Mobile Monday Silicon Valley – Nostradamus Giants Speak
Image by Jesslee Cuizon
In a week that the ad campaign for Google’s Nexus S launched and the same Google was left at the altar by Groupon, it just made you think – What’s next? That is exactly what last night at the December Mobile Monday was all about–2010 in review and 2011 predictions for mobile tech. We had a full house of over 200 people and if there is any indication that the mobile area is healthy here in the SF tech area, over 15 companies were looking for talent during the open mike session.
Mario Tapia , chaired the event of panelists that included Om Malik, of GigaOM Research, Rich Wong of Accel Partners, Matt Fix of Vodafone Partners, Joe Jasin of DNA Investments, LLC, and John Malloy of BlueRun Ventures. The main topics covered covered a wide range from Augmented Reality, Advertising to Social. Let’s look at the highlights of 2010 for each section and then go to the Nostradamus predictions for 2011.
Social Dominance
There was agreement by the panel was that Facebook Mobile and Facebook Places was the story for 2010. John Malloy said ” Facebook is the dominant mobile carrier in the world.” Joe Jasin who covers Asia/China said one of the most surprising things that is not terribly exciting “governments are seeing the value in social media.”
Augmented Reality – Is it?
There was a central theme for 2010 of “needs more work” to “what do you do with it?” As the coolness of the technology is wearing off, the panelists see processing power and data set surrounding augmented reality as a growth area. Om Malik believes the processing power is not there to really use augmented reality. The information that is harvested by this technology is still growing and John Malloy said “Data sets is what matters”
Is Advertising $$ coming to Mobile?
The panel agrees for 2010 that the mobile advertising area is still in its infancy. Madison avenue is starting to recognize some of its value but it is hasn’t totally embraced the internet yet as well. Rich Wong said “Monetization is the key.” John Mally said ” Pay Per Download” model is broken. Joe Jasik believes some of the backend reporting tools are not developed to measure its effectiveness. Can agencies provide a mobile advertising experience that can create the brand awareness?
Games that people play
Social mobile gaming a fad? In 2010, this is starting to become a crowded space. Is it possible to create another Zynga? or Rovio’s Angry Birds? Social games where people are engaged is possibly the area to see some uplift. In a country, where there are so many media distractions it is tough to say whether mobile games can be successful versus a captive commute audience in Japan.
Location, Location , Location
For 2010, location features are now standard on mobile and practical use of location based features are the key. Matt Fixx said ” Location is now important feature and basically becoming commoditized.” John Malloy sees “commoditization of the mobile feature is good for developers…useful apps that take advantage of the data sets is important.” Rich Wong said ” the HW/SW ecosystem is much greater now than a few years ago so the chance of success is much greater.” Om Malik said “People have the physical limitation of time…can you make an app that makes life more efficient.”
Pay me now or pay me later…
For mobile payments in 2010, the US payment infrastructure is still being developed. Om Malik said “Amazon, Paypal, Facebook , Apple are people who are going to drive the area.” Rich Wong also stated ” that the challenge is the how much the carrier are taking off the top and how that will evolve the (mobile) payment model.”
The Battle of the Brands
For 2010, Android will continue to gain momentum but still has not captured the share amount of iPhone . John Malloy said “Android developers have been gaining in numbers.” Joe Jasin also said to look to Linux to enter the conversation for mobile. Each brand has a different conversation with the market as expected. Om Malik said “Apple has a better user experience, Android always has a stream of releases, a totally different business model. Nokia is a brand you can’t count out either.”
The Global Scene
For 2010, Android is getting traction in the emerging markets like India/Indonesia and the world is looking at the Silicon Valley for innovation. Joe Jasin said that developers in China look at Symbian(Nokia) , Feature phones, then Apple as their choice for platform development. John Malloy said “(Mobile) innovation is in the US, and we are the defining edge.” He continues to say “it will take time for India/China to catch up for smartphones.”
2011 predictions – Curtain please…
John Malloy – HTML5 will be competitive with native apps.
Rich Wong – Android will rise and gain share. Monitization from mobile advertising. The phone will be defined by the developer community.
Joe Jasin – Cross Platform especially Intel/Nokia partnership of MeeGo. LTE branding will emerge everywhere; Voice recognition becomes more developed as tablets make more of a presence.
Matt Fix – Security will be big in 2011. He predicts a major security issue affecting mobile next year.
Om Malik – Samsung will become the #2 brand in the world. Motorola will dwindle away. Nokia X3 will be the best smartphone.
Posted 527 days ago
Greg|
| ||
