Open Mobile Media Newsletter

Edition 3

Dear all

Welcome to the third edition of the Open Mobile Media newsletter.

Open Mobile Media tracks the trend to open the mobile value chain. As Internet and wireless worlds collide, we provide insight into the competitive dynamics of the open mobile ecosystem. And explore how operators, OEMs, software, Internet and media companies can build and monetize the open mobile economy.

In this edition:

* Open Mobile Summit London – 5 weeks to go
     - Meet the keynotes
     - Hotel special rate expires today – 8 May
     - Bloggers corner
* Focus: Growth markets in mobile today
* Dates announced for Open Mobile World San Francisco – 17-18 November
     - Call for companies to join the ‘deal-space’
* Soapbox: I am not a dolphin

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Open Mobile Summit London - 10-11th June – 5 weeks to go!
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The London summit is 5 weeks away. Our early bird pricing expired last week and I’m happy to report the market responded. We continue to buck the trend and are on track to deliver a powerful audience of the brave and the bold in mobile today in June! I’m really looking forward to the discussion.

If you’re planning to attend and have not yet registered, we have a limited number of passes available at £995. Drop Alex (alex@openmobilemedia.com) a line if you’d like to use one of these – but please note, once they’re gone, they’re gone.

* Meet the Keynotes: *

I’m proud to announce our keynote line-up for the London event, which includes some of the most influential people in wireless today:

• Lee Williams, Executive Director, Symbian Foundation
• Christopher Schläffer, Group Product & Innovation Officer, Deutsche Telekom
• Kenneth Karlberg, President Business Area Mobility Services, TeliaSonera
• Alan Brenner, Senior Vice President, RIM
• Christy Wyatt, Vice President, Motorola
• Kiyo Oishi, CEO, ACCESS

They will be joined by many other top ranking executives from mobile operators, Internet and new media companies, for what is set to be a truly groundbreaking discussion. See the full agenda here: http://www.openmobilesummit.com/agenda.aspx

* Hotel rate expires today – 8 May

The London summit is taking place at the Thistle Marble Arch. The special rate for Open Mobile Summit attendees expires today – so if you haven’t booked your room yet, please do so today. You need to phone 0871 376 9027 or +44 870 333 9116 quote reference `OPEN0906` to avail of the conference pricing, which also includes breakfast. Unfortunately you cannot use this rate when booking online; it is only available for telephone bookings

We chose the Thistle because it’s very near to Paddington, which has great access to Heathrow Airport via the Heathrow Express. This also means that folks coming in from out of town can get away with just one overnight, on the 10th. If you’re flying longhaul, you could also take a stop over at one of the airport hotels which usually have better deals. Hopefully this eases costs on the travel side a little.

* Bloggers corner:

We’ve had quite a bit of coverage on the London Summit already. Here’s some of it:

Russell Buckley’s MobHappy:
http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2009/04/09/open-mobile-summit-unleash-the-internet/

Ajit Jaokar’s OpenGardens;
http://opengardensblog.futuretext.com/archives/2009/03/open_mobile_sum_1.html

Peggy Salz mSearch Groove:
http://www.msearchgroove.com/2009/05/06/open-rules-open-mobile-summit-asks-the-right-questions-discounted-passes-for-msg-readers/

Jeff Pulver’s blog:
http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/008903.html

Thanks guys, we respect your opinion and are really pleased that you like what we’re doing.

* Focus: Growth opportunities in Open Mobile

Whilst most mobile markets appear to be shrinking, open mobile represents a growth opportunity for just about every part of the value chain.

Don’t believe me? Just take a look at the headlines.

• In devices, whist the old guard – Motorola, Sony Ericsson, even Nokia – appear to be struggling, Apple and RIM have both experienced dramatic growth. As have ebook reader manufacturer Amazon Kindle.
• Mobile Internet devices and netbooks are also enjoying increasing customer take-up, creating growth markets for OEMs, silicon and software companies able to monetize that.
• In the operator’s world, it’s mobile broadband data access and dongles that are driving growth
• In Internet / media, mobile is the new frontier, as the mobile value chain opens up to enable 3rd party innovation in applications and services.
• And open platforms and App stores appear to be enjoying most of the action as these markets expand.

Meanwhile, with the convergence of mobile, Internet and media markets, all the players that historically serviced mobile operators see Internet / media clients as a key growth market. And vice versa. Just about everyone we talk with tells us the same story.

So, whilst the biz models for many of these new markets opportunities have yet to be worked out, it is clear where the future growth is going to be. In the open mobile economy. In the new markets, and the new models. In what emerges from the disruption of the old status quo.

As with all industries disrupted by the Internet to date the only way forward is…forwards. Which is why we need to accept the new economic climate, adapt our business models and figure out how to make money in an open mobile economy.

If you know examples of companies or market segments that are doing this well, experiencing bottom line growth and embracing new market opportunities, let me know – I’ll cover them in the next newsletter and see if we can’t get some of them to share some of their experiences at the next Open Mobile Summit event.

So, whilst revenues as a whole appear to be shrinking, there’s opportunity for growth for those that embrace the change and strive to understand where the value is going to be in wireless.

* Open Mobile World San Francisco: Save the date! November 17-18, 2009

Our next event is in downtown San Francisco, November 17-18. Mark your calendar. And contact me if you’ve any input for the agenda, speakers, or if you’d like to discuss promotional opportunities – we’re building the event as we speak.

* Soapbox * I am not a dolphin.

This one’s about mobile operators and market segmentation.

If you’re a mass market mobile operator, you have probably spent a lot of money on market segmentation. I’d warrant you have a marketing exec that will confidently tell the executive team that you have 4 types of customers. S/He’ll even show you pictures of them. The busy home-maker. The workaholic. The geek. The trendsetter. S/He’ll tell you that you need to know your WOW factor to reach each of them. But they doesn’t actually know a single one of them.

These are just MADE UP segments. Based on entirely speculative conversations and white board drawings in ‘focus groups’ of very small numbers of people .

IMHO, Orange took this a step too far when they opened it to the end user and asked us, some years ago now, to choose if we were a dolphin, a canary, a racoon…and what was the other one?

Good grief. I mean, you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried. How am I supposed to identify with a racoon?? I don’t event know what qualities a racoon is supposed to have. I had this conversation with Kaj Erik Relander of Accel Partners a few weeks ago and we were in stitches. And Pete, who just joined the Open Mobile team to work on the San Francisco event, looked at me in disbelief when I explained the state of affairs.

(I’d like to run a focus group with some Orange pre-paid customers to ask them what the heck they think a canary is supposed to be doing with a mobile phone, just for a laugh)

Meanwhile, operators have huge customer bases of real people. When are they going to stop guessing, stop making it up, and start FINDING OUT who their customers are, and what they want?

That’s where segmentation should start. From the bottom up. Hire someone to mine your data, start customer conversations and build out your subscriber database with some real data and metrics. Sure it’ll take a while. But it’ll be worth every minute.

Quick, before I shoot the dolphin.

Aaah, that feels better.

That’s all for this month folks.

Looking forward to seeing some of you face-to-face, June 10-11.

Robin

Robin Batt, Founder and Managing Director, Open Mobile Media Ltd
http://www.openmobilemedia.com

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Copyright Open Mobile Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.openmobilemedia.com

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