A glorious blue sky over Lord’s Cricket Ground was the setting for the opening of the Informa Mobile Web 2.0 conference in London, Tuesday and Wednesday last week. Notably also the week of the Apple iPhone UK launch announcement and the day of Sam Sethi‘s birthday (not sure which is more notable) this was a gathering of a number of well known figures in the mobile space to talk about what seems to be the topic of the season – you could spend the rest of the Autumn attending these events, which perversely have sprung up like Spring flowers.
Lord’s was an interesting venue for a Mobile Web conference. The future in a historical setting. As we gathered outside over lunch on the first day, as a result of a fire alarm, I wondered if the conclusion of the meeting would reflect the weather, glorious blue sky, but a distinct chill to the air.
The high points?
Tomi Ahonen pointed out that over half the audience were already customers or partners of his. It made me wonder why he was taking the time to speak, however as usual his presentation was both hugely informative and hugely enjoyable and funny. I came away fully informed as to his list of published books. As well, to be fair, as feeling better informed about Digital Korea. Worryingly, Tomi said that 90% of Korean youth were involved in Cyworld, and more worrying still he portrayed the remaining 10% as losers. Tomi gave the impression that he thinks this kind of future is desirable.
Mark Curtis of Flirtomatic gave what to me was the most compelling presentation of the event. Combining as it did an honest appraisal of the trials and tribulations of launching a mobile service, together with a really positive message about the possibility of monetising those services. Of the many important points that stood out, one resonated strongly, and that was to use a Web based approach, rather than an application download, inter alia to preserve the vital flexibility to change your interface “on a sixpence” (that’s a piece of pre-1971 coinage in the UK – Mark’s a veteran!) in response to your evolving understanding of user needs. Mark’s sanguine about the fact that “most users are not ready yet” but predicts massive growth over the next 2 to 3 years.
It was a great shame that the audience had thinned out on the afternoon of the second day when Mark spoke. They missed a highly interesting presentation and also a sterling performance from someone who had got off his sick-bed following a serious cycling accident. Obviously in some discomfort, kudos to Mark for this, and incidentally, for those that wish they had stayed for it, he will be presenting again at Mobile Monday London on 8th October.
Kudos to my colleague Ronan from dotMobi, for making some cogent points despite being given a rather unpromising title for his presentation: “Mobilising the Long Tail | Enabling the Move of Web 2.0 Applications to Mobile: Primer on How to Capitalise on Mobile to Enhance Existing Web Services with Minimal Investment” (Excuse me?). Tomi complimented Ronan and said that he’d removed some slides from his presentation becasue Ronan had made the points for him – a nice puff for Ronan, and given the length of Tomi’s presentation, good for timekeeping too.
The message from Kennet Radne, from Telia Sonera, was very encouraging indeed. A number of operators gave presentations but this was the one that gave me hope. Kennet observed flat rate trends and commented that if that was what was left over then it was “not a bad business”. He thought that operators could do better than that and went on to discuss the various items of value add that the operators have at their disposal – location, security, authentication, location, CRM.
So far this is not new, what was new was that he did not discuss them as tools for building a fence in the ruins of the walled garden, but as items of value add that could be provided as services as part of the value chain. I confess I blinked twice, to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming to hear an operator talking about participating in the value chain, rather than owning it. Isn’t this what we have been asking for (A slice of that mobile 1.0 pie, please)?
Paul Goode from M:Metrics made a long list of stats very interesting. He’s a great presenter.
The disappointments?
Starhome’s straight down the line product pitch left me none the wiser about anything other than their product, which I could have read about on their Web site.
The panel discussions were less a dialogue between the audience and the panels, and more people making statements that were neither questions nor the answers to them.
Despite it being “International Talk like a Pirate Day“, as I was told by Dan Appelquist, no one spoke like a pirate, not even him. Well, no more than usual.
(To be clear, it was the fact that Dan didn’t talk like a pirate that was disappointing, not his presentation! Tom Hume, posted about Dan’s presentation and others – though in a rather more timely way than me – and also posted a nice Talk Like a Pirate link).
Out takes (or “Snacks” as we know them)
Social networks are not sticky, to say so is “bullshit”. Mark Curtis
Flirtomatic topped 101 million mobile page views in August and revenue growth is running at 60% per month.
“WEBbing the mobile, not mobililzing the Web.” Orly Nesher (contrived?)
It’s got to be “as fast as paper”, quoting Patrick McVeigh now at SoonR.
“… the moment in time when they are inspired to consume and act on the advertising presented” Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy, quoted by Mark Bole of Shozu.
“Yesterday’s advertising was demographic based, today it is behaviour based.” Mark Bole again.
It’s not the Reithian vision of the BBC (to Inform, Educate and Entertain) but Information and Entertainment that are the killers on mobile. Alan Patrick, Broadvision.
Countered by Tomi: “That’s what people say they want, but when it comes to actual usage …”
“Get rid of the multiple channels of rubbish, go back to the high end” John Varney, Maximum Clarity, speaking about TV and “Linear Narrative Theatre”
“Web 3.0” – Mike Short, O2. Well someone had to say it.
“Mobile will be the most important device accessing the Internet”. Russell Buckley, Admob. It is already in India, according to Prashanth S from Akmin, who says there are 31 million mobile Internet users in India, compared with 9 million fixed line subscribers.
“Over 5 billion ads served …”, what’s their name again? Oh yeah, AdMacMob
Prizes
Best Slip of the Tongue: “Java apps are fine as long as you realise that you are not going to reach anybody – I mean everybody”.
Best Solecism: “Mobile Internet Site” (sigh, shouldn’t the speakers know the difference between the Internet and the Web?)
Best Numerical Inaccuracy: 1 billion Internet Users compared with 600 Mobile Web Users (some orders of magnitude missing?)
Best Vacuous Cliché: “… tipping point for mobile …”
Conclusions
Over coffee and lunch opinions varied as to whether in fact the speakers were really talking about Mobile Web 2.0 or not. The was certainly frequent mention of social networking, of course, but does that really justify calling it Mobile Web 2.0?
Opinions also varied about whether this was really just an exercise in rampant self promotion on the part of some of the speakers, or whether indeed, it was useful and informative. I think I heard views expressed roughly equally either way, so Informa seem (with the help of their programme advisors) to have got this one roughly right.
As to the weather outlook? Sunny but remaining cold in the short term. Warming up later.
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