Future of Mobile: Tomi Ahonen

Mobile is as different from the internet as TV is different from radio.

All the concepts for TV we have today cannot migrate back to radio, though they did evolve from.

91% of mobile owners keep the phone within 3 feet, 24x7

Mobile is as addictive as smoking cigarettes. Removing mobile phones produces similar withdrawal pains as attempting to stop smoking.

Text-and-driving is more dangerous than stoned or drunk driving.

63% of people are not willing to share their phone with our spouse.

1 in 3 partners snoop inside the phone, mostly when we're in the shower. 10% of people ended relationships after this.

1 in 4 British couples sleeps apart 1 night a week because of their partners addiction to Blackberry, phones, etc.

Mass media are print, recordings, cinema, radio, television, internet, mobile.

What is print doing in a presentation with mobile? In Japan, mobile books sold ¢82m mobile books in 2006. 5/10 best-selling printed books started as mobile books. Books are written on phones using text-messaging, spelling and style.

The internet subsumed media that came before, and added interactivity. Look at Habbo Hotel for an example of a fixed internet service which raised revenue through mobile: by using billing.

Mice Love Rice: a song released for free on the internet. Sold as a ringback tone, raising $22m. Ringback tones have to be enabled by operators.

Don't try to copy the internet: create something new.

Mobile has seven advantages over internet: personal, permanently connected, always carried, built-in payment, present at creative impulse, most accurate audience, captures social context.

Carbon Diem: location-based service tracking how your mobile moves, discovering speed of movement and inferring carbon usage. Young people care more about green issues; for Tomi's generation WW3 was the threat.

Tohato: Japanese snack brand, introduced 2 new snack brands: Satan Jorquia and Habanero. Invited customers to choose a brand and fight the other brand in the "worlds worst war". Gamers joined by scanning a 2d barcode in a bag. Recruiting friends earned promotion in the army - all done via mobile, battles scheduled at 4am, with a 24-hour gaming news channel.

Hoshi-Ichi Maniac: mass participation TV format in Japan, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, knock-out style quiz. 200k live players on the first run.

"Create services that are so amazing that the first time someone uses it, people think they're magic" - e.g. Kamera Jiten, a cameraphone translator which takes photos and translates them English to Japanese.

Comments

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Tom

How did you catch all that? You are magical in taking notes. All the numbers are spot-on, as are all the spellings of the names etc..

Was great also to catch up with you, and as I said, greatly enjoyed your presentation. I posted briefly at Forum Oxford about FOM and your presentation was one that I singled out.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tom Hume]

Cheers Tomi :)