Kindle: The Amazon Mobile Reader

Hey Gang, this isn't precisely in the mobile world, but it straddles the edge. Using Sprint's EV-DO network, the Kindle is Amazon's revolutionary e-book reader that works without need for a computer. It is self-contained, and reasonably compact, and has a certain unique aesthetic. Not cheap at $399 plus the cost of content, but it provides a wealth of options that may make it the right fit for avid readers, frequent travelers, and gadget hounds.

The unique part of this device is the delivery mechanism. Using a cellular network to deliver the content, the Kindle is a reader that lives on its own, and is designed as a mobile device, unlike say, the Sony reader which is designed as an add-on to a computer.

But lets talk about the true impact of this device, regardless of its success or failure for Amazon. First, it points out the enduring appeal of long-form literary content. Books, or long form content, continue to have impact and in this world of Twittering, blogging, crackberries, etc, there is room and a desire for thoughtfully produced prose. As a former high school English teacher, that warms my soul. But since this is a blog about mobile, let's think about the things it says about the mobile industry.

First, there is no discrete data charge. I know that Sprint would not give away bandwidth for free, it makes sense that someone else is paying for the data. Amazon may be footing the bill because it makes strategic sense to do so. But let's think about this for a moment. The only party paying any cash here is the consumer, so regardless of who explicitly pays the bill, you, the consumer is. Is that a bad thing? No. After all, access and bandwidth have a cost, so if you use it, you ought to pay for it. But in this case, the cost of the data is bundled either into the product cost or into the content cost. Regardless, this is, potentially, a watershed event. Imagine if the cost of bandwidth were bundled into the cost of your mobile content. Perhaps your subscription to your favorite mobile app is $3.99/month, plus the cost of your data plan. What if the cost of your favorite app was $4.99/mo with no data plan? This model works in other parts of the world (usually involving "adult" content) put it changes the data equation to payment associated to access, rather than tiered plans, as we have today. If these costs are layered into the content, perhaps we'd see an uptick in the number of mobile data users because they wouldn't have to pay for a chunk of access, but rather only the access they use as part of a content experience. I think this model has great potential. Content owners, are you listening, the data plan is not your friend. Work out deal so that access to your content does not require an additional payment to the carrier!

Secondly, the rise of the Kindle means that the digital content folks at the publishers are doing a great job in creating new opportunities for their companies and artists. I know that Matt Shatz at Random House is doing yeoman's work in taking that mammoth publishing house into the digital and mobile worlds. Also, check out small start ups like Incelligence that are working hard to bring book content into the mobile age. This means that long-form content is vital to the mobile user. I hope that the bar keeps moving up here.

Finally, this is an intriguing concept. There is now a device that is not a phone, not sold by a carrier, that has no subscription cost, that is hanging off a mobile network. While not a complete game changer, this is a first step to a potential world where devices have casual access to mobile networks without subscriptions and contracts. Interesting development.

This is really touching...

No, not really. I just wanted to talk about all of the hoopla about touchscreen mobile devices. They aren't really anything new. Remember your Palm Pilot? Or before that, your Sharp Wizard? The world of 1990's PDAs were full of touch responsive devices. Granted, none of them used your finger, and were really trying to emulate the idea of a mouse and desktop from a PC, but the concept of touchscreen is NOT new.

I had a Sharp Wizard and Zaurus, and I had many, many Palms (III-VII, I think). I had iPaq's, and hundreds of other doodads that I had to tap, touch and push in order to get them to work. Frankly, I didn't miss any of them when it was time to have them move onto the "Sell on eBay" pile. Then, I got a Treo (600, 650, 700). That is when my love affair with touch began. The Palm OS is old, the phones really weren't terrific as voice communication devices, but the touchscreen really came into its own. The onscreen buttons made sense. The experience was intuitive, engaging and strangely organic.

Today, there are dozens and dozens of devices that use the power of touch to create a communication experience. (My Blackberry 8830, sadly, isn't one of them. The trackball is cool, but a touchscreen (especially with the Opera browser) would be delicious.) So, why all the hoopla today about the LG Voyager or HTC Touch? Well, they are pretenders...they are touch-enabled devices, certainly, but the experience with either isn't really that organic. I don't touch them to browse, sort, edit or engage with my content. In these devices, you dive from a very intuitive touch interface into a pretty standard WinMo environment, which is anything but organic. (To clarify, I don't own either device, I've just fumbled around with them, so my impressions may not be accurate.)

There are other devices, like the iPhone and, I suspect, the upcoming touchy Nokias that are built from the ground up to be touchable and where gestures and action have meaning, and aren't just replacements for mouseclicks. They really usher in a new paradigm of interaction, but more importantly, they change the fundamental interface of the device category as a whole. The traditional number keypad is replaced with fluid interfaces and complex navigation options that allow the user to organize and access varied forms of content and information in ways that the traditional mobile phone never could. (As a disclaimer, I think I want an iPhone. I generally groove on Apple products, so I think my next device will be an iPhone...but I am not a zealot and I am not saying that Apple has any special claim to having all the answers.)

So, what does the rise of touch mean for the industry? I think that is pretty clear:

• For the carrier: Let the folks who are good at content do the content. Focus on being the piped. But of course, you can't be skinny pipes anymore. As the display and access environment of the mobile phone morphs from a keypad to an interactive screen, you need to move more bits, faster and faster, to the screen. You need to have infrastructure both in towers and caching technologies that make the delivery of content as good as or better than when I am at my desk. Frankly, my phone is more important than my laptop. Make sure that you have a network that honors that position. And truly, I think this plays to your strengths, carriers are good at scale and reliability and moving data. Focus on your pipes and making your network work with me, and I think that your value to me as a subscriber will be cemented. (As a corollary, in the world of cable, do you think I am a Comcast subscriber because they own the Golf Channel or E!? Nope, I am a Comcast subscriber because their pipes get me all the television and internet access I want at a fair price with great reliability.)
• For the developer: Stop insulting me. Stop thinking that a little bit of information is all I want. Yeah, I know that you have to serve many masters and many handset types and many needs, but pay attention, my phone is more important than my laptop. Make sure that I have the opportunity to use your interface to access the information the way that I want! Give me the chance to browse the headlines and the chance to read the ENTIRE story. Give the chance to looks at a 15 second video clip OR a 30 minute show. Let me change the way that I interact with your product. Remember, you are software. It's not hardware, it is software that should be flexible and malleable and responsive. Stop making products that I wouldn't use unless I had no other choice. Make products that inspire me, that engage me that inform me, OR make products that get out of the way and let me have access to the content! Facilitate my exploration, enhance my experience, or be gone from my phone!
• For the device manufacturer: Stop making products that are so complex to use. Remember, I buy the phone so that I can use it, not so that you train me to fit into your concept of organization. Make the phone powerful enough that well-written software makes it fly. Stop creating machine OSs that get in the way and make the abstract layers like Java less powerful. Remember that I am human, and that my phone is more important than my laptop. Give me hardware that I trust, give me hardware that is robust, and give me hardware that plays well with others (like Java, or Flash, of BREW, or whatever). Don't give me a phone that is incapable of becoming the most important device I own.

I am done ranting. But the rise of the touch interface has really brought many of the issues that I have with carriers, developers and devices to the fore. Give me organic elegance, give me intuitive operation, and give me flexibility. I guess I am pretty touchy today...

Opera...It's Not Just For Pavarotti Anymore...

OK, sorry about the headline...I couldn't resist. I have been using Opera Mini on my Blackberry 8830 recently, and let me tell you, it is a huge leap forward in mobile browsing for most phones. Granted, it isn't as exciting or gravity defying as Safari for the iPhone, but for the average phone, the pick and zoom interface is an enormous upgrade to the traditional mobile web browsing experience.

I have been using the mobile internet since 1999 and my Palm VII, but Opera Mini really makes a difference in my browsing experience. It makes the mobile internet a reality. In October, the Boston Red Sox won their second world championship in the last 4 years. Fun. As it so happened, they had a parade to celebrate. My family and I run out to see the parade. Because I was in charge of the activity, there was little planning or forethought before we ran out the door. We had a vague idea of where the parade was and so we left. My wife asks me where we should watch the parade from, and I give her an intersection in downtown Boston. We get there and as it turns out, everyone else on the eastern seaboard decided that was the best spot to watch the parade from too. It was too crowded and my 5 year old baseball crazt son wouldn't be able to see his deity, Dice-K. So, we decided to move. My wife asked me what the parade route was, and I had no idea. Because I am brilliant, I ask her for her mobile phone, a trusty RAZR. I go to Boston.com on her device...and I get a WAP page that hasn't been updated since the previous day. I know that Boston.com has all the stuff that I need on it...but I can't get to it through WAP. I reach deep into my briefcase and pull out my 8830. I try using the Blackberry browser, and I get a very modest rendition of Boston.com, but can't see the map image. It is too small. I try again with Opera Mini, and, presto, I get the page and map of the parade route that I can zoom in on. I spot another intersection on the map, we pack up the kids and the stroller and race to the perfect viewing spot. Relatively uncluttered, and much closer to the action, my son jumps up and down with joy and delight as he sees Dice-K roll by.

Since that minute, I have kicked the native Blackberry browser and used Opera Mini exclusively. It is speedy, and functional...and maybe even elegant. It works. Give it a shot. (And if you decide to use Opera as your browser on your PC too, there are some very neat synching features too.)

It's free. Give it a try. Opera Mini

It's Getting Chilly in Hades...

Hey gang, hope your holiday break was relaxing and enjoyable. It certainly hasn't been quiet in the mobile world recently. Let's take a moment to recap the events of the last few weeks:

1. Google Android: If it is just yet another operating system, or if it is a real step forward in open standards and allows developer to enhance their creativity remains to be seen. But here is my take on things. First, the operating software for any mobile device has rarely been the issue. There are notable exceptions, like older RIM products that can't support streaming media. That was an OS issue that couldn't be changed. Typically, the difficult issues have been around what parts of the phone functionality could be accessed. For instance, many carriers closed off streaming media through Java unless they were vending the application, and few carriers (if any) make location information available outside of tightly controlled carrier-supported applications. The upshot of the carrier control of the functionality is that the OS was compromised according to the business and network concerns of the carrier. Android, designed as an open OS from the start, should come into the world without those compromises. However, that remains to be seen. The real face of Android won't be known until Android powered handsets come into carrier certification testing. Carriers may decide that certain features of functions of the OS provide access or functionality that are challenging for network or business reasons, and ask that those be closed before said handset is certified. Openness is, of course, only relative. It will be those brave handset manufacturers and carriers that will submit and certify fully open handsets that will make Android a real game changer. (That being said, a BREW handset with no limited features, or a Java handset with all functionality open would be a truly interesting experience as well.) So, Android has promise, and I suspect will be a real influencer of the idea of openness. I don't, however, think that we will see a majority of handsets or even a significant minority of handsets powered by Android. However, more importantly, it will push ever increasing functionality and open access to features into all operating systems.
2. Verizon Goes Open: This is a real shift. In essence, Verizon has said that beginning in 2008, and device that meets minimum technical specs and passes connectivity tests in Verizon's testing labs will be allowed onto the Verizon network. From a consumer standpoint, this means that there will be a real shift to a BYO device concept, similar to the way the most of the world buys phones. So, you can go to your favorite retailer or manufacturer, buy your phone (sans subsidies, so phones purchased this way will likely be more expensive in the short term), log into some Verizon website, or call a toll-free number and activate your phone. This would be similar to the Apple/ATT iPhone purchase/activation experience. Why is this a good idea? This is a rare example where it seems everyone wins. For consumers it means that you choose your phone from all the certified devices, not just those that happen to be for sale from VZW.com. Also, it means that those devices that do pass the certification tests can be configured with features and functions that serve the user rather than the network. That is critical to the opening of truly advanced and meaningful mobile services. For VZW, this is just as critical a juncture, because it changes the way that customers think about Verizon and it transforms the role of the hardware manufacturer or retailer. No longer will Verizon be there to solve all of your problems with your hardware. No longer will Verizon provide warranty exchanges (unless, of course, you bought the phone from them), they will point you to the manufacturer. They will point you to the retailer. They will point you to the software maker. What does this mean? It means that Verizon dramatically reduces the level of service that they provide and they will point you to the folks who can really solve your problems. This makes your relationship with the device supplier more critical. This is key as Verizon leads the way into turning themselves into a service company and less of an end to end provider. Verizon wins because it lowers their cost, because no longer do they need to subsidize the cost of the device. Further, if they are pointing service calls to the folks that can actually solve the problems, i.e., the hardware and software vendors, Verizon's service costs can drop. This means that Verizon can be more profitable, but more interestingly, it means that you, as a subscriber, have a much lower N number on your head. (The N number is the number of months that it takes the carrier to make back their investment into acquiring you as a customer until they start to make money. If there is a $200 handset subsidy, then that money needs to be made back for Verizon to start making money from you. If no subsidy, then lower N number.) The lower the N number, then potentially the lower the monthly service cost and lower contract termination fees!! Openness could save you money!
3. Another Carrier (Not Verizon) Feels The Heat: I was in a meeting with a carrier this week. My contact there was talking about the true impact of the iPhone. (His company does not offer the iPhone.) From his perspective, the iPhone's real impact is not in hardware design or converged services. The real impact of the iPhone is that consumers are suddenly significantly more aware of the availability of rich data services over their mobile device. The iPhone, for all of its game-changing touchscreens, lovely cover flow interface, awesome mobile browser and the like, the biggest takeaway competitors see is that it has alerted the end-consumer that there is a mobile web just waiting for them to discover! Their solution, in the short term, is to begin to get out of the way of developers and take a less active editorial role in WAP site and application promotion. To paraphrase, the $XXX millions that the carrier makes from data services (primarily premium wap and downloadable applications) are really a pittance compared to the tens of BILLIONS that they generate from calling and data plan revenues. Further, the cost and administration levels needed to generate the data services revenue are higher, so they'd like to get out of the value chain here and get back to basics and make money charging for voice and data plans, and not act as the gatekeeper to content. This kind of change won't happen overnight, but his assertion was that the best way a carrier can acquire and retain customers is by providing a great network that performs as advertised and charges accordingly. Let the content owners and developers create amazing content and let them acquire an audience directly. The win for the carrier is that they get customers which have faith in their service provider's network and begin to think of their mobile service as a primary channel of information and communication. For the content owners and the developers, it means an opportunity to create a direct relationship with customers and have the carrier step out of the way!

This is an interesting time. While we won't see any changes this year or maybe not even next, the change is coming. Imagine a time when you have the choice to buy whatever phone you wish. Use it on the network that you wish. Access the content that you wish from it. That sounds so futuristic!

Hey...wait a minute, that sounds just like the internet! I can choose to access the internet through Verizon, or Comcast, or Earthlink or AOL or whomever. I can access that internet from a Dell, or Apple, or Lenovo. And I can go anywhere on that internet I like. Imagine that...it seems like it's getting chilly in Hades.

Mobile Ambition

Mobile is the industry of ambition, much like the gold-rush days of the internet.

Like a lot of others, I was part of the internet boom, watched my millions in stock options go kaput and resurfaced a few years later in mobile. As I wind my way through the mobile space, this will be my spot to talk about trends, opportunities, facts and fictions that I see in mobile.

This is a very interesting world. With land baron carriers, and technology upstarts who wish to change the world, mobile is a complicated business, and complicated business model to comprehend. There are so many parties with their hands out looking for a piece of the action that it is amazing that anyone stays in business. But the opportunity is so huge! Nearly 1/3 of world's population has a mobile device. With audiences that large, isn't it impossible to NOT money?

It feels like 1997 all over again. Rules are ready to be rewritten, brands explode onto the scene and whimper away in a flash. Every opportunity is the killer opportunity to create incredible utility, fantasy and wealth. Stay with me as we walk through this together!