BFrank on Tech

I've been looking for a post to sum up what I think was the biggest set of announcements at this year's CES, and the best I was able to come up with is Jeff Pulver's post:

The Jeff Pulver Blog: Skype Announcements @ CES 2006: A Year Too Late?

Personally, I believe the Skype Hype was in full-effect at CES this year, and its nothing but good news.

Read on for my analysis ...

I was around in the early days of VoIP while at Intel in Oregon. We developed the first standard H.323 stack and a pretty cool Internet phone that was a "ride-along" applicaiton that clipped to the bottom of your web browser.

I even had opportunities to work with the venerable Jeff Pulver, father of VoIP, and watched him form the early VoIP community that has since grown into one of the most prominent technologies of the "new" Internet.

While I respect Jeff immensely, I have a different opinion on the value of these Skype "accessories". They represent a way for casual users to take a foray into VoIP, with no real strings attached (other than requiring access to WiFi).

I also believe that Skype's (err...eBay's) mobile extension of their service do NOT necessarily lead to all-out-war with traditional carriers, but rather, a way for carriers to subvert POTS systems and bring more services to the home or business campuses through another wireless technology. If carriers actually embrace LAN access, this may extend their ability to deliver their services and technologies beyond just WAN access to a higher speed and into a burgeoning "social" network of WiFi access areas (like your home, office or cafe).

Take T-Mobile as a use case. They have WiFi access points dotting the country, and it provides a way for them to make revenue on LAN as well as WAN access. Its "faster" than their mobile networks, and likely will always be as people go from WiFi to WiMax and beyond. It gives them a way to sell products and services to PDA and laptop users that likely have a mobile phone already (and either service on T-Mobile or not).

I'm just waiting for the first company to do a successful VoIP phone that combines cellular WAN access for use in-between WiFi "lillypads" and LAN acccess with popular services, in an attractive package. The closest are the Win Mobile 5 devices by HP and Samsung. However, the integration needs to be there from the second you turn on the device and it identifies the right network, your location, and provides services to make you more effective in the situation you're in.

Posted by Brian Frank at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As an inagural post, I thought I'd discuss the state of mobile advertising, as it seems to be a "hot" topic these days.

Basically:

1. "Micro" Ads are coming
   
2. The will be married to relevance and location with what's going on around you
   
3. There will be more of them in comparison to print or video
   
4. And they will be more intrusive into your life (if you let them in)
   

Read on for more analysis ...

UPDATE: In the latest Fierce Wireless, there's another article about Google getting a patent for wireless advertising. Point proven - the market is heating up.

An article in Fierce Wireless started me thinking about the prospects of ads on mobile devices.

Phones are prime real-estate for advertisement because:

1. They're always with you,
   
2. are your lifeline to your personal life and work when you're away from the office,
   
3. and have the ability to deliver rich multimedia right to your fingertips (thanks to technologies like Flash Lite).
   

Several months ago, I was interviewed for a German magazine where I spoke about the ability of placing advertisements on PDAs and Smart Phones. Its very real, and its coming very soon!

Many companies are looking into this area, and already have technology based on location (i.e.-you're in the vicinity of a Pizza Hut, so why not pop up a coupon for that location), proximity (i.e.-using Bluetooth, people are already able to get movie times at the Metreon in San Francisco through technologies like Wide Ray), and relevance (i.e.-imagine Google Mobile, it remembers your mobile search and uses that information to present interesting offers that may be related to where you're going or what you were doing while you were "on-the-run").

Ultimately, these will have to be "opt in" systems, because we're already annoyed at mobile telesales and spam and the government has stepped in to restrict these abuses of mobile networks.

Advertisers are already gearing up, as you can see by this mobile advertisement guideline website. I know, these are only for WAP, but you can just imagine where the industry will take it a year from now.

My advice to advertisers? Why not have people sell you their idle screen space. Pay everyone a penny or two per click-through off the cell phone bill if they're willing to take rotating ads based in something like Flash on the idle screen of their device. Its something I'm always staring at for the time, and if it was something I really wanted at the time, like a cup of coffee, I may actually take you up on the ad.

The key here, MAKE IT USEFUL! Banner ads are useless on these tiny screens, so why not integrate it into the phone? I really liked the way AvantGo did it, allow ads to place "reminders" into your calendar or task list of a PDA or phone.

Posted by Brian Frank at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)