It’s unfortunate that companies fail to view this and adapt to the changing ways of media consumption. Perhaps the CEO who are expected to set the vision are to be blamed for failing to set the companies in the right direction amidst changing surroundings.

Failure to change their strategy caused both companies to go down. HMV went down because of: iTunes, Spotify, Amazon as well as illegal downloads who represent the new way people or shall we say the new generation are consuming media. They did not adapt and have paid the price for it. If they had evolved with an online download service of their own, their fate would have most probably been different.

Same goes for Blockbuster, online services like Netflix, Lovefilm, and iTunes have taken over, of course with the illegal streaming services upsetting the legal consumption channel as well.

Take a look at PCWorld they have a cloud backup service, they are evolving which is good. New ways of doing business, new revenue streams, etc. Of course they have competitors like box, Dropbox, etc. but they are not missing new opportunities in the digital world. Game now offers downloads for games. Steam in the game arena is a big player.

The bottom line is the internet has become so powerful and accessible that these are new ways of consuming media. People want media and they want it now. They do not want to wait 2 days to get it by post or go to the shopping centre to get it when they can get it all via internet.

This is what these companies have failed to understand unfortunately.

Ever since facebook and youtube burst on the digital scene and got invested in or acquired by bigger corporations, the scene in the digital world was set to change and change it did. Startups started cropping up in every big city with the dream of having a successful exit strategy. It flourished so much that incubation programs were setup by big corporations and workspace like Google Campus were setup to allow startups to blossom to their full potential.

Big companies now have their eyes on the startup world knowing the potential that these small organisations have, even though sometimes they are run by fresh university graduates.

Enough of the poetics…

Having previously worked for a startup, GoSpoken, before joining Orange, I saw the gap between how a startup functions compared to a big company. I have to say it was an eye opener and here I share my thoughts in this blog post.

What do big corporations see in startups?

1 - most big corporations suffer from tunnel vision and need to turn to startups for creative out-of-the-box thinking

Ever wondered what it would have been like if twitter made its own apps? Well probably nothing much more evolved than communicating in 140 characters. With APIs, they have been able to tap into the creative power of the community; you get apps with sentiment analysis; a map of the world showing you where a particular word has been most tweeted, etc.

Startups are very much like this creative community which won’t be afraid to challenge what is the norm. Too many times I have heard “This does not fit into the operator model”. Product Managers stuck into the old doctrine of operators are only for communication. They fail to realise that the power has shifted now and apps like Whatsapp and facebook are stealing the show when it comes to communicating. Can’t blame the operators for not having created something like Whatsapp. Who would cannibalise their own business? No one would. But again a lot of people from big corporations are stuck in this old conventional line of thought. Why? I think it’s because we are in a transition period for the fight for innovation power between big corporations and startups.

2 – startups generate innovative products faster than big corporations

Needless to say the big corporations have too many checkpoints to be signed off that by the time the product is out, the requirements for the product has changed. Processes can be cumbersome and detrimental to product development. Startups easily breeze through development. Startups focus on making their products better regularly while big corporations have to wait 6 months or more to rework through the next phase.

Bureaucracy is a practically non-existent term for startups. It’s all about “just do it” like the Nika advert says.

3 – to complement their strategy

Why reinvent the wheel when you can acquire it! If a product is out there somewhere which matches a new product you would like to launch or enhance an already existing product you have, why waste time recreating it. Not only will you waste money it will also take you time to acquire the knowhow and experiences learnt from the existing startup. As they say, time is the only resource which you never get back and for a business time is money. So businesses save yourself some time so that you can focus on other uncharted areas!

To sum up, by partnenrship with a startup, you gain:

• out-of-the-box solutions,
• fast turnaround of solutions,
• expertise and lessons learnt,
• time to focus on other areas

Big debate about from the two teams, which was fantastically moderated by Ewan Macleod.

I have for a long time been keeping an eye on the evolution of the HTML5 technology as you can see in my presentation HTML5: the mobile challenge. I am a big fan of HTML5 and firmly believe that it destined for great things in the future.

Until the technology matures, HTML5 can’t fully replace native apps.

Some people think that because HTML has been defined as a markup language and not a programming, it cannot compete with native apps. I disagree because this applies to old HTML. Nowadays, when we speak of HTML, it is understood that JavaScript and CSS is involved.

Here are my views on when to use the HTML5, native or the hybrid approach based on my experience:

When to use HTML5:

• cross-platform ideology (PC, tablet, mobile)
• light content distribution e.g. news
• discovery in app store not key
• security/speed not key
• No DRM involved
• No APIs involved
• Engaging with customers not key via push notifications

When to use native apps:

• Speed is key (e.g. photo/video upload)
• Security is key (e.g banking)
• DRM support (e.g. spotify, netflix)
• API availaibility
• Push notifications (engage users)
• discovery route is App Store (with Marketing budget)

When to use hybrid:

• cross-platform ideology (PC, tablet, mobile)
• light content distribution e.g. news
• bypass approval process for tiny content updates
• discovery route is App Store (with Marketing budget)
• Push notifications (engage users)

In the UK , there are only 2 options T-mobile’s The Full Monty Plan and 3′s One Plan. Both of these options promise you unlimited data without restrictions.

The Full Monty is the most attractive, you get Unlimited calls, texts and data. I was tempted and I signed up for it. Unlimited everything for £21. I thought I had myself the deal of the century.
Boy, was I wrong!!! When I checked the Internet speeds on my iPhone with speedtest.net‘s app. I was shocked with the results. The results of my five tests at 3 different locations: 0.37, 0.59, 1.19, 3.29, 0.97Mbps. I cross-checked this with my girlfriend’s phone who is on Orange and she was getting blazing speeds of 7.98Mbps (see screenshots). I was not happy at all! How can you run an app on 0.37Mbps!!! Seriously that is terrible speed. Worst than O2. I kept testing T-mobile’s speed after the test and I felt it was way below what I expected. The next day I cancelled my SIM-only deal with them as I was not satisfied with the data speeds which averaged less than 1Mbps.

I then signed up for 3′s One plan. As soon as I put it inside my phone, I started getting speeds of >5Mbps. The results of my tests at the same 5 locations: 5.26, 3.28, 1.29, 6.13, 4.77Mbps. I was happy with that as long as it was not under 1Mbps at any moment like the The Full Monty.

Out of curiosity, I kept testing it or even racing 3′s One Plan against my girlfriend’s iPhone who is on Orange. Orange kept winning on the download speeds beating 3′s data connection. However, 3 had slightly better upload speed. I decided to stay with 3 because with £25, you can unlimited data and tethering is allowed. I was happy with speeds nearing 5Mbps.

Conclusion

If you’re after:

• big download speeds with limits of 2GB, then Orange is the network for you
• upload speeds, then 3 is the network for you
• decent speeds with unlimited data (like me), then 3′s One Plan is for you

I was rather pleasantly surprised with this message:

If you cannot – or choose not to – revise your app to be in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines, you may wish to build an HTML5 web app instead. You can distribute web apps directly on your web site; the App Store does not accept or distribute web apps.

HTML5 is the major new version of HTML and enables audio and video to play natively in the browser without requiring proprietary plug-ins. Using HTML5, web apps can look and behave like native iPhone and iPad apps, and using HTML5′s Offline Application Cache, a web app can work even when the device is offline. With web apps, you have flexibility to deliver as much or as little functionality as you desire.

To get started with iPhone or iPad web apps, please review Getting Started with iPhone Web Apps.

For a description of the HTML elements and attributes you can use in Safari on iPhone, check out Safari HTML Reference: Introduction.

 

Apple has been a long-term supporter of HTML5. Although the specs for HTML5 are yet to be finalised, it is pleasing to see Apple promote this technology to its developers as an alternative rather than protect its Apps Ecosystem. Thumbs up to Apple.

You can also find more about HTML5 on the Apple website

Feel free to ask any questions.

The move has been so well received by the public that growth shot up to 1269% according to Experian hitwise. The graph below:

Google+ open beta growth

According to Paul Allen (unofficial statistician for Google+), it took Google+ 88 days to reach the 50 million mark. Looking at the graph below from Leon Haland, we can see how this compares to other social networking websites.

Google+ 50 million users

What’s the potential for Google+?

Bearing in mind that Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter and MySpace managed to get their users via friends inviting people in their contact lists, etc. , it would be fair to say that Google+ didn’t have to resort to such measures to jump from 54th to 8th in the Experian Hitwise Social Networking and Forums category.

So what drove people’s interest to sign-up to Google+… the answer is simple, it’s search engine. Whether you’re signed-up or not, Google.com will always entice you to join from the +You in the top left menu on the search engine to the +1 button in each and every search result item. This without any doubt provides the Google+ platform massive exposure to the unregistered Google+ “virgin” unrivalled by any of the other social platforms.

Social media unique visitors

From the graph above, it can be seen that Facebook clearly dwarfs the likes of MySpace, twitter and LinkedIn. Google.com cannot be retrieved as I suspect it has been blocked. Much of the stats is derived from their search engine which is the number 1 ranked site representing 50%-60% of global internet users. So the measure are pretty much one of the most accurate around.

From Alexa, Google has a great reach of about 50% v/s 45% for Facebook. Interestingly 6.04% of google.com visitors went to plus.google.com.

Google and Facebook reach

Using compete.com, Google.com receives 165,067,996 unique visitors per month while Facebook receives 155,773,970. So 6.04% (from Alexa) would represent 9,970,107 unique visitors for Google+ but most of these are referrals and we are missing out on the direct traffics to plus.google.com.

The graph below from compete.com shows another approximation which equals to 13,443,888 Unique Visitors:

What I am trying to say here is that the Google.com search engine will prove to be a massive exposure for Google+ whereas Facebook does not have such a powerful referral service at its disposal.

Google is also looking to incorporate social recommendations based for e.g. on interests. Now who would not want this feature while searching on google. I know I would and believe  a lot of people will too.

I’ll try to wrap up this post pretty quickly as I am pretty sure by now, a lot of people have access to Google+ since they opened their doors to the public last week.

After we looked at circles last time, we will be looking at hangouts, sparks, huddle and instant uploads.

Hangouts

I have to say this is a pretty cool feature which allows to see and chat with you friends. It’s totally visual. Similar to Facebook video call. Google+ seems to be much better than Facebook in doing this as it shows “Dharmesh Suraj Bali is hanging out with 2 friends”. Join this hangout. Pretty cool huh.

Google 2 Facebook 0

Sparks

Sparks is a good way to pull information from the web based on your areas of interest.  My sparks seems to have disappeared though. I quite liked this feature. It’s like a news aggregator of your favourite topics. I would give Google+ 3-0 on with the sparks feature.

Messenger (ex-Huddle) and Instant upload

The Instant upload, as the name suggests, is a mobile feature which allows you to instanly upload pictures to a private album on Google+. Huddle is group chat just like you have on Facebook. So plus points there other than I have to say the instant upload is pretty good since taking pictures from the mobile is becoming a common feature nowadays.

A couple of notes

Seems to me that Google+ has removed sparks from its interface as I cannot access it or maybe it might be a bug affecting a few people since I have seen similar issues on forums. Huddle has been replaced by chat and messenger.

Full list of features are:

The first thing that I did was play around with circles.

Google’s video on circles:

The stream idea is cool and is the equivalent of status updates but the only difference with facebook is that you can stream videos is you have a web cam. (Google 1 – Facebook 0).  I always thought that the next evolution of facebook should be videos as described on my recent facebook post, even before the rumours of facebook buying Skype. Facebook wants to revolutionise the way people communicate by encouraging them to chat and message each other all in real time and Google have beaten them to the real-time video communication. Not that I think it will change a lot in terms of facebook users migrating to google+.

Now to the circles.
I was disappointed with circles as my original idea when I heard of it was it will auto-manage the privacy settings. Sure, it’s meant to make sure you stream specific messages to specific circles (e.g. girly messages to the close females friends) but I believe what most people want is auto-management of updates towards your circles, bearing in mind that most people do not have a clue about privacy settings.

From a facebook approach, it’s update your status and everybody gets it although in an ideal world it should have been filtered by the lists of friends which you create. In facebook you can’t even manage the privacy settings of the lists.The Google approach is put your friends in circles and send message, video streams to your circles. It’s plain, simple you will have circles of work friends, female friends, best friends, travel buddies, etc. Want to set up a new travel plan, stream it to your travel buddies without the whole world knowing about it. I like it, it’s a simple approach and I have to say thumbs up to Google for changing the whole approach. This seems to have been well thought and addressed so that there is no privacy settings to manage. Just put people in circles just like you would in your real life. As much as it pains me to say this, it’s Google 2 – Facebook 0.

I will post some more very soon on Google+ while I continue to play and dissect it.

In the meantime if you want a Google+ account, feel free to email me.

WAC launched at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona, promised to make it easier for developers to sell and build apps irrespective of device or technology. One year on, WAC is open for business with the launch of its application store and the release of version 2.0 of its specifications.

On its website, WAC aims to:

• Accelerate and expand the market for applications by enabling developers to develop once and deploy to multiple platforms and devices
• Create more compelling applications by enabling developers to use both device and network capabilities
• Provide greater choice for users by simplifying the porting of apps

Comparing WAC to the competition

* figures from Mobile Developer Economics 2010 and Beyond by VisionMobile

** from the WAC press release

*** from Gartner report

Demand and supply

The word “apps” has been heavily tied to Apple from the day it entered the mobile industry and changed the whole dynamics of the ecosystem. Without any doubt, Apple’s iPhone has set the benchmark for mobile apps. Apple’s app user interface has been so successful that users demand more of their apps in terms of functionality, performance, graphics and level of interactivity when choosing the competition.

The device has provided users with an unprecedented level of interactivity to the point that it has become the defacto standard when choosing a platform for apps. The user interface on these devices provides complex functionality while at the same time allowing excellent performance tied up with rich graphics and a high level of interactivity. WAC, which uses widgets as the technology for getting apps to market, is still in its infancy when it comes to handling such complexity and performance.

If we are to compare WAC apps to Apple and Android apps, then at the moment it is really poor and cannot tackle the super apps distributed by Apple and Android. Widgets simply cannot live up to the expectations of demanding iPhone and Android users. The closest widgets can get to these super apps is simple 2D games and weather forecast apps.

The super app train

One of the success factors for Apple’s ecosystem has been the continuous evolution of its OS each providing access to a new set of features for apps. Every time a new OS version is launched, there is a gap in the market for new innovative apps using these features which provide users with new ways of interacting with their mobiles and the environment around them. Both developers and users are constantly being engaged with this continuous evolution of features.

Even if WAC was to catch up to the market leaders, it still faces playing a chasing game because Android and Apple are constantly evolving their OS and set of features while WAC is only trying to match them. The popular apps seen today in the leading app stores will eventually be displaced by new feature-rich apps when new OS versions and new phones are launched. This continuous evolution of features guarantees that apps keep getting more interactive, processor-intensive and graphics-intensive which inevitably creates a cycle of today’s super apps will be tomorrow’s average apps. Apps will keep getting better and better and WAC would need to catch up fast so as not to miss the super app train.

APIs

One major factor for the success of apps on the iPhone and Android has been the interactivity provided by hardware APIs. So far, WAC only provides access to network and device APIs. To create compelling apps, it would need to harness the power of the gyroscope and accelerometer in most devices. Operator and device APIs are just not enough for their compelling apps dream. Handset OEMs would need to join in as well and contribute to WAC with their hardware APIs. So far WAC has managed to convince very few handset OEMs.

Another shortoming of the WAC’s API offerings is in its APIs business model. They have to realise that they have mountains to move when it comes to encouraging developers to develop for them. The 3 billion device reach promise is not enough!  They would have to offer their APIs free of charge or even have a revenue share model for developers who use their APIs, like BlueVia for example. This would be a big encouragement for developers as they would get an extra revenue channel for use of its APIs, a definite plus point.

Devices, markets and developers

As devices get more powerful, start cramming more pixels, and keep improving their interactivity, it becomes practically impossible for WAC to keep up with this constant and fast paced evolution. It needs to target a particular segment of mobiles. Keeping up with the low-end to the high-end through the mid-end phones will create even more fragmentation. At the high-end level, is it worth competing with the native apps of the Android Market and at the low-end level, can the devices support HTML or do they only support WML? All these factors will have to be considered when targeting a particular device segment. The mid-end phones are most likely best suited to WAC.

In a similar fashion to devices, WAC needs to carefully choose its markets. Major markets such as UK and USA are tech-savvy and demanding in terms of apps quality. The market has already been sold on the virtues of Apple’s iPhone and are very likely able to afford an iPhone or Android phone through operator subsidy. Developing or emerging countries for e.g. in Africa could be a good market for WAC. The masses cannot afford an iPhone or Android phone there and WAC could easily sell them the offerings of an app store. This heavily ties up with the popular devices in these countries which are more likely low-end to mid-end range phones, for example Nokia is very popular in African countries.

Developers, just like devices and markets, also need to be targeted. WAC at the moment does not offer an attractive enough proposition to tempt the highly successful iPhone developers who are running a profitable business. Less successful iPhone and Android developers would be more interested in WAC as well as entrepeneurs who find iPhone development expensive might be also interested in WAC. Therefore, WAC would really need to define what it is aiming for, the high-end developers or lower-end ones.

Native apps v/s widgets

Most apps can’t be developed with widgets and more app versions are required to cover the same number of devices with widgets. You can’t win with both sides of an unbiased coin. WAC has to choose between native apps or widgets. It can choose to drop widgets altogether but that would be at the expense of its members, some of whom have already created app stores geared towards native apps. Widgets will continue to be the main technology used by WAC to deliver apps as going native on apps will have a conflict of interest with its members.

The road ahead

WAC without any doubts has a massive market to tap into but it lacks a clear strategy aimed towards a specific market, devices and developers. To be successful it needs to address the lower spectrum of the mobile ecosystem because it just cannot compete with Apple or Android who are riding on the higher end of the spectrum. WAC can ride the app store wave by replicating what the major app stores are doing but to a lower device market and audience.