Mobile Presence-Based Services $6 Billion by 2012

The value of presence-based mobile services will increase to more than $6 billion by 2012, according to Juniper Research.  Increasing smartphone penetration in developed markets, coupled with rising global usage of mobile instant messaging will help to drive the trend, says John Levett, Juniper Research analyst.

Juniper thinks the key drivers will include presence-based text message alerts and services, geolocation applications that allow people to collaorate, share location details and take advantage of local knowledge, as well as social Web applications including social networking, user-generated content, blogs and dating apps.

Up to this point, revenues from presence-based services are almost exclusively derived from operator-billed mobile IM accounts. The amount of that activity faces two contradictory trends, one might argue.

On one hand, mobile IM will tend to fare better as end user adoption of 3G or 4G services increases. Broader adoption of 3G and 4G should therefore lead to heavier use of mobile IM, which should drive higher revenues. Mobile Web applications such as IM work best, and therefore encourage use, on faster data networks.

On the other hand, operator-billed IM revenues often are based on user inability to easily use over-the-top VoIP and IM applications that do not drive operator revenues. Over time, access to such open applications will deprive operators of the ability to profit from captive IM application access.

Juniper believes there is a way to thread the needle, as mobile broadband becomes a standard service for most developed-market customers and as operators move to embrace mobile VoIP in ways that include them in the revenue streams created by some over-the-top providers.

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fring Launches Mobile Web and IM Initiative

fring has launched of a new version of its mobile phone application that allows anyone with a compatible handset to talk, chat, and interact with other fring users on their mobile phones. Originally launched as a way to talk using VoIP, fring now is making an effort to use VoIP as a way of creating and enhancing IM-based mobile social networking.

As such, it hopes to become a mobile Internet service and community, enabling users to talk, chat and interact with other fring users in the context of their online IM communities, from their mobile phones.

fring’s new file transfer feature allows fring users to swap music tracks, pictures, video clips and other files between each other, from mobile to mobile and mobile to PC quickly and reliably without the need for multimedia message service, cable, Bluetooth, or infrared connections. And because its fring, the connection is made via the phones’ mobile Internet capability, using the already paid for data plan, so there’s no extra cost.

fring users now conduct voice sessions over the mobile phone’s data service channel, using instant messaging in place of text messaging, for example, using fring, Skype, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo! and AIM.

The new fring version has enhanced chat features including new real-time displays alerting the user of new incoming chat, real time typing indication and easier navigation between different chat windows, making for rich PC-style interaction.

fring users also can activate the fringME! Web services feature, making themselves contactable from any PC-based Web page, blog, home page, email, MySpace or Facebook pages (the Facebook capability will be available soon).

fringME! also allows fring users with GPS-enabled handsets to choose whether to have their real-time location displayed via a pop-up GoogleMap.

Mobile service providers probably are ambivalent about the new features. On one hand, fring will stimulate demand for data plan purchases. On the other hand, fring also will supplant and replace some amount of text messaging, at some point.

Mobile Web: Falling Walls

The Internet has proven problematic for communications providers in any number of ways. Aside from mobility, the Internet and private IP services provide the foundation for most growth initiatives. Without it, there would be no demand for broadband access services, music downloads, video downloads and streaming, videoconferencing or Web services.

On the other hand, IP-based services also allow creation of services outside the traditional service provider walled gardens, creating competition for captive provider services. As a rule, IP also lowers the cost, and therefore the retail price, of just about any communications, content or information service.

So it is no surprise that wireless providers have mixed feelings about wider use of mobile instant messaging services that compete, at least in part, with lucrative text messaging services.

By the end of 2013, as many as 24 percent of mobile consumers will be using mobile IM services, say researchers at Forrester Research. That likely will cannibalize some amount of text messaging and shift brand awareness towards the IM providers (Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, AOL) rather than mobile carriers.

Teens IM; Adults Send Email

About 25 percent of surveyed respondents send IMs from their cell phones, including one in three (32 percent) teens, according to the second annual AP-AOL Instant Messaging Trends Survey.

Keyboards make a difference, it seems. So do social networking services and the IM providers themselves, all of which now support IM-over-mobile capabilities. All of the major instant messaging services also let users have their instant messages forwarded directly to their cell phones when they're on-the-go. In addition, IM users are instant messaging from within their social networking profiles.

Workplace use also is becoming commonplace. More than one in four (27 percent) users say they use instant messaging at work. Further, half of at-work IM users say that instant messaging makes them more productive at work, a 25 percent increase over last year.

More than half (55 percent) of teen IM users have used instant messaging to get help with their homework. This is a 17 percent increase over last year. Meanwhile, 22 percent of teens say they have sent an IM to ask for or accept a date.

Forty-three percent of teen IM users say they have used instant messaging to say something they would not say to someone in person. Teenage girls are more likely than boys to do so. Nearly half of teenage girls surveyed have used instant messaging to say something they would not say in person, compared with just over a third of teenage boys.

Teens today are more likely to upload photos (42 percent in 2007 vs. 34 percent in 2006) while instant messaging. They are less likely to conduct online research for school (57 percent vs. 63 percent) or update their blog or social profile (33 percent vs. 42 percent) while sending IMs.

Nearly three in four teens (70 percent) and one in four adults (24 percent) send more instant messages than emails.

IM users tend to engage in multiple online activities while sending instant messages. Checking email is the most popular activity among eight in ten adult and teen IM users. After email, adult IM users most often conduct online searches (49 percent), while teens say they like to research homework assignments online (57 percent).

Nearly four in five (79 percent) at-work IM users say they have used instant messaging in the office to take care of personal matters. One in five (19 percent) IM users say they send more instant messages than emails to their co-workers and colleagues.

Google Buying Skype?

So the latest rumor is that Google is trying to buy Skype. While the move makes a certain sense, this might be a trial balloon of the sort often floated by investment bankers eager to get some deal fees.

Mobile IM Use Increasing

According to the second annual AP-AOL Instant Messaging Trends Survey, 25 percent of respondents send instant messages from their mobile phones, including 32 percent teens.

In addition, IM users are instant messaging from within their social networking profiles.

More than 27 percent of users say they use instant messaging at work. Further, half of at-work IM users say that instant messaging makes them more productive at work, a 25 percent increase over last year.

More than half (55 percent) of teen IM users have used instant messaging to get help with their homework. This is a 17 percent increase over last year. Meanwhile, 22 percent of teens say they have sent an IM to ask for or accept a date.

Forty-three percent of teen IM users say they have used instant messaging to say something they would not say to someone in person. Teenage girls are more likely than boys to do so. Nearly half of teenage girls surveyed have used instant messaging to say something they would not say in person, compared with just over a third of teenage boys.

Nearly three in four teens (70 percent) and one in four adults (24 percent) send more instant messages than emails.

Multi-tasking remains very popular, as IM users tend to engage in multiple online activities while sending instant messages. Checking email is the most popular activity among eight in ten adult and teen IM users. After email, adult IM users most often conduct online searches (49 percent), while teens say they like to research homework assignments online (57 percent).

Nearly four in five (79 percent) at-work IM users say they have used instant messaging in the office to take care of personal matters. One in five (19 percent) IM users say they send more instant messages than emails to their co-workers and colleagues.

MySpace Adds Skype

MySpace will offer one-click Skype service to its 110 million users, beginning with users in 20 countries in November. MySpace will share revenue from the deal with Skype.

PC-to-PC phone calls will be free, with fee-based personal phone number, voice mail, call forwarding and calls to public network devices or mobile handsets.

More than 25 million MySpace users already have installed the My Space IM program, which will be Skype enhanced.

Users who set their MySpace profile to "private" won't receive a Skype call from someone who is not on their friend list. Users may also selectively add individuals to their Skype personal contact list, and any call can be blocked at any time.

Aside from potential commercial benefits for Skype and MySpace, the move contributes to a trend: embedding of communications inside popular applications and experiences.

BT Gets Jabber

Jabber, Inc. BT Group has selected the Jabber Extensible Communications Platform (Jabber XCP™) to provide instant messaging for BT's 21st Century Network (21CN) program. Jabber will license software to BT for consumer, government, and enterprise users worldwide. In addition, the engagement between BT and Jabber includes consulting and development services which will fully integrate the Jabber XCP platform into BT’s common capabilities network.

Integrating Jabber XCP will allow BT to extend messaging across applications and services, providing BT customers with a centralized view of message routing, one-to-one IM, group chat, offline messages, message history, file transfer, and interoperability with other messaging systems such as Yahoo!, MSN, Google, and AOL.

The 21CN program, BT Group’s ongoing network transformation project, will replace the United Kingdom’s incumbent Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) with an Internet Protocol (IP) system while facilitating additional services such as on-demand interactive television, mobile television, and mobile radio.

Friendvox Will Unify IM Boxes: No Download

I realize there are other ways to federate instant messaging clients. But it will be nice to do so without adding one more client. Hopefully this Facebook app will install and work as simply as most other Facebook apps. Sept. 28 is the expected launch.

Defanged Skype

For all the fear Skype and other IM-based and peer to peer voice applications and services have created in the broader service provider industry, Skype seems to have crested. Skype still has lots of registered users, but they don't seem to be calling and using Skype chat as much as they used to.

Remember the concern municipal Wi-Fi networks raised just two years ago? Telcos and cable companies were worried muni Wi-Fi would cannibalize cable modem and Digital Subscriber Line services. And dare we even mention Vonage and other independent VoIP providers.

In fact, the only threat that really has materialized is cable companies. At least in North America, cable companies have emerged as the most serious threat to wireline voice and broadband Internet access revenue streams. Everything else essentially has remained a flea bite.

On the video and audio content side, remember the hackles BitTorrent and Kazaa raised? Now we have iTunes, Joost and a legal BitTorrent working with content owners.

So what conclusions should one draw from all of this? Probably that "disrupting" powerful incumbents is going to be much harder than attackers once had believed. Bandwidth exchanges thought they'd reshape interconnection. Competitive local exchange carriers thought they'd capture a goodly portion of the wireline voice market. Independent DSL providers thought they'd catch the telcos sleeping. Internet Service Providers thought the same about dial-up.

Turns out incumbents have more resiliency than anybody might have thought.

New Yahoo! Mail Launches

Yahoo! Mail has launched in the U.S. market. The updated former email client expands the Web mail service into a "social communication" tool, adding the ability to send text messages to cellphones directly from e-mail. The latest update also illustrates a trend: "communication" and "content" apps are blurring and blending. At the same time, communications are shifting, in part, into the context of social networking sites, where communications is a "background" feature always available, and where the current willingness and ability to communicate is known to each social network "buddy."

Yahoo! also has tweaked the interface to make it easier for people to go back and forth between email, instant messaging and text messaging, and to access content from inside the client itself.

The new service includes two real-time communication features that are the first of their kind from a leading Web mail service. These include the ability to send free text messages from Yahoo! Mail to mobile phone numbers in the US, Canada, India, and the Philippines, and the ability to send instant messages (IM) from Yahoo! Mail to members of the world's largest combined IM community, including users of Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger2.

The new Yahoo! Mail enables people to select how they want to communicate with their online contacts: by e-mail, instant message or text message to a mobile phone number.

U.S. users now can right click on underlined dates, names and keywords within messages and take additional action, such as adding events directly to their Yahoo! Calendars, adding friends to their Contacts, immediately viewing a Yahoo! Map of an address or performing a Web search on a keyword.

Yahoo! says the client will operate with the speed and responsiveness of a desktop application. A co-branded version of the new Yahoo! Mail will also be available in the fall to customers using the following broadband Internet services: AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet, Verizon Yahoo! and Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet. The new Yahoo! Mail will be available this fall to Yahoo! Small Business Mail users as well.

Linked In is Like Email; Facebook is Like IM

I've never been a fan of LinkedIn (I'm not a "head hunter," and it undoubtedly is a useful tool for people who do that for a living). It might be a nice utility for updating contact information for a small subset of the people you actually know and communicate with. Beyond that I've never had occasion to use it.

Facebook seems like a better version of LinkedIn, though. I was able to get my son's new address when he went back to NYU without using LinkedIn. To be sure, the information wasn't pushed to me. I had to go view his Facebook page. But I got what I needed without emailing or calling.

So why is LinkedIn like email? It's a tool "older" people use for work. Why is Facebook like IM? It's a tool "younger" people (and increasing numbers of "not so young") use to keep up with other people they actually care about. In some important ways, IM also is a "richer" experience, as Facebook is.

Yoomba Hits 500,000 Users

Yoomba Ltd. says it now has 500,000 uses since officially launching about a month ago.

Yoomba’s peer-to-peer application sits on top of every email network and turns any email address into a phone or instant messenger. Once Yoomba is activated buttons appear inside a user’s chosen email application, providing one-click access to talk to friends, family or colleagues around the world and on any network for free.

It works, though users may notice some slowdown of their email client. That, at least, is what seems to happen when Yoomba runs over Microsoft Office.

Free Version of CommuniGate Pronto! Now Available

CommuniGate Systems has two new initiatives for free IP-based communications addressing consumers, SOHO and very small business uers. CommuniGate Systems is offering free versions of its Flash-based client Pronto! and the CommuniGate Pro Internet Communications platform.

CommuniGate’s new portal, www.TalktoIP.com, gives consumers a free live account of Pronto!, a flash based user interface that integrates e-mail, calendaring and secure IM in a single dashboard. Users can create their individual accounts @TalktoIP.com in just a few simple steps.

In addition, the CommuniGate Pro Community Edition is available for a complimentary download giving up to five users free full-service accounts installable on any computer or server inside their home or small business.

The product is compatible with any operating system—Windows XP, Windows Server Edition, Apple OSX, and Linux. The Community Edition allows small businesses and home users to enjoy the power of a carrier-grade technology through a simple and easy-to-manage package for e-mail, IM, and VoIP technologies for free, the company says.

I asked about Vista support and haven't heard back, yet. I suspect Vista support is not yet available, so though I would love to try it out, I will have to wait.

The Community Edition provides email, groupware, VoIP, IM(SIP/Simple & XMPP), a virtual PBX with free CG/PL application source code, conferencing server, voice mail and mobility support, the company says.

CommuniGate Pro Community Edition can be downloaded at www.communigate.com, or for the online live version visit www.talktoip.com to get a free account.

Business IM Use at 26 Percent

AOL’s third survey of instant messaging use shows IM in the workplace has grown. About 26 percent of surveyed businesspeople say they use IM at work.

At-work IM users now send IMs to communicate with colleagues (58 percent), to get answers and make business decisions (49 percent) and even to interact with clients or customers (28 percent). Twelve percent have used IM at work to avoid a difficult in-person conversation, AOL says.

Business and at-work users say they use IM because it “enables me to keep up with family and friends (47 percent). IM also “helps me to stay in touch with people I normally wouldn't be in regular contact with (43 percent).

About 38 percent say IM “helps me to get more done each business day.” About a quarter say IM is useful because it “enables me to check in on my children, providing peace of mind.”

For working moms and dads, IM’s impact is higher than the national average. In fact, 83 percent say that their day-to-day business lives have benefited from instant messaging, AOL says.

Some 11 percent say IM enhances productivity enough that they “leave the office earlier.”

Among those who use instant messaging for business purposes, 13 percent say they have their IM screen name printed on their business card, while six percent say they write it on the business cards they exchange. About 26 percent of polled New Yorkers have their IM screen names printed on their business cards.

Enterprise IM Shift: What to Do with the PBX?

Though we take it for granted that businesses "must" use a business phone system, that might be quite so true in just several years. In fact, Gartner predicts that by the end of 2011, IM will be the de facto tool for voice, video and text chat at the largest global enterprises.

Gartner estimates that 95 percent of workers in leading global organizations will be using IM as their primary interface for real-time communications by 2013. If that proves correct, we may now be witnessing the last wave of business phone system upgrades, as lucrative as the IP phone business, in its managed, hosted and premises-based incarnations, now appears to be.

There are other possible changes in store. Voice has been a one-to-one sort of communications pattern; mostly real time but with an ever-increasing asynchronous format. But with wikis, blogs, Plaxo, Facebook and other tools with a social and "push" updating capability, more forms of communication shift to a one-to-many, asynchronous mode.

One sort of "broadcasts" what one is doing, working on or needing help with, and the network just sort of responds as appropriate. Not good for control freaks, the ego-obsessed, the self-absorbed or mildly incompetent. People who are more respected, more trusted, more helpful, more knowledgeable and open will get more help than those who are in some significant ways "non-social." Winners and losers will be produced by the shift of communication modes.

As AOL's third IM survey shows, "everybody" now uses IM in their "consumer" life roles. The issue is how that will play out in the business context.

And though one might not yet see the change in the small business market, IM systems have moved from the fringe to become a key part of an enterprise’s collaboration infrastructure and increasingly are displacing existing forms of communications from ad hoc telephone calls and emails to pre-planned meetings and video conferences, says Gartner.

For many knowledge workers, instant messaging (IM) is as critical as having access to a telephone or to e-mail and enterprises that haven’t already done so should start incorporating IM into their critical business processes immediately, say analysts at Gartner.

“Although consumer IM use has been predominant in business, we expect penetration levels for enterprise grade IM to rise from around 25 percent currently to nearly 100 percent by the end of the decade,” said David Mario Smith, Gartner research analyst.

80% of Mobile Calls Go to Just 4 People

"Although mobile phones make it easier to keep in regular touch, a typical user spends 80 percent of his or her time communicating with just four other people," says Stefana Broadbent, an anthropologist with the User Adoption Lab at Swisscom. Think of it as the long tail of communications.
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Broadbent also says different channels get used for distinct reasons. Mobile calls are for last-minute coordination. Texting is for “intimacy, emotions and efficiency.” E-mail is to exchange pictures, documents and music. IM and VoIP calls are “continuous channels”, open in the background while people do other things.
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Also, you won't be surprised by this finding, but texting is on the increase. “Users are showing a growing preference for semi-synchronous writing over synchronous voice,” says Broadbent.

And though enterprise IT managers might not like the idea, private communications are invading the workplace. Workers expect to be plugged into their social networks while at work, whether by email, IM or mobile phone.
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Doesn't Qualify as a Headset

So we won't be sumbitting this to Jajah's "ditch your headset" contest. Besides, my granddaughter wouldn't want the Jajah T-shirt in any case. It would have to be pink, and illustrated with horses. My wife wouldn't be caught dead wearing a headset, it goes almost without saying. If I really want to know whether some new innovation is thoroughly mass market, she's the market sample. She wouldn't intentionally use VoIP; doesn't use instant messaging or SMS, either. Will not check email at home after work, for any reason. Does think the iPhone is worth owning. That's significant.