SMS Packaging Like Long Distance

Text messaging packaging is starting to look like long distance used to, in some ways. In other ways, the packaging is starting to resemble voice usage packaging.

As per-message fees rise to the 20 cents a message rate for casual use, it makes sense to buy a bucket of minutes. That's a concept similar to the "presubscribed carrier" system for long distance calling in the U.S. wired telephony market. If users didn't pick a carrier, and use long distance on a "casual" basis, those users got socked with fairly expensive charges for used minutes.

Picking a carrier of record for long distance typically meant lower per-minute prices. With the rise of VoIP unlimited calling plans and "buckets of minutes" in the mobile market, that is less an issue than it used to be.

Text messaging, though, is moving that way. Carriers want users to upgrade to buckets, so pricing casual use at a high rate is one way to encourage that behavior.

In another sense, the new packaging also is similar to the voice bucket plans now used in the mobile industry. Usage above the bucketed amount incurs hefty additional usage fees. So people have incentive to buy bigger buckets than they think they will need as insurance against payment of those usage fees.

Text message pricing now has moved that way as well. The other effect is to increase the value of any unlimited texting plans.

One thing is clear enough: the highest revenue-per-bit service in the U.S. market is text messaging.

C Titles Prefer Web

According to an online study from Forbes.com and Gartner, the Internet continues to be the most influential and important source of business information for C-Level executives around the world, at 67%.

This number has increased 37% since 2004. At the same time, C-Level executives, citing newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal as their main source of business information, has decreased 36% since 2004.

The number of C-Level executives who prefer the Internet first thing in the morning has increased 22% since 2004, while those who prefer to read the newspaper first thing in the morning has declined 11% over the same time  period, the survey suggests.

HTTP is the Long Term Issue, Not P2P

Though it is peer to peer traffic that currently has network engineers concerned, HTTP traffic rapidly is surpassing P2P in volume, driven by the amount of video being viewed in a Web context.

Open Road for Open Source

Open source now is mainstream in the enterprise environment and in the Web environment. So it is not too surprising that open source now is emerging in a big way in the mobile market.

It isn't simply Android or Linux. It also with a couple years will include Symbian.

If one is looking for innovation, the mobile market is among the best places to watch. No devices or experiences are as customizable as mobiles are. No devices get replaced quite so often. No devices are so well adapted to applications that are "always on."

A Dramatic Change in Core Functionality

What is the core value of enterprise application? What is the core value for any PC application used by consumers? In times past, one might have answered "productivity" for an enterprise. In the consumer space, entertainment probably rivals productivity.

And though those might still be the right answers going forward, there's something new afoot. How are productivity and entertainment realized?

Increasingly by use of social and communications mechanisms, ranging from email, messaging, downloads, uploads, managed and hosted services, cloud computing and social networking.

Software increasingly works because it is connected to other software and other people. In some real sense, even when productivity or entertainment is the "value," value is realized only in the form of communications and connected computing.

As Bill Gates steps from history's computing stage, that's the observation that occurs. Bill Gates deserves thanks for personifying the "PC era." Maybe we don't have a name yet for what is coming, or any single person, company or application to define it.

Who could forget Time magazine naming the "PC" the person of the year? Who thinks it will be so easy to tag what is coming?

Why People Miss 30-50% of Calls

According to studies sponsored by Nokia, people who carry their mobile in their pockets sometimes or always miss 30 percent of inbound calls.

People who carry mobiles in their handbags sometimes or always miss half of all their inbound calls. That's reason enough for mobile providers and device manufacturers to investigate other ways of distributing the inbound call function.

It's hard enough to connect with a person when busy and unavailable to speak immediately. It's even harder now that so much voice traffic has shifted to mobile methods. Now, even when a person is available, calls are missed simply because the "alert" function has failed.

Some of us try to get around this problem by putting devices into "vibrate" mode. That works well enough until the phone is out of the pocket and sitting on a desk someplace. Then we forget that there won't be an audible tone--and we miss calls that way.

Three Screen Ads: Heat More than Light

At least some tier one service providers have high hopes for advertising spend based on targeting techniques and availability on three screens (TV, PC, mobile).

You see huge numbers around online ad spending, mobile ad spending or targeted ad spending. Nobody knows what will happen, except that share will continue to shift from existing media to online and mobile.

It doesn't seem so clear to me that new ad revenues will be transforming for either cable or telco providers, though.

Cable has been at the ad game for quite some time, and the overwhelming amount of money made by ca cable operators comes from recurring services.

In fact, cable modem and voice services already surpass total ad revenues. As a new revenue stream, it's important, to be sure.

The issue is how significant targeted advertising can be, when location and other attributes are easy to assimilate as part of the placement decision. If history provides any guidance, the answer will be "far less than you think."