May 25, 2007 at 13:424 mobile killer-applications of the coming year
In this article, I tried to describe the most likely applicants among mobile applications and services for wide distribution in the coming year. This opinion is subjective, sometimes based on some expert opinions, sometimes contradicting them, but based on personal experience, nevertheless, I hope, it is always justified. There were two reasons for writing this review: on the one hand, I wanted to show off on the prospects for the development of mobile services, assess their popularity, on the other hand, think on potential business models, therefore, special emphasis was placed on the commercialization of these applications and services.
1. Mobile messaging
The cost of transmitting 160 characters (in Latin) via SMS costs about 5 cents, transferring 160 bytes via Internet-GPRS is approximately 0.006, that is, 1000 times cheaper! And although it is clear that any messenger along with messages still sends a cloud of service information, constantly requests a change in the status of other users, it is clear that the benefits of using mobile instant messengers are colossal. Moreover, there are already quite a large number of clients working with most popular protocols (from ICQ to Skype) both for Java ( JIMM , mICQ and others) and for Symbian ( Agile Messenger , mobile QIP) But while they remain the inheritance of 7% of innovators, and the rest may be aware of this opportunity, but use it a little and that’s why - usually people from our contact list are online simultaneously with us (for example, at work at night or at home in the evening), other time, we can contact them only by SMS. In order for mobile messaging to compete with SMS, it is necessary first of all to massively promote this opportunity among non-technical people. And it has already begun - recently an advertising campaign of the mobile Mail.ru Agent has begun in the press, and quite correct - the emphasis is on simplicity and cheapness. The second - a paradigm shift in messaging is needed. Now a person writing from a computer and from a mobile phone is in unequal conditions, it is clear that the first one writes several times faster. One of the solutions could be the introduction of a special status (by the way, it has been in MSN Messengere for a long time), which signals that a person uses the messenger from the phone, so he can communicate in a telegraph style. Another is the widespread use of phones with QWERTY-keyboards, which at the same time will not be heavy and bulky. I think that, and another thing the next year.
Who will make money on this: one can easily say who will lose it - mobile operators. While most of the distributed customers are free, but no one bothers to offer some more convenient version for money. For example, I use Agile Messenger, which automatically sends SMS to a two-dollar number once a month, and does not use free QIP, because it is very buggy on my phone. Nothing prevents developers from building third-party mobile services ads there and making money on it.
2. Mobile video
Now everyone is raving about mobile video and TV, this is one of the hottest topics in the industry, but there are few successful commercial models yet. I would venture to suggest that mobile video will evolve in an evolutionary way. Now mobile video exists in two epics: small low-quality video clips downloaded from content providers or from a computer and then distributed via the virus-bluetooth path, and films and TV shows converted for mobile devices (smartphones and smartphones with large screens). And although everyone hopes for 3G, which will accelerate mobile video, I think that it will still develop in the direction of downloading from a computer or viral distribution. Tariffs for data transfer in 3G are unlikely to please users, but the increase in screens, Cheaper memory cards and the further spread of Bluetooth will increasingly increase the size and quality of video clips. Someone will upload music videos and make their own personal mobile MTV, someone will watch the latest Lost or Desperate Housewives series at boring lectures or on the way to work. Most likely, the increase in the number of users of mobile video will be fairly progressive and will not depend on third-generation networks, but rather on the screen size and battery life of the mobile phone. Now the screen size of a modern phone is somewhere around 1.5-2.2 inches. There will be 2.5 (iPod screen) without a significant increase in size - and happiness will come. someone to watch the latest Lost or Desperate Housewives series at boring lectures or on the way to work. Most likely, the increase in the number of users of mobile video will be fairly progressive and will not depend on third-generation networks, but rather on the screen size and battery life of the mobile phone. Now the screen size of a modern phone is somewhere around 1.5-2.2 inches. There will be 2.5 (iPod screen) without a significant increase in size - and happiness will come. someone to watch the latest Lost or Desperate Housewives series at boring lectures or on the way to work. Most likely, the increase in the number of mobile video users will be progressive and will not depend on third-generation networks, but rather on the screen size and battery life of the mobile phone. Now the screen size of a modern phone is somewhere around 1.5-2.2 inches. There will be 2.5 (iPod screen) without a significant increase in size - and happiness will come.
Who will make money on this: and again it seems that no one. However, despite the success of the Russian torrent - services can be assumed that someone suggested to download videos, TV shows and movies in the mobile format with a small payment through sms - this is quite possible to build a small steady-growing business. And if the operators are not greedy with 3G tariffs, they will be able to strongly promote this market in the segment of non-Internet users. And God himself ordered to begin actively trading porn movies, in this format they are much more functional than on the Internet or on DVD :)
3. Mobile VoIP (Voice over IP)
Anyone who has ever talked on the phone via Skype via Wi-Fi (like me :) will say that this is a fantastic feeling. Skype itself is ingenious, because it allows you to talk with a person in another city or country for free, and if you can do it from a regular phone without being tied to a computer with headphones and a microphone, this gives you tremendous freedom and money savings. The necessary conditions for this are: the presence of wi-fi or 3G in the phone (3G is already a lot where, wi-fi so far appears only in business devices and flagships Nokia and SonyEricsson, but the same thing happened with Bluetooth, and with many other technologies ), the widespread use of wi-fi and 3G networks (the first in Moscow is almost no problem, the second can be expected in 2008), and of course the availability and distribution of VoIP clients (one that supports Skype,Fring , Nokia recently announced its collaboration with the Gizmo project , and if Nokia is interested in something, then it will advance it). In the first two or three years, this service will remain the destiny of a small part of innovators and those who need long-distance negotiations, in the future everything will depend on the price of the issue - if calling via VoIP will be easier and still cheaper (wi-fi and 3G traffic yet most of them cost money) than through a mobile operator, the service can be very popular.
Who will make money on this: Oddly enough, mobile operators building 3G networks and developing Wi-Fi, as well as Wi-Fi operators. Of course, operators will lose some of the voice traffic, but most likely this opportunity will encourage people to call other cities and countries more than now, and use a mobile rather than a landline telephone or IP-telephony card.
Also, it is possible that, as in the case of SkypeOut, it will be necessary to call a subscriber who is not in the client for a small amount of money. Well, all the features open to developers of mobile messengers are also available for client developers for mobile VoIP
4. Mobile (photo / video) blogging
Photos or videos taken with a mobile phone camera are still not comparable in quality to soap dishes, but are no longer perceived as horror-horror-horror. The video from the mobile phone flooded with Youtube, photos often flash on blogs - it is clear that there is interest, but it is almost impossible to avoid the layer in the form of a computer, on which you first need to upload photos or videos, and then upload to photo-video hosting. Although operators and third-party developers ( MOPOTO) promote the ability to send photos or videos via MMS, this method is still quite complicated for the average user. You need a “one-button option”, when you need to literally press one button to post content. And here you can move in two directions: firstly, phone manufacturers should integrate this feature into their phones (as it is now possible to immediately "send via MMS", so in the future it will be possible to "post to the blog"). If this does not happen, then special clients will surely appear, allowing you to do this in a semi-automatic mode. Given that interest in microblogging, mllogging and tologging (:))) is huge now - take Twitter and Jaiku , which already have this feature, I think the era of mobile blogging may well come in the next six months.
Who will make money on this: almost everything. Vendors receive a new chip with which you can sell a new model. Operators - additional, though not MMS, but traffic. Blogging platforms - community growth and its capitalization by known methods.
Of course, the list of killer-ap candidates does not end there, there is also mobile MMOGaming, mobile positioning (LBS), mobile widgets and others, but they will most likely be discussed another time.
1. Mobile messaging
The cost of transmitting 160 characters (in Latin) via SMS costs about 5 cents, transferring 160 bytes via Internet-GPRS is approximately 0.006, that is, 1000 times cheaper! And although it is clear that any messenger along with messages still sends a cloud of service information, constantly requests a change in the status of other users, it is clear that the benefits of using mobile instant messengers are colossal. Moreover, there are already quite a large number of clients working with most popular protocols (from ICQ to Skype) both for Java ( JIMM , mICQ and others) and for Symbian ( Agile Messenger , mobile QIP) But while they remain the inheritance of 7% of innovators, and the rest may be aware of this opportunity, but use it a little and that’s why - usually people from our contact list are online simultaneously with us (for example, at work at night or at home in the evening), other time, we can contact them only by SMS. In order for mobile messaging to compete with SMS, it is necessary first of all to massively promote this opportunity among non-technical people. And it has already begun - recently an advertising campaign of the mobile Mail.ru Agent has begun in the press, and quite correct - the emphasis is on simplicity and cheapness. The second - a paradigm shift in messaging is needed. Now a person writing from a computer and from a mobile phone is in unequal conditions, it is clear that the first one writes several times faster. One of the solutions could be the introduction of a special status (by the way, it has been in MSN Messengere for a long time), which signals that a person uses the messenger from the phone, so he can communicate in a telegraph style. Another is the widespread use of phones with QWERTY-keyboards, which at the same time will not be heavy and bulky. I think that, and another thing the next year.
Who will make money on this: one can easily say who will lose it - mobile operators. While most of the distributed customers are free, but no one bothers to offer some more convenient version for money. For example, I use Agile Messenger, which automatically sends SMS to a two-dollar number once a month, and does not use free QIP, because it is very buggy on my phone. Nothing prevents developers from building third-party mobile services ads there and making money on it.
2. Mobile video
Now everyone is raving about mobile video and TV, this is one of the hottest topics in the industry, but there are few successful commercial models yet. I would venture to suggest that mobile video will evolve in an evolutionary way. Now mobile video exists in two epics: small low-quality video clips downloaded from content providers or from a computer and then distributed via the virus-bluetooth path, and films and TV shows converted for mobile devices (smartphones and smartphones with large screens). And although everyone hopes for 3G, which will accelerate mobile video, I think that it will still develop in the direction of downloading from a computer or viral distribution. Tariffs for data transfer in 3G are unlikely to please users, but the increase in screens, Cheaper memory cards and the further spread of Bluetooth will increasingly increase the size and quality of video clips. Someone will upload music videos and make their own personal mobile MTV, someone will watch the latest Lost or Desperate Housewives series at boring lectures or on the way to work. Most likely, the increase in the number of users of mobile video will be fairly progressive and will not depend on third-generation networks, but rather on the screen size and battery life of the mobile phone. Now the screen size of a modern phone is somewhere around 1.5-2.2 inches. There will be 2.5 (iPod screen) without a significant increase in size - and happiness will come. someone to watch the latest Lost or Desperate Housewives series at boring lectures or on the way to work. Most likely, the increase in the number of users of mobile video will be fairly progressive and will not depend on third-generation networks, but rather on the screen size and battery life of the mobile phone. Now the screen size of a modern phone is somewhere around 1.5-2.2 inches. There will be 2.5 (iPod screen) without a significant increase in size - and happiness will come. someone to watch the latest Lost or Desperate Housewives series at boring lectures or on the way to work. Most likely, the increase in the number of mobile video users will be progressive and will not depend on third-generation networks, but rather on the screen size and battery life of the mobile phone. Now the screen size of a modern phone is somewhere around 1.5-2.2 inches. There will be 2.5 (iPod screen) without a significant increase in size - and happiness will come.
Who will make money on this: and again it seems that no one. However, despite the success of the Russian torrent - services can be assumed that someone suggested to download videos, TV shows and movies in the mobile format with a small payment through sms - this is quite possible to build a small steady-growing business. And if the operators are not greedy with 3G tariffs, they will be able to strongly promote this market in the segment of non-Internet users. And God himself ordered to begin actively trading porn movies, in this format they are much more functional than on the Internet or on DVD :)
3. Mobile VoIP (Voice over IP)
Anyone who has ever talked on the phone via Skype via Wi-Fi (like me :) will say that this is a fantastic feeling. Skype itself is ingenious, because it allows you to talk with a person in another city or country for free, and if you can do it from a regular phone without being tied to a computer with headphones and a microphone, this gives you tremendous freedom and money savings. The necessary conditions for this are: the presence of wi-fi or 3G in the phone (3G is already a lot where, wi-fi so far appears only in business devices and flagships Nokia and SonyEricsson, but the same thing happened with Bluetooth, and with many other technologies ), the widespread use of wi-fi and 3G networks (the first in Moscow is almost no problem, the second can be expected in 2008), and of course the availability and distribution of VoIP clients (one that supports Skype,Fring , Nokia recently announced its collaboration with the Gizmo project , and if Nokia is interested in something, then it will advance it). In the first two or three years, this service will remain the destiny of a small part of innovators and those who need long-distance negotiations, in the future everything will depend on the price of the issue - if calling via VoIP will be easier and still cheaper (wi-fi and 3G traffic yet most of them cost money) than through a mobile operator, the service can be very popular.
Who will make money on this: Oddly enough, mobile operators building 3G networks and developing Wi-Fi, as well as Wi-Fi operators. Of course, operators will lose some of the voice traffic, but most likely this opportunity will encourage people to call other cities and countries more than now, and use a mobile rather than a landline telephone or IP-telephony card.
Also, it is possible that, as in the case of SkypeOut, it will be necessary to call a subscriber who is not in the client for a small amount of money. Well, all the features open to developers of mobile messengers are also available for client developers for mobile VoIP
4. Mobile (photo / video) blogging
Photos or videos taken with a mobile phone camera are still not comparable in quality to soap dishes, but are no longer perceived as horror-horror-horror. The video from the mobile phone flooded with Youtube, photos often flash on blogs - it is clear that there is interest, but it is almost impossible to avoid the layer in the form of a computer, on which you first need to upload photos or videos, and then upload to photo-video hosting. Although operators and third-party developers ( MOPOTO) promote the ability to send photos or videos via MMS, this method is still quite complicated for the average user. You need a “one-button option”, when you need to literally press one button to post content. And here you can move in two directions: firstly, phone manufacturers should integrate this feature into their phones (as it is now possible to immediately "send via MMS", so in the future it will be possible to "post to the blog"). If this does not happen, then special clients will surely appear, allowing you to do this in a semi-automatic mode. Given that interest in microblogging, mllogging and tologging (:))) is huge now - take Twitter and Jaiku , which already have this feature, I think the era of mobile blogging may well come in the next six months.
Who will make money on this: almost everything. Vendors receive a new chip with which you can sell a new model. Operators - additional, though not MMS, but traffic. Blogging platforms - community growth and its capitalization by known methods.
Of course, the list of killer-ap candidates does not end there, there is also mobile MMOGaming, mobile positioning (LBS), mobile widgets and others, but they will most likely be discussed another time.