Facebook turns brands into people, too

Mitt Romney was quoted as calling corporations the same as people.  The public largely saw that as an esoteric tax reference.

However, when Facebook transforms brands and corporations into people, well that’s another story.  The new Facebook brand timeline and advertising strategy has created life for brands, and likely even more fortunes for Facebook. 

Your personal timeline will have more sponsored content from the brands that you love and more importantly – “liked”.  Those annoying dental implant ads on the right-hand side of your Facebook page will be replaced with sponsored content stories from different brands. Ads acting like content, brands acting like people, and all in the socially connected universe of Facebook.

The transformation of ads into timeline content is a win-win-win for Facebook.  Firstly, it solves an obvious problem that the right hand side ads on Facebook is a odd mixture of legitimate brands and low-end junk.  The quality of their ad inventory has not been consistent. Secondly, the only real way to monetize their significant mobile audience is through timeline insertion of content (ads).  This has been obvious from the beginning for both Twitter and Facebook.  They have both now started down that path.  To date, Google has been more successful with mobile monetization through their search products.  Facebook will now try to match that with they social news approach.

The Facebook strategy has a good chance of giving Google a run for their money.  Why? What do people do with their mobile devices that brands care about?  They search and they interact with Social Media – mainly Facebook.

Lastly, this strategy focuses Facebook on large brands that support their social mission.

While there is still a place for the smaller “Mom and Pop” establishments in the Facebook Universe, the Facebook Ad engine is clearly aimed at global brands with significant budgets.  Facebook is, without a doubt, aiming for to be the primary digital ad platform of choice for brands in the future.

The Google Vs. Facebook War just got a lot hotter.

Big Game Hunting for Mobile and Social – at the Big Game

The Big Game has become the “Super” event for new mobile and social promotions.

The challenge for advertisers and brands is to create a virtual social environment within the year’s biggest physical social event

The TV ad escalation for the Super bowl grew out of the need to make the Ads their own event.  The higher production value of theses ads is designed to delay that inevitable bathroom break.   The goal of social and mobile media is to make the ad a continuous event during the game.

There are three factors that I believe are important in a social application.

• Entertainment: Examples are interactive games and passive videos

• Social Status: Examples are check-ins, followers, and game rank

• Contextual Information: A key success factor  of Twitter and Facebook.

Get these right and you earn the pay dirt of any social campaign…longevity.

Your app or promotion can be successful with just one of these factors.  If you have two you can be a  wild successes (Zynga). With all three you are Facebook. YouTube or Twitter.

The reason that Superbowl ads are now $7M/minute is that that audience that the broadcast aggregates only lasts 4 hours.  It is a perishable resource that commands a premium price.  What if this audience was addressable with an effective social media channel on a regular basis?  What would that be worth?  For a clue you can read about the IPO of Facebook.

Using these factors as our yardstick lets look at two of the higher profile social game plans and make some pre-game predictions.

• The Coca Cola Bear

Coke is presenting an interactive version of their Polar Bears on a Facebook application.  The bears will react to plays in the game.

Prediction:

While this app will generate a lot of buzz for its “cool” factor, I view this as a very clever branding exercise, rather than a true social campaign.   It will generate a reasonable number of views of the Coke brand and therefore should be very cost effective on an equivalent CPM basis. (As of Friday it had 21K members, but I expect that number to significantly increase on game day)

Will this aggregated application audience have any reason to come back to this app after 10:30 pm on Sunday?

Entertainment Value: High, until novelty wears off

Social Status: None

Contextual Information: Low

• Chevy Runs Deep Apple Application

I have this Apple app on my iPad.  The enticement is that you get a license plate number to watch for on the Chevy Television ads.  If you see your number you win a Chevy.

Prediction:

This will get some more viewers to watch the Chevy ads closely.  If you are not one of the 20 winners, then what? The rest of the app is populated with Twitter feeds, trivia  and YouTube videos.  Similar to the Coke Facebook application, this application will likely have a half-life that ends at 10:30 pm on Sunday.

Entertainment Value: Low

Social Status:  Zero – unless you win the car!

Contextual Information: Low

My view is that these types of campaigns are still outside the “redzone”.  Once an audience is aggregated, it is a crime not to effectively and continually engage that audience, grow it and profit from it.

The most effective use of social media is still the simplest and cost nothing.  Advertisers put their Superbowl ads on YouTube. That strategy has generated an additional 360M views!

One Last Prediction: Giants 31 Pats 24

Social Networking with a Schmear

In the past 10 years I have managed many social media projects – some even before that catch phrase was coined.  While every company seems to want to be on the various social networks, very few seem to grasp how and why

As they say – to cut to the chase:  Social Media is and should be social.  That may seem like an obvious statement but many campaigns seem to miss that point.  Here are some examples of Social Media Myth busting and one surprising example of social media done right.

• Signing up people to like your product or service by giving them something

I was at the New York Auto show at the Javits Center this past Spring.  One auto company was giving away tee shirts if you “liked” their Facebook page.  They probably gave away 1000 tee shirts and got 1000 likes.  If their apparel budget permitted 1 million tee shirts, they perhaps could get 1 million likes. So what?

By the way, I got a tee shirt for “liking” them. I can’t even tell you what company it was or where I put my treasured prize.

Getting random people, who are fundamentally unconnected, with no interest in each other or even the product to join a social network, just to show you have “numbers” is a waste of time and money – except for the company that makes the tee-shirts, and supplies the models to hand them out. A quick estimate for that campaign would be $10K for a consultant to “produce” the marketing event, another $10K to produce the tee shirts and likely $5K in costs for contractors (models) to hand-out the tee-shirts.  That’s at least $25K spend on getting 1000 “likes”.  It would be better to have a website that says “like me”, and I will send you ten bucks.

How many times do you think any of these people visited the company’s Facebook page?  How many of their friends decided “Gee, I better like that page also?”  How much original user generated content was created because of this campaign?

As we say in NJ….Ugats!

• Trying to create a great social network around boring content , is … boring,  unless its not.

Let me explain.  If you put up photos and comments about little Jimmy’s second grade music lesson it may be boring to the masses, but for the little Jimmy’s family it’s interesting and fun.  One picture can generate 20 comments in a family circle.   If you take that same picture and put it on a website that sells music lessons, will anyone comment or care?  Will family members share that link on their Facebook walls or Twitter rolls? Interest in content is contextual.  Members of a social network must be self-motivated to spread the word, comment, contribute and create the viral impact of social media.

An interesting example of social networking done correctly is a delicatessen in Newark New Jersey.  Hobby’s deli has been a family run Jewish restaurant since the invention of corned beef.  The real life Hobby’s experience includes fabulous food and even better “schmoozing” between the customers and especially with the two brothers who are the owners.  From the lunch time crowd of lawyers and politicians to the enthusiastic dinner hockey fans on their way to watch a game, Hobby’s provides social subsistence along with the knishes.

To take the Hobby’s experience and bring it to Facebook was not a guaranteed success.  The owners did not pay an “expert” thousands of dollars to help them with the project.   They applied their natural real-life social networking skills and put it on Facebook.  The formula is simple.  They comment on what is going on at the restaurant.  Who is having a birthday? Feeding the Ringling Brothers Elephants, a visit from a pro athlete, little contests between the two brothers, playing the role of a Leprechaun for the holiday celebrating the Patron Saint of Corned Beef – (St Patrick) and the ever-present Devils fans.    Within this content come mentions of the daily special and photos of the food.   While the latter elements are clearly advertising, they come across more in context of the overall Hobby’s narrative.

By taking what is already happening in real life and placing it in social media they have created a tempting morsel for a loyal clientele.  They have less than 1000 likes as of the writing of this blog, but I am sure that is not bothering Hobby’s.  The likes that they do have, really  like Hobby’s.  When their patrons comment, and they do it often, it spreads virally across Facebook.

Which one is a former NJ Devil?

To achieve their success they did not stand on the corner of Halsey Street and hand out sandwiches to random people just to get them to like their page.  The Facebook page is becoming a contextual meeting place for their patrons and obviously drives business.  It has the right ingredients: a consumer base that has something in common, content that they find interesting, a natural willingness to generate user comments and a real ROI for the business.  Win-Win-Win

I’m hungry now – time for a trip to Newark.

Link to Video of Chico Resch at Hobby’s (Click Here)

Google Acquires Patents – and Also Motorola

Google + Moto is the BIG NEWS of the summer.  It was big enough to grab me out of my blog vacation.  While the pundits are filling the airwaves with analysis on this one , I view it perhaps more simply, more straightforward.

The battleground for supremacy in connected devices (mobile smartphones, Tablets, and  set-top boxes) has moved from the R&D labs to the court rooms.  The patent wars between Apple and Google are fierce, with Microsoft bulking up on its own portfolio as part of the consortium that bought the Nortel patents.

Motorola was worth the price Google paid just for their patent portfolio.  In patent wars if you get sued, you better have a patent in your portfolio that can hurt the attacker.  In this way you trade mutual assured destruction with a patent stand-off.

When Google acquired the rights to Motorola’s 25,000+ patents, they bought both defensive capability and offensive firepower.  Apple may go after Android for an Apple patent but what are the changes that Google now has a patent that can hurt Apple?

It is impossible to design and produce a device such as an iPhone, iPad, or Android device that will not infringe on someone’s patent.  Impossible.  What a company must do is acknowledge that they will infringe and hope the other guy also infringes on their patents and us the mutual infringement to to either create a license arrangement or to have both companies do nothing.

Google’s price of $12.5B is about $500,000 per patent, which seems to be a bargain compared to the $4.5B  Apple and Microsoft for 6000 Nortel patents.  Their price was  $750,000 per patent.

Lets assume that the Motorola sale  is approved and Google gets the Motorola patent portfolio.  Google’s next problem is that they have also bought a company that makes handsets.  I say this is a problem because this is a huge company in a market that is different from Google’s core competency.  This is also a company that competes with Google’s other OEM partners for Android Devices.  The conventional wisdom is that these other OEM partners will start to defect, en mass,  to Microsoft.

Yeah right….

What does defect even mean?  Microsoft will pay these companies to produce some Windows phones anyway.

Android is free.  Can Microsoft compete with free?  Google makes its money on Android from their ad business.  Microsoft must make money from their software license for Mobile 7 operating system.  Besides for being years late to the party, Microsoft is structural disadvantaged to compete.  At best they can hope to be a number 3 player.

Google has two choices.

Number 1: They can acquire the patent portfolio and then spin out the Motorola Mobility Business, probably re-cooping half their initial investment.  They could sell Motorola’s handset and tablet businesses, along with licenses to the patents they now own to either HTC or Samsung, their two most important OEM partners.  This would be an amazing move.

Number 2:  Keep the Motorola hardware business and expand Android into the Cable Set-Top Box market.  This is the riskier of the paths as the sheer weight of a big manufacturing company could alter the culture of Google for the worse.  This path would be an attempt to become “Apple”.  While this path seems to be the assumed defacto strategy of Google, I am placing my bets on scenario #1.  This will take a couple of years to play out, so hold onto this link and let’s see if I am right.

An indicator that we are on Scenario 1 will be if Microsoft acquires RIM (Blackberry) or Nokia.  This would be an acknowledgment that the Google OEM manufacturers are not going to defect to Microsoft and that they must own a hardware company to compete.

This has only gotten worse in the last 10 months!

Windows Mobile – Just not Cool

With the holiday season upon us, my son is back from college.  Yesterday he had a dozen of his friends over to “hang out”.  Since this was costing me around 100 pizza bagels and a couple boxes of mozzarella sticks, I thought it was only fair for me to have an impromptu mobile focus group of college students.

Most of them were on the Verizon Network, with one on AT&T and one on T-Mobile.  There were 7 Smartphone class devices (1 iPhone, 3 Blackberrys, 3 Android), 3 Multimedia class devices and 2 feature phones.  Those who had the more impressive devices were much quicker to wave them in the air and show them off, while the feature phone owners were trying to avoid eye contact.

Their preferred manner of communicating with each other was text first, then voice, then Facebook, then IM, and lastly email.

I then described the features of a Windows 7 phone, without naming it.  The live tiles, music integration,  gaming system integration, etc.  I got a reasonable concurrence that those features were “cool” and was asked if they were available on their “app stores”.

More on that a little later on.

I then asked them if they heard of the Windows 7 phone and what they thought of it?  I got lots of frowns and looks of disgust,  “A Microsoft Phone?, not cool” , “That’s for computers, not phones”, “Will it work all the time?”.  You get the general reaction.  The group thought the basic features of the Microsoft phone were desirable, but had a very negative reaction to the name and software system.

I asked them if they would trade in their phone for a free Windows 7 model?  Only the feature phone owners indicated that a free Windows phone would be better than the 2006-era voice and text via t9 models they were forced to endure.

This result is similar to other impromptu focus groups I have managed with my kids’ friends.  Their phone is a social accessory. It is the most important electronic gear they own since they have it with them 24/7.  Blackberry’s have strangely entered the “cool zone” and are as socially acceptable to the teen crowd as iPhones and Droids.  Windows phones are clearly not cool, even though their features are desirable.

What does this mean for Microsoft?  They made a big mistake, another in a long list of mobile missteps, by naming their mobile phone after a PC operating system.  Did I mention that 75% of my sample group used Apple computers as their main machine?  Microsoft has been very successful with XboX, partly because it was NOT called Windows Vista Game System.  Microsoft called their mp3 music player “Zune”, not Windows music player.  Zune has been a market failure, not because of its name, but rather it was outclassed and out marketing by Apple iTunes and iPod.

Microsoft released sales figures for their mobile device on 12/21.  They touted 1.5M devices sold in the first 6 weeks.  This number, however, reflects the number of devices that are in the Carriers stores and pipeline, not how many have been sold to actual subscribers.  Verizon has over 2000 direct retail outlets and easily a similar number of resellers.  You can appreciate how many phones you have distribute to fill the distribution pipeline.

In comparison Android is activating 300K phones a day and Apple sold (really sold) 3M iPhones in its first 3 weeks on the market, over three years ago.

What should the team in Redmond do now?  I believe the clue is in one of the comments from my son’s friends.  “Where can I get these in the App store?”  If XboX gaming on a mobile is valuable, then Microsoft should develop their own apps for Blackberry, iPhone and Android and make money from their “competitors” mobile platforms.

Likewise, they could provide a Zune application for music on these platforms (well maybe not iPhone).  My point is that if Microsoft has valuable applications then sell them as applications.  If my small sampling is at all indicative of how Microsoft’s core targeted market is reacting to their mobile device, they have to seriously re-think what they have done.  Find a cool name for the phone, don’t rely on a Zune/Xbox positioning, and tout the basic phone interface as better than other Smartphone’s.  To some degree they have tried the latter with the ad campaign promoting the ease of use of their device.

The real question will be is the market willing to accept another smartphone platform at this point? What do you think?

Scanning your Life

It is not often that someone shows me something in tech that makes me go “WOW!, that’s cool”.  I had such a moment recently when I met Jonathan Bulkeley, CEO of ScanBuy.  Regular readers of this blog know that I rarely promote products and services, but rather just give my “guy on the street” views.

Unless you are George Bush Senior, you know that there are barcodes on everything.  There are the ubiquitous  1-D UPC codes that you see in the supermarket and a host of new 2-D barcodes.  With the inclusion of barcode readers in smartphones (my Android is very capable in this area) you can go to a store, scan the barcode and be linked to product information websites, Google shopper, Amazon, etc.  You can do instant online price comparison in a store, and if you like purchase the product.  It seems that stores are catching on and are starting to put there own barcodes on products that then links back to their own website, not a competitor’s.  This is not the “WOW” part.  I’ve been doing store scanning  for some time.  Its fun and seems to thoroughly annoy sales staff (and sometimes my wife!)

The company that Bulkeley runs is the one that produces the Android app that I use to scan barcodes.  You can think of a barcode as a web url that directs the application to go to some specific website or activate an application.  You can imagine that the directory service of linking codes to a website is an interesting business area.

Now for the “WOW” moment.

When I was talking to Bulkeley,  he showed me his business card that had a 2-D barcode on the back.  He said, “go ahead scan it”.  When I scanned it, the application opened up the contact manager on my phone and auto-populated all of his details and asked me to confirm.  That was WOW.

You see ScanBuy and its consumer facing ScanLife website gives you the opportunity to have your own personal 2-D barcodes that link to a website or launch a contact application.  There are codes you can make for websites, phone numbers, SMS, Twitter, and even a menu of items.

Here is my contact 2-D Barcode:

And here is another that links to my personal Website:

And yet another that I made to link to my favorite Youtube video. I bet you can’t guess which one?

You can even change the destination website of any barcode on the ScanLife website.  If you have a smartphone with a ScanLife application, you can scan these codes directly from your computer screen.

He told me his daughter has a barcode on her dorm door and changes the website with her mood and likes.

I could envision a whole new market in fraternities, sororities and dorms.  No need to put a piece of clothing on the door knob as the signal of an “overnight” guest.   Just make sure your roommate scans before he enters!

But as they say – Wait –there’s more to this story….

A day later I was taking the train back to New Jersey from New York.  The train was full and I was sitting alone in two facing seats.  Three others came to occupy the other spots.  There were two young women – maybe 22 – one with bright purple hair and lots of interesting body art and the other very blonde and pixie-like.  Their androgynous boyfriend rounded out the group.  Needless to say, I did not have much in common or much to say as the went on about their art exhibits and music performances.  This was not the “Hey! how about those Yankees?” crowd. And I was not up on the latest exhibit in the Village.

This all changed when Miss Pixie took out her Android phone.  Ah!, now something of a connection.  We had a long discussion on apps and her favorites. Her two interesting friends also had Androids, but older models (at least 6 months) and seemed behind the curve.   Pixie liked the same apps I did.  I am not sure what to conclude from that, so moving on…..

She had Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Skype and Google Navigation.  Her really favorite “cool” app was, you guessed it –  ScanLife.  She did not even know the name of the company, just that she could use it when she shopped.

At this point her rather purple,  pierced  and tattooed friend perked up and said , “I always wanted to get a barcode tatoo.”

Not wanting to waste a good promotion opportunity for Mr. Bulkeley’s company, I explained how she could have her own personal barcode that linked to something that she could pick, and even change.  She was delighted and copied down the info.

For this group of avant-garde artists, it was one more cool thing to adorn their body with , and something they could scan with their phones.

The train pulled into my stop and my new friends, who were brought together by our Droids and barcodes, parted ways.

“Where” is that Secret Facility on Foursquare?

One of the really interesting aspects of smartphone apps is the innovation and product mutation process.  Over the past couple of weeks I have downloaded over 100 apps on my Droid.  Some apps were good, many were not.  With the exception of Skydroid (99 cents), all were free.  For the record the Skydroid golf GPS program worked really well on my recent golf outing.  It did not help my game at all, but it was useful ad fun to use.

"Where" Local Information Portal

One of the more interesting and useful apps I have been using is “Where”.   “Where” aggregates all the most important mobile search and information functions in one app that utilizes your location for giving you the most relevant results.    Weather, News (including micro local news!), Places (a combination of restaurants, hotels, shopping, bars, etc), Movies, Gas prices, Yellow Pages, Traffic, and even a dedicated icon for the nearest Starbucks.  For the city-folk, it includes an app to locate a Zip Car.  All of these come with easy lists, or are searchable via text or voice input.

Instead of going into several dedicated apps to do the same “on the fly” searches, you can just stay within the “Where” dashboard.   They also have a widget for the Droid that will give you the latest alert on any of the categories you have displayed.  The widget still needs some work, but is useful.

There is a similar function to “FourSquare” that encourages venue checkin and reviews. Foursquare is  the much bigger app for the “hey look where I’ve been crowd”, but “Where” should be watched.

What is interesting about both “Where” and “Foursquare” is how they took a

Foursquare places near me - Interesting...

working model on mobile and morphed it into something more useful.   “Where” actually went backwards to go forward.  They observed that the single function search and LBS apps were good but cumbersome to use in a real life use case.  For example, let’s find a movie to see, a place to eat and maybe a club later on.  “Where” handles that use case.  “Where” re-invented the information portal.

For the record I have no idea what the top secret Delta Facility or the Mothership are in my list.  But I will now have to check them out!  If this is my last blog article you will know why!

My Mother's Day Trip - on Foursquare

Foursquare capitalized on the fascination with Twitter and tweeting your status and focused it on venues.  This creates a social scene network.  Where are your friends?  Do you want to see them?  What do they think of that bar, restaurant, deli, etc?  It is a real time social networking app that is part Twitter, part Zagat’s, and part dating and hook-up.  Foursquare also uses location based services to locate you and give you a list of close by venues for you to check-in.

Both of these apps are using geo-located search technology to make their apps very easy to use.  They are both ad supported.  “Where” has a coupon tray for local coupons on products and services.  They both provide functionality that is superior to a vanilla Google search.

So what do they need to move to the big time?

Foursquare is clearly in the Zagat space.  Foursquare is what the mobile version of Zagat should be.  Foursquare and Zagat announced a partnership in February.  The combined application should be interesting!  To the leading edge augmented reality crowd –  yes I have tried Zagat on NRU – its very cool and the whole subject of augmented reality will be the topic of a future article.

“Where” needs the venue reviews and overall utilization that Foursquare and Zagat enjoy.  Additionally “Where” can benefit from the social networking features of Foursquare.   What I am not to subtly suggesting is that while Foursquare and “Where” have definitely moved the bar (no pun intended 🙂 ) , they are much more compelling together, and eventually even more compelling in a real partnership with Zagat.

Appvertainment from Jobs-Apple and the iAd

The announcement of iPhone OS4 changes the Smartphone  world – yet again.  As Steve Jobs described the 7 tent poles of the new iPhone/iTouch/Ipad OS, it was clear that the tent was not quite large enough for everyone. The center pole of this tent is clearly– iAds.

The raison-d’etre  for the much heralded multi-tasking feature is Appvertainment.  (e.g. iAds).    Do not be distracted by the fact that he introduced multi-tasking first and iAds last.  They are intimately linked.

Apple is pursuing their app centric  vs. search (Apple vs. Google) strategy for smartphones  through the introduction of their own OS integrated  ad serving technology.  Multi-tasking is the key component in this ad strategy to permit a user to return to an app after an ADHD moment is fulfilled by playing with a cool appvertainment.  Without multitasking you lose your application state/status and have to start over again.  Jobs is trying to change user behavior and reward users for clicking on an ad with an engaging experience, instead of punishing them by having them have to re-start their app.

Appvertainment targeting was not discussed. The social  and geolocation information that the host apps maintain on users will most likely be used for targeting purposes.  The Apple social game network API will no doubt  be used for providing this targeting information for game hosted appvertainments .    Apple is betting that App hosted ads will be valuable than Internet style search ads.

Jobs boosted that the Apple platforms would be capable of serving 1 billion app-ads per day by the summer of 2010.  Even if we cut that number in half and apply a modest $10/CPM ad rate – that represents daily gross appvertainment revenue of  $5M.  Apple’s vig on the ad revenue is 40%.  This is easily approaching a $1B+ annual revenue opportunity for Apple.

Click for full commercial

Another interesting aspect of this strategy is that Apple is clearly focusing on large brands and advertising agencies – in other words, the folks with the largest budgets.   This clearly makes sense.  The cost of an appvertainment production can easily be in excess of $250K+.  The inclusion of integrated and compelling video with engaging interactivity is not the domain of amateurs, but rather professional digital agencies.  The examples that Jobs demonstrated during his presentation (Nike, Disney and Target) are all major national brands with large budgets and big Madison Avenue agencies.

As I watched the presentation another thought came to mind –  “Is this legal?”  What would happen if Microsoft integrated a proprietary ad serving system in their OS and demanded 40% of the revenue of every ad served on a Windows machine?  This topic will clearly be discussed in the blogosphere and perhaps courtrooms in the future.

Did anyone hear a mention of sharing ad revenue with Mobile Carriers?

Another  “pole” of significance is the enhanced suite of enterprise features. Corporate CIOs have had a set of killer issues that prohibited the iPhone from significant corporate sanctioned and supported utilization.  Apple is trying to remove these roadblocks with OS4.  In addition to the enhanced  security and email capabilities is device management.  Device management includes the feature of permitting corporations to load their own private apps on the iPhone.    The execs at RIM should be concerned about their Blackberry franchise.

Apple would not be investing in enterprise features while maintaining an exclusive relationship with AT&T.  OS4 changes Apple from the Trojan Horse of a sexy consumer device on AT&T to a machine poised for world domination.

The competition between Google and their Android platform and Apple will only get fiercer.  Nokia is the only other global player who can play at this level.   Palm, RIM and even Microsoft will fight for the leftover niches.  It is a battle of the controlled and planed eco-system of Apple vs. the Open-Source world of Android.

The Apple tent has room for enterprise applications, has a new revenue source for app developers, and embraces big brands, ad agencies and publishers.  Adobe (no Flash support) and Google are outside the tent of OS4.  Microsoft got the biggest slight in this announcement as their mobile efforts were ignored as though not relevant.  And what about the mobile carriers?  Do they exist in the Apple world?

iWant my iPad – iJust don’t know why?

With the much anticipated launch of the iPad, I stepped back from the hype and techno glitz to ask the question,”Is Apple making the same mistakes of 25 years ago?”

The macro headline for Apple of that time would be “Great Product, lack of licensing and eco-system cedes market to Microsoft” So what’s different this time and what is the same?

The differences are that Apple, under Jobs is an innovation engine that is inventing new product classes – iPod, iTouch,  iPhone, iPad, etc.  The new products are launched and live in a ecosystem  under a benevolent dictatorship (or is it?).  One architecture, One way of getting apps, ads or “tunes” through their closed garden eco-system.  Everyone pays a tax to Apple to play.  This works as long as there are not viable alternatives to the Apple product.

In the case of the iPod, Apple’s eco-system became so powerful that it all but squeezed out all comers. Does anyone own a Zune?  The iPhone, however,  will likely be a different story.

The iPhone was the techno-product equivalent of a genetic mutation, the first of a new species.  It leveraged the eco-system of the IPod , then enhanced it with a vibrant app store.  So what’s the problem?   Apple’s problem is that Google is not the Microsoft.

The Android Platform will mutate and evolve dozens of times a year.  The Apple Iphone is on pace for one major release a year.   Add to this mix Nokia’s Symbian platform, Palm, Blackberry , and yes even Microsoft – and the challenge to Apple’s smartphone bonanza is formidable.   The challengers permit innovation from many hardware vendors  ( HTC, Samsung, Motorola and LG  to just name a few).  The innovation of smartphone products with a common eco-system(s) (Android, Symbian, Nokia, etc) will be more than Apple can bare.  Their share will become a significant but much smaller niche.  This will happen unless the iPhone OS is permitted to evolve outside of Apple.  Since the history of Apple is to control their value chain, this is not likely.

But have no fear you Apple devotees.  Apple’s respond is to morph new species, not new versions of an old one.

Thus enter the iPad – Not a netbook, not a laptop, not an iTouch….  It’s something new- and yes it leverages the vibrant iPhone eco-system,  Another key aspect of the iPad strategy is cloud computing.  The more your “stuff” is stored online , the less you need mass local storage.  Ironically a leader in this space is Google with their Google docs.   I recently purchased a Netbook for around $250.  Rather than double that investment with a version of Microsoft Office, I use Google Docs.  For most use cases it works great and all the docs are backed up – check that – live on the net.  If the iPad is going to squeeze in between netbooks and laptops, it has to have cloud computing for email storage, simple “office-like” apps and document storage.

Is there room in this Darwinian e-volution tree for this hybrid being?  Apple is betting yes – and if successful it will provide them another 5 year run before competitors really catch up.  In the mean time, they invent a new product category, while the previous product hits start to get caught and even surpassed from a market share and innovation standpoint.   Apple cannot afford to compete in every e-category of consumer products with 100% of the innovation – no company can compete with the entire industry.

The secret to this strategy is not to suffer from innovators dilemma.  Apple seems very content to re-invent products categories, even if they diminish the position they have in a previous market.  It is hard to come up with many examples that rival such a strategic culture.   Rather than invest in two more iPhone iterations or faster innovation on an Ipod – they re-invent them all.  This is the truly amazing aspect of Apple and can only come directly from Steve Jobs.  They bet the company on continued hit products.  The strategy works as long as the hits keep coming and Jobs remains at the helm.  Apple would not have been able to sustain a “Vista-like” disaster and have a flagship product be a complete bomb for years.

So – now its off the Apple store to buy my iPad.  Why?  I don’t know – but I’m sure I’ll like it when I figure it out.

Kudos to Verizon for taking on Leadership – Mobile without Phone Numbers

Approximately one year ago I wrote an article entitled “The Future of Mobile – without phone numbers.” In my discussion I put forth the proposition that social networks would take over the fundamental connectivity for individuals and that phone numbers would be a network “IP address”.   This article generated 100’s of emails and questions, some supportive, some not, but all thought provoking. It was clear that I had hit a nerve.

A major step towards my view of the future of mobile communications was taken by Verizon in the last week.  Verizon Announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and later confirmed and launched at CTIA 2010, an integrated Skype calling service.  This service enables users to click any Skype username, make a call, and not be charged for mobile minutes.  This service even uses the mobile voice connectivity of Verizon for the wireless network of the call.

This is a major watershed event for the industry.  A major carrier embracing voice as a data service, with calls completed outside of the carrier’s equivalent phone number – DNS.

In fact, this capability had been  available by such applications as ISkoot.  What is big news is that Verizon is openly promoting this service and not charging for mobile minutes.   Another advantage of the Verizon version is that it is “always-on”.  I received my first Skype call on my mobile yesterday.  It just happened like any other mobile call.  It was an important business call and all I could think about at the conclusion was – that was cool.

The use of social networks and non-phone number connection services implies that that contact DNS aggregation services will become even more important.  My network contact list will be an amalgamation of my Facebook, Linkedin, Skype, Twitter,  existing phone books, AOL IM list and likely several others.  Aggregating my contact lists, storing them in the network cloud and presenting them to me on demand in a usable form is essential.

While at CTIA I was on a panel discussion with   Mike Mulica, CEO of FusionOne.  FusionOne is a leading example of such a network based contact/address book that spans social networks.  They are certainly a company worth watching in the future, as they appear to be “on the right side of the technology curve”.

A question that remains is how does Verizon generate revenue by connecting calls for free?  Simple answers include increased data subscriptions and greater subscriber growth via churn from other carriers.    In the U.S. market, with mobile penetration approaching 90%, carriers can only increase subscribers by churning their competitor’s customers.   Since the Skype app on iPhone is not as full featured and cannot be “always-on”, VZW has given leading edge users a reason to switch NOW.

In the future I would expect connections between Skype calling capability and other applications on Verizon, especially those provided through the Verizon’s own app store.  I also expect that full mobile video calling and even video conferencing via Skype is no doubt on the roadmap.

This feature is only available to VZW smartphone subscribers , and that means a $29.99/mo data charge.

Regardless of the long term revenue sources, VZW has taken a clear leadership position in its market and now has the their competitors determining a catch-up strategy.  Kudos to Verizon on this move.