“WAP is Crap!”
Well, in fact it was quite good given the technology constraints it had to work within. As an implementation of the wired Web on mobile devices, it was well thought through, surprisingly effectively implemented, and funded to the gunnels.
The difficulty was that it was in general a solution to a problem the users didn’t have. The power of the wired Web is the hyperlink and browsing of information. Users spend a lot of time “transaction hunting”, where you decide where to put your money and attention. The wired Web is about bubbling up of important, interesting and useful information. This doesn’t match the use case of the wireless Web, which is about quick hits with sites where you already have a relationship.
All this is well documented. So it’s rather sad that the industry is about to go through the same harrowing learning process all over again with mobile instant messaging.
Once more, there’s a well-established and successful model from the wired Internet. “Presence” as it is usually constituted grew up from the always-off world of dial-up Internet. Online rendezvous was hard, presence solved that problem. For the first time, you could have multiple conversations on the go at once. Distance didn’t matter, a novelty for those separated by countries and continents. Parents and partners were excluded from this private chat world.
Mobile IM is also the solution to a crisis the user doesn’t have. The buddy list reflects a closed world that doesn’t match the openness of the actual tools the users prefer, namely SMS and voice. We already have a universal identifier system, the phone number. Users already manage multi-threaded conversations using SMS. The idea of the “chat window” doesn’t make sense on mobile. The interruption model doesn’t match, either. A new IM whilst you’re browsing the web means a flashing taskbar icon and minor context change from one app to another. Mobile interruptions mean suspending real life. That’s why you ask the sender to stump up a few cents to demonstrate the value of the interruption.
If doesn’t even bridge the worlds of fixed and mobile well, since you won’t easily be able to tell the context of the other user. Today a “mobile” IM user is flagged up from a PC client because the message will be sent via SMS. A true interoperable IM system would either lack the “third state” of “mobile but on IM”, or requires a complete refresh of all PC desktop clients to understand this new phenomenon.
The presence model of mobile IM is broken anyway, becuase it confuses presence with availability. I’m not the first to note that an always-on mobile means the green smiley “online” becomes irrelevant. If you take presence to mean “the sense of other” (thanks, Douglas) then the kids are already are engaged in deep presence exchange under the duvet at night by texting away. The stored “precious” SMS from the boy you have a crush on is presence. Don’t let the technologists near this social phenomenon! They don’t get it, all they see is information transfers. A “unified messaging client” is an oxymoron. It’s like putting a toilet and paddling pool in the kitchen because it’s the “water room”.
So what should carriers do? That’s easy. Stick to the knitting of the services that people have already demonstrated a preference for, namely vanilla voice and SMS. Gently evolve these products. Make them easier to use, particularly voicemail. Make the up-sell better: SMS notifications of voicemails being received; inducements to call in return to each SMS. Incorporate availability into the address book without creating a whole new messaging paradigm for users to learn. Build business platforms that make it easier to send SMS messages from TVs, PCs and consoles.
Launching mobile IM fragments the very same SMS network you want them to stay within, and weakens the network effect. This isn’t a question of interoperability. I’m assuming technical excellence. It’s a matter of user perception. It also confuses the value perception of the users, who associate IM with “free”.
Will users bypass SMS using IM over GPRS/3G? In some markets, yes. Telepocalypse ahoy, there’s going to be price pressure. But if they do switch quickly, that’s probably because you’re mispricing your bundles. Offer them the right package of 100 or 1000 messages, and they’ll stay within the system.
Milk the cow, don’t be a sheep.
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Posted by Martin Geddes at 01:06 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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Martin
I completely agree with this - and especially don't believe in the GSMA-style mobile operator club trying to invent "interoperable" IM & presence systems, starting with connection with each other, rather than the established Internet IM platforms.
What they'll end up with is a "coalition of the losers", targetting the few late-adopters who don't already have multiple PC-based IM clients (and buddy lists). I can't see any route to encouraging people to switch from ubiquitous (& free) PC-IM to patchy-and-expensive mobile IM. Even in markets with low PC penetration at home, most younger users already get exposure to MSN, Yahoo et al at school or in Internet cafes.
Also, there are many additional "presence" indications needed in the mobile domain for it to work properly from a user's standpoint. It's not easy for a presence client on a phone to recognise you're using a Bluetooth headset, for example, and display a "phone is switched on but in my pocket as I'm driving" icon.
I suspect the issue of presence may crop up in the IMS Services Brainstorm this week, as it's supposedly a centrepiece of many IMS deployments....
Posted by: at October 3, 2006 12:14 AMHi Dean :) I won't argue that IM is good on mobile. It isn't, for many reasons.
But, well, IM can evolve as well -- what we have today on a PC is pretty clunky for the user. For a start, you need a PC, that's switched on, and connected. That's lots of hassle to send one lil' message.
Martin wrote:
So what should carriers do? That’s easy. Stick to the knitting of the services that people have already demonstrated a preference for, namely vanilla voice and SMS. Gently evolve these products. Make them easier to use, particularly voicemail. Make the up-sell better: SMS notifications of voicemails being received; inducements to call in return to each SMS. Incorporate availability into the address book without creating a whole new messaging paradigm for users to learn. Build business platforms that make it easier to send SMS messages from TVs, PCs and consoles.
Nice idea, but mobile providers are all over this already, and have been for some time.
One more quick comment. You write about better voice mail.
There's a spec comming from OMA at end-2006 that will have the capability you've outlined (i.e. record a message, then upload it to groups, individuals, etc, without ringing their phone).
Somehow I start believing more and more in the "baked in" mobile consumer behaviour and the quality of traditional mobile services. Essential to have a succesful migration from traditional voice/sms to IM is understanding and tapping in to the true communication needs of the customer. For instance call your voicemail and record voice that can be blogged. Or sms to your blog.. By using traditional instruments you have a better chance to create a bigger acceptance of new services.
Exciting times!
Posted by: at October 4, 2006 09:17 PMA slight counterpoint from me, based on US experience with a Sidekick. This phone has a decent-sized flip-out qwerty keyboard, and a lot of good built-in internet applications (even ssh). The SMS implementation is good too, but the IM integration is excellent. They include both YIM and AIM clients. They buffer these server-side, so that you can cope with intermittent connections - if the phone drops out for a bit, the people talking to you don't see you disappear from their buddy list, and you don't get the door-slam chorus you get with AIM over intermittent Wifi on a laptop.
This means you can hold a near-real-time chat over AIM very usefully, and SMS becomes a fallback for people with conventional phones. It is a fluid, conversational experience, not the slowly punctuated SMS exchanges. You get the full presence information, including idling (it distinguishes sidekick users from computer users visually in the buddy list).
All the services you've discussed has been implemented, bitwise, by different carriers. Speaking as an American expat in Paris. I've had pretty good voicemail service from Verizon. You can send a recorded voicemail to another Verizon phone. And setup distribution lists. AIM and YIM are much better integrated on the T-Mobile Sidekick. Compared to Sprint and Verizon they are real kludges.
I've been using European carriers and I still don't think they get it. 3G service on Orange seems to be of limited usefullness (why would I want to watch TV on my mobile). It seems to be more of pushing the same old tech rather than any usefull innovation.
Posted by: at October 7, 2006 06:53 PMGood point, but not necessarily the whole picture. Saying that mobile IM is a poor imitation of SMS is like saying that PC IM is a poor imitation of email.
You're imagining using mobile IM to replicate the SMS experience. Which it won't for all the reasons you give. You talk about the 'special SMS' but that presumes mobile IMs won't be saved or archiveable. Just because it doesn't happen now doesn't mean it never will.
Plus this argument revolves largely around a one to one messaging scenario. What if you want to message to your whole clan at once? Kids multitask hugely and the ability to be simultaneously messaging the many whilst also talking to the individual is something mobile IM, done properly, could deliver.
That's if the carriers don't kill it at birth with high data charges of course. Oh and as a European I'd love to wittily destroy your point about the uselessness of 3G. But I can't because you're completely right. Only the marketing men would think we'd want to squint myopically at a big game on a postage stamp screen when you can barely make out which team is which.
Posted by: at October 9, 2006 09:39 AMHi Martin,
Just rediscovered your blog, I look forward to reading more of your insightful comments.
On this particular entry I want to point out a feature of the product that Mobeon produces, CompEdge (disclaimer: I recently started working for Mobeon).
CompEdge has a VoiceSMS feature that allows a mobile phone user to call someone using their number with a prefix, e.g. '*' and leave them a voice message (simple beep prompt with no arduous voicemail menu system to navigate). The recipient simply gets a SMS notification of the message and can quickly retrieve it without having to go through the rigmarole of navigating a voicemail menu system.
For the reasons you describe above and other cutural reasons this seems to be popular in Asia.
I too could never get the hang of mobile MSN instant-messaging.
Cheers, Greg.
Posted by: at October 13, 2006 03:30 PMNice blog, I've just discovered it.
I'm in South Africa. ALL our telephony is highly expensive here but for some reason mobile data is really cheap. I pay two Rand per megabyte which, at about 7 Rand to the US$, is really nothing. Considering that an IM message of sms length costs about ONE South African sent there's suddenly no choice which system you're gonna use. Especially kids who can use up their weekly sms allowance in an hour.
I've used Agile Messenger for sending messages via ICQ on my Nokia and over regular gprs. Gprs is good because of the almost-total coverage.