Famine City

To iPad or not to iPad

The much ballyhooed iPad will be arriving pretty soon and there is a ton to think about with this device. Apple clearly built on their successes and even took a few issues with them into the new product offering. Whether or not you buy this device, it’s a step forward for network computers and lightweight computing. Surprisingly enough, one of the winners with the iPad might be Google (again). The other winner might be higher education. The question is whether or not Apple is taking aim at its future business model, publishing? Finally, if you are a marketer, how you should approach the iPad.

If you said the iPad is an overgrown iPhone and you’d be pretty much on point. The iPad is taking advantage of all the successes that the iPod started creating almost ten years ago. Some of the successes include:

• Capitalizing on a scale user base
• Centralized app store through iTunes: This facilitates an easy way to purchase, install and remove applications on the device.
• Simplified control interface: Controls are highly similar across many applications, in location, modification and configuration. This simplifies usage of the device, which is especially important for the iPhone.
• Centralized developer services: While there may be people pro or con about Apple’s management of the developer resources on the App Store/iTunes, there are very few people that I hear complaining about crashes with core functionality of the phone, web and email when installing new applications. This means they probably have quality control down pretty well.
• GPS services: The device uses A-GPS, assisted GPS, for the ever growing location based service industry.
• Uses many of the same core applications on the device, from iTunes, Safari and email.
• It uses network computing or lightweight computing to its best ability, using and obtaining data for network services as needed instead of loading it onto the hard drive of the device.
• Good battery life.
• Backwards compatibility with your favorite iPhone applications

With that being said, there are some incumbent problems that are also being inherited from the iPhone as well:  

• The AT&T’s G-network coverage is not exactly stellar.
• Lack of Flash support.
• No camera on this device: Rumor has it this might change.
• No video streaming with the device: Streaming may be possible, but local storage probably not a great idea.
• No additional memory option.
• OLED screen: An OLED screen uses much less power and is easier on the eyes.
• Will not run multiple applications simultaneously.
• Lacks support for multiple users, not an issue on the iPhone, but certainly for the iPad. 

While the promise of HTML 5 (don't let it escape you that both Google and Apple contributed to tech specifications) makes the need for Flash non-existent, it’s a miss on the web today. This takes the multimedia capabilities of this device considerably less, think Hulu or Netflix. HTML 5 is still a promise and not ready to deliver to the consumers today. Therefore, not supporting Flash is a huge miss. However, like most things Apple I would expect some type of fix for this to be in the pipeline not long after the release. My suspicion is that when full video is released for places like Netflix and Hulu, it will be a WiFi only service. Today, the rumors have it that the network simply cannot handle the extra load it would create on the network. Again, Apple tends to have some type of “fix” for deficiencies that usually end up profiting their business.

One of the main successes pf the iPhone platform is the lightweight nature of the applications. The iPad will also capitalize on this success. The applications on the iDevices are a graceful mix of utility and marketing quite often. The iPhone personifies application marketing better than any other product/service, sans Google, providing users both service and utility. Look for this trend to continue on the iPad by providing lightweight and network dependent applications that utilize technology better well.

Another exploit for the iPad will be the realization of the network computing dream (at least it is closer). For the 70-80% of consumers that simply need email, word processing, web browsing, search and some multimedia usage, the iPad will handle these services gracefully. The reason why this will work on the iPad vs the netbook is simple: The netbook is so much like a laptop, our consumer expectations and behaviors are the same—we were disappointed when our netbook did not function like our desktop computer. The form and function the iPad provides will set that expectation correctly, providing lightweight network applications efficiently.

When you do think of network computing, perhaps the clear owner of this in the consumer arena is Google. They will also benefit from this device. At the core of the iPad it is a network computing device that relies on networks to be present to really have any level of functionality. They have a suite of applications like, Gmail, Google Docs, Maps, Latitude and Google Search that will be ready to deploy on the iPad the second it ships. Google has mastered the art of creating usable network apps. The iPad will simply add to Google’s scale.

Apple has learned from history. If you want to be indoctrinated with generations to come, you get them when they are learning consumer behaviors like in college. The iPad is going to be a mainstay in higher education institutions. My prediction is there will be adoption at colleges by the fall of 2010. The iPad is a boon for the classroom, especially at the college level where connected classrooms are growing. Better battery life allows the device to make it through an entire academic day. The iPad provides an easy way to interact with connected classrooms—answering polls, comments and such in real time. Remember, engagement doesn’t just happen on your website any more. It’s going to happen in the classroom as well. Students are growing to expect this as part of the classroom experience. Finally academic institutions can begin to control the costs of books which are ridiculously high. Publishers like this because they are finally going to be a hero. They can actually lower the cost of a textbook and keep more of the proceeds from their sales. It’s a win-win for Apple, textbook publishers and higher education. Remember: Students want Apple products. There is an implied equity and purchase path/history. Education was always an equity mainstay for Apple and they are returning to this heritage.

The real question is will Apple change their core business model. The publishing model in terms of applications, music and textbooks might prove to be an easier, more sustainable business than their desktop computing division over time. They simply provide the purchasing mechanism, scale audience and serve as a quality gatekeeper for their platform, making money off the transactions between publisher and consumer. For Apple to continue this model, they’ll need to keep delivering on the elegance of the Apple experience, new innovations every 2-3 years. They have a unique ability to create products people want. I think this is a unique advantage over other ebook platforms. The Apple experience isn’t just in the utility of the product. It starts with the packaging. It’s a bit of a luxury product that delivers at every step of a transaction, three equal parts of elegance, utility and want. Therefore I believe that the iPad will be successful. Apple has transformed the music industry. If they succeed in college publishing, expect magazines and newspapers to quickly follow. In fact, Apple just might save newspapers for a few more years, finally providing them a viable subscription model. Then it’s on to the biggie. Television. If Apple truly enters the television market, looking like a Netflix partnership in my mind, watch out cable companies.

As a marketer and wondering what the iPad means for you? It's easy. Focus on what you do well. Then extend your brand onto the platform. Think of products and services like Spark People, Mint or Pandora. They simply extend their desktop functionality onto your mobile device. It’s a wonderful convergence and a natural extension of their brand today. Like the iPhone, the iPad will continue to dissolve the lines between the mobile web and web. The brands that succeed in this space will be those that actually provide a service or utility on the device. Don’t try to do everything well. Find natural information or service you brand can own on the device and start there.

Follow me on twitter @marty_b

Location based services: please suck less

Last year, Gartner reported some strong potential of location based services. Gartner even claimed the users would more than double from 41-million to over 95-million while revenue would top over $2.2 billion. Being an early integrator, I love the thought of what location based services could and might supply, but I just have one message today: suck less. 

For background, a location based service or LBS, courtesy of Wikipedia A location-based service (LBS) is an information and entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device. LBS services can be used in a variety of contexts, such as health, work, personal life, etc. LBS services include services to identify a location of a person or object, such as discovering the nearest banking cash machine or the whereabouts of a friend or employee. They are an example of telecommunication convergence.

Every year a group of friends and I head out to Las Vegas a week before the Super Bowl. It's a tradition now that we're on a third year. It all started as a hallway conversation and the next thing you now we had 7 guys heading to Vegas the following weekend. On our third year, our group has grown around 20 or so. At twenty people, it becomes harder and harder to manage who is with who and where in Vegas. It's pretty typical for a group to go one place while another goes someplace else. This year we've been trying to plan more than ever since the group has grown. A number of us have been testing out location based services and it as the titles says, sucks. 

What makes this technology near unusable or at the very least very unreliable in Cincinnati? I'll just bullet point a few thoughts here (I've heard my blog posts are too long). 

• It's accuracy is less than perfect. I can be sitting next to my wife, both with iPhones and Google Latitude whipped out. According to the application, we're miles apart. This happens with many people on my friend list. 
• You may say, try another app. It's not the app. Most LBS services on mobile phones, where the real potential lies, typically use the Google Maps technology/algorithm. This includes most of the popular applications like FourSquare, Loopt and Google Latitude. Note: if someone knows this to be untrue, please let me know as I could not locate it from a quick API scan. 
• There are numerous locating methodologies from AGPS (assisted GPS) to WiFi positioning to triangulation, all available on the iPhone. However with my friends and I trying the different apps and phones, the HTC phones seemingly are the worst offenders (thinking they are triangulating). If you're interested in such fanaticism (as I am), you can find a trilateration model here, the suspected iPhone location modeling and a comparison of the locating models here.

Warning: bout to get geeky. 

There is hope. It might not be the technology or the phones,  AGPS or HTC. It might be the cellular network here in Cincinnati for AT&T. This has been the one consistency between everyone that is trying the service with our group of friends. Because of the nature of transmitting that much data, most celluar phone companies use a bit of triangulation on top of the GPS signal. It keeps the cellular provider from having to provide that much data to the phone/network. It also explains why a regular car GPS, which may use between 5-7 satellites is more accurate. The more satellites, the more triangulations and points to do some math, ergo a more accurate location. Therefore, perhaps the accuracy problem for the phone's GPS is the cellular networks. Cincinnati notoriously has one of the worst cellular networks ever. My hope is that Vegas will be more accurate, at least for our trip. 

End geeky explanation. 

If you are a typical consumer, you just want this stuff to work. You don't care how it all works underneath. Just live up to your expectations. You are right. Just work as you intend. Simply put, you want it to know where you are and tell you where your friends/services are located in direct proximity to your existing location. Now that you expect things to know where you are, there's a real service and growing reliance on these services. In other words, it's a burgeoning channel for communicating with consumers. Albeit less than perfect one today, still a growing model for all intent and purpose.

Because of that potential, it would seem to me that mobile phone carriers would be upgrading their networks systematically. Especially in large cities with big companies that spend millions and millions of marketing dollars. One could say that they should prioritize such locations, one such might just be Cincinnati. If they can prove the quality of these services, they will grow their potential opportunities by providing value added services back to the consumer. This means for higher adoption, more profit and more data gathered on mobile consumers they can sell back to big companies.

LBS, please suck a little less next year. Mobile carriers, please upgrade your networks. Vegas, please have a great network ready for me. 

follow me on twitter @marty_b

AP will never win lawsuit against Google

In 2009, the Associated Press has threatened legal battles to news aggregators, including folks like Google and Yahoo. In an NY Times article, it stated "A.P. executives said they were concerned about a variety of news forums around the Web, including major search engines like Google and Yahoo and aggregators like the Drudge Report that link to news articles, smaller sites that sometimes reproduce articles whole, and companies that sell packaged news feeds." The AP will never win this lawsuit.

The reason the AP will never win this lawsuit has nothing to do with Google or Yahoo's indexing practices. It has to do with the way that writers are utilizing social media. Today I see articles and writers are starting to include "live Twitter feeds" to social media outlets or tweeting out links to specific written posts. They are profiting from the use, sales, reuse of social media and they are not licensing it. Yet they are profiting from the indexing, links and so forth from the social media outlets. On the right, you can see how an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer has links back to Twitter updates and search terms. Obviously, practices such as this only further convolutes that debate, one which I do not believe the courts are well-suited to handle.

While I'm not surprised by the overall practice of linking to Twitter feeds, including individuals or search terms, the more the adoption spreads of the practice the less legal grounds the AP will have to stand on in the court of law. It's a murky area. Google and Yahoo are attributing correctly, simply not sending users to their (news outlet) site where news sites are profiting from advertising. While newspapers are utilizing social media and search engines to push their content out, for survival, they are simply making commoditizing their own content. It's an interesting path to extinction the AP is on and the court of law can't protect the AP. 

follow me on twitter @marty_b

DroidDoes Not

My only estimate for this commercial is that Verizon and Google could not come to an agreement or they were caught in a time crunch. With that said, I cannot believe that the DroidDoes campaign made it out of the gate. Here are Verizon and Google ready to take on the iPhone, coming out of the gates with guns blazing, calling out the iPhone for everything that it doesn't do. Showing a super-sexy futuristic television promo and then telling you to head to the website, www.droiddoes.com. When you get there, you are met by a remnant of the television piece, once you move past this, you come upon an email box where you can enter more information to be sent to you via email or text when it is ready. Again, my guess is they could not agree or it was caught in legal. Nevertheless, let me give you five solutions that would have been better.

1. Join the revolution. Start today, friend us on Facebook where we'll give away a phone for every {insert number} people that join the revolution.
2. Find us on Twitter...
3. Want to see more, Google Android Video to see what pre-release footage is out there (of course legalese it).
4. Show your own videos. Something that you shot, forget video, how about the anatomy of a droid in a cool Flash piece? Beyond just meta and description tags, you should have some content that is getting indexed behind the scenes for search.
5. Want to hit an iPhone with a donkey punch, show a planned coverage map.

Look, these are not the best ideas by any means. However, sticking a 2001 coming soon email box for a release like this falls into the lame spectrum. I'm excited about the phone. I actually own a G1. I also have an iPhone. I'm a pretty solid voice of reason in this case. I went to the site with tons of expectations, but was let down. I'll leave this post with this: if you are going to compete with the iPhone and the kids at Apple, I think you're going to need to step up your marketing efforts.

follow me on twitter @marty_b

What does your email address say about you?

My email address says that I'm lame. It's predictable and always has been, my email address has always been lame, martyb, boyerm, m.boyer, boyer.marty, or something equally as predictable. My email address just isn't an area of my life that demands creativity. However, I pay very keen attention to personal email addresses because I think they tell a lot about you. 

Have you ever asked someone their personal email address and their response gives you some insight into their life? I've heard everything from people naming their email address after their favorite song to a more philosophical belief. In fact, I've know a number of people that have been very upset when their "persona" is taken on a social network and/or email address. 

I've been thinking about this because I decided to go ahead and move my personal domain email into my Gmail address. I already use the Google App services, but there are some "small" differences between the Gmail service and  their App service. Though small, these differences are significant enough they cause annoyance for me. Plus, I believe it is more savvy to have a Gmail address than your own domain. I have nothing outside of a hunch to support this position, but I believe it to be true. In other words, the Google name simply lends an air of credibility to your email address, even greater than the person that owns their own domain. Also if you have somewhat of a decipherable email address at gmail, it means you were probably an early adopter, even more savvy. 

As an aside, I'm thoroughly despising this process. Moving stinks in the digital or physical world. I'm currently in between the number of social networks, financial institutions and so forth updating my email address. All of the old stuff will be forwarded, but I wish there was a card like with the USPS. Fill it out and send in somewhere, but it doesn't tend to be that easy (wish the SMTP standard would be upated). Nevertheless, I did look up some services that are supposed to help, MailLocate and FreshAddress. As it turns out, they are more for people looking for you than notifying companies for them to change their information--I smell business opportunity. Throughout the whole process, I am left with the question: "is this process really worth it?" Yes.

I would rather have a Gmail address than any other address in the world, even if it is a predictable/lame address. No shame in my lame.

What's your email address saying about you?

follow me on twitter @marty_b

PS- If you want some free Gmail stickers, you can click on the image above to find out how to get stickers from the Gmail/Google Team.

Why do I have a desk-phone AND mobile (both for work)?

I want to apologize for my blogging absence in the last couple of weeks. I was on the road one week and last week left me down for about 5 days ill, not so much fun.

As I was starting to get back in the groove of things, I called and checked my voice-mail everywhere and realized, "you know what, I should be able to listen to that on the web instead of going through the gyrations. Then it hit me. Yes, I should really only have one number too." Technology solutions have been around for alternatives for some time.  

First, the office phone is a glaring reminder of how we try to compartmentalize our lives. There is no work-life balance. It's life balance. My life is integrated. Whether I'm blogging, at work, or social it's all me. The technologies and communication platforms I use cross all boundaries, but the office phone doesn't. I think this technology,for most companies, has overstayed the welcome and we have an opportunity to drive some new consumer behavior. 

Some practical reasons to send your office phones to the abyss:

• You don't need office based PBX systems for most businesses (see note below for customer service/call centers). You can setup a voice commanded, vector or decision-tree (dial 2 for sales) with an on-line system and send the calls directly to a cell phone or to India/Skype. Give yourself 100-minutes and a credit card to get started. See angel.com or voice.google.com for more information. 
• Compare how much time you spend on your cell versus your desk phone?  Which phone would you rather use?
• Desk phones are avoidance devices. People send voice-mails there for most folks they don't want to immediately talk to. In fact, a know at least three people that never take their phone off do not disturb. I'm guilty of this too. I should just pick up the phone and not let the issue revisit itself. 
• Ask how many people know how to program, transfer or store numbers on their desk phone. Then ask the same question of their cell phone. 
• Did I say all page? You know the ominous noise that emits from it at times summoning us to the ark.  
• A big expense of owning and maintenance.   
• Purchasing landlines is still expensive. 

It's not a technology barrier. It's a user-barrier. We are used to those antiquated phones in our homes and offices. They provide security at some level, but that security is going to get questioned in times of tough economies. Now is a perfect time to use the economy as an excuse to hatchet that old phone system, bills and drive NEW behavior. 

So what are the alternatives?

Visit Asterisk or Angel for software solutions and solves that existing outside owning a phone system. It's too easy. I started programming Merlin Legends in the 1990's. I remember my company paid approximately 65k for a PBX and a load of phones (approximately 50). It took weeks, user manuals and tons of tweaks to get it correct. Today, I can now create that same level of sophisticated call system within an hour on-line. 

After getting your software PBX setup, then have all your users use the Voice.google.com service, note it expect it be integrated with your gmail soon. All of your users have one number that directs to their cell. That's AWESOME. You can check your vmail on the web (or any connected device). When the person leaves a number, you can simply add it to your phone book. It will recognize calendar/time requests because it has a smart search engine. You simply add it to your calendar. It's all integrated with your Gmail software. End of story. Sign me up. 

Note: I would say that for customer support/consumer relations, perhaps you can keep your office phone. They are still practical for those applications. However, I'd move to soft (software based) phones. 

You have my permission

... to fail. 

It's not just my permission, it's the calling of all industries. People are shaking in their boots right now. The time to be bold is upon us. Try things that just might fail. Be bold. 

I have tons of ideas, many of them could be bad. However, I do have ideas. Here are some of my favorites that I'd love explore in a need-to-be-bold-times. 

Empty seat industries
There are a number of industries, like airlines, concerts, minor league athletics (hockey in Cinti), that would benefit from an auction model. All of these industries share a common problem, if your seat goes unused, you lose revenue. I think it would be better to build good will and consumer interest by sectioning off an auction allotment and auction off seating. People like the thrill of an auction. Look at ebay, a lot of folks pay more there than on a normal etailer site. There's something there--people feel like they have won. It's the insight ebay uses with a great deal of success. It's a model that will require some try and change, but there's an idea there waiting to change industries. 

Micro/transactional behavior changes
This is the year to try this new model. Micro-sd, micro-blogging, micro-lending, micro-management, you name it and there's a micro version of it. There's going to be a hard sell for high ticket items, plus in the past if something wasn't valued high it wasn't worth much. I believe technology has turned this on it's head (think email)--free and low cost items do have a lot of value. 

See what products or services that you can offer for very little and aim for scale. I think the dollar target is somewhere in the $1-10 range. iTunes/Amazon MP3 purchasing works because it's a low cost investment and if nothing works, no real loss--now I do appreciate that there is a great user experience behind it, but the value-to-risk proposition is low. Consumers are going to be more willing to take these types of small leaps. Look at iPhone apps, they are exploding and are going to continue to explode, not just because of the technology, but because of a renewed shopper behavior that low to no cost items can provide real value. 

New markets
Libraries are the new bookstores of choice. The library is no longer just books. Libraries are media outlets, complete with CD's, videos, books and tapes. One can argue that libraries are gaining new consumers because people are looking for new/lower cost ways to redistribute their time. However, I think there is a larger consumer insight in this case: consumers no longer need to own media. We've become accustomed to simply using it and returning it. In fact, we can't own all of the media anymore. Technology HAS changed the way we use/own/purchase all types of media. The library model just tends to lend itself to the both economic and consumer behavior--an interesting union. Therefore, I see this as an untapped market. 

Don't suck.
One of the all time worst businesses that one can start is a restaurant. There's so much variety, so much competition in that market, why try? Here in Cinti, OH a little place called Terry's Turf Club should inspire everyone. It is a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant that serves burgers. They have been around just a couple of years and the location is a bit out of the way. They have a lot of strikes against them in a tough economy, while most restaurants are offering discounts to get people through the door, Terry’s is not. They have one weapon, but they only need one. They have the best burger in Cincinnati. This is why Terry’s has people falling out the doors just about every night of the week and you don't talk to one person in the know that doesn't want to go there. And soon. Why has this little place made it? They do one thing and do it better than anyone else in town. People will part with their funds if your product is good. Get the message, don’t suck. 

What are your visions and inspirations to change tired industries?

~marty

Can you find pictures of your potty training experience?

I don't have to deal with this new "age old" issue, but my kids are going to have to deal with this issue. I am just hoping it won't be therapy and mood-altering drugs.

Is there too much personally identifiable information about you on the interwebs? For me personally, I don't think so. For my kids, their entire life will be indexed on the web. It's a scary proposition to consider.

The fact is my family life life is very public. I blog here, post comments on Twitter, have a Facebook account and post comments on other blogs. To be honest, I do not share that much personal information about me on my blog or comments. They are more professionally oriented, but there are not lines between my work, family or personal endeavors. It's all indexed. Should you be so inclined, you could aggregate them and get a fairly good insight to my life, via Spokeo or similar technology. Just nothing I think particularly interesting or personally identifiable. However, if you combine what you can find out about me along with my wife's blog, well, there you go. It's game on. You get a picture of our family life, personal life and could determine a lot about my family.

When I compare my personal information to what's going to available about my kids, I feel sorry for my kids. Really sorry Sean and Brady. Their life is now indexed on the interwebs. My wife's blog, mommybits.net, documents all kinds of things about the kids. Their peers will be able to find pictures of Sean from a CNN piece, pictures of Brady and potty-training? Is it OK? Is it too much? I don't know. I think it's too late to turn back now. There is no hiding. I found Sean on Google (he's six). More pictures of the kids on our local paper website. And, yes, pictures of Brady potty training at his grandma's house.

Where do we draw the line in society? I understand the information that we are providing is opt-in, or self-provided, but are we setting ourselves up for traps that we won't realize for some time? Are we setting our kids up for success? The only thing that I can hope for in this case is that transparency becomes a way of life. If that's the case, the kids will be fine. If not, well, the boys are going to have pictures like this pop up at school when they are older and therapy will be expensive.

I won't be surprised if my kid crowd-sources some parenting advice soon. Sure of it.

~marty

The Google Penalty

by Marty
In my last post, I discussed the mistake made by Motrin handling the bad commercial that caused an online stir--I did not discuss the problem/commercial, but the playbook on the Motrin reaction. Just do a search for Motrin + Headache in Google if you're interested in that commercial content. Thinking about the lasting implications of what occurred is what I am calling The Google Penalty. While I do recognize this applies to search engines as a whole, Google has market and mindshare.

Google Penalty defined: unfavorable brand impression as a result of search results that have consumer generated content on par or greater than brand messaging.

 

As this started to unfold, you have people that are searching and getting negative brand impressions to see what the stir is about. You expect that. However, after the stir has subsided, all the CGM content that was posted about your brand on other websites that is inherently designed to be search friendly will trump your brand in the search engines. It will be linked, indexed and cross-linked and referred to on the web and news outlets. This is exactly the search formula for success, right? Even though Motrin has performed a mighty expensive key word buy (I'm sure it was pricey) AND they own the domain name, two years from remnants of this debacle is going to be returning in search engines. The Motrin brand is going to be in "Dell Hell" aka the well known Jarvis situation from long ago. This has had a lasting impact on brand impression via search engines for years past the original post. Did I mention, books, blogs referenced, HBR and so forth?

Your action period if something goes awry on your watch, at your brand: 12-36 hours. Read my playbook for the to do list.

After that amount of time, you are going to have so much content posted about your brand on other websites, it will be hard to contend with them. Your goal should be to collect comments on your brand site. This Motrin example, while it may have been in poor taste, it was not related to product safety or quality. My estimate is that it probably will not offend enough to alienate users to the point of not purchasing the product--bad taste. However as users are searching for content about this brand, they are going to be left with all the content around this issue. Even though though most of the content will be in regards to the bad taste, searching consumers will be laddered up to product quality (in my estimation). People will see so many posts about something to do with Motrin and assume the product is of poor quality. Regardless of how much you spend on CPC media, Motrin will not win that battle with the searcher.

Had they prepared well, you could say this was a clever rouse to make the brand a bit more relevant, but I do not think this is the case. To many things are out of place, like the lady's letter on the brand website, no picture? Basic mistake, they did not personalize the content. What's the prescription now? My next steps would be, reach out to bloggers and influencers whom I specifically offended (I think they are doing this at some level). Specifically, those who posted your content first. Then find the blog tours, attend/sponsor BlogHer next year, social media badges and better get a good interactive company that knows the space. While there is a lot of energy and human effort now, the cost of unfavorable brand impression is only going to grow with time: The Google Penalty.

Dumb mobile companies

by Marty

So I was breezing through a piece on the NY Times this morning that caused a visceral type reaction. The article's premise mentions that video is surpassing illegal file sharing. Joyous. The second part of the piece talks about unlimited data plans and why prices are going to go up. I'm tired of dumb mobile companies.

Several executives from telecommunications companies argued that that this surge in data use, and the disproportionate nature of who uses it, would require an end to plans that offer unlimited data use.

“We have light users subsidizing heavy users,” said Maggie Wilderotter, the chief executive of Frontier Communications, a regional phone company. “We have to move to a model of consumption-based pricing.”

In an interview after her talk, Ms. Wilderotter said Frontier was going to start displaying to customers a gauge that shows how much bandwidth they are using. Then it will start imposing an additional fee for customers who use more than 5 gigabytes of data a month.

T-Mobile’s wireless operation in the United States is looking to do the same thing, said Mr. Mallahan.

“It’s crazy,” he said. “People who want moderate usage have to pay way too high prices.”

Right now he said, wireless carriers don’t really offer truly unlimited plans because they cancel the accounts of the very heaviest users.

“Every one of the wireless carriers fires high-use data customers,” Mr. Mallahan said. He suggested that wireless data services offer a certain amount of bandwidth, with a “moderate” charge for additional use.

I see this and just shake my head. First because of the lack of transparency for phone companies and unlimited data plans. Second wireless companies epitomize the word stupid to me. Let me give you some examples why.

- FAIL 1. The phone companies charge MORE to people that want to offload the phone company traffic onto IP based (instead of wireless-based networks). I have a friend that has bad reception in his condo. What did they tell him to do, pay an extra $10 a month to use his IP based phone network for better reception. What other businesses can say, hey, don't use my resources, I'm going to charge you more and you'll be happier. Mobile companies should give this away to every person imaginable and spend more money with phone companies switching between 802.x based networks. Instead they spent their time writing doctrines on how to create hardware, while Apple and Google said, here's the hardware AND software. People will buy it.

- Fail 2.The biggest, I mean BIGGEST, source of revenue for wireless carriers has been sitting under their noses for quite some time. Data. Wireless carriers should have given away the services to uses as data plans, subsidizing the service with ad revenue. Create your new network with the ad revenue and allow consumers to opt out of the free ad sponsored data service with an upcharge, say $10 per month. Instead, the dumb wireless carriers have running around trying to figure out a publishing model as an advertiser to pimp out their user base, at the expense of their user base for some companies (Sprint?).

- Fail 3. It should not have taken 20-years to figure out the value of a standardized platform, whether on hardware or a network. Is Google that smart? Maybe so. While Nokia is struggling and their profits are plunging, the G-phone is pumping out more applications by the minutes by distributing the ability for people to create and disseminate applications through their store. It's about the applications. Not your damn handset.

My recommendation to the average consumer that wants to use a lot of data? Be sure to purchase a phone, like the Google phone that uses a 802.x networks for data and switches elegantly. Save your dough. Don't give it to the dumb phone companies. Thankfully most of the better phones that are designed to have data use on them do this pretty well.

Quick follow up: In my previous post, I commented that everyone compares the iPhone and Google Phone, but that's the wrong comparison for folks to make. My co-blogger Jason pointed out the question I did not answer (great feedback Jason), "so what is the right comparison?" For Google, it's every medium that informs. Meaning every medium that performs searches. Your home telephone, your Wii, your phone, your desktop computer, your car's GPS, etc.

PS- Thank you, thank you typepad. I'm far too lazy to move this blog over to my own hosting service. This editor is much better.