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2009 Mobile Trends - (Part Two) - 27 July 2009
by Fjord
Read this article in Chinese (translated by Yan Ding, proof read by Long Pan)
(c) Fjordnet Limited 2009. Reprinted with permission.
Microblogging becomes Micromedia
Facebook status updating is addictive and the volume of updates and comments is growing explosively. Twitter has become a conversation and is moving into the mainstream.
Microblogging will evolve from a naval-gazing toy to the Swiss army knife of social media. Its simplicity and openness make it very flexible and adaptable to user needs. It has the potential to combine messaging, sharing, news reading and search. The status field is the new search box.
The simple one-to-many sharing of life moments with friends and the world at large, allows people to feel connected and part of a community.
The constantly accelerating pace of modern life means less time for long form content. Microblogging will deliver customised streams of bite-size information from across the web that fits the new pace of life. We don’t have time for IM, news reading, and social networks, but they are all enjoyable and important. We need to do more with less. Bloggers will find that microblogging satisfies the majority of their need to speak out. Microblogging is often as short as 140 characters. It is simple and flexible, allowing developers to extend it and users to consume what they need. Its brevity is suited to mobile. Twitter started the microblogging phenomenon by asking: “What are you doing?” That question has intrigued millions of users and now Twitter invites new users to “Join the conversation”.
Twitter’s openness and flexibility has turned into a social network, IM service, news reader, social search and sharing service. All of this still limited to 140 characters. The US election raised Twitter‟s profile with the candidates setting up accounts. Celebrities from Britney Spears to Stephen Fry as well as brands such as Comcast and Dell followed, all of whom are sharing news and engaging in conversations. 13 million Facebook users update their status with simple text notes at least once every single day…and over 1M mobile replies were left on the site within the first 24 hours of the launch of “commenting” support for mobile phone users. In 2009, microblogging won’t be about blogging, it will be about the web
The Android invasion
There are an increasing number of Android projects under way in R&D labs around the globe. The open source genie is finally out of the bottle in the mobile industry and will be impossible to put back in.
In-house operating systems will have a harder time staying alive as margin pressure increases. Operating system competitors will feel the squeeze and Asian manufacturers will take full advantage of free access to great software.
As R&D budgets are tightened, managers look to fast solutions. This could help Android mature faster, when managers worry about surviving next year, rather than worry about being strong in five years.
The Android platform is gaining momentum. There are a growing number of projects rushing to build phones on top of the platform. It is the choice of small players like HTC shaping more of their destiny, Chinese manufacturers competing on a more level playing field with Nokia and mobile operators wanting an environment they can customise at will.
It is expected that both Samsung and LG would follow their past strategy of endorsing all operating systems. Their processes are well suited to many independent and parallel projects and they will make beautiful and exciting Android hardware.
Android is one of Motorola’s last lifeboats, but long term it becomes increasingly harder to see what makes Motorola unique in the market.
Operators will certainly endorse Android as they see it as an open platform which they can customise. However, as the iPhone has proven, a mobile platform really shines when developers innovate on top of it. The challenge with customisation is that it can be easy to “break” developers’ existing applications. Operators and manufacturers will have to walk a fine line between differentiation and developer disruption. The developers, development tools, linkage to Google “cloud” services, indexing of generated data and continuous improvements to the platform remain crucial control points for Google. Android is still a primitive, unpolished user experience and lacks meaningful differentiation. Search as a user experience paradigm has not been leveraged. The current platform lacks all sex appeal. Aggressive innovation is needed.
War for the world
Nokia has dominated the low-end, high-volume end of the mobile market for years, constantly being challenged by numerous small players driving down cost.
In 2009 this battle to connect the world‟s population will heat up and the dynamics will change as both Samsung and LG will bring out an arsenal of low-end devices and operators will continue to steer volume to non-branded ODMs and aggressive Chinese OEMs like ZTE and Huawei.
As the mobile industry brings voice and SMS to the entire human population, the battle for control heats up and the dynamics change.
We think both Samsung and LG need to step up in their marketing efforts as these markets are not controlled by operators. Nokia is pushing ahead with much more advanced marketing that engages people and their communities. Mobility is widely perceived as a universal good and currently Nokia is seen in many markets as the branded messenger spreading the word. The Chinese play by their own rules in IPR and elsewhere making it harder for LG and Samsung who have to make a choice whose game to play. Nokia has been able to live a double life due to their powerful IPR portfolio. We think there is a massive opportunity for innovation in the low end and selling cheap voice alone is not a sustainable strategy.
Making cheap and cheerful mobiles has little to do with making high-end feature monsters. We believe that the current economic climate will accelerate this polarisation. A major opportunity will emerge by combining focused internet experiences with low-end terminals. For example, Opera enjoys considerable success in the emerging markets and we expect Facebook and other applications and service providers to follow. By building great mobile applications one could radically change the perception of the internet. Also, more powerful and much cheaper chips tied with the emergence of viable open source software platforms such as Android will allow cutting edge software innovation from the US and Europe to help accelerate the Chinese and other Asian manufacturers.
QWERTY goes consumer
Teens are messaging natives and social network addicts. They will look for more efficiency from their mobile and will start selecting QWERTY keyboard devices in increasing numbers during 2009.
The Blackberry’s relentless focus on a small QWERTY keyboard and e-mail has transformed the industry.
The small QWERTY mono-block device is becoming a dominant design and moving into the mainstream. Nokia has finally built a small QWERTY keyboard worthy of challenging the Blackberry with the E71. Nokia will become a major challenger with the low cost E63 and Nokia‟s strategic focus on enabling e-mail for the 80% of the world that does not have an account. We expect RIM to aggressively push into lower price points, improve their consumer offering and grow their market share in 2009.
The lower price points and improved software have already made devices like these the favourite 9among the American Facebook generation who spend so much time communicating using social networks, SMS and images
Entering text on a small QWERTY device is on average about twice as fast on a 12-key phone with T9 predictive text input. We will see many more QWERTY devices emerge during 2009 with many types of operating systems. We expect lots of innovation in clever prediction, error correction, combined with clever mechanics for greatly improved ergonomics. We think these devices will become especially addictive when bundled with apps from Facebook, MySpace and Skype. In 2009 HTC, Nokia, Samsung and LG will chase RIM into the consumer market. Microsoft’s acquisition of Danger in early 2008 may also result in a more multimedia-centric QWERTY product.
Location becomes the new service bedrock
Nokia is aggressively investing in location and their strategy of coordinating people‟s lives using maps is compelling. Google is the main challenger with ubiquity on the web and working hard in mobile. Location awareness in mass market phones will lay the foundation. The massive scale of investment is creating insurmountable entry barriers for smaller players. Maps are the service Trojan Horses for both Google and Nokia.
Location will be the bedrock of compelling consumer mobile services with enormous monetisation potential.
Location and the services built on top of maps will become one of the hottest topics in 2009. Nokia and Google will charge forward, Microsoft and Yahoo! will chase them and others will react. Start-ups will continue to proliferate and be acquired. The opportunity to innovate on top of location is enormous in many areas ranging from social networking, to enhanced communication, to rich advertising services. Tremendous new value will be created. All of this is fuelled by GPS enabled devices at significantly lower cost as well as new generations of hardware and software making positioning faster, less power hungry, and more accurate including the ability to have continuous positioning even when indoors. Traditional publishers will start to feel the pressure.
The current methods of overlaying information on maps do not scale and will run into problems. There is a need for innovation in how to contextually search for and find things. One challenge for the mobile industry is to crack the concept that will bring local businesses and consumers together in a common experience where businesses can prosper and consumers get rapid access to information. Mapping data requires similar investment to an operating system and needs to extract local knowledge from people to enrich the experience. Only locals know where the best coffee is served.
Tom and their core asset Tele Atlas is an expensive but likely acquisition target.
(Read the first part of this article)
Fjord was founded in London in 2001. The office today employs some of the most experienced and talented digital design specialists in the market, and is working on leading projects for UK and international clients.
Contact Chris Liu (chris@fjord.co.uk) for more information about Fjord.
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