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I started thinking about all the hot water Google got into with regards to the launching their different services, such as Google Street View, Google Books, and Google News. Google worked on each project, appropriated content that may or may not have been theirs to take, and then released the project, only to receive responses, “Hey, you didn’t ask me first if you could take that.”
Here in the U.S. ISPs and phone companies are not liable for content transmitted over its networks. Meaning, they don’t have to monitor every single thing that comes through and make sure it goes through an approval process. If someone brings legally objectionable content (e.g. violated intellectual property rights) to their attention, then they’re required to remove it. But if they had to do all the monitoring themselves, there’s no way the Internet could grow to the level it does today. The task would be too unsurmountable.
But it turns out in Italy, that’s not the case as three Google employees were convicted of a reprehensible video of an autistic kid being bullied. When the video was posted in 2006 and it was brought to Google’s attention, they removed it immediately (Read Google’s full account). The employees were not in any way involved in the video at all, it’s just that they happen to work for the company that hosted the video for a brief period of time. Google says it’s going to appeal Italy’s decision.
Verizon just made an announcement that they’re going to be offering free Skype-to-Skype phone calling on its 3G phones starting March, 2010. Even my lame Curve 8330 will be able to make those calls. Similarly, AT&T/iPhone has backed down in its argument against Google Voice and they’ve even opened up the platform for the SlingPlayer to stream video over the device.
Are we living in a topsy turvy world? Carriers are willingly allowing applications go after their core revenue model (phone minutes) or eat up their bandwidth (streaming video). For years, in the age of the “anybody can do anything” Internet, carriers have done an excellent job controlling their network: what goes on it, how people use it, and how they charge for it. With the proliferation of smart phones with direct Internet access that can use VoIP services, access to calling plans that undermines the carriers’ pricing (even free) is just an application download away.
In an app-enabled mobile world how long can carriers hold onto their old pricing mechanism for consumers? They can only block Google Voice and Skype for so long. You remember the old adage, the customer is always right? Well, in this new mobile world, the customer is calling the shots. And if you want to keep them, you better revise your revenue model.
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News just came out today from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that 24 mobile carriers from around the world are going to unite together to produce an international application store called the “Wholesale Applications Community.” It’s an obvious reaction to Apple’s iTunes application store which has a stringent review policy before any application will appear in its online store. For example, Apple has strict rules about pornography and profanity in its applications, but we’ve seen them relax those rules in certain cases.
Can this idea really work? Can 24 carriers along with three device manufacturers operate more smoothly than just a single device manufacturer?
My answer: Good luck.
I’m sure when the announcement was made there were cheers all around. Execs were slapping each other high five and saying to each other, “Watch out Steve Jobs.” And then as soon as everything calmed down, they all said to themselves, “Oh shit.”
I remember attending a computer trade show years ago in Vegas (I believe it was Comdex. Gives you an idea how long ago) and seeing an endless array of portable video players. At the time, the Apple iPod had come out, but it had yet to release a video version of its digital player. I went to talk to a few of the manufacturers of the media players about their devices. After the obvious discussion of how big the hard drive was, the resolution, and the price, I asked what I think is the most important question with media players, “How do you get the movies onto the device?” Everyone I spoke to just said, “Oh, we have software for that.” Did they have a demo of the software? No.
It’s no surprise that none of those media players are around today.
Apple at that time had already proven the successful marriage of device (iPod) and application (iTunes). It was truly simplicity. I remember when I installed my iPod for the first time, I was blown away at the simplicity. It just found all my MP3s and sucked it into the device without any difficulty. It was the best consumer product experience I had ever had. Many competing products claimed, “Oh, you can just bring all your music into our device,” but it was far from simple.
Lenovo Ideapad U1 Hybrid
I made the claim in a previous article (If everybody loves Super Bowl ads, then why don’t advertisers always make Super Bowl-quality ads? on Spark Minute) that all ads during the Super Bowl should have pointed people to a website or some type of social media interaction. In a single 30-second advertisement, I argued that it’s very difficult to introduce a new concept in an ad and then motivate people to purchase.
Prior to social media advertisers solved that dilemma with frequency. There was this theory that if a person simply sees an advertising message three or four times that’s all the motivation they’ll need to purchase. In my early days of advertising (prior to the public proliferation of the Internet) I designed these programs that did regression analysis that showed the success levels of reach and frequency, the two critical variables in traditional advertising campaigns. By early Lotus standards, these simple line charts were state of the art and my analysis really impressed the client. I look back at it now and I’m amazed I wasted my time on so much BS.
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