links for 2007-07-26
July 26, 2007 | Comments-
Andrew Bud of mBlox on flat-rate data in the short and medium-term for mobile telcos
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Not sure I agree: in a capitalistic society anything done is (technically) market-driven. I like the idea of ad-funding coming to mobile, but it's a model transplanted from the fixed internet, which had no micropayment mechanism (i.e. PSMS) from day 1.
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Consensual hallucinations and project management
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"Gianic says it's also important to provide some fast, if minor, successes to help rebuild team morale. "Identify some quick wins to help the team feel the project is getting back on track""
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"Will there be a time when it's no longer possible to have a very separate work and home life in our mobile/web ten point seven and a half world?". I think some of us are already there...
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Lovely
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Excellent survey. These guys have a fantastic product, making the previously impossible, possible :)
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"it’s going to attract a hell of a lot of competition from people who you didn’t have to compete with before... Frequently while you’re still laughing about how horribly they’re going to fail when they realize how difficult your industry is. "
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"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction"
Mobile designers
July 25, 2007 | CommentsA reminder - we're still looking for a permanent senior designer and/or freelancers with mobile experience to join us here at FP. We're exceptionally busy at the moment, so if you fancy coming to sunny Brighton and working on (a) interaction and visual design for an increasing number of consumer-facing mobile apps and WAP sites, plus (b) prototype and proof-of-concepts for some really smart, interesting clients... email recruitment at futureplatforms dot com with a CV.
links for 2007-07-25
July 25, 2007 | Commentslinks for 2007-07-24
July 24, 2007 | Comments-
"Recruit a party of adventurers from your household or office, and whenever one of you completes a chore, you can log it and claim XP."
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"Men over 40 are now a minority as a constantly connected generation of 25-35 year old men and women are beginning to ignore other typical site categories in favour of virtual socialising."
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Solid thinking from Rui, as ever.
I-mode shutting down in the UK
July 23, 2007 | CommentsHelen writes about why I-mode failed in the UK. I'd add two reasons to her list:
- Handsets were rare and often rubbish. The little NEC device is a classic example of what I wrote about in my Cocoon review: lovely on the outside, absolutely appalling on the inside. I think it had 3 different ways to do messaging, all with different menu structures: a canonical example of Asian handset manufacturers failing to do UIs appropriate for Europe. Other handsets were better, but the NEC one was one of two at launch: first impressions last.
- O2 didn't commit fully to I-mode, promoting I-mode alongside O2 Active without any clarity on why customers might choose one over the other (or opt to migrate). The end result was that whilst O2s customer base is massively predisposed towards mobile content, its I-mode customer base was tiny (we've run services on the portals of both and the difference was staggering). I don't know of any other operators who ran I-mode alongside competing mobile data services, does anyone else?
A shame in a way - it would've been nice, as someone working at the content end of the industry, to see a service based on more favourable revenue shares work out - but as Helen says: it was too late.