Are you still syncing your Media the old fashioned way?

Like many of you, I have a large selection of music and podcasts that has been purchased/downloaded over the years – running into 30GB.  I used to sync with my iPod using the cable and lot of patience until I got a message that all of my music doesn’t fit anymore on my iPod.  Over time, Android phone, Blackberry, iPhone and iPad have been added to our family’s collection of PCs and Macs.

With my music spread amongst two computers and limited available storage capacity of my mobile devices, I decided to look for alternatives and here is what I found when I evaluated the following:

• Syncing my Music to the SD card/internal memory of the phone
• Radios like Pandora
• Monthly Music services like MOG and Spotify
• Streaming my own music using services like Jam11

Syncing my Music to the SD card/internal memory of the phone

Apple offers an ability to sync iPhone and iPad with iTunes  and many third party alternatives exist on Android and Blackberry phones to sync your library on iTunes as well. If your music library is any larger than 5GB (1,000 songs), Syncing is a bad alternative as there is never enough space left on these devices after leaving room for apps, pictures, videos and other data.  Yes you can pay $99 extra for each 8GB of storage on Apple’s iPod and iPhone or buy a larger SD card but it is unlikely that you can sync all of your music library on it for ever.

Radios like Pandora & Slacker

Internet Radios like Pandora and Slacker are great alternatives and offer a great selection. It is a great way to discover new music. However, if you are in a mood to listen to your Beatles album, Pandora will offer one of the songs from Beatles and then offer you similar songs due to Radio licensing restrictions. There are other Internet radios like SHOUTcast wherein I found a large selection of music, news and talkshows.

Monthly Music Services

There are many alternatives like MOG, Spotify and Rhapsody and cost between $5 to $10/month. The selection varies but I couldn’t find majority of the music that I like in most of these services. Also, I do have problem in paying to listen to the music I already own and hence these choices are not for me.

Streaming my Own Music using services like Jam11

With ubiquitous 3G/Wifi data connectivity, it is now easy to stream all of your music off your computer. Yes it needs your computer to be on but with streaming services like Jam11, I can now listen to my music anywhere from any phone. I can search for my music on my Android or Blackberry phone and listen instantly and make sure I don’t buy yet another song I already own. You can download Jam11 from Android Market or Blackberry App World and give it a try.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there is no one solution for everyone. I settled on using Jam11, have some local music on my SD card and listen to SHOUTcast radios on my Jam11 application. Let me know if you are still not syncing the old fashioned way and buying more iPods.

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Android Market Share 28%, Google 10% and iPhone 21%. Should Google continue on its mobile path or change?

This week NPD released a report which had some encouraging report for Google’s Android which had 28% market share this quarter with iPhone’s 21% and Google’s Nexus One with 10% in the US. Finally, Android powered phones like Droid from Motorola and Droid Incredible from HTC are making inroads into Apple’s iPhone market because of the combined effect of good phones and a good network. Many iPhone enthusiasts will argue that these comparisons are not real since one phone is being pitted against 18 Android phones but that is the topic for a different blog.  The topic that I want to tackle in this blog is  – Can Android do even better and if so what should Google do before it is too late? I have owned and played with Nokia N series phones, Blackberry, Google’s G1, N1, Droid Incredible and iPhone.

Here are things I think Google should do if it wants to be a true leader in this space

1)   Reduce Fragmentation of Android

2)   Build phone for the masses and not just for tech savvy consumers

3)   Improve App Store Experience

4)   Leave hardware sales to OEMs

Reduce Fragmentation

Fragmentation = Too many versions, no defined minimum hardware spec, no defined minimum app set and incompatibilities across versions and vendors. Nokia is a prime example of a vendor whose customers and developers suffer everyday because of this issue while Apple enjoys almost zero fragmentation. Yes there is Linux but even that was organized by Redhat and couple of other vendors.

So, Google, please take a leadership role and put some discipline into various licensees, define and force some standards for the OEMs but maintain its open source, freely available advantages.

Build phone for the masses and not just for tech savvy consumers

I have used three generations of Android phones – G1, N1 and now HTC’s Incredible. Yes these phones are getting better with every release but Google needs to be improve Android’s usability for everyone. For doing most tasks, Android requires at least 2-3 times the number of clicks compared to an iPhone.  Being a tech savvy consumer, it didn’t take me long to get used to Android phone and get almost spoiled by the customization it offers.

So, Google, please hire some great UI folks who can mask the complexity for average user while keeping the customization advantages.

Improve App Store Experience

With the sales of Android going up, developers are happy and ready to look over many of the disadvantages of App Store. Monetization possibilities brings developers but actual easy monetization will keep them there. There are many forums just discussing issues after issues like mobile only availability, currency issues, poor discovery, lack of ability to send app links in blogs and others.

So, Google, please improve usability of App Store and make it easier to discover content and monetize while keeping control to the minimum.

Leave hardware sales to OEMs

After looking at what amazing additions HTC has done with its new Incredible phone and how OEMs have managed to make Android phones available through all operators in the US and abroad, it is high time Google abandons its own hardware sales and instead concentrate on doing the best in software that it is capable of. Yes, it should promote all OEMs and especially ones that are most innovative.

So, Google, please leave the hardware sales and manufacturing to your OEMs while you promote them and help them be successful.

Conclusion

Google has built an incredible software platform in Android which can be exploited fully by various handset manufacturers. Google should exercise some control in reducing fragmentation, improving usability, improving App store experience and leave hardware innovation to the handset vendors.

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Blackberry Email, Yahoo Mail or Google Gmail? – Experience of a Blackberry (BB) User

RIM’s Blackberry was only an Enterprise cell phone and so most people used it with Blackberry Enterprise Server which provided over the air sync of Emails, Contacts and Calendar events with Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Domino. In the era of iPhone hype, many people like me still use Blackberry to stay in sync and so I went exploring many choices for users without an Enterprise Server and/or Microsoft Outlook and here is what I found. I had to spend days researching these choices and hope this blog will help save time for many others and also wake up Google, RIM and Yahoo to act to make their products better.

Criteria

My criteria was simple – an ability to automatically sync our Email, Calendar and Contacts over the air preferably without paying any more than $30 we were already paying AT&T.

Blackberry Client

I could get a hosted BB Enterprise Server solution but most of them cost in excess of $10/month – this alternative was very familiar but I wanted something free and so didn’t go with this choice. Despite marketing towards consumer markets, RIM has sadly not provided any over-the-air solution to the sync problem outside of Microsoft Outlook.

Yahoo!Mail Client for Blackberry

I was using Yahoo! Mail as my personal email so that was my first choice. I downloaded Yahoo’s mobile client for Blackberry. The installation was simple and did sync my emails well except that its sync was delayed many times by much as three to four hours. However, trying to sync Contacts and Calendar proved to be too difficult and after repeated attempts and reading lots of documentation I decided to give that up. One good thing or bad thing is that this email client looks just like the Blackberry native email client and seems to be very CPU efficient and didn’t change battery life.

Gmail Client for Blackberry

My next choice was Gmail even though I still don’t like Gmail’s presentation of email in conversation threads. Downloading Google’s mobile client for Blackberry was easy enough though not as easy as Yahoo. Once I downloaded the Gmail client, I realized that it had a different user interface – similar to one on the PC. It was much better than BB Email client for reading newsletters as it cleared all kinds of web links and made emails lot more readable on the phone. Is someone from RIM listening?

Sync client from Google choked couple of times as I had too many contacts and it took a very long time but once it synced, it got better for any other changes.  While I was on Google site, I also downloaded Google Maps. Pretty soon, my Blackberry Curve started becoming slow and battery life reduced. So, I uninstalled Google Maps even though I really liked the app. Now, my Blackberry is still not as fast as it was with native Blackberry Email client but I can live with occasional slow downs and reduced battery life. The one thing that Google ignored is the delete key on the keyboard and for anyone used to that key it will be sorely missed. Also if you have many contacts, Gmail takes a long time in bringing up your contacts and seems like it goes to the network to fetch contacts unless you only keep most used contacts which are cached locally.

Conclusion

In short, I use Gmail on mobile and desktop and it automatically syncs everything well for me between my desktop and Blackberry. I have still kept my Yahoo client on the Blackberry for those times when Gmail slows down my Blackberry. Hopefully Google will fix this problem one day or Yahoo will wake up and do a good job in syncing Contacts and Calendar or better still RIM will wakeup and provide this service for all the non-enterprise customers before their value is completely diminished by Google.

Did you have different experiences. Share here in comments sections for others to benefit from!

R. Paul Singh

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Finally some good news from MWC 2009 — Can we now build $100M Mobile VAS companies?

One of the significant news from MWC 2009 (mobile world congress) was the culmination of rumors with official announcements of app stores. Now we have a long list of Application Stores including:

• Apple is the innovator and king of this and called it Apple App Store
• Google called its app store as Android App Market
• Nokia extended its service brand Ovi to Ovi application store
• Microsoft may call its service SkyMarket and its own service as My Mobile for Windows Mobile phones
• RIMM called it Blackberry Application Store Front
• Samsung for its smartphones created Samsung App Store

Why is this significant for the Mobile VAS (mobile value added services) market?

Until now, Mobile markets have suffered from 3Ds:

• Distribution
• Discovery
• Dollars or whatever Currency you prefer

Theses announcements solve two of the problems -  that of Distribution and Dollars.

With smartphone sales estimated at over 60M units in 2008, it is clear that software developers only working on smartphone now have access to a large market. Should VAS developers even bother with lower-end phones? We will tackle this in a later blog.

How did we reach the 60M units number – based on many articles and estimates with the best one from Eric Zeman at Information Week.  Here is the breakdown which may cause many arguments and surprise many:

• Apple shipped 14M in 2008
• Microsoft shipped 20M in 2008 – yes more than Apple
• Nokia shipped 18M in 2008 with N and E-Series counted as smartphone
• RIMM shipped close to 14M in 2008 of Blackberry Curve and up

With an average price of $20 per application/application pack for the life of smartphone, there is room for many $100M software companies in the mobile VAS space with focus only on smartphone. No need to have large expensive sales forces calling on many mobile operators worldwide as distribution is now possible from the app stores which in most cases give 70% of the revenue to software developers rather than 20-50% which operators are giving to the software developers. So what does this mean for Mobile Operators – relegation to being a dumb pipe or? Of course, it is different for different geographies – we will tackle that in a later blog.

Now comes the third problem something that has plagued most application stores including that of facebook, myspace and hi5. Yes that is the problem of discovery and this is where virality, usefulness and marketing becomes ever more important. We will tackle this in the next blog.

R. Paul Singh

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2008 had three, how many will it be in 2009?

The rising star of 2008 was IPhone which turned the mobile world upside down not just because of its sleek interface or first usable mobile web but also because of availability of numerous applications in every category. Google, with its Android, took the distant second spot but expect to see more from it in 2009. There were many also ran – all the way from LiMO to various proprietary J2ME implementations. Yes, I am talking about the mobile industry and the advent of three new operating systems in 2008.

There is a school of thought that there may not be room for any new mobile operating systems in 2009. The fact is there are already three new operating systems expected in 2009. Palm WebOS already kicked off the new year with lots of press articles. Symbian Foundation and Qualcomm’s BREW Mobile Platform are expected to be finally released in 2009.
Bottom line is Defragmentation in the mobile industry is here to stay.

How many new operating system will mobile industry get in 2009? Tell me what you think?

R. Paul Singh

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The Search For An “Open” Mobile OS

I remember the battle for capturing the title of “Open” in the computing world and now it seems that the same battle is making its way into the Mobile Computing world with the launch of Google Android. Let’s look back at a bit of computing history for reference: Microsoft used the word “Open” in their battle with Apple and we all know the history after that. Sun Microsystems was the king of “Open” when it bet the whole company on this word until Linux arrived and took the title away by confusing “Open” with “Open Source”. Is history going to repeat itself in the Mobile Computing world? In this Blog, we will address Mobile Computing Platforms and which of the platforms qualify for the word “Open”.

What we learned from the PC experience was that the Mobile Computer has to be open not just to application software but also to third party hardware. So next time you’re shopping for a Mobile Computer/Phone ask about the following to establish if the Mobile Computer is Open from a hardware perspective. Does the device offer the following?

- An ability to change your battery without having to pay an additional hefty fee to the manufacturer?
- An ability to easily add memory without having to go back to the vendor or ship your device to the manufacturer?
- A standard computer connectivity interface like USB or Bluetooth?
- A standard RCA headphone jack that can be used with the hands free device of your choice?
- A power supply that works across global power outlets or at least offers the ability to charge the device from your PC?
- GPS that doesn’t drain the battery every time you use it

If you evaluate mobile phones on these features, some will fail. So, my conclusion is that we are still far away from getting to the Open Mobile Computing world from a hardware perspective.

So now you ask what will make your mobile computer/phone more open from a software perspective. Well that’s where the Mobile OS openness counts more. Here is a somewhat simplified version of questions you should ask to establish if a particular Mobile OS is more open than others in no particular order of importance. Does it offer:

- An ease of software development in form of software tools, documented APIs, development kits and application examples?
- Support of software developers in form of bulletin boards and developer forums?
- The ability to run applications in the background?
- A light OS in terms of limited demands on hardware requirements?
- A secure OS so that damage caused by viruses and worms can be prevented?
- A simple or Universal Application Signing where an application that has already been certified once can work on any mobile network?

From an end-user perspective an Open OS results in the ability to have many applications running in the background, but hopefully your Mobile Phone won’t be prone to the same performance problems that have plagued our PCs.

Here’s a sample of popular mobile OS’s and how they compare to one another:

R. Paul Singh CEO
PixSense, Inc.

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A Question of Mobile OS Congestion

If I were to ask you what operating system your computer runs on, chances are that you could answer without a second’s pause. But if I were to ask you the same question about your mobile phone, it’s likely that you would draw a blank. And who could blame you, really? Even if you were familiar with the names of five, or maybe even ten Mobile Operating Systems (OS), knowing which one runs on your phone is a challenge because of a lack of standardization and consolidation in the mobile industry. It’s clear that we’re moving into this new territory of Mobile Computing where even today’s low-end mobile phone is more powerful than many of the early PCs (CPU power and memory).

What will it take for Mobile Computing to become reality? Imagine a world where mobile phone users everywhere intuitively know what their mobile handset has to offer and how to use all the new power at their fingertips. A reality where applications, that simplify a consumer’s daily life, will be the primary reason for buying a new mobile phone – and the aesthetic sex appeal of the mobile handset takes a distant second. A reality where there would be fewer, more uniform mobile operating systems, just like the PC. Needless to say, many things have to come in play for Mobile Computing to take hold and be embraced by masses. I will devote some of my next few blogs to this topic. Let’s begin with the issue of the Mobile OS.

The Mobile OS is one of the few topic where the metaphor “variety is the spice of life” does not apply. While there are enough claims by “industry experts” for each new OS launch that it will become the unifying factor, much like MS DOS, there are an equal number of claims, if not more, that such universal integration will not occur. Since the beginning of 2008 alone, at least three new mobile operating systems, including iPhone, LiMo, and Google’s Android, have been released. As if the existing plethora of proprietary operating systems (Microsoft Windows Mobile, Nokia’s recent purchase Symbian, J2ME and its various incompatible cousins, Qualcomm BREW and Mobile Linux) were not enough.

Theoretically, in the worldwide mobile industry, where four to five hundred new handsets are launched every year, the market would weed out less common or less popular operating systems in favor of moving towards a somewhat unified platform. The results are just the opposite, as new ones keep coming out of the woodwork while the old ones continue to linger, thereby forcing application developers to support several operating systems in order to become marketable. Can you imagine the plight of mobile application developers who have to support all these environments? The test matrix for supporting a single application across most of these operating systems is almost cost prohibitive.

The only beneficiaries of this rapid and rampant deployment of new mobile operating systems are the OS developers and the press, who gains yet another product subject to write about. However, this situation leaves virtually everyone else on the losing side. It’s time for all mobile software developers and users to rise together and begin boycotting new Mobile OSs rather than embracing them. It’s time for every mobile phone consumer out there to be aware of the operating system their phone uses – and its limitations – and demand a unified platform so that the era of Mobile Computing can become a stabilized evolution for new applications.

R. Paul Singh
CEO, PixSense, Inc.

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Lessons from a Mobile User Generate Content (UGC) Portal

I usually don’t write about PixSense’s products and customers. Recently, however, I was questioned at great length about our experiences by many of our potential customers after they read our announcement of exceeding one million unique visits in less than a month after launch. Considering it to be a well worth milestone achieved, I decided to share it on a public forum and get comments from others on their experiences and thoughts on UGC portals.

Most of us are familiar or avid users of UGC portals. However, as of late, they seem to have become specialized in terms of media sites (Flickr, Photobucket and Snapfish, YouTube) and social networking sites (FaceBook, Friendster and MySpace). Maybe, it’s due to the fact that there are specialized devices for each; digital cameras for photographs, camcorders for videos, and PCs for maintaining contact information and uploading and viewing the media. One of our customers/partners launched a mobile UGC portal in China and wasn’t sure as to what areas to focus on initially. Looking at how broadband UGC sites have developed over time, it’s natural for us to speculate whether our mobile UGC portal will become a photo site, video site or a social networking site?

When you look at today’s mobile phones, a 5MP camera is becoming commonplace (At this point, I would add that I do feel empathetic for all of us in the U.S., where a 2MP camera is still the standard camera phone offered by our mobile operators) and so our logical speculation was that we would become a mobile photo destination. But wait, taking a YouTube style video is possible from most new moderately priced camera phones too! So, why wouldn’t our mobile portal be a destination for videos? Lastly, consider social networking sites: At a very basic level, it’s a combination of an address book, e-mail and the users’ media. Every mobile phone has a very potent address book. That, coupled with the users’ mobile media and text messaging capabilities indicates that social networking should dominate the mobile environment.

So, what have been the results so far? In less than four weeks, over 12,000+ media pieces were made public, and probably the same numbers were kept private. About 60% of the public media comprises of user generated videos, while the rest is comprised of photos. Interestingly, videos started out slow, but now seem to be dominating photo uploads. Like other media sites, there are lot more viewers than creators, the ratio being 100:1. Interestingly, users are viewing the content not just from their web browsers, but also from mobile devices, using WAP connections. Moreover, users are sharing media with their friends, with some sharing it from mobile to mobile, but most through their existing social networking sites.

Summing it up, here is a quick overview of some of our findings on mobile user generated content sites and how they differ from broadband user generated content sites:

Mobile camera phones are an integrated device. As they come equipped with capabilities for both video and photo capturing, mobile UGC sites will be able to host and manage both, and hence, stand out (i.e. these sites will have no difference and will host both videos AND pictures).
There is a higher percentage of content creators in the mobile UGC world than in the broadband UGC world. Why? Maybe it’s because it is easier to create, upload and publish content from a mobile device using the right software (like our partner, Paiker, has experienced).

Most people want to post their content to more than one social networking site directly from their device, which, in this case, was a mobile camera phone. Would users shift away from their existing social networking sites to start using mobile social networking sites? The statistics don’t support this; users still want to use their preferred social networking site. A mobile UGC portal, thus, needs to be able to integrate with already preferred social networking sites. Offering familiar media-posting destinations coupled with an ease of mobile media management, makes for the ultimate mobile UGC experience.

What are your experiences? Similar or Different?

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Apple’s Impact on Mobile Operators – Forbidden Fruit or Newton’s Apple

All of the mainstream media, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, are ripe with stories about the number of applications for iPhone. Apple took the bold step of crossing the Atlantic and Pacific regions simultaneously, launching in over 20 countries, in one shot. Amidst the Apple iPhone application mania, the most consequential news, which seemed to miss the media’s attention, was that Apple became the new arbiter of all applications running on the iPhone. Interestingly, all of its mobile operator partners were happy (or at least appeared to be happy on camera) to not only surrender control of the iPhone application store, but also the revenue stream to Apple. This is welcoming news to all application developers, including my employer, as application developers get a healthy 70% share of the application revenue from Apple. This plan leaves mobile operators with just the data revenue and completely cuts them from the application revenue stream. Is this akin to the sin of Adam and Eve, eating the forbidden fruit, or is it more like the discovery of the force of gravity that Newton experienced with an apple falling on his head?

Remember the days when Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were all the rage? AOL was the darling, as well as UUNET and PSINet, amongst hundreds of other local ISPs. Where did they go? The only names that remain are our telephone and cable companies, like Comcast and AT&T, who have become the new ISPs. What have the ISPs been reduced to? Just commoditized data pipes on which many Internet brands, such as the real value-added players like Google and Yahoo?

Is this the beginning of the same commoditization of mobile data services? Just looking at the U.S. market, where many of us are used to buying unlimited Internet access every month for a set price, it seems very likely that we will see unlimited data plans and very little control of the mobile operator on the value-added services, unless mobile operators see the light and make the necessary changes that are required to move forward.

Research in Motion has been offering e-mail services worldwide to its network of Blackberry users. However, unlike Apple, Research in Motion didn’t manage to convince mobile operators to make them the arbiter of applications running on Blackberry. Instead, there are many sources for Blackberry applications, but mobile operator decks remain the most popular, even though BB lovers are calling for RIM to take control of its application platform. Nokia has been trying to reinvent itself as an application developer, competing with many of its application developer partners, as well as with mobile operators’ offerings. Many mobile operators have been resisting this movement, but some are giving in. Google, with its mobile OS Android, is going to try to become an application hub as well. Microsoft doesn’t want to be left behind and, while I was writing this, Microsoft announced its entry into the mobile applications world too.

Bottom line is that there is a battle brewing between handset manufacturers and mobile operators to offer applications to mobile subscribers directly. Will mobile operators give in and let every other handset vendor control it’s own destiny, like some did with Apple? Or will they retract and act against these moves? T-Mobile announced its intention to compete with the Apple store. So one would have to wonder if this is indeed a wake-up call to mobile operators: Maybe now is the time for them take this battle seriously. And more so, since mobile operators have a lot of power, given the amount of subscriber data that they’re able to track.

Despite this power, the relationship between mobile operators and their subscribers can, at best, be described as a love-hate relationship that starts and ends with a monthly bill. The relationship between mobile operators and software developers is not always a great one either – marred sometimes by bureaucracy delaying the launch of applications or by greediness in taking a much larger share of the revenue.

It is time for mobile operators to take control of their application revenue streams. Otherwise the only thing they will have to contend with is a monthly bill for Internet access, just as the case is with ISPs. I am sure there are many recommendations that the industry can offer, but I thought I would add some personal suggestions to the mix:

- Encourage applications that enable mobile operators to extend a relationship with subscribers beyond the monthly bill
- Refocus on application portals by rebuilding, marketing, and selling them prominently amongst the operators’ offerings
- Refuse to sell handsets that don’t offer open and well documented software development platforms
- Allow for faster and standard ways for developers to launch applications on mobile operator portalsAllow application developers to acquire a larger revenue share of the application – remember that the PC industry exists today only because of application developers. As such, applications cost more than the hardware they run on. If allowed to flourish, this will be the future of mobile applications too.

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