Google About To Launch Website Mobilizer "GOMO"

Google is preparing to launch a new service called GOMO that creates "mobilized" websites on demand. Mobile ads are an important revenue stream for Google, so much so that it offers a range of free tools to create mobile versions of existing websites. 


In addition to all these free services for mobilizing sites, Google is incentivizing good mobile content with its ad programs and even punishing sites that aren't mobile-friendly. Google is changing its AdWords program to reward mobile-optimized sites and adding +1 buttons to mobile ads.

Google About To Launch Website Mobilizer GOMO

Africa leads in mobile money deployment as users hit over 40 million | Mobile Money Africa

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) says Africa is leading the trend with 51 mobile money systems in place, and as many as 37 of the deployments being in least developed countries (LDCs). Africa leads in mobile money

According to data from the GSM Association, some 109 such deployments had been implemented as of April 2011, spanning all developing regions. Only 11 of these are in developed countries, for perhaps logical reasons. 


Mobile payments systems that allow people to use their mobiles as a payment mechanism make the most sense in regions where banking and payments infrastructure is relatively undeveloped.

Africa is leading the trend with 51 mobile money systems in place, and as many as 37 of the deployments are in least developed countries, says the UNCTAD report.

Three broad categories of services now are coming to market. Money transfer services (domestic and/or international) are one type of application.

Payment services (for airtime top-ups, bills, salaries, and other goods and services) are a second type of application.

Use of mobiles to support financial services (savings, credit, insurance) are the third major type of application. Domestic money transfers, airtime and bill payments are the three most common services currently offered. You can view the report here. 

Mobile Content in the Shopping Process

Brands now have to create and distribute content available "for free" when and where customers need it on social media platforms. The other corollary is that brands have to avoid  "pushing" promotional information when consumers are looking for answers.


While marketers like to use every media channel to deliver marketing promotions, you must understand consumers' shopping-related needs have evolved.

They now want and access information before, during, and after they make a purchase. 


With U.S. smartphone usage at 40 percent, it's critical to offer customers the information they want and need wherever they are in the purchase cycle and physically (since they may be in your store or your competitor's).

Social Media and Shopping

Gartner Says Cloud Banking Can Drive 'Creative Destruction' in the Banking Industry

A rapid shift in attitude towards cloud banking is happening within the financial services industry, according to Gartner. 


A Gartner survey found that cloud is the top priority for global financial services CIOs and that 39 percent of those surveyed expect that more than half of all their transactions will be supported via cloud infrastructure and software as a service (SaaS) by 2015.


In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), 44 percent of FS CIOs expect that more than half of all their institutions' transactions will be supported via cloud infrastructure by 2015 and 33 percent of them expect that the majority of transactions will be processed via SaaS by 2015. Gartner Says Cloud Banking Can Drive 'Creative Destruction' in the Banking Industry:


“Early cloud adoption, especially in the FS sectors, may have been limited to non-core areas and proofs of concept, but it is set to go mainstream, moving the heart of the business, transaction origination and processing, into the cloud,” said Peter Redshaw, managing vice president at Gartner. “Cloud banking should be innovative, dedicated to this industry and transformative.”



As with most cloud initiatives, cloud banking might be disruptive. It can provide the ability for attackers or defenders to try completely new services and processes, such as reverse auctions and third-party core banking systems, for example. 


Successful new cloud services can displace the existing and dominant process for design, distribution or transacting in a disruptive way, rather than just incrementally improving them, says Redshaw. 

As banks progressively replace people in the value chain with algorithmic operations (AOs) to run processes and make decisions, their intellectual property increasingly resides in these algorithms. The value of people is not in running operations but in improving the AOs, Redshaw argues. 


At a more prosaic level, cloud banking should lessen investment in bank data centers. Data center investments affected

Android Was The Only OS That Grew Share In Last Quarter

Android is the only platform that has grown over the last year in all the key markets surveyed by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. All the rest of mobile operating systems saw their market shares either stay flat or decline in at least one geography.


The figures, which compile smartphone sales for the last 12 weeks ended October 2, paint a pretty stark picture showing which platform is benefiting most from the growth in smartphone usage by consumers.

Taking the markets of Australia, Brazil, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain and the U.S., the Android platform grew its share of smartphone sales anywhere between 19.3 percent and 50.4 percent).

Spain took the crown for the biggest amount of Android growth at 50.4 percent. Android Was The Only OS That Grew

Just under half of the U.K. population now owns a smartphone, and Google's mobile operating system Android is powering half of those those being sold,  followed by RIM's BlackBerry models with 22.5% and Apple's iPhone at 18.5 percent, for example.  Android grows share

A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

If you only care about Steve Jobs "the legend" (and I mean that in the best possible way), and not about his personal foibles (he wasn't "perfect."), read Mona Simpon's eulogy. A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs








Stanford University Memorial Church, where the eulogy was delivered.

Are Smartphone Sales Cooling Off?

Are U.S. smart phone sales growing or not? It's a bit of a rhetorical question, as the issue is not whether smart phone sales are growing, but rather whether sales rates are declining, flat or growing. 


Third quarter results might not be a completely-reliable indicator, though. Are Smartphone Sales Cooling Off?

Apple’s third quarter sales, for example, were most likely less than expected due to the coming iPhone 4S, which will have the likely impact of pushing third quarter sales into the fourth quarter.


New product introductions often cause consumers to see what’s coming before they decide to make a purchase.

In the market for Android-based phones, the situation is a little fuzzier. Most data shows healthy Android device growth. Android sales As with the iPhone, consumers wait to for the latest product, so a rapid pace of introductions can confuse consumers and slow sales, temporarily.

One suspects that tablet interest is also partly at work. Right now, tablets are "the" hot consumer product category, and that has to be shifting discretionary income away from smart phones, toward tablets, to some extent.  

Google Offers Partners With 14 Deal Providers

Google has just announced a set of new partnerships with over a dozen niche daily deal providers, which will now be integrated into the Google Offers service, both on the Web and in the Google Shopper mobile applications for iOS and Android.

The new Google Offers partners include Dealfind, DoodleDeals, Gilt City, GolfNow, HomeRun, JuiceInTheCity, kgbdeals, Mamapedia, PlumDistrict, PopSugar Shop, ReachDeals, Active.com Schwaggle, TIPPR, and zozi.


Initially, these deals will be only available to those in the San Francisco Bay area, but this feature will soon arrive to other areas, says Google. Google Offers Partners With 14 Deal Providers 

Some are skeptical about the long-term staying power of "daily deals" services. Certainly not all of the current providers will survive. But if you believe mobile wallet services will succeed, it will be largely on the strength of deals, offers and other rewards consumers receive, as well as the loyalty, retention and customer acquisition retailers benefit from.

Mobile Wallet or Mobile Payment: What Wins in South Africa?

Sparring between contestants in competitive markets is not unusual. Neither are arguments that one or another approaches will not work, or that some approaches are "better." So it isn't unusual that a provider of one method argues the other methods "won't work" in a particular market


Standard Bank operates its own virtual currency "mimoney," which consists of a voucher number delivered to the recipient's cell phone using a text message. SMS. The bank has also teamed up with retailer Spar on a peer-to-peer money transfer service, in which SMS vouchers are redeemed at Spar stores throughout the country. 

Explosive growth in pre-paid money vouchers in South Africa has killed the mobile wallet as a viable payment instrument, says Herman Singh, CEO of Beyond Payments, a unit of Standard Bank.


Singh says that over R100 billion is generated in sales of prepaid airtime and electricity annually, while over 2.5 million money vouchers valued at over R4050 each, are created and redeemed every month in South Africa.

There are a couple of noteworthy angles here, including the use of a virtual currency mechanism and simple text messaging for communications, as well as the prepaid method of payment.

There is, to be sure, a clear argument that the leading developments in developed markets now are different than in developing markets. Mobile wallets and retail payments are bigger in developed markets because "banking and payments" are not "problems," while in developing markets these are key issues.

Likewise, the preferred communication technologies in developed markets are different from developing markets. Text messaging is ubiquitous for users of feature phones that are typical in developing markets. Other technologies are feasible in developed markets where smart phones rapidly are becoming the norm.

As a rule, mobile commerce, including both mobile payments and mobile wallet components, is a bigger issue in developed regions, while mobile banking--in particular remote payment--is a bigger opportunity in developing regions.

Pre-paid vouchers displace mobile wallet demand in South Africa

4G Mobile Backhaul: the Cartoon

This isn't the first time Accedian Networks has produced an animated approach to explaining a pretty esoteric technology topic. But it works. This time, Accedian looks at mobile backhaul for fourth generation mobile networks. 

Also, check out the return on investment calculator here. It's a practical tool for estimating the cost of various solutions, but also is crafted in a visually-appealing way. 

 

Accedian Networks

SureWest Communications Revenue Shows Broadband Foundation

Third quarter earnings reported by SureWest Communications show how the independent telco business has changed over the last decade or two. The composition of revenue is most striking.

Of total quarterly revenue of $63 million, "telecom" services (voice) represented just $15 million, of which consumer voice was just $3.2 million. In other words, all voice-related revenue now represents 24 percent of total revenue. And consumer voice represents just five percent of total revenue.

Business voice accounted for $8.1 million and access fees added $3.6 million. What also is noteworthy is the emergence of new segments within the "business services" category.

Of $13.6 billion in business revenue earned by SureWest Communications in the third quarter of 2011, about 24 percent was earned directly from providing wireless backhaul service.

"Revenue growth from wireless carrier backhaul in the Sacramento market also provided a significant impact, and we are now billing for 280 connections that generate $3.2 million in annualized revenues," said CEO Steve Oldham. "We have contracts in place for 390 connections and anticipate over $4 million in annualized revenues when those sites are active."


Though the sources are different, at AT&T wireline voice is contributing something on the order of 20 percent of total revenue as well. 

SureWest Communications quarterly results

Mobile "Payment" is Shifting to "Wallet"

Bloomberg technology writer Rich Jaroslovsky has been testing the new Google Wallet, and at least for the moment thinks mobile payment and wallets are less about improvements in the payments process, and lots more about the marketing and promotion advantages.

"This is really the secret sauce in mobile payments, because while, yeah, it is kind of a little bit more convenient, that isn't really what's going to get people to use it," he says. "What's going to get people to use it is the possibility that they can save money." Mobile payment more marketing than "payment"


The mobile payments business is starting over, says David W. Schropfer, a partner at Luciano Group. Ironically, as both Isis and the Google Wallet systems now essentially disclaim any interest in revenue from the transaction process, seeking instead to build new businesses based on advertising and loyalty, the “wallet” part of the mobile commerce business now seems to have “substantially slowed mobile commerce development in the rest of the developed world.”
To a large, though not complete extent, “payments” now are taking a back seat to “wallets,” which probably means we are headed for a period where “mobile commerce” becomes the headline phrase, not necessarily “mobile payments.” Mobile payments starting over 

Why Sprint is Capping Tethering

Despite fairly widespread confusion about the matter, Sprint Nextel Corp. is only capping mobile broadband usage by customers using the Wi-Fi hotspot feature. Data consumed directly by Sprint smart phones remains unlimited.


The disparity between smart phone and Wi-Fi hotspot data consumption explains the move.


Sprint and Clearwire Corp.are near an agreement to extend their existing network- sharing agreement for three to five years, Bloomberg said. That would allow Sprint to keep using Clearwire for support of either WiMAX or Long Term Evolution customers. But the contract terms explain the change of retail pricing for tethering. Sprint, Clearwire talk new contract


Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG, said he thinks Sprint will pay Clearwire between $6 and $10 per gigabyte of data, compared with the current charge of about $10, and he believes it will be close to the $6 figure.


Assume a monthly payment by the end user of $60 a month, and a wholesale payment to Clearwire of $6 per gigabyte, or $30. Were a specific end user to consume 10 Gbytes a month, revenue would be $60 and cost would be $60, just for bandwidth. Smart phone data consumption

That's why Sprint changed its tethering plans, in large part, one could argue, though support for the Apple iPhone also likely played an important role in shaping Sprint's thinking. Of course, now that Sprint has negotiated a new contract with Clearwire, the economics will change. 


Under the new deal, Sprint pays Clearwire a flat fee for 4G access, so usage is no longer an issue for Sprint, through the end of 2013, at least.


In the last 12 months (June 2010 to June 2011), the amount of data the average smartphone user consumes per month has grown by 89 percent from 230 Megabytes in the first quarter of 2010 to 435 MBytes in the first quarter of 2011.


The point is that a typical smart phone user consumes 435 Mbytes. A PC user typically consumes gigabytes. At the 80th percentile and below, users consume 500 Mbytes or less each month. In the 60th percentile, users consume 250 Mbytes or less each month.


The point is that the expected "breakage" between wholesale bandwidth cost and retail consumption and pricing is quite larger for a smart phone user, quite a bit less for a Wi-Fi hotspot user.

Internet Drives Capacity Demand

As of 2011, international Internet bandwidth exceeds voice and private network bandwidth by a factor of 400 percent, says TeleGeography.

Given the Internet’s dominant role in bandwidth usage, Internet capacity data is an excellent proxy for overall demand for lit bandwidth on long-haul wholesale networks.

Internet IS bandwidth

YouTube Launching 96 Channels

YouTube is launching 96 new channels, as part of its bid to create more original and professional programming in a context that is familiar and acceptable to advertisers.


The new channels span a variety of genres, initially funded by about $100 million in grants from YouTube to content creators . 96 new YouTube Channels

Here's a look at the formats and positioning of the new channels, which will start to launch in November 2011. Original Channels