Archive for January, 2006

Phone Call 2.0 (2.0)

Friday, January 27th, 2006

What’s your SRQ?
It is a sign of the times that any hack like me with a blog eventually ends up quoting themselves. Have you noticed this? As more people have a way to express themselves on any given topic, more people also quote themselves these days. As if to increase one’s appearance of possessing insight or intellectual capital, we say things like, “I blogged about that over a year ago” or “Have you read my blog about that?” Like as if there is any likelihood that someone actually reads your blog. I used to laugh at people who did it, but I have to admit that I actually did it myself yesterday, and I will continue to be guilt of doing it on this blog.

Let me say now that although you feel smart when you reference yourself, you actually seem lame to whomever you are quoting yourself, particularly when you are quoting your blog. Think about what you are doing when you refer to a blog post you made last month: You are asserting that you could find no more worthy source to quote than yourself, which makes you appear either dubiously confident or too eager to establish your position as a valuable source.

In this sense, it is sort of like an inverse substitute for IQ to whomever is in the company of the self-absorbed self referencer. The more true it is that you are smart, the less you have to remind people that you are, so why the self referencing?

But blogging isn’t about knowledge or expertise. The blogosphere is extremely self-referential because it is driven by one of the primary motivators baked into human nature: Fame. So powerful is this motivator that for most people it is sufficient to be famous just to themselves. Having a collection of posts about random shit and then looking at it from time to time is a source of great joy to most bloggers. There is a pride of ownership that incents people to create more content. From now on, I will refer to the blogger tendency to self reference as the Self Reference Quotient, or SRQ. “Wow. Shawn sure has a high SRQ. I wonder if it is directly inverse to his IQ?”

Anyway, this post is about something else…
I had breakfast this morning with my friend Fabrice and we were talking about this and I realized that there is a huge benefit to this self-referential construct beyond the simple fame aspect, and it is going to be one of the cornerstones of the mobile media future.

Sorry to do it, but before I explain, first allow me to reference myself: (from Phone Call 2.0) “My children will not understand the concept of Phone Call 1.0 – they will live in a world where the media they create will represent them and act as an active proxy. Their friends will not understand the concept of a “phone number,” the artifact of an analog world long gone, and instead will have their own channel – a two-way location-aware media presence through which they will communicate with the world around them.”

I thought about this concept again after the small ballyhoo last week about the companies that promise they can get not only any phone number for any person, but the phone records for any person. This seems like it should be private information, doesn’t it?

Maybe. If the availability of the information were limited such that access required a subpoena, like to assist in the investigation of a crime, would it change your attitude about it?

In any case, people tend to think that their cell phone number is a very important piece of information that must be protected at all costs. Heaven forbid someone should get a hold of it and it got sold to every telemarketer on the planet. So what? I’ve got caller ID and I can just not answer the phone if I don’t recognize the number.

So you might say that your voicemail box would fill up then. So what? I stopped using my mobile voicemail last year after the “upgrade” that actually made it more difficult to use and less functional overall. (It used to be 1 = play/rewind, 2 = save and 3 = delete. Now it is a complex menu of things that makes the top few things harder to do. So I stopped using it. My outgoing message says, “Don’t bother leaving a message because I don’t check my voicemail. Send me an SMS instead and I’ll get back to you.” This system now works much better for me, because at a glance I can see all the people who have contacted me rather than wading through the time-consuming process of listening to voicemails.)

So you might say protecting your phone number is important because getting spam SMS would be the worst thing that could happen because for most phones there is no filtering and no way to delete without first opening the SMS. A 100% open rate is a spam marketer’s dream. On this point, I would agree. Furthermore, it is already happening in other parts of the world, and I predict that it will soon happen in the U.S., even if aggressive legislation makes it an undesirable practice.

When this happens, you will simply route around the problem, and the fame-driven blogosphere is the first step toward doing away with phone numbers altogether.

The importance of yourspace
MySpace is undeniably fun, but more importantly, it is undeniably useful. It provides me with a place where I can put all my stuff. That stuff defines me, and enables me to network with other people. If you are a stranger and come across my space, you get a sense of who I am based on my interests, media collection, blog, friends, etc. If you are a friend of mine, you might use my space to get my opinion on something or to see what kind of music I am listening to lately because you like my taste. Then you might contact me because my space is also a messaging hub where you can reach me via email or IM. I think a “click-to-call” feature on MySpace would be cool and insanely useful. Maybe an integration deal with Skype would accomplish that. You already see people posting their skype name on their spaces.

Media + Communication = Phone Call 2.0. If a picture is worth a thousand words, rather than call you to describe the beautiful sunset, I would prefer to just send you a picture, and now I can. Add a bunch of other stuff like my location, places that I have been and anonymous relay to whatever live communication channel I have open at the moment, whether it is my cell phone or mobile IM or whatever, and you achieve user-controllable presence where the hub of value is not the phone number. This is basically how Rabble works, and it works a little better than a web-based solution from a communication standpoint because it is always with you.

In fact, the phone number is the least important part of a personal media communication ecosystem that simply represents a termination point, or the last mile, of your ad-hoc communication network. If you click on “ShawnConahan” on Skype and it forwards to my phone number, which is masked to you, then you never have to know my phone number. In fact, why not just dynamically assign phone numbers for the purpose of completing a call that originates from some other interface or protocol?

Why the fame motivator matters
Because you are incented to put all of your stuff in one public space because it makes you famous to yourself, (and maybe to someone else) the unintended consequence of doing so is that you develop a fairly robust profile of yourself which makes you easier to find and generally more useful to other people. Then when you attach your communications hub to your space, you basically have an outward-facing filter that stages your relationships before they ever reach you. You want to contact me? First you need to be my friend. To be my friend you have to send me a friend request. Then I check out your space. If I think you are friend-worthy, I’ll allow you into the inner circle where people are able to communicate with me. Spam me once and you are banished forever. It is the media networking equivalent to caller ID, call waiting and call barring all rolled into one robust but amazingly simple concept.

Aside from direct communication with you, it may be sufficient to some people simply to see your collection of media or even just an opinion. To find restaurants in NY, I sometimes use menupages.com, and I always read dozens of opinions of total strangers. Those opinions are useful. More useful are the opinions of people you know or people you know are like you. I personally experienced this on my trip to New York this week. Rather than call Derrick directly for the name of that steak house that’s near the hotel, I went to his Rabble channel and there it was: He had put Ben Benson’s on the map and gave a little mini review of it.

Your desire to be famous is important in other ways. The more fans you collect, the greater your fame, and the more complete you want your space to be so that you can collect more fans. This incents you to actively solicit connections and the cycle is neverending. The benefit is that connections create value. The requirement is that you are always in control to a certain degree so that you can make sure your space is representative of the kind of fame you want. Many people complain about Blogger because it does not let you moderate trackbacks. You can turn them on or off, but that is all. When your personal space is polluted by a trackback to “Cheap V1AGRA! Online Pha r[macy L0raz!pam! Lowest pr!ces!” you are immediately disincented to create more compelling content and a more robust profile because you are attracting the wrong kind of fame.

In summary, the more media you create and the more you can consolidate your media and your communication in one place, the more connections you are likely to make and the more useful your various communication tools will be to you. Those tools will also be more flexible in general because they are really just termination points hanging off of your main personal media net that catches inbound communication requests and routes them accordingly (and when there is a newer, better tool, just plug it in and use it and discard the old one) and also acts as an outbound proxy for your live presence when it is not required.

Posted in LMNO | Comments Off

Doubleplusgood Big Brother Minipax

Tuesday, January 17th, 2006

speakwriting bellyfeel blackwhite prolefeed plusgood.

My Orwellian nightmare continues. (Little Brother series Part 4. Also see 1, 2 and 3.)

The title of this post, written in Newspeak, translates into Oldspeak as “It is very good that our government’s National Security Administration is illegally wiretapping and recording our citizens’ communications, and I feel deeply and emotionally, without question, that whatever reason our government gives our citizens to justify it is very good.”

Of course, in the Orwellian future, I would have to say such a thing because language has no accommodation for a heretical thought, or a thought diverging from the principles of the government. It would be literally unthinkable, or at least inexpressible in words.

Even if I could say something like “doubleplusUNgood Big Brother Minipax,” it would be crimethought and the thinkpol would surely show up and make me an unperson if I uttered such words anywhere near a telescreen.

Dayorder duckspeak plusgoodest Minitrue.

In the Orwellian future, ubiquitous “telescreens” that were essentially two-way flat-panel TVs ensured no citizen ever escaped the watchful eye of Big Brother. Such a system would make sense at the time Orwell was looking into the future – he had not been able to envision a future where we would conduct our personal interactions not on the street in face-to-face encounters, but via electronic transmission of bits and bytes. The fact that all electronic communication consolidates somewhere (through a mail server, at your ISP, a switch, a google server) means that the present-day version of the telescreen is a reality, it just happens in the form of such patriotic and in-the-best-interest-of-the-people sounding projects as Carnivore.

Do you think a domestic spying program is a positive move to increase the safety of the American People? Do you think it is an utterly reprehensible abuse of power and an encroachment on the personal liberties upon which America was founded?

Before you consider your opinion, think about the concept of surveillance in general and decide whether you have already very happily invited into your life a certain decrease of your personal liberties.

Technology has accelerated us into a reality of connectedness – not just to each other, but to other things. The bi-directional nature of our communication tools has transformed each of us into transponder nodes on a massively connected media network. Some of the nodes on that media network are not people at all, but are valuable media sources that add value to our daily communications by knowing where we are, what we consume, who we know and how we communicate.

Do you want a mobile coupon to make your cell phone vibrate when you walk by a Starbucks? Then the media network will need to know where you are at all times. Do you want your TiVo to automatically record a new show for you? Then it has to compare your viewing habits to that of everyone else like you on the media network and provide you with that valuable service. Do you use LinkedIn for professional networking? The only way that service works effectively to is know the relationships of every user of the system through the media that you provide – in this case, a resume showing everywhere you have ever worked. Do you use mobile IM? It knows the communication presence and habits of everyone who uses it, and necessarily maintains the interrelationships of every user.

You may not think of it this way, but as valuable as the services that I mentioned are to you, they require your complicit surrender of a certain degree of personal privacy. In order for these technological advancements to add value to your life, they literally have to surveil you and your actions. What’s more, your participation is not completely passive – you have to provide a certain amount of information to participate in these surveillance-based services, and without the collective participation of every user, the services cease to provide any value.

So what is the worst-case scenario of massively distributed participation-based surveillance? A Starbuckian society where barely-human automatons happily line up, often out the door, to receive a third daily injection of caffeine because they got a half-off coupon to do so, not because they opted in, but because Starbucks tracked their purchasing behavior through their Starbucks debit card? How about TiVo replacing programming executives (and indeed, the very notion of scheduled viewing) based on proprietary volumetrics provided collectively by every TiVo owner, not because they affirmatively opted in to having their viewing habits used as such, but because the implicit value of the service requires it? What if you get introduced to a hot business opportunity based on a tenuous professional relationship with someone who knows someone who knows someone who wants to meet you, not because you were looking for such a relationship, but because you were simply findable? (Just happened to me today, in fact.) What if AOL serves you locally relevant, time-sensitive ads to your mobile AIM client whenever you get handed off to a new cell tower, not because you asked them to do so, but because it is the price you pay for a free version of the service and the ads are so targeted and relevant that you actually appreciate it? What if an NSA agent shows up at your door to inquire about the curious string of emails you sent to your distribution list which includes various representatives of the Carlyle Group, known members of a terrorist sleeper cell and a couple of friends of yours who work at the San Onofre nuclear power plant, not because you opted in to be surveilled, but because such an active surveillance system is designed to extract relevance from extraordinary patterns for some (real or imagined) benefit?

Where do you draw the line at intrusive? All of these scenarios require some level of active surveillance, and some level of participation on your part. That participation is via the media you create, whether it is in the form of an email, a profile, (created or derived) activity log or location.

And so we are entering an Era of Surveillance, where every person is an active node on a massive media network, and personal feelings and politics aside, it is impossible to discuss the future of media without considering its impact on personal liberties. The ACLU has published an interesting report on the subject.

If the future of media is two-way, and it is created at the edge of the network and distribution is via a series of overlapping personal networks within a geographically relevant media networking grid, the interface to which is a portable location-aware Personal Media Device, (PMD) then the very far-reaching implications of a new media future extend much farther beyond the evolution of, say, your television viewing experience.

Media, communication and surveillance are colliding into one new form. Gone is the notion of media passivity, sitting on your couch and letting the cable television wash over you. Don’t bother trying to make that experience any better. Media is active, facilitating connectedness. There are more people sending an SMS at this moment than there are watching digital cable.

Tune in, Turn on, Get laid
When Timothy Leary coined his counterculture phrase “Tune in, turn on, drop out,” he was advocating that young people initiate cultural change by ingesting psychedelic drugs and voluntarily removing themselves from society.

The difference between then and now is that through technology kids literally live in a different world from adults and so there is no reason to even recognize the prevailing culture as something to which one must be counter. The “dropping out” part makes no sense to a generation that recognizes the benefit of increasing one’s social capital by simply being findable and available to the largest possible number of potential connections.

The recently coined phrase “MySpace Generation” is a nice way of saying that from this generation forward, people simply won’t care about being surveilled, because the word “surveillance” has been replaced by the term “plugged in” and the notion of “logging in” to The Internets has no meaning to a generation that never logs out.

Participative, shared experiences facilitated by electronic tools are the glue that connect this generation, and the stigma of an oppressive Big Brother has dissolved into the benefit of having multiple Little Brothers all watching each other, to the great benefit of everyone watching. Furthermore, there is a direct correlation between your level of participation and the degree to which you are surveilled. And, as unfathomable as it may sound to Timothy Leary’s generation, more is better.

And that is one of the most profound implications of the new media future: To not be a contributor in some form means to not benefit from the media networking collective. Sure, privacy will be available at a cost, but most people will say, “I’d prefer half off my triple grande latte.”

Whether you think a surveillance society is good or bad, I would argue that it cannot exist without the willing participation of the members of society. Maybe you think it is net positive because it provides value in the form of new friends, new music and coupons. Maybe you think it is ultimately net negative because you fear a future where the flow of media is unfairly one-way.

In either case, there is a solution to balance the equation: Empower Little Brother. Put a two-way “telescreen” in the hands of every citizen and see what happens.

If you are a right wingnut conservative and your political orientation is just to the right of Rush Limbaugh and you advocate a decrease in personal liberties in exchange for an insular, secure society and favor a policy of blind and belligerent nationalism, then an increase in domestic spying is a good thing for you, and you should see the value of putting a spying device into the hands of every man, woman and child so that no interloper will ever be able to escape the watchful eye of the good citizens of society. There is anecdotal evidence of ordinary citizens assisting authorities to apprehend alleged criminals in this way.

If you are a bleeding-heart liberal, are registered to vote with no party affiliation because you are disgusted with the political climate in our country, believe that giving up personal freedoms for security makes you neither free nor secure, and think that the government’s domestic spying program is not only wrong, but illegal and an unchecked abuse of power, then a decrease in the efficacy of the government’s spying program through forced transparency is a good thing for you, and you should see the value of putting a spying device into the hands of every man, woman and child in America to spy on the government as a counterbalance measure. There is anecdotal evidence of ordinary citizens assisting in the legal cases of people wrongfully accused by lying NYPD officers who falsified their police reports.

Ah, the fresh smell of the future. To some it smells bad, and to others it’s like roses. To me, it is too early to tell, but one thing is for sure: The order of the day should be the democratization of media and information. Only by doing so can we ensure the good aspects of a participative media future continue to bear fruit and also make sure the potentially worst outcome never sees the light of day – at least not if billions of people can vote with their feet. We have already begun the march toward total personal transparency. The more we empower each individual participant on the mobile media network, the more valuable the network and the greater the benefit to everyone participating. If that information starts to flow too much in one direction, and not to the benefit of its providers, the massive crowd will simply unplug from that grid and find a new route around it to connect with each other.

Posted in Citizen Journalism | 1 Comment »

Simplicity is key.

Friday, January 6th, 2006

I am in Las Vegas at CES. I saw the “O” show, wherein dozens of nubile gymnasts perform impossibly complex and breathtaking acts of derring-do to the amazement of the very impressed crowd. It is the sheer complexity of the show that is so spectacular. The set design, music, choreography, costumes and raw physical prowess of the cast all wrapped up in a package requiring greater logistical coordination than running an airline make for a very entertaining evening. In Vegas-style entertainment, complexity is key.

In consumer applications, it is not.

I think our first product, Rabble, while very useful, is a little too complex. We are building the redesigned next version right now to make it far simpler for 2.0, so simplicity is on my mind. I was just reading a press release from Motorola and Avvenu that reminded me of a deal that someone did while I was at MP3.com. When we all saw the press release, it became a source of much discussion and great amusement. The problem at the time was that you really couldn’t buy stuff easily on the internet because there was no ubiquitous low-friction billing mechanism on the web. So someone decided that consumers would be willing to mount retinal eye scanners on their computers and scan their iris every time they wanted to buy a song from MP3.com. I kid you not. As if scanning your eyeball would be easier than pulling out your credit card.

Here is the press release:

Cash Technologies, MP3.COM and SENSAR Announce Plans to Demonstrate Internet ATM Card Purchases

Millions of consumers without credit cards will be able to shop securely on the World Wide Web

LOS ANGELES (November 18, 1999) Cash Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: CHNG) announced today that it has reached agreements with MP3.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: MPPP), the Internet’s premiere online digital music destination, and Sensar, Inc., a leading manufacturer of iris recognition products, to pilot the use of ATM cards to purchase music products at MP3’s website utilizing Sensar’s iris recognition devices and Cash Tech’s EMMA™ transaction processing system.

MP3 customers participating in the pilot will be able - for the first time - to use their regular bank ATM card to shop securely over the Internet at MP3’s website. The use of Sensar’s iris camera at the customer’s PC will eliminate the need to send PIN numbers over the Internet, removing the key stumbling block that has prevented the use of ATM cards on the Internet until now.

“Today nearly half of the US population and one fourth of those who qualify do not have credit cards,” said Bruce Korman, Chairman and CEO of Cash Technologies. “Additionally, credit card and password fraud has victimized millions of online customers. To support the continued explosive growth in Internet shopping and make online services available to the widest possible audience, a secure method to authorize financial transactions, particularly the use of ATM cards for purchases over the Internet, is essential. The versatile capabilities of our EMMA system combined with Sensar’s iris recognition products will make this possible for the first time.”

Participating MP3 customers will enroll for the pilot, which is expected to take place during the first quarter of 2000, at an iris-enabled ATM supplied by Diebold, Inc. Thereafter, when the customer is ready to purchase products from MP3’s website, a small handheld camera manufactured by Sensar, which plugs into the customer’s PC, will take a picture of his or her iris and return the encoded information to MP3 over the Internet. MP3 in turn passes the information to Cash Tech’s EMMA system to authenticate the customer and process the transaction through the ATM networks. Within seconds, an approval is returned by EMMA to MP3 and the customer can then receive the requested MP3 product in the usual way. Despite its sophistication, for the customer the process is virtually as fast and simple as using an ATM.

“Credit card penetration is particularly low amongst the teenage population despite their tremendous buying power,” said Robin Richards, President of MP3.com. “We believe that providing a method for MP3 customers to use ATM debit cards to purchase our online products is another way that MP3 can expand its customer base and help advance the digital music revolution.”

Eventually the inexpensive handheld cameras, which will also double as “webcams” or video conferencing cameras, are expected to be distributed by banks, e-commerce providers, online securities trading firms and even built into computer monitors. Remarkably, the EMMA/Sensar system requires no changes from the ATM networks or card issuers, will accept virtually all standard bank ATM cards and can be implemented easily by Internet commerce companies on their websites.

I had to read it twice to understand that they really meant that consumers would adopt a personal eyeball scanner. Let me get this straight:
- I go to an iris-enabled ATM
- I scan my eyeball there
- I go home
- At some point I bought an eyeball scanner
- I plug this other (USB?) eyeball scanner into my computer
- I click on something I want to buy at MP3.com
- The website pops up a dialog box: “scan your eyeball”
- I scan my eyeball
- That information goes to a 3rd-party technology provider
- That company sends the information to the ATM where I scanned my eyeball, and a match is verified
- The ATM informs the company
- The company informs MP3.com
- MP3.com informs me that my bank account has been debited
- I listen to a song from a band you have never heard of

That, and, personal liberty issues aside, that banks, ATMs, websites, CE device manufacturers, and consumers would all happily build such a value chain made it ludicrous.

It was so ludicrous, in fact, that a bunch of people started thinking up even more complex solutions to buying things on the internet. It was the technological evolution of building a better mousetrap. The goal was to rewrite the press release, changing as little as possible, to come up with a solution that would be as plausible as the actual one.

Submissions were collected on our intranet and viewed by everyone participating. There was the “mail us a piece of your hair for DNA testing and verification” one, the “everyone gets a personal carrier pigeon” idea, wherein MP3.com would operate the world’s largest “pigeonet” and the Star Trek one, where every time you wanted to buy something from the website, you would use your personal transporter to beam yourself to an ATM, withdraw some cash, then with your handheld teleporter, you would beam the cash to the website’s bank, where a representative would stand in line to make the deposit.

Here is the winning submission. Consider whether it is any less plausible than scanning your eyeball to buy stuff on the web:

Cash Technologies, MP3.COM and RECTAR Announce Plans to Demonstrate Internet ATM Card Purchases

Millions of consumers without credit cards will be able to shop securely on the World Wide Web

LOS ANGELES (November 18, 1999) Cash Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: CHNG) announced today that it has reached agreements with MP3.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: MPPP), the Internet’s premiere online digital music destination, and Rectar, Inc., a leading manufacturer of fecal recognition products, to pilot the use of ATM cards to purchase music products at MP3’s website utilizing Rectar’s fecal recognition devices and Cash Tech’s ENEMA™ transaction processing system.

MP3 customers participating in the pilot will be able - for the first time - to use their regular bank ATM card to shop securely over the Internet at MP3’s website. The use of Rectar’s fecal recognition device at the customer’s PC will eliminate the need to send PIN numbers over the Internet, removing the key stumbling block that has prevented the use of ATM cards on the Internet until now.

“Today nearly half of the US population and one fourth of those who qualify do not have credit cards, but a lot of them have ATM cards and all of them have assholes,” said Bruce Korman, Chairman and CEO of Cash Technologies. “Additionally, credit card and password fraud has victimized millions of online customers. To support the continued explosive growth in Internet shopping and make online services available to the widest possible audience, a secure method to authorize financial transactions, particularly the use of ATM cards for purchases over the Internet, is essential. The versatile capabilities of our ENEMA system combined with Rectar’s fecal recognition products will make this possible for the first time.”

Participating MP3 customers will enroll for the pilot, which is expected to take place during the first quarter of 2000, at a feces-recognition-enabled ATM supplied by Diebold, Inc. Thereafter, when the customer is ready to purchase products from MP3’s website, a small handheld anal probe manufactured by Rectar, which plugs into the customer’s PC, will take a sample of his or her feces and return the encoded information to MP3 over the Internet. MP3 in turn passes the information to Cash Tech’s ENEMA system to authenticate the customer and process the transaction through the ATM networks. Within seconds, an approval is returned by ENEMA to MP3 and the customer can then receive the requested MP3 product in the usual way. Despite its sophistication, for the customer the process is virtually as fast and simple as using an ATM, except for the fact that they have to put a large cylindrical object in their anus.

“Credit card penetration is particularly low amongst the teenage population despite their tremendous buying power,” said Robin Richards, President of MP3.com. “We believe that providing a method for MP3 customers to use ATM debit cards and their own feces to purchase our online products is another way that MP3 can expand its customer base and help advance the digital music revolution.”

Eventually the inexpensive handheld anal probes, which will also double as well, you know, are expected to be distributed by banks, e-commerce providers, online securities trading firms and even built into computer monitors. Remarkably, the ENEMA/Rectar system requires no changes from the ATM networks or card issuers, will accept virtually all standard bank ATM cards and fecal matter and can be implemented easily by Internet commerce companies on their websites.

The sheer complexity of the solution immediately produced the following two epiphanies:
- Consumers will not adopt a complex solution
- Complex solutions to simple problems are often attempting to solve the wrong problem

I am sure that Cash Technologies is or was a viable company with a good reason for existing. I can also think of many good reasons for retinal eye scanning devices. I also think music on the internet is a good idea. It’s just that putting them all together doesn’t solve any problem that a consumer might have that cannot be solved with a simpler solution, nor does it provide a consumer with any new value that would justify the investment of time and effort by the consumer.

Enter the Motorola announcement. I sort of feel the same way about this. Don’t get me wrong – I am not criticizing either Moto or Avvenu. It is the combination that I question and the cost vs. value proposition to the consumer that I am wondering about.

I just used the Moto SHARE app, and this is roughly how it works:
- Take a picture
- Put it on your computer
- Connect your computer to the internet and leave it on
- Buy a Motorola phone
- Download the Avvenu software to your computer
- Put pictures into the software
- Fire up your phone’s browser
- Type in http://motorola.avvenu.com
- Browse to the photo you want to share
- Enter your friend’s phone’s email address, which requires you to know the person’s phone number, carrier and the email convention of the carrier in question (e.g., is it 8583614567@cingular.com or 8583614567@cingularwireless.com? Or is your friend on Verizon?)
- Friend gets an email with a link to your pictures
- Friend’s phone browser launches, takes them to the pictures on your PC, provided it is on and connected to the internet

I should note that based on my description, this is the kind of product that I would expect to be lame, but I must admit it really isn’t. In fact, it is really very slick. It does what it does very elegantly and is a simple product to use. But it won’t get used in the way they intend because it is too difficult to enter the information of the people with whom you may want to share something. You would have to exit your browser session, open your PIM, get the friend’s number, call them to see what carrier they use, determine what the email convention is, relaunch the browser, etc. People may bring up a photo on their own phone and then show it to someone they are with, though. That’s what I was compelled to do.

They are solving the “I want to show you a picture that’s on my computer” problem with the most elegant solution I have seen for that problem, but is that the right problem to solve? Is that really “photo sharing” in a mobile context?

I don’t think so. Phones have cameras on them. Here is another way to share photos in the mobile environment:
- Take picture with your Moto phone
- Send it to your friend, who’s contact info is in your PIM

That is simpler, and solves the “I want to share a picture I just took” problem, which seems like a more lucrative problem to solve.

Again, no disrespect to Avvenu. In fact, their kung fu seems strong from my limited experience with their product, and I want to see more from them. I would love to see them focus on the enterprise market because I know personally that I have been traveling before and needed a file or other piece of information that only existed on my computer at work.

I only use this as an example because we are constantly looking for ways to improve the user experience somewhat paradoxically by offering more functionality while at the same time making it simpler.

Another press release from Motorola this week was about putting a Google button on some phones. Now that’s a consumer-grade value proposition. “Press the big red button” is about as complex as any consumer wants their experience to be.

Anyway, for my part, I promise to make our products as simple and useful as possible, and I promise to always try to solve the right problems.

Posted in Mobile Industry | Comments Off