Mobile

Do the Number of Mobile Apps Matter?

By Mark Evans in Apple/iPod, Wireless 5 Comments Tags: , , , , ,

If you listen to Apple, size matters when it comes to the number of mobile apps offered to iPhone users. It’s seen as a strategic strength compared with rivals such as Android, BlackBerry and Microsoft, which have smaller but growing portfolios.

But in the scheme of things does size really matter? Does it really offer a distinct competitive advantage? Here’s where I’m coming from: On my iPhone, there are about 50 apps – many of them downloaded on a whim because they’re free. Of these apps, you know how many I use on a regular basis? Less than five, and I suspect that most people fall into the same camp.

It means if every mobile platform offers the same small group of must-have apps (let’s aggressively assume 250 apps will account for more than 80% of total usage), then having more than 100,000 or even 50,000 apps doesn’t matter.

Yes, I accept the argument that having more apps offers the opportunity to serve the needs of many niche markets. And I recognize there’s marketing mojo in having a large app collection. But if push comes to shove, size doesn’t matter at all as long as consumers have their “basic” needs covered.

I’ve been thinking about this thesis for awhile but it was thrust into the spotlight after reading Randall Stross’ column in the New York Times yesterday on Nokia’s use of Windows Phone 7. One of the people quoted was Thomas R. Eisenmann, a professor at the Harvard Business School, who said:

“What is often missed is the diminishing returns after 1,000 applications. If a platform attracts the thousand-most-popular apps, then it provides almost anything a reasonable person would want to do with a smartphone.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Media is Changing. But How?

By Mark Evans in Media 1 Comment Tags: , , , ,

I was fortunate to be invited by the Digital Journal to participate on a panel last night about the future of media – a subject that attracts a lot of attention as traditional media valiantly scrambles to stay vibrant and viable.

For the most part, the panelists were well behaved and provided some great insight into how the media world is changing. In particular, it was interesting to hear from Anjali Kapoor from the Globe & Mail and David Skok from Global News about how their organizations are evolving and embracing change. Polar Mobile’s Kunal Gupta provided some great insight into how mobile devices are changing content consumption, while Facebook’s Elmer Sotto talked about the role that Facebook is playing as a distribution platform.

The question everyone in the room wanted to know, of course, is what the future holds for media. Everyone involved in the media business or interested in the media is looking for insight about what’s over the horizon. What they got from the panel was that everyone recognizes that things are dramatically changing but no one knows what exactly is going to happen.

For example, there was an animated discussion about how mobile users are consuming lots of content. Kunal talked about how mobile users consumes 100 pages of content on Time.com’s wireless application, compared with 14 pages of content for Time.com’s Web site. There was also a healthy discussion about the iPad and whether it could be the saviour for the newspaper and magazine businesses. And we talked a little about how location-based services might be an interesting opportunity.

That said, you could sense the frustration in the audience. They’re not looking for glimpses of the future or tidbits about what’s currently happening; they’re looking for tangible information about what’s coming. They want insight about the bleeding-edge technologies or services that will impact media.

As much as no one wanted to disappoint the audience, the truth is no one really knows. If we did, one of us would probably be working for a red-hot start-up focused on revolutionizing the way media is created and consumed.

Instead, people have to live with the fact the media world continues to be a volatile and evolving environment. The good news is that a growing number of media companies have embraced the fact they need to change or die. It means there’s a lot of self-analysis happening, as well as a growing willingness to experiment.

To me, the future of media and who ends up surviving all this upheaval hinges on who creates the best content. As a former reporter, I truly believe that story telling is as important, if not more important, than ever. Whether it’s a video, newspaper or magazine article, Facebook update, blog post, photo or tweet, content is still King. How we economically create this content and how we consume content is still very much in the air, which leaves lot of room for more panels on the future of media.

Long Live Mobile Tethering!

By Mark Evans in Wireless No Comments Tags: , , ,

As a “mobile warrior”, I have a suite of tools that let me work anywhere at any time. One of these tool is wireless tethering that lets me access the Internet by connecting by iPhone with my MacBook. If you have a data plan with Rogers, tethering was a free service.

There was, however, speculation that Rogers was going to start charging for tethering – something that would have been a terrible but not surprising given how wireless carriers like to charge for premium services.

Today, Rogers said today that tethering will now only be available for Rogers and Fido customers who have data plans of 1GB/month or more.

By continuing to provide tethering for people who have large data plans, Rogers is giving its customers the ability to have mobile Internet access without buying a Rocket Stick, which only makes sense if you need mobile access on a regular basis.

If Rogers is looking another good mobile wireless idea, how about letting people stop and start their Rocket Stick service. I’m sure it would be a great way to get three to six months of business from people who need Internet access at the cottage or at the ski chalet, but don’t need it other times of the year.

For more thoughts on Rogers’ new tethering policy, check The Telecom Blog.

Is Foursquare For Real?

By Mark Evans in Social Media 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

According to TechCrunch, Foursquare is now attracting more than one million check-ins/week. It’s certainly a big number but does it really suggest that Foursquare is showing signs of becoming the next Twitter, or to be fair, the next widely-embraced social media tool?

Take look at Foursquare’s traffic over the past six months:

Screen shot 2010-02-06 at 8.18.01 AM

What’s interesting is that traffic growth in December vs. November was modest (unique visitors grew by 7.8%, while pageviews rose 15%). This is nice growth but not red-hot, which suggests Foursquare likely has a small group of enthusiastic users who account for a major chunk of traffic.

The big unknown is how much growth and traffic is coming from the popular iPhone app given Foursquare is a mobile service. There may be many users who have never touched the Web site other than to perhaps register for the service.

Still, I’m far less bullish and TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb about Foursquare’s growth. There’s no doubt Foursquare has been enthusiastically embraced but it’s left to be seen whether it can break out beyond the bleeding edge. A big key will be if Foursquare can offer more services to keep people engaged once the novelty of “checking-in” begins to wear off.

Review: The Rocket Stick Rocks

By Mark Evans in Wireless 15 Comments Tags: , , ,

The upside of running your own one-man/woman business is, in theory, there is lots of flexibility to work when and where you want. The downside is when you’re not working, there’s no one back at the home office to take care of business.

As a result, I wanted to stay connected while taking two weeks of vacation at a cottage outside Haliburton, Ont. Yeah, I know a vacation shouldn’t mean being connected but it was a necessary evil.

If you listen to the radio, it’s pretty much impossible to not know about Rogers’ Rocket Mobile Internet service that features a USB modem that uses Rogers 3.5G wireless network. So, I reached out to Rogers to see if I could take the Rocket up north for a rural test run.

All in all, the service is excellent. For the most part, the service is similar in terms of speed to Rogers’ residential high-speed service, although there were some interruptions when watching videos.

Getting the service set up was straightforward – the process, which includes an auto-install of the software, took 10 minutes. Getting on the Internet is easy, and the service supported not only Web browsing but Twitter, e-mail and blog publishing.

If you agree to a three-year contract, Rogers gives you the modem for free. Without a contract, the modem costs $199.

Data plans range from $30/month (500MB) to $85 for 5GB, which makes it pretty good value for anyone looking for mobile high-speed access. (Note: If you use a lot of data, including streaming video, 5GB can disappear in a hurry. It would be great to see an all-you-can package.)

In an ideal world, it would be great to see Rogers provide an integrated package that would include mobile and residential high-speed service – giving computer users home and away coverage.

More: This is the second in a series of product/service reviews I’ll be doing over the next couple of weeks. The first review on TweetCapz (an iPhone photo caption application) ran last week.

Thanks to everyone for offering me the opportunity to try out a bunch of products and services.


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