GigaOm’s Mobilize is live streaming right now, so if you can’t be there, tune in at http://www.livestream.com/gigaomtv. If you can be there, drop by the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco where close to 1000 industry execs are discussing the future of the mobile web. Great networking as expected in the audience and onstage are Accenture, Adobe, Adaptive Path, AllThingsD.com, Ars Technica, Benchmark Capital, Business Week, CBS Market Watch, Cisco, CNET, Economist, Engadget, Finanical Times, Flixster, Forbes, Foundation Capital, French Maid TV, frog design, GameFly, GDGT.com, Geek Sugar, GetJar, Gizmodo, Google, Granite Ventures, Handango, HP, InfoWorld, Intel, InterWest Partners, Khosla Ventures,LG Mobile, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mashable, Mayfield Fund, mig33, Mobile Monday, MEF, MobiTV, Moconews, MocoSpace, Motorola, Mozes, NATPE, NYT, Nielsen, Nokia, Opus Capital, Palm, PayPal, PC World, Qualcomm, Samsung, SF Chronicle, SJ Merc, Scobleizer, Sony Ericsson, SVB Capital, Sprint, Sun, TechCrunch, Thom Weisel, T-Mobile, USVP, Ubergizmo, USA Today, Venrock, Venture Beat, Verizon, WSJ, WF, Wired, Y!, Zannel, ZDNet and others.
Om Malik opened the conference. His research venture, GigaOM Pro, which provides subscribers research on-demand, reports that the US is on track to produce by end of 2009: 280mm wireless subscribers, $160B in service revenues, $45B of that in data revenues, 2.3T minutes of voice use and 1.7T text messages, translating to $160 per subscriber of data plan spending per year and 829 minutes per user. A huge opportunity.
MONETIZING MOBILE APPS
Raven Zachary, Small Society
Considering Apple’s event yesterday it seemed fitting to have Raven lead with the first panel who advises companies like ZipCar and Whole Foods on their mobile strategies, and is known well to these parts as one of the pied pipers of iPhoneDevCamp. We are seeing more carriers wanting to have their own app store, look at Verizon with VDC, it makes sense, they have the billing relationship with the end user. Vodafone ramping up too.
Mark Curtis, Flirtomatic
There’s been a dramatic rise in popularity of the freemium model, free monetize with ad network although CPCs and CPMs have come way down in this economy, belive in time mobile ad marketplace will be massive. See freemium as a walk in the park, every now and then you’ll want an ice cream, it’s nice to have the option. At Flirtomatic, have had great success selling users greater visibility on site, they’re willing to pay if there profile will be seen by more women, experiencing 4x the CPMs from user-based ads.
Mark Jacobstein, iSkoot
There used to be enormous expenses associated with porting/QA of mobile games. Focusing just on iPhone makes things easier, and yet for all it does so well (powerful SDK, screen real estate) there is so much that iPhone doesn’t do. iPhone can’t multitask, apps don’t run in the background. Few client based apps like time-wasting games. Not going to make much selling a $2 app, money is in client/server services, free to end user like Skype (big applause from panel). MMS limitations, photos via SMS from a friend are sent with password and link – that’s a huge turnoff. Mobile increases web engagement, those that access sites via phone are twice as engaged. Developers now building in social context/gifting of virtual goods into game mechanics to take advantage of in-app commerce.
Dorrian Porter, Mozes
Most marketers not sure what to do with the mobile consumer, have yet to see mobile as a point of inspiration for impulse buy. Most market with voice and SMS. (Recently became a huge fan of SMS, now can text kids whenever he wants.) Mozes focuses on the browser-based experience. There are SMS limitations to web-clipping
Adam Zbar, Zannel
ATT networks are slammed with data. Will see services becoming more interoperable than islands. Carriers for the longest time wanted to be entertainment companies and content creators, now some like Comcast are starting to see themselves more as a distribution platform – good for the developer community.
LOCATION: CONTEXT IS MONEY
4000 LBS apps today, a small % but impressive considering 18 months ago there were only 5 LBS apps in the world.
KEYNOTE: Innovation on Android – Introducing MotoBlur
Dr. Sanjay Jha, Co-CEO, Motorola
Number of mobile users doubled between 2008-9 from 10.8mm to 22mm devices accessing daily. 20% access web via mobile device. Going from 1:1 SMS to 1:Many Social collaboration. Ubiquitous availability of wireless broadband. Rapid expansion. Mobilizing the internet is the single biggest opportunity today. Netbooks, eBooks, gaming devices, smartphones. Smartphones being the backbone where mobilization will occur. Broadband definition – minimum 500kb data connectivity to mulitple users without regard of location. What makes a smartphone – larger high-res display, anytime anywhere broadband connectivity, over the air updates (key), rich media, voice quality, coverage, multi-thread, multitasking operating system. Android gives us a platform to mobilize the internet, enhance consumer experience, mulitple simultaneous transaction, competitive differentiation, Motorola supporting development of Android, have put meaningful resources behind the Android ecosystem, consumers overwhelmed by options. Half of US mobile traffic is 180mm social networkers, will grow to 800mm (Gartner). Aggregate media, music, address books, email addresses. MotoBlur service allows your entire life to exist on a single stream, enables you to focus on being social, syncs contacts, posts, media, photos, FB, Twitter, Myspace, Gmail, Y!, corporate email customized on home screen and integrated deep into corners of device, so consumer can focus on being social not on how its sent. Have it all one finger swipe away. Widgets: Social status, happenings (feeds, tweets, updates), messages, weather, Android marketplace and browser. Create rich text email. Easy to navigate streams, syncing push contacts into address book photos, birthdates. Integrates contact info through device, receive a call and caller’s profile info pops onscreen, get turn by turn direction to where they are, and it’s worry free – phone can be found by GPS in case its off on a cab ride without you – remote wipe – wipes device but keeps data in the cloud, set up once, good to go. Phone as primary computer device, if it doesn’t fit in your pocket, the consumer won’t use it. price points and memory costs are drivers to computing becoming mobile. Regarding palm, it’s not a zero sum game, all boats float, with 300mm smartphones, its the biggest technology opportunity there is, MotoBlur will eventually evolve, this is just the starting point, the first step in a long journey. Motorola is excited to integrate location, social graph and web info in an easily digestible way, Motorola does both sw and hw and can decide how to integrate, solve problems and deliver experience that simplifies life, health, fitness, media, build trust to share info, no rationale for 4G if its not for multimedia.
Cole Brodman, T-Mobile
Watch for Click with MotoBlur in time for the holidays, next chapter in Android innovation, open highly customizable platform, inviting 3P innovation to the network, first phone with social skills, always on connection, glance on the go, network can handle the traffic, T-Mobile has invested $9B in last 4y, has 200mm US customers with 3G coverage, T-Mobile customers text more than anyone in the world started with Sidekick, connected socializers 30-somethings like to stay in touch, have lead the smartphone adoption. T-Mobile will have product out in time for holidays with the best value, coverage, must have alwayson devices, Click in two colors white and titanium, with google browser, video capture.
(Very cool demo – if only iPhone would push birthday reminders to home screen when turned on, and autoemailed birthday wishes)
Andy Rubin, Google
Smartphone is a communications device first and voice device second, data differentiates the smartphone but still need voice to carry it around with you at all time, interface with mobile internet, as powerful as a desktop PC from 15 years ago, internet is the destination, the window to the world, now cloud computing, network connected devices, we’re all personally participating in the ecosystem, what is good for the internet is good for Google, the bigger the base the better it is for Google’s primary ad business, the modern os brings the webto people’s pockets. As for Palm and Symbian, let the best OS win. Regarding which came first Android or iPhone OS – os developers have long history and have worked everywhere, who knows which came first, the important thing is that they came together to develop an open system. Moving web forward as a platform, modern browsers more capable with HTML 5.
ULTRABAND: Fast Platform for Innovation
How will we be at 100mbps or 1gbps wireless broadband by 2012. In 1991 Xerox ParC stated its vision for pervasive computing. 18 years later still discussing what broadband is, what bandwidth is needed to be broadband, always there, omnipresent, delivering compelling user experiences at the speed of thought, a world in which the consumer knows that they desire it and suddenly it’s there.
Phil Asmundson, Deloitte
Exciting time for mobile, phones are our remote control to the world, look out 5-10y, fundamental changes to the marketplace, will find that apps that require ultraband eat up spectrum, as we watch video, primary entertainment devices for the millennials and gen xers, mobile mobile and fixed mobile still dont play with each other, two separate worlds, need to play together, cause of spectrum issues. (Chetan Sharma: The term smartphone will be an oxymoron in 5 years) There is an innovation iceberg, the more broadband you provide, the more they’ll use, sw is driving the market, advances far faster than hw, then there are FCC challenges around spectrum, cells are going to be gone, need something more powerful than finite spectrum. SW is driving force for mobile, need more partnerships, not one company can do it alone. carriers rpus will increase, innovation cycle will advance, great new world coming sooner than you think.
Ken Denman, Openwave Systems
An all IP world is slave to consumer experience, beyond phones and smartphones there is a data tsunami coming, all things non-phones, all connected devices including things not mobile, appliances, cars , netbooks, wonderful soup coming up, exciting times, the key enabler is all IP environment, convergence will absolutely happen with mobile as the default. Ethernet will appear to have more relevance. There will be tiering of price around bundled services for a particular experience like Kindle. As market evolves and consumers get snappy apps they may not have a problem with price tiering. Offloading of multiple networks is key middleware solution, #1 RFP of CXOs.
Abhi Ingle, ATT
Increasing speeds and feeds with wireless broadband, 5y widely deployed LTE 100mbps, 10y fungibility of networks become more transparent switching the networks, evolve beyond cell tower, go way beyond phones to connected devices, internet of things, explosion of innovation, ATT Austin lab, connectivity extend to things never even imagined before, connected 30-somethings used to cloud computing environments, ATT has 38 data centers for cloud computing alone, powerful networks. You need massive amounts of capital to achieve 1gbps, there is not enough spectrum to achieve those speeds, need capital, spectrum and transformation of network, unimaginable costs ($100B?). One approach is to blend the networks, make it transparent to end user.
Rick Keith, Motorola
Underlying principle of delivery of apps (Twitter, FB), what is broadband relative to those apps, taking experience already familiar with moving to airwaves, to that thing previously known as cell phone, broadband is a marketing term, we’ve had wimax since 2007, for Pakistan and Brazil its the first connection ever had to home, what is broadband to them is not broadband to us. Its an issue of latency, needs to be a subsecond from send to receive, must be snappy, cost doesn’t stop at capex, there is enormous operating expense as well. Hybrid networks need be transparent to user, right now if you have Boingo can use ATT wireless at airport, that doesn’t make sense. Must be a bridge service.
THE NETBOOKS & ULTRAPORTABLE BOOM
Mark Spoonauer, LAPTOP Magazine
1 of 5 pcs sold are netbooks, not funny Apple yesterday showing pocket ripping from Dell Inspiron not fitting, netbooks outgrowing notebooks 2:1. Cheap notebooks have existed before, small, easy to carry, low cost, voting with dollars due to economy, is there a cannibalization threat, netbook integrated broadband 3g attaching $60 fee to go unlimited data makes it not a low cost, carriers need to subsidize netbooks to take off
Noury Al-Khaledy, Intel
Price point needed for internet use, compact, companion, evolving of the mobile web, different form factors and uses, dependent on different devices for different needs, infrastructure to provide bandwidth is key, bill monthly per user or per device, majority shipping are wifi, open econsystem platform, battery life better and better CPU not draining battery, netbooks with 8hrs, sw ecosystem will grow,chrome runs best on pc, better battery life, integration, lower power, new processors handle full flash.
Keith Kressin, Qualcomm
Smartbooks – browsing, social networking, email, integrated 3g, 10x higher in netbooks than pc, $100-200 3g value of connectvity, carriers new carriers, western europe carriers sell them, connectvity web centric use, great battery life and connectivity, $60 all you can eat, one user gets rids of landline cable, watch video all day on 3G, SAHM wifi take on vacation, $60 month doesnt make sense rather pay per use, needs to go mifi model, by user instead of by device, have multiple devices, noone has a monopoly on the internet more migrating up to the browser like phones, Adobe open screen project with flash, getting full browsers on smartphones, need an os with great internet experience, thin light always on compelling user interest, simple, instant boot, benefit to speed and simplicity, instantly on, broadband experience for pc push mail, flash has been the one thing you can do on phone that you can do on pc, clamshells and tablets multitouch thin and light, interest from user, oems, carreirs form factor on the growth curve.
Don Paterson, Microsoft
IDC research folks buying them as pc companion, completely incremental, opening up new markets in the 6-12y old kid space enable ecosystem to take it where they want to go, all about choice, consumer may get lost as line blurs, 10.2″ form factor deliver premium experience with nvidia, rich experience cost more, windows 7 with starter decide which option is best for you, starter doesnt support multitouch, affordable price point, netbooks small notebook pcs, windows app store-no comment.
Brian Pitstick, Dell
Incremental category, doesnt replace pc, customers using them for vacation than laptop, sit in bed on couch with it, not in an office, stationary environment, buy for mobility, price point, connected, purpose had to come together for space to take off, interested across globe vodafone dell device in store of carrier, price points will mature over time, nextgen networks more flexible options, session-based experiences connectivity on the go, radios in devices, people will expect and demand to be always connected, tremendous pent up need for connectvity on the go, see market how people interact with it, 3 min, 30 min 3hr experience, smartphone quick fix interface gathering, not going to be engaged 10-30min, netbooks is that device, looks like pc based device, expecting mouse and printer to work is expected, true pervasive connectivity, need offline mode on airplane, etc. need solid os.. will see more experimentation in netbook space, further segmentation, consumption device than a creation device, media streamed content, different tiers of product depends on what customer values.
LOCATION, MEDIA & MONEY: The Next Enablers
Len Lauer, Qualcomm
Qualcomm is starting with Smartbooks moving to broader consumer electronics category. Problem with netbooks is that they don’t last all day. Want a Smartbook that lasts all day, always on, email pushed, no need for fan to cool off, very sleek design. (Three kids (18/16/13) and three netbooks not enough) Right now Smartbooks do not have full support of office environment, Microsoft not porting XP86 yet. Adding connectivity to everything. Amazon Kindle makes network connectivity invisible, built into price of book. Opportunity of machine to machine. Smart Grid technology, energy companies putting in mobile radio into thermostat in home, intelligence in smart cars where to recharge, digital cameras, navigation devices. Lots of opportunities. US/Europe carriers embracing machine to machine arpu higher, Verizon, ATT, Sprint, T-Mobile. Start out with thin file apps without user involvement (not large PPT decks or media files) 4-5% royalty rate on CDMA for 3G (830mm of 4B are 3G, 3.25% royalty rate for 4G when LTE comes out.) Interconnectivity multimode when not connected on 4G still get 3G, voice will run out on 3G til 2020. Rate needs to come down from $60 for mass adoption, balance economics, higher cost of bandwidth costs. Amount of data being consumed going up. Qualcomm helping operators with network offload, Media FLO sits on its own network. Data traffic up 400%, half from video streaming. FLO is 1:Many, can push out top ten YouTube videos over broadcast/datacast network, or P2P if two are within a kilometer to have handsets talk to each other and send info to each other different spectrum band, low power and fast – new radio technology – going point to point via phones. Longer R&D project. Can also get it on to cable networks to offload but need to manage interference. Media Flo $10-15/month subscription – 15 channels of linear feeds – Qualcomm pays for content from ESPN.. (CDN offload) 700mhz auction 10 years to get that spectrum out. Think about lots of devices in your home being connected should be P2P, better to manage on a licensed spectrum basis. Where its most populated is where its free – Korea, Japan, China – 45% devices watching tv. Italy, Germany, US not hitting expectations, Qualcomm doesn’t have nationwide network yet, need to be on more devices, expand next year, platform capability not just restricted to mobile devices, should be on other consumer electronics like MP3, live tv in car (on fridge?). Launching with AudioVox this month for cars, rear screen videos in cars will go live tv. Watch for MP3 device with FLO coming out soon.
INNOVATION THROUGH OBSERVATION & DESIGN
Denise Gershbein, frog design
Take products from strategy to market, brand, design, physical, digital. Augmented reality has a lot to do with context that’s the moment when you move from looking down at a device toward holding up a lens to the world. Likes Evernote. Looks to Twitter for creative sources, inspiration, follows interesting people. Envisioning LTE 4G, look at parallel and analogous paths make meaning out of cultural chaos so you can meet the market. Arthur C Clark, Childhood’s End – getting into one universal consciusness. What does it mean that you can be connected and have access to knowledge at the same time.
Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path
Observational research can be misused to dictate design and not room for innovation. Design is a greater differentiator to stand out in crowded marketplace. Integration of mobile platforms into larger universe as barriers to technologies and networks breakdown will start seeing new opportunities to be exploited for services to work across platforms. Uncovering patterns in people’s behavior and psych, extend beyond how they interact with your product. Be inspired by things beyond the technology space.
Crysta Metcalf, Motorola
Team tying different devices to each other, tying mobile device to tv. Looking at how you would use mobile device in social tv experience.
Prashant Agarwal, Fjord
Noone has cracked mobile marketing yet. Context is huge. My phone knows my tweets, contacts.. Best experience is Amazon Kindle, get it, turn it on and there is nothing else to do except buy books. Last time you bought a phone, just to get voice is not that simple.
Robin Boyar, thinktank research and strategy
Don’t always have a pencil but always have your phone. Mobile device can monitor your health, use as tool to make life easier, better. Young kids aren’t using smartphones, using the free feature phones. Apps need to match 30y+ audience who own the smartphones. How do you beat Apple at its game – recognize how to make user experience easier and cooler – build the brand experience – with Apple have extended relationship with them via iTunes, the store. Used to head up research for gaming company, to get holistic view need all stakeholders in the focus group. If 7 year old and 70 year old gets it, you have a great product.
CARRIER PERSPECTIVE ON THE EVOLVING MOBILE ECOSYSTEM
Cole Brodman, T-Mobile
Social communications root of T-Mobile. Largest per user text base than any other carriers in the world – 600 messages per user per month – more texting than calls. Update FB status many times a week. (Om asks if its possible we one day see voice as an add-on) Android 10,000 apps, average T-Mobile user 40 apps per user in last 11 months. Abundance use of apps. Front home screen always on with context and location so info is relevant is very powerful, allows user to act quickly without logging in to web page. Too many apps, over 60,000 apps, only a few make money. Google working on how to make apps more discoverable as app store inventory grows. T-Mobile to use retail footprint, 1700 stores, sales reps can aid discovery. Paid and new apps, categorizing and merchandising stores need to be improved. Once they discover an app make it easier to recommend to friends and family, word of mouth is key. Not setting up T-Mobile app store, working with Android for an open marketplace but playing a role in discovery, and of course improve ways for app developers to leverage carrier billing, make it more frictionless, to pay with one click, next accelerant for app store consumption. Phone company has to evolve from closed telco mindset to open web-based infrastructures to allow more rapid development to get things to market, allow application innovation. T-Mobile is a communications company, it’s what occurs on the desktop, internet, devices we haven’t even thought of yet, need to breakdown the way we’ve traditionally gone to market. Mobile internet 3-5y from today, starts with ubiquitous wireless broadband network $9B investment in 3G married with increasingly open operating systems, open APIs, increases in memory, battery life, processing power. Front screen access mashed up with location and context, social graph, offer smarter network in the future, won’t have to keep re-entering data. Likes Android as the first one to live up to expectations – open to carriers, manufacturing partners, developers to innovate. Give consumers opportunity to personalize and customize, make it their own. Apple viewpoint – everything is the same. (Om – PCs guys don’t make that much money, Mac guys makes lots of money on same product) Consumers will have viable choices, different price points. Customization without fragmentation. That’s the work the ecosystem needs to do. (Om – problem with iPhone is ATT network) T-Mobile network will hold up, existing customers over-consume, set us up for increased capacity to handle increased consumption. No announced plans for LTE in US, but its a natural migration, T-Mobile International leader in LTE early on. Thoughts on VOIP – not a threat, wireless pricing will continue to evolve, future consumption is moving away from voice, can only talk so much, first carrier to launch voice over wifi, concern so far has been quality, 3G not built for latency needed for VOIP. Forgone conclusion, matter of timing, T-Mobile has embraced voice apps in Android market. Front counter for services, thoughts on DRM – makes it easier if there is no DRM, important to share with others (limit time-sharing), leans toward a DRM-free world to allow sharing, subscription models naturally fit that way consumers want to consume media vs. transactional formats.
FACEBOOK PHONE AND SOCIAL MOBILE
Frank Meehan, INQ Mobile
GSM Wolrd Congress winner of best handsets designed around Skype and Facebook. Carrier developed phone that aloowed you to make Skype calls. Old voice and text handset manufacturers are stuck - got to be fast, stay ahead, have to be able to put next FB on your phone quickly. Brand naming has to be cool and catchy, need great distribution, retail, marketing – Apple does it very well, not many others. Nokia is a very big company, they’ll fight their way back, what’s going to happen operators are keen to differentiate, each carrier has segmented behind a handset, INQ gives operator great customization. Sony Ericcson and Nokia nder $200 feature phone market are competitors – boring, dull, most users don’t get data, INQ phones very easy. INQ is now also moving into Android. Android phones has struggled to compete on networks that carry iPhone. User experience has to be better to get that iPhone out of user’s hand. Need a hit handset every year. Owner of INQ is investor in Spotify, Meehan sits on board of Spotify, huge in Europe. (Om: $50 Peek email device, BB for everyone) Location not there yet but coming. iPhone sells well to 35y+ who buys Macs. But iPod market is under 35y, sell INQ phones to that market.
JUST A BROWSER OF FUTURE OF MOBILE OS
Jon von Tetzchner, Opera Software
Browser has potential to be a unifying force to deploy across wide range of mobile devices without having to create a whole bunch of native apps. 80% of phones not running OS, thus web is natural choice for these phones, HTML 5 local storage and drag and drop, deliver rich app experience. Browser started as a document viewer, then added Java, developers moving faster than that, now running applications. Scalable vector graphics is coming in the browser. Microsoft held the browser market back for years. If doing it web-based, it will run everywhere. Widget is a web app running in a separate window, can run everywhere, PC, Wii, TVs, media players. Webkit vs Opera mini. Opera Unite service – there is just one web, see all devices working together. People haven’t really taken to MMS, hard to get photos over to PC, bluetooth is a hurdle.Opera 10 downloaded 10mm times in the first week. More than 700ees in 10 countries. Still focus on the end-user, make peoples lives easier, FF, rewind, speed dial..people expect that, now 40mm active users. In some countries, #1. Touch based gestures, mouse gestures very popular. Take pride on running on 10 year old PCs. Core of the browser hasn’t changed. Apps will be web-based, more power to play with.
INVESTMENT OUTLOOK: THE VC PANEL
Lawrence Aragon, Venture Capital Journal
Panel raised $2B need to invest. Seed and Series A not looking good for 2009.
Mitch Lasky, Benchmark Capital
Infatuated by iPhone comes out of being burnt. App store has been great for developers and Apple but not venture, opportunity to aggregate market share hasn’t materialized, will soon be back in multi-platform world, will need to be on more than just iPhone. Would invest in a company contingent on partnering with carrier. Did 200,000 store keeping units serving global wireless market. Now 27,000 games on iPhone, noone can make money. Don’t mind high-friction environment. ARPU has been flat at $50 for years. Will see higher RPUs when virtual goods comes to iphone apps. ATT $18B to built out network to support data consumption. Network build out is a significant issue.
Dixon Doll, DCM
Portfolio includes mig 33. Series B in mig33 last mobile investment, in the midst of a Series A not announced. Can’t justify monetization on advertising – wont get VCs excited. Must look beyond US, US carriers at best are 3rd best in the world, lots of innovation in China and Japan. Cynical about business model where carrier determines outcome of business, better to create competitive environment, e.g. MLB.com doing well with its subscription on multiplatforms, competitive dynamic is useful. Economist talks about innovative mobile apps: augmented reality. DC does not understand job creation role of the VCs. Primitive emerging market nations live off their mobile phones, creating microeconomies, money transfer payments exciting new applications.
Rob Coneybeer, Shasta Ventures
Portfolio includes Eye-Fi. Prefer companies that don’t require carrier relationship, then can focus on value of partnership instead of imbalance of power. When both parties have alternatives, its best. People get hung up on ARPUs, want revenues higher than cost, voice down, data up, wave of growth around the corner, some new business models of advertising and promotion enabled by location and intent, can be explosive, developers can write to a platform without talking to carriers to see if it will go on a deck. New features (accelerometers, touch screens) to get to a multibillion dollar industry. Seek to build a portfolio of 25 exciting companies. Plays Foursquare, gaming + location drives explosive adoption.
Bob Borchers, Opus Capital
(Fmr Apple iPhone exec) Portfolio includes Eye-Fi. Mobile startups don’t require as much capital as before. Can easily get fulfillment on your own, may need capital for awareness. Venture community is so burned by the 500 feature phones they tried, soured on the space. Many have great proof of concept. iPhone 2+ years old and App Store 1 year old. Traditional carrier-focused metrics voice RPU, data RPU may be $50, other ecosystems $80 ARPUs on iPhone apps. All do seed deal, have to have money to add people, need capital to keep company going.
John Balen, Canaan Partners
Last Series A India mobile company. Series A is down because the whole market is down. Seeing now an upswing in deals. Activity level will rise in 2010. Coming out of recession. Every web app has to have mobile window because browser is so prevalent. Not everything is showing up as mobile, might be categorized as web app. Change is happening. Need leverage with carrier. Carriers operate differently abroad. iPhone best over the top payment system and the outsourcing of cell phone business. Watch the unbundling of what a cell phone company is. Disaggregation of cell phones towers. Win-win for consumer. Happened in India even with low RPUs. Augmented reality is next. New ventures around location, cameras..
Mobilize was terrific! A comprehensive look at a world where all devices are connected, where the trend toward network offloading will bridge bandwidth constraints, where integrated app experiences will challenge Apple to do better. And there was so much more than we could cover including their LaunchPad competition jusged by Granite Ventures, Microsfoft and Qualcomm Ventures, as well as workshops including one on the Future of Mobile App Stores (report available from GigaOM Pro). Producer Om Malik knows his stuff and was incredibly entertaining with thought-provoking questions. As for the venue, much appreciated were the media tables with outlets, quiet press room, live streaming cafe, and vast space to interact with the sponsors. The winner of Best of Schwag goes to MobiTV for their eye-catching iPhone lounge chairs. Honorable mentions go to GetFugu (brand new iPhone and Android app) and OpenBox for their memorable tees, eBuddy for their white mug, Qualcomm for their business card case, and mSpot streaming mobile movies for their sleek marketing collateral.
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