Class I Innovation
The common theme of recently Tier-A venture-backed mobile companies Flurry, SoonR and Dash, and social networking platform ccube is that they are not really mobile. The main work occurs at the stationary platform which is oh, by the way downloaded to a mobile device and in some cases best used with a [power-consuming] preferably always-on tether to the stationary platform.
Certainly there is use for these services for email and news via text/SMS plans for mainstream non-smart phones without Internet plans, desktop synchronization and next-gen GPS with web-based local search functionality but worrying about creating cool ajaxy websites for the stationary platform does not truly extend the mobile platform.
Class II Innovation
Class II innovations involve a different mindset - thinking of the mobile device as an asset not a liability and thinking of the mobile device and devices as a true platform. The idea is to accentuate and extend the mobile platform and innovate new applications and services for use on the go.
Some of these could include more sensor-based services regarding the local setting, permissioned messaging from local merchants via text, Internet or voice (push a hotkey to have a service call you with the name and details of nearby wifi cafes, 3-star restaurants with immediate availability). That the phone is a phone is often forgotten for efficient asynchronous information delivery. Distribute platform services could include accessing anonymized data from other nearby phones which have made similar requests via push or pull, or using other crowd-search smarts for similar information.
Mobile is inherently multidisciplinary and innovations in hardware, integration and other software areas such as speech recognition as they arrive will likely continually redefine the mobile platform and trigger new waves of services development. Presumably in the not too distant future, mobile and stationary should be somewhat meaningless distinctions (like digital and biological intelligence) when considering the ubiquitous wide-band continually communicating computing grid.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Immobile Mobile Platform
Posted by LaBlogga at 9:10 PM
Labels: innovation, mobile, mobile as a platform
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2 comments:
Melanie - Thanks for your interest in ccube.com. Please note that we are truly mobile. Our mobile social network can be used from with phone (land line, mobile, VoIP), any carrier, no downloads. And we use voice technology so you can even use it while in the car on your mobile phone with voice commands - hands free!
Best regards, Michelle Bonat michelle@ccube.com
Hi Michelle, Thanks for your comment and btw, I enjoyed hearing about ccube from your presentation and I am intrigued by ccube. My point is not that these services cannot be used from the mobile platform but that they are still more easily and more richly accessed from the stationary platform, or in concert with the stationary platform. ccube audio search is still a bit clunkier than desktop pointing and clicking while being able to see images.
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