Your Cell Is A Slacker: Mobile Phones Are More Fun Outside The U.S.

In the unconventional category was a service the two cited called LISMO, which allows Japanese users with GPS-enabled cell phones to find out which songs are the most commonly downloaded ones on their home street or in the nearby area.

[...] And not everything on Bellows and Collier's world tour was a strange sideshow. They spent one of the longest chunks of their tour discussing the increasing viability of using cell phones to buy stuff. This application, they said, is booming in Japan. They described an Amazon.com-like cell-phone service called GirlsWalker that boasts 9 million subscribers.

Get Ready for 'Cellcasts'

With UpSnap, which launched 100 free mobile podcasts on March 27, you can simply dial a number to listen to your program from your phone. In a few weeks, the service will also allow users to get podcasts to their phones wirelessly by sending UpSnap a text message. Rival Pod2Mob allows for the text message feature and has built a user base in excess of 100,000 since its launch last summer.

* disclosure: I work for Kaywa *

At Kaywa you can since a long time download mp3 files from the blogs via the mobile version (just add /mobile to the weblog address to get it). Here is an example from last year: http://schweizerdeutsch.kaywa.ch/mobile/dialoge/pimp-my-uni.html

Recently we tried out other stuff, something we call "phonecasting":

1. You call a number, speak what you have to say, sing etc, save it and it's immediately blogged.
2. It's also immediately available as a podcast
3. and you can listen to it by dialing another phone number (which costs CHF 0.50 extra).

As for now that works only for Switzerland, unleass you want to pay, the hopefully soon to be abolished, roaming costs. But if you are interested, drop me a comment.

Mobile phones to rival PC for internet access

Internet access via the mobile phone threatens to overtake wireless access from a notebook PC, according to a new study. The annual Face of the Web study of internet trends from global market research firm Ipsos Insight reveals that the massive install base of mobile phones throughout the world is driving mobile access at a phenomenal rate.

Globally, just over one-fourth (28%) of mobile phone owners worldwide have browsed the Internet on a wireless handset, up slightly from 25% at the end 2004. Interestingly, growth in this behavior for 2005 was driven by the older users (age 35+), indicating that surfing the Internet on a mobile phone is emerging as a mainstream activity, no longer dominated by the traditional early adopter segment – young males – typical of many new consumer technologies.

[...] “We think the high correlation between Internet users and mobile phone ownership suggests an opportunity for wireless services or applications that can link aspects of personalization across multiple Internet platforms,” said Cruikshank. “Still, it will be crucial for companies to let consumers know just how they can leverage personalization opportunities across multiple access devices to their benefit.”

As I wrote in July 05 about the mobile version of Cyworld*, which just entered the US market and will come into heavy competition with Myspace, I wanted to add these bits from Businessweek's E-Society: My World Is Cyworld.

Cyworld is threatening to swallow South Korea. Less than four years after its launch, 15 million people, or almost a third of the country's population, are members. Among those in their late teens and early twenties, 90% are hooked.

[...] Although the service itself is free, when people add digital couches or TVs to their home pages, they spend real money. They swap cash for a digital currency called dotori (Korean for "acorns"), which cost 10 cents each. For instance, a digital couch costs six dotori. SK Communications, the subsidiary that runs Cyworld, chalked up a profit of $12.5 million on sales of $110.4 million, nearly half by selling dotori. The company expects sales to double this year.

One feature that has helped Cyworld take off is "wave riding." It works like this: When you're reading posts on bulletin boards or looking at photo files, you can click on the name of someone who has added a remark or photo you find interesting and you'll be transported to that person's digital room. If you like the art or music, you can introduce yourself and put in a request to become a "cybuddy." If accepted, you can use your buddy's goodies -- from art to photos -- on your own page. The chain of wave-riding visits creates communities on the Net, which often develop into clubs of common interest in the real world: clubs for fishing, bike riding, and going to jazz performances, among others.

The growing popularity of digital cameras and camera phones means youngsters increasingly use digital images to share experiences or express themselves. An average of 6.2 million photos are uploaded to Cyworld each day, many of them directly from cell phones.

* and countinued then here and there.

Jorma Ollila at CTIA Wireless 2006:

The winners will be the ones who understand the consumer early, understand usability, pick the right technology, and place great products at the core of their strategy."

Via The Register: Ollila warns wireless sector on emerging markets

Originally via Charlie

Mobile Device UI Design

The state of mobile user interface (UI) design is pretty bad. Even the best mobile UIs tend to borrow too many conventions of interaction from the desktop, rather than creating a UI that is unique to mobile devices to keep both the context and task front and center.

So where is mobile user interface design today? What does the future hold? Most importantly, what do people want from their phones?

Via Small Surfaces

Interesting in this respect is the following by Bill McDaniel:

Hanrahan's primary point, however, that the visualization should be chosen to work best with the context in which the data needs to be delivered, is spot on. In many respects, a contextually appropriate visualization can present data in a manenr that highlights the information content specifically.

This is especially important for self-adapting content. You can extrapolate most of the same principles when the issue of transforming or adapting content to different devices and contexts.

See also:
Protohaus Mobile Navigation Design Concepts

Interesting resume by KPMG:

Third, and perhaps most critical, the consumers surveyed are generally not willing to pay much of a premium over their current service bill to access such advanced multimedia converged services, meaning convergence is unlikely to provide carriers with a definitive cash cow 'killer app'.
A reluctance to pay large premiums for new services is a function of several trends - the general 'Internet-ification' of the service market, where content is perceived as (virtually, if not explicitly) free, and a fiercely competitive telecoms environment in which carriers quickly commoditize service offerings in exchange for market share and as a result pass price sensitivity on to ever-wiser digital consumers.

Local Copy: KPMG: Consumers and Convergence, Challenges and opportunities in meeting
next generation customer needs

CTIA: Keynote: Van Toffler, President, MTV Networks Group

Mobile Handset "Holy Grail"
Audio

Take Van Toffler's description during today's keynote of the mobile handset as the "Holy Grail of devices." He explained, "While global youth spends $16 villion on music they spend $106 billion on mobile. Teens rank it as more more desireable than their laptop computers, mp3 players or their video game consoles -- and that should be music to all of your ears. ...

CTIA: Van Toffler keynote (MP3)

As written several times, the new mobiles like the PSP and iPod gaining some ground in the mobile field. It's still in the early stages though.

To introduce this new category, I wanted to start with the new spot from TWBA/Chiat/Day. Below you also find the official FAQ about all things PSP in the US.



Sony PSP
TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles: "Big Guns and Rats"
Download Quicktime Movie (.mov)

See also:
PlayStation® Portable (PSP™) FAQ

Sony has sold more than 15 million PSPs worldwide in just one year, according to the Chicago Tribune. The iPod has sold twice that number in 2005 (32 millions iPods to be precise, and 42 millions altogether till end of 2005), but it took Apple also bit longer - they debuted the first iPod in October 2001.

So, just for now two things I wanted to blog already some time ago:
PSP Fanboy Blog
and the book from O'Reilly
PSP Hacks

See also:
PSP Feedgarden
PSP-hacks (not the same as the book)
PSP World
Sample the Web (from the author of PSP Hacks)