative brand perception amongst consumers). Why?  They are delivering tactical solutions – failing to recognise the addressable market, the mobile environment, understand the ongoing costs of their decisions, falling short of consumer expectations, led by people who are not acting in their best interests.

I am not going to knock the iPhone as I believe that it is a great device, although I no longer use one for daily activity, I have owned two and still frequently use one to trial applications. However, I wish to put the device in perspective in terms of the market and more importantly strategic thinking.

i Syndrome: in the UK the iPhone makes up about 4% of mobile devices in circulation (that’s if we count all the legacy devices too), Android even less – a small slice of the pie. Of all mobile devices; some 70% accessing the mobile web are not Smartphones, some 62% using Applications are not Smartphones. The penetration of Operating Systems (OS) Apple, Blackberry, Android are all low single percentage figures - niches – ask Comscore.

The mass market does not use Smartphones. Yet organisations are spending huge sums of money targeting the Smartphone segment, and worse niches of it, rather than viewing the addressable market. They are getting drawn in by ‘cool’ factors. Doing so they are failing to understand the barriers that exist in what is a highly fragmented proprietary environment and that those barriers will potentially significantly limit their ability to get traction.

People may/will argue that iPhone users make up a disproportionate amount of the time on mobile web sites. That may be true but iPhone users are a relatively small number and are very service transient. As reported by Flurry 70% of application users typically stop using a service after just 60 days.

Developing the coolest iPhone App on the planet is a great ambition, some believe it demonstrates a dynamic business, but the reality it hugely limits market potential. I ask sometimes why even an App? The more features added the more expensive it is to develop and the more likely that fewer people will be able to use it. Many of those features will not be transferable to other devices or platforms – creating your own micro fragmentation and adding to the overall managment headache.

Think iPhone, not everyone in the UK has an iPhone 3GS some have older devices and operate on different Operating System (OS) versions. Despite this many do not consider key elements – backwards compatibility, potential for bugs, updates, version control, signing and approval processes…. they don’t understand the implications of their decisions.

Key is to understand these limiting factors – potential barriers – from the outset develop a mobile approach that can be controlled by the individual organisation and built from a consistent foundation, not one reliant on or constrained by third parties.  Get as much out in the open from the start! Think about the market – not individual devices and platforms – think about the consumer and the offer.

At Indigo 102 we specialising in bringing out the realities – communicate the benefits and risks – at the early stages. We work with organisations to build mobile strategies that deliver value over time and develop services that are sustainable. If we can support you to invest wisely and establish a sustainable mobile platform get in touch (martin@indigo102.com).

(Follow us on twitter : @indigo102)

I earlier came across an article titled ‘Is 2010 going to be the year of the greatest battle yet, Android v iPhone?’. I have taken the decision not to share as in short, No it is not!

It is amazing to see so many supposed intelligent people being taken in by the iPhone and now the Android fantasy. A fantasy is exactly what it is – an inability to reflect the current market and a complete speculation about the future.  RIM, Nokia and Symbian going to go away and the world is going to be iPhone and Android – based on what evidence?

Sadly these fantasies seem to have been cemented by individuals that have invested time, effort or money into iPhone/Android, or have had a poor experience with their rivals in the past.

Looking at the mMetrics statistics for the US is quite revealing. In October 2009, Android devices have less than 0.5% market share and the iPhone around 3.7%. In other countries the story is similar. Neither have dominant positions. As I have suggested before, Mobile strategy – iPhone should factor but certainly not dominate, considering actual market share the iPhone receives a disproportionate amount of attention from the media, mobile industry and businesses alike. To counter those that will now come out and state that iPhone users dominate the mobile web usage, by volume of pages yes but by numbers of users no. According to AT&T, 4% of their iPhone users account for almost 60% of their total iPhone mobile web usage. In real terms just 350,000 are therefore significant users, out of a US mobile installed base of some 260 million that is not particularly impressive.

What is for certain is that both Apple and Google will make a further in road in to the mobile space in 2010 and onwards. But is the battle going to be focused only on these two. Certainly not! The way Google is reportedly going to be approaching the market, directly selling to consumers, in my view can only play into one organisation’s hands. If a consumer was to start to accept the real cost of a mobile device, without any subsidies or at least not linked to a mobile operator, this will change the playing field. The door could be firmly open to an organisation like Microsoft. Without question they have some serious work to do to get their Windows Mobile platform fit for purpose. But simply loosening the controlling grip of the mobile operators on the type of devices and distribution should play right in to the hands of an organisation such as Microsoft.  

Oh and Nokia, RIM and others are sure not to lie down and sit back and watch from the sidelines. So 2010 is unlikely to be a two horse race.

As this is such a great follow-on from the article I wrote on  Mobile strategy – iPhone should factor but certainly not dominate. I wanted to share. Post from the great Tomi T Ahonen posted on Communities Dominate brands.

US West Coast ‘Drunk’ on iPhone, yes still drunk, but Android is not ‘the answer’

I am not attending the Heroes of the Mobile Screen – a very good event clearly, that attracted a massive amount of Tweets, on comments by very smart people presenting.

One thought hit me, and I’m sorry, I don’t know for a fact who said it but I believe it was Andrew J Scott, the CEO of Rummble out of London. But it was tweeted that someone (probably Andrew) said: “People on the West Coast of the US are iPhone drunk; its time to wake up to Android.”

ORIGINAL WAS TRANSFORMATIONAL PHONE

Very clever line, congrats. And the first half is totally true. While the iPhone has indeed been a transformational phone, the single most important handset in the 30 year history of mobile phones, not so much because it is iconic (which it is) nor because now so many other phones are now copying it (a major achievement definitely) nor that it has redefined what we as consumers should expect from a well-designed user interface to our phone (which it has achieved) not even how easy it is to use (by far the most easy-to-use smartphone, so simple your parents can learn it without any manuals). All that is great. But, the far bigger impact of the iPhone was to the industries beyond telecoms, bringing in new giant industry players to mobile, including the IT industry to phones (Dell is now the latest to annouce a line of smartphones and just today, 3M announced its intention to enter the mobile telecoms industry) and the advertising industry and the various media industries from print to TV to hollywood. No other phone has transformed the total mobile business environment nearly as much, as the iPhone has. And yes yes, also it has a popular Apps store as well..

Now, about that ‘being drunk’ on the iPhone. Yes, it is the West Coast of the USA which is still very much drunk, delirious about the iPhone. The rest of the world outside of the USA saw the (original 2G) iPhone in 2007, was bemused, at times mildly interested, and didn’t really think it that revolutionary. It wasn’t that spectacular of a ‘phone’ after all. Then over the past two and a half years, we’ve seen gradual improvements to the iPhone, that the 3GS model is now a very competitive high-end luxury/premium smartphone. But if the US West Coast went gaga over the original iPhone 2G back in 2007 – and yes, the UI was revolutionary and its usability and gorgeous large screen (although done in several Asian phones by then) was amazing. But that was two and a half years ago.

What have you done for me lately iPhone? Why the continued hype? Why are they still drunk, today in December 2009? The 3G iPhone was very much a bug-fix – bringing the original 2007 spec iPhone 2G near to the specs of many rival smartphones – and made the upgrade in 2008 current against rival smartphones from 2006! Apple added 3G network speeds and GPS to the iPhone in 2008 and made it capable of accepting third party applications – all features that were ‘normal’ for rival smartphones in the high end of the price range. Even then it was not up to ‘modern specs’ of its rivals, as it did not upgrade its camera – 2 megapixels was underperforming in this price range in 2008 – or give a flash (still missing), or autofocus or provide MMS compatibility or record video. Those – also totally common features of rival high-end smartphones years before the original iPhone was launched – were only added to the model in the summer of 2009.

Now, lets ignore apps stores for now. If you think the original 2G iPhone was a ‘revolutionary’ or ‘innovative’ or ‘transformational’ smartphone – due to its form factor, big screen, ease-of-use, user interface and operating system – those were all introduced in 2007. Why the continued ‘drunkedness’ about the iPhone since then? All upgrades to the iPhone since 2007 have been bringing the iPhone up to equivalent status on what most rivals have offered for years.

It cannot be ’cause to celebrate the iPhone’ now, if it ‘reaches parity’ on some of the abilities the original 2G iPhone did not have. I am not saying the original iPhone was not worth celebrating. But since 2008, when the first revised iPhone, the 3G was introduced – if the iPhone adds 3G which Samsung and LG smartphones have had since 2002, or GPS which was first offered in Japanese smartphones in 2001, and ‘third party apps’ which all other smartphones had a decade earlier – why are these newer abilities of the iPhone causing any reason to be drunk now?

And even today, Apple does not offer a flash, its 3 megapixel camera is pretty puny for 2009 when high end rivals offer 8 megapixel to 12 megapixel performance. The iPhone still ‘doesn’t have removable memory cards etc. After those features and abilities it offered in 2007, in the two upgrades of 2008 and 2009, there is nothing ‘innovative’ or ‘competitively appealing’ that the iPhone has added. All of its ‘improvements’ were abilities its major rivals had had for years. (and I will deal with Apps Stores here below, hold on…) 

iPHONE THE CADILLAC OF PHONES

Now a dose of reality. For all that ridiculous reporting extrapolating outrageous conclusions from Admob data etc (nothing wrong with Admob data but we have to see what they report. They report, that iPhone owners get spammed more by ads, than owners of any other phones on the planet. Americans obsessed with the ‘free but advertising-spammed model’ - I wonder why..) Yes, iPhones receive more ads. But receiving more ads does not mean there are somehow magically more iPhones  in the world. It is ludicrous.

The reality is that there are 35 million iPhones that have ever been made. Out of 4.6 billion mobile phone subscribers on the planet, it means that 0.7 percent – under one percent – of all mobile phone subscribers on the planet have an iPhone. It is not in any way, anything more than a super-premium luxury product, similar to say the Cadilllac brand of cars (which have globally under 1 percent total market share). Look at Samsung for example. Just this year, in the first eleven months of the year, Samsung sold 50 million touch-screen phones, 42% more in just eleven months, than all iPhones ever manufactured and sold in two and a half years. Yes, the Samsung is not quite as sexy and hot and it does not have Apple’s PR glitz and glamour, but is this exactly fair? Most US based pundits ‘drunk on the iPhone’ will just compare the iPhone to the Blackberry and the Palm Pre, and ignore far more widely selling touch screen phones like Samsung, or far more widely selling smartphones like those by Nokia (whose smartphones alone outsell the iPhone by more than 2 to 1).

AMERICA IS DIFFERENT

If you think that ‘the rest of the world really doesn’t matter’ and one should only really care about what happens in the USA, then fine, how about the USA? The US has 280 million cellphone subscribers (yes, American cellphone owners consist only of 6% of all the mobile phone subscribers on the planet). How many US phone owners havs an iPhone? This June, AT&T reported that they had reached 10 million iPhone subscribers. And they are the only network that has the iPhone. Ten million out of 280 million. How many is that? 3.5% that is what it is. In fact, quite similar to my Cadillac analogy – that Cadillac also has by far its best market in the USA, and while Americans love their Escallades, the rest of the world is not going gaga over the gigantic gas-guzzling vehicles and many many other cars of other ‘form factors’ but of similar price, outsell the Cadillac line worldwide. Just like say Samsung and Nokia and SonEricsson and LG and Blackberry and Motorola all outsell Apple globally.

The media pundits and IT press all have iPhones and tend to think that because they personally have iPhones, therefore ‘everybody’ has the iPhone. That is simply not true. For 96.5% of Americans with a cellphone – they do not have an iPhone. The numbers do not lie. Do not fool yourself looking at some Admob data or think everybody is like you, or because you see some iPhones near you, in offices of the IT/tech/media/telecoms industry – that everybody has an iPhone. They do not. Even in America – over HALF of all smartphones are… Blackberries. Of the total installed base of smartphones in the USA, Apple’s iPhones rank in far less than a quarter of smartphones, roughly in line with numbers of those of Windows Mobile based smartphones. Don’t be misled by one quarter’s good sales numbers like this summer quarter for Apple. You only need to look at the spring quarter to find dismal Apple sales of iPhones. And again, most smartphones in the USA are far cheaper than the iPhone. And three out of every four Americans does not own a smartphone of any kind. Lets be real. If you really loved the iPhone in 2007, isn’t it about time we stop being drunk about it, and get real, that since 2007, there hasn’t been that much to celebrate about. Nothing where the iPhone has pushed the (global) leadership in cellphones, and only very modest contributions to the US market and its smartphone offering.

APPS STORES 

Now the Apps Store is gaining enormous press and praise all over. First, remember, all ‘normal’ smartphones except the original iPhone 2G, were able to accept 3rd party applications. So this was a deficiency in the original iPhone.

And for all the tens of thousands of apps on the Apps Store today, Apple is accused by many developers for being draconian in its control of who gets on the Apps Store and how and why or why not. Before you celebrate Apple too much, I have to point out that they did not invent the Apps Store – the world’s first mobile phone applications store was launched in Japan by NTT DoCoMo in 2001, as the i-Appli and the Japanese mobile content, apps and services eco-system is far more robust and healthy and wealthy than the ‘hits-based’ system that Apple now has created. Plus, the Japanese are far less greedy than Apple in taking a cut of the application developer’s money (in Japan the app developer gets to keep 90 cents out of ever dollar, vs 70 cents on the Apps Store).

But yes, that is a finer point of knowing this industry on a global basis. If we ‘ignore the world’ and focus just on the USA, as so often US based pundits, authors and bloggers do, then yes, for the USA, the Apps Store is a big innovation and while many smartphone makers and platforms had offered 3rd party apps for years before Apple’s ‘Apps Store’ – the older platforms like Symbian and Nokia (now as an Apps Store under the Ovi brand) or RIM/Blackberry or Windows Mobile etc - these were not branded as ‘applications stores’ similar to what Apple obviously had with the iTunes Store. So offering apps to a smartphone is nothing new whatsover. Packaging the store was a clever move by Apple for the Western markets including the USA.

But the Apps Store was an innovation of June of 2008 !  It was innovative a year and a half ago. If you had not observed that some apps stores did exist globally before the Apple iPhone Apps Store, that is understandable, as they were very nerdy geeky aspects of Japan etc. But if you think the Apps Store deserves to be celebrated with Apple, then it is an idea from a year and a half ago. Nothing whatsoever innovative since then. Why would there still be this ‘drunkedness’ about the iPhone today in December 2009? Apple, what have you done for me lately?

I want to make one more comment about explicitly the Apps Store. Now we have a totally ridiculous ‘race’ of a platform of tiny user numbers, consuming enormous amounts of data and apps, of a miniscule impact to the industry. Understand what I say. Tiny user numbers, miniscule impact. It does not matter whether there are 10,000 apps or 100,000 apps, or as some have predicted, by the end of the year, Apple to have 300,000 apps in its Apps Store. That does not remove the fact, that there are only 35 million iPhone users globally (with some growth to the end of the year, and yes, also some iPod Touch users). Focusing on the enormous growth of applications in the Apps Store does not make the iPhone user base any bigger at all. It is STILL zero point seven percent of all mobile phones on the planet. Zero point seven percent. If you take one percent of wealthiest people on the planet, you can sell almost anything to them. Kindle book readers and George Foreman grills and Seqway personal transport things. And iPhone apps.

Think how silly this logic is. Cadillac has under 1% of all cars on the planet, and is priced in the luxury end, so it cannot capture a mass audience. Then we hear that hey, the Cadillac can be made with two dozen separate leather trims (it still is a luxury car with under 1% of market). Now, hey, we expanded the interior options, and you can have 100 different leathers (but it still has under 1%). Or, hey, the Cadillac offers 100,000 separate types of leather interiors. That seems comical – as nobody would go through all 100,000 to try to find what they really like – think of that with Apps Stores – but still, Cadillac has no more cars sold. This is only of interest to makers of leather interiors.

And there we have our parallel. The Apps Store hysteria is irrelevant to the giant mobile telecoms industry. It is even pretty meaningless to Apple in terms of any revenue contribution to Apple’s bottom line. Apple has said repeatedly that its iTunes store is not there to make big profits to Apple, it is to help sell more iPod music players. Similarly, the iPhone Apps Store will not be a meaningful revenue or profit engine for Apple directly, but its purpose is to help sell more iPhones. So if there are 10,000 or 100,000 or one million apps, that does not change the fact, that as of the third quarter of this year, there were only a global installed base of 35 million iPhones. The Apps Store measurements are of interest to “application developers” desperate from vanishing sales in the PC industry, now panning for some possible gold on the latest intelligent operating system platform onto which they can develop apps. But then the developers themselves then become deluded by stats such as the Admob numbers and how cleverly Apple ignores the big market, and focuses only on its smartphone maker share.

343 MILLION DOLLARS IS LESS THAN PEANUTS

The number that matters, is that all apps sold in all ‘apps stores’ this year, 2009, will be worth 343 million dollars, as measured by the Yankee Group just a week ago. If you think that is ”impressive’ and numbers in the ‘millions’ impress you – then you clearly are not part of the mobile telecoms industry. The mere value of ‘mobile apps’ BEYOND apps stores was worth 7 BILLION dollars last year, as measured by Juniper Research. So this market, 20x bigger than all apps stores combined, is where those other mobile applications were sold globally, to smartphones such as RIM Blackberries (often business/enterprise apps, not sold through apps stores) or Symbian apps such as the installed base of over 250 million Nokia branded smartphones - or the various other mobile applications pre-installed to several billion non-smartphone type of more basic phones.

And before you have had time to ‘catch your breath’ on that 7 Billion dollar total worldwide mobile applications market - wait, the mobile ’services’ industry is worth… 72 BILLION dollars last year (according to Netsize Guide). And that was before we even counted mobile messaging – about 130 billion dollars said Portio Research (and yes, 26 billion dollars worth of MMS picture messaging services globally, this is why Apple had to add MMS to its iPhone, inspite of Apple’s own protestations)

Only those totally clueless to the big picture of mobile, could be so obsessed by a 343 million dollar tiny corner of the mobile data, apps and services opportunity. All smartphone apps, sold this year on all apps stores, including Apple Apps Store and Windows Mobile and Palm and RIM and Ovi etc etc etc, account for …zero point two percent, 0.2% – 0.002 out of the global mobile data industry annual revenues. The total apps store market opportunity, can grow by DOUBLING in value, for each of the next ten years – utterly impossible economically and statistically speaking – and not be as big as the mobile data industry is TODAY.

It is possible, that some day, the mobile application data opportunity from ‘Apps Stores’ does become a billion dollar industry – give it a couple of years of solid growth and we may get there – and then we can start to consider its relevance. (For context, the 11 year old ‘basic’ ringing tone business is worth 5 billion dollars – three times as big as total Apple iTunes sales worldwide – and these basic ringing tones are only but one of a dozen new music formats we have on mobile phones, totalling over 12 billion dollars in annual revenues.)

Anything worth less than a billion dollars is honestly not worth drooling about in this mobile telecoms industry that towers at 1 Trillion dollars far bigger than the global IT or internet or TV or advertising, or indeed the fixed landline telecoms industries). But today, if you want to deliver your news or advertising or entertainment to the 4.6 Billion people on the planet who have a mobile phone subscription, then you need to start with the three globally available technologies – SMS, MMS and WAP. Only about 17% of the planet has any kind of smartphone – and over half of all smartphones in use have a Symbian operating system, and even the installed base of Blackberries outnumber iPhones globally by 2 to 1.  But 3 Billion people are active users of SMS and 1.4 Billion people are active users of MMS multimedia messaging. In most cases of interactive services, newsletters, advertising and coupons – rather than create an iPhone app, you could deliver the same interactive multimedia apps – and reach 1.4 Billion active users on the planet – and 2.6 Billion total phones that are MMS enabled. Here is your chance, not apps stores. MMS annual revenues alone are 75x bigger globally than all apps store applications this year.

TIME TO SOBER UP

So yes, I totally agree with the first part of the clever quotation, that the US market has been drunk on the iPhone, obsessing about it, and it is time to get past thatn drunkedness. Its time to ’sober up.” The iPhone is now, two total revisions later, a reasonably complete, high-end luxury phone costing 600 dollars (obviously the AT&T contract hides this fact, in reality the iPhone is not a 200 dollar phone – even Apple’s CFO Oppenheimer openly admits that the average cost of an iPhone is about 600 dollars as he did in the quarterly results investor call this summer). That puts the iPhone far beyond the reach of most normal consumers. The average price of a smartphone worldwide is half the cost of the iPhone, at 300 dollars. The average cost of a mobile phone of any kind is under 100 dollars. The iPhone is priced like a Cadillac and will thus find a similar ‘niche’ market only. It cannot – cannot – cannot – ever cannot – become a ‘mass market’ phone with 10% or more of market share (of all phones) unless Apple totally revises its pricing strategy (and I am not talking of contract gimmicks like with AT&T and ‘lowering’ the contract price to 200 dollars or 100 dollars. I am meaning radical real price cuts like it did with the iPod turning that premium niche luxury product into a mass market product).

I am not against the iPhone. There is NOTHING wrong with a luxury strategy, and arguably, Apple is better suited to provide a premium line of luxury products with premium prices, like the Mac personal computers and the iPhone, rather than try to do main stream mass market like say Dell in computers or LG in phones. There is nothing wrong with being a luxury brand and a 1 percent global market share can be a very lucrative opportunity – BMW is often the most profitable car maker and it has that roughly 1% market share, a bit more than Cadillac, globally. And profits are inherently a better target for a business corporation, than revenues. And Apple is very profitable with its iPhone.

But it is time for the West Coast IT/tech industry to stop being drunk about the iPhone. Recognize it was innovative back in 2007, a truly transformational phone. Since then all of Apple’s changes to the iPhone have been ‘catching up’ type of repairs to deficiencies, when compared existing rival smartphones. Apple has given no globally relevant innovation since the first model. And the only major contribution that can be argued, that it was not ‘catching up to the neighbors’ was the packaging of 3rd party application sales into an ‘Apps Store’ (copying the idea from Japan) and that too was far more marketing and smoke-and-mirrors in ‘the store’ as all major smartphone makers did offer third party apps to their platforms; and apps stores themselves already existed years before Apple introduced its own.

FROM CADILLAC TO MASERATI

Now, the second part of that quotation – “People on the West Coast of the US are iPhone drunk; its time to wake up to Android.”  takes the right premise, and then jumps to the totally wrong conclusion. If the iPhone is the Cadillac, then the Android is not Ford or Toyota, the Android is Maserati. If Apple is the Cadillac as a niche luxury product, then Android as Maserati, is a far far more niche, more rare luxury product.

The Android based smartphones are, and will absolutely definitely be for at least the next year 2010, a smaller niche smartphone segment, than even the iPhone. So if anyone is ‘drunk’ on the iPhone today, then the wrong thing to do is to go and now get even more drunk or ‘hammered’ on Android. It is possible, that Android may grow at rates even as good as the Apple managed in its first two years. It is most unlikely that Android can achieve this, for a wide range of reasons, most of all, because Apple’s brand and launch marketing was so powerful, and so many of the Android brands are unknown or relatively weak brands in the mobile phone global market, like HTC and Motorola. But even if Android somehow manages to grow as enormously as Apple did in the greatest new technology launch in history, then Android in December of next year will still be smaller than Apple, far smaller than RIM/Blackberry, and obviously smaller than Nokia in smartphones and not have one percent of the global handset market.

No, the time is not to ‘wake up to Android’. No, the time is to perhaps pay a bit of attention to Android. It is going to fight for that ‘fourth’ place finish, against Windows Mobile and Palm and Linux Mobile and other of the ‘also-ran’ smartphone makers, whose total market share of all phones is far less than half of one percent. I do not mean Android cannot become big, but just like I said when the Apple iPhone launched, that the 10 million initial annual sales target was very ambitious (but I went on record, that I believed Apple could do it), I am saying, lets not be deluded that the mobile phone business is like some consumer electronics industries or the PC industry.

Having the ‘best phone’ is nearly irrelevant to global market success as I have explained, and certainly, having a ‘better’ operating system will not bring Android success or failure. It will not be up to the OS, it will be up to – as always in mobile telecoms – to the distribution channel. Read my blog article if you didn’t know this. Yes, its time to sober up, and not be drunk about the iPhone, but lets not go binge-drinking now and get newly drunk about the Android. Lets deal with reality today.

Apple’s push into the mobile market has been interesting – some say a game change – they have certainly shaken the market up, but have they really delivered the results? If only they had sold as many devices as column inches that they have achieved.

There seems to have been a global obsession with the iPhone. From the moment of first launch back in the summer of 2007 the iPhone has been headlining, the fixation still continues today. Apple has yet again demonstrated that it is a remarkable media machine. The iPhone receives a disproportionate amount of attention from the media, mobile industry and businesses alike.

Rather than being an explosive entrance the iPhone has seen a very steady growth to date and is likely to continue to do so. The iPhone today has very low single digit penetration in every market that it is sold. Since launch we believe that globally Apple has sold in the region of 34 million devices. If you are to factor in devices upgrades it could be safe to suggest that 2/3^rd of those devices are active, or just over 20 million. In the UK that would mean less than 1 million active devices. Apple is a very small player.

An interesting element is that iPhone users make up a high percentage volume of mobile Internet activity. A sign of where the market is going. The masses will become prolific users of mobile Internet services. A stimulant the increasing number of devices that provide simple access the mobile Internet and lower costs associated to mobile data consumption. The majority are unlikely to be iPhone users, they will be owners of devices from one of the top five handset manufacturers.

Talk mobile to those looking to develop a mobile presence they all seem fixated with developing an iPhone application as a priority. This is equivalent to the Blackberry effect from three to four years ago. Despite the disproportional cost, those developing applications had to deliver Blackberry variants as a priority as that was the device the Executives typically used. The iPhone is a showcase opportunity, to demonstrate what can be done and gain engagement. It is not a mass market play. For those looking to develop a mobile strategy the iPhone should factor but certainly not dominate.

To understand how to develop a balanced mobile strategy – get in touch.

According to statistics released by Bango, BlackBerry is now the third most popular mobile phone for browsing the web in the USA, accounting for 14% of all mobile traffic. BlackBerry is also placed fifth in the UK and worldwide, above all Apple iPhones, with Nokia remaining the overall global leader with over 36% of traffic seen.

Once seen as only for business with their slick functionality and features, BlackBerry devices are increasingly becoming the preferred handset for consumers wanting to browse the internet from their phone. The BlackBerry 8330 Curve now accounts for over 28% of BlackBerrys browsing the web.

Bango data collected across many millions of users accessing the internet from mobile devices also revealed that the BlackBerry user base is much more likely to use Wi-Fi as a connection method where available.

“With all the buzz surrounding the Apple iPhone and the rush to capitalise on its success, many companies fail to realise that over three times more consumers browse the web from a BlackBerry,” said Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango. “The global smartphone race is well under way, but it is the BlackBerry that is the Usain Bolt out in front.”

Companies are being urged to seize the BlackBerry opportunity and start capitalising on its exponential growth, by ensuring their mobile sites and campaigns are optimised for these devices.

“We see over 30% of users with BlackBerry devices visiting our site each month” said Steve Crawford, Operations Director of GoSpoken.

In the past BlackBerry was primarily seen as an email device, with many of its users dismissing the idea of internet browsing as being something you did from a PC. However as more people choose to access the internet from smartphones – global smartphone sales grew by 27% year-on-year in Q2 (Gartner) and BlackBerry has evolved to provide great internet browsing functionality. It has now gained a reputation for ease of use and addictiveness among business users, with many of the world’s top companies choosing BlackBerry as the corporate phone of choice. With the Curve, BlackBerry has successfully made its popular functionality more accessible to non-business consumers.

I have just been sent over a list of the top 10 things you need to know about mobile applications, compiled by the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau). I believe they are spot on and typically what I preach as such I felt the need to share:

1. Only do apps when you need more. Compared to browsing, mobile apps offer a richer level of user interaction allowing more complex graphics, media and information to be presented. They also provide a more robust and secure environment for user engagement. But, if you can deliver what you are trying to achieve through a browser you will be able to reach far more consumers. Jeremy Copp, CEO, Rapid Mobile Media Ltd

2. Tell people about your app. Don’t just rely on app stores, you can distribute apps via mobile sites, operators and through multiple ad placements and formats for maximum impact and reach. Theo Theodorou, EMEA Sales Manager, Mobile Advertising, Microsoft Advertising

3. Think further than the iPhone. The iPhone offers fantastic functionality for developers and users alike, and apps developed for the platform are eminently PR‐able, and are often shared virally. It has a fast growing user base, and reaches relatively wealthy 25‐44 year olds who actively use mobile media very well; but also developing a java version, optimised to work over a wide range of handsets including BlackBerry will give you a far greater potential reach. Mark Angell, Business Development Director, Marvellous

4. Getting the balance right. There are 2 fundamental balances to achieve. Firstly, business objectives vs user needs‐for the application to be effective the business needs must carefully consider the user as well as commercial objectives. Secondly, the three E’s (Engagement, Entertainment and Effectiveness) ‐functional apps often outlast the usage of entertainment based apps. Paul Taylor, Strategist & Planner, COI

5. The average app user. There are 8.7 million people who have used a downloaded app in the UK which is 18% of mobile users. 60% of these users are playing games that they have downloaded. The median age of an apps user is 32 years old and 43% are female. 36% of app users own smartphones compared to 15% of the total market. Alistair Hill, Analyst and Mobile Products, Europe, comScore

6. Brand‐building vs sales. Free applications get the most downloads, where as paid‐for applications generate revenue. Knowing whether you are branding or selling is a key point when launching your first application. Ross Butler, Creative, Parrott and Miller

7. Product longevity is essential. Every service needs a roadmap, no matter how basic. Customers will quickly get bored with a uni‐functional app which has no new features or capability added over time. By adding functionality as time goes on you can create brand advocacy. Christian Harris, CEO, Gorilla Box

8. Send them in the right direction. Ads in existing applications are a great place to advertise, but make sure that the destination site is optimised for mobile. If you don’t then you risk low conversion and a poor perception of your brand. Jonathan Abraham, Brand Sales Director, AdMob

9. Test, Test and Test again. If a customer can access it on their handset it needs to work. If it doesn’t it will do more damage than good to your brand. Invite feedback and always read customer reviews (don’t just ask friends to write them!) to ensure you’re meeting the needs of your consumer. Oliver Newton, Head of Emerging Platforms, i‐level

10. Be on brand. Just like with any form of communication ensure that your app is ‘on brand’. Tone of voice, brand values, message, production values and brand fit are essential in making a great brand app. Kieron Matthews, Marketing Director, IAB