Having Learned Nothing From ESPN Mobile Debacle, Disney Closes Disney Mobile

from the wash,-rinse,-repeat dept

Disney explored the MVNO concept for years, convinced that given the opportunity, people would rush out to buy Disney-branded mobile phone service. What's amazing is that in all that time, the company never bothered to figure out how to actually make a branded mobile phone service compelling. It started an MVNO based on ESPN, which failed spectacularly, despite dumping millions of dollars into it. You would think that, having failed once, the company would be careful not to make the same mistakes -- but apparently not. When Disney launched its Disney-branded mobile phone service, it seemed perfectly designed as something no kid would want to use. So, it came as little surprise that Disney seemed to follow the identical path of other failed MVNOs: launch hype, quick price cuts, desperate flailing, closure. We noted Disney Mobile was following that exact pattern nearly a year ago (up to the price cut point), but the service continued to hang on... though, it seemed pretty clear it was in trouble. Back in April it tried to paint a rosy picture of its users with a bunch of stats, but glaringly left out how many subscribers there were.

Given all of that, it came as little surprise that Disney completed the trek of the failed MVNO, officially shutting down the service after a year and a half. Apparently, the massive failure with ESPN Mobile didn't lead to any additional insight into how to sell mobile phone service. Given the variety of high profile MVNO failures in the US lately, can we finally put to rest the concept that was popular a few years ago that every brand would have its own mobile service? People don't want to buy mobile phone service from an entertainment company -- especially when it's ultra expensive and has little in the way of features that are actually useful. If entertainment brands want to go mobile, they should create mobile apps that can work on a variety of services, rather than wishfully hoping that people will completely switch over to a branded service.

Filed Under: mvno
Companies: disney, espn

Do Walled Gardens Promote Innovation?

from the not-that-I-can-see dept

A former chief economist for the FCC, Thomas Hazlett, has written an article claiming that walled gardens promote innovation -- which seems like an extraordinary claim. Unfortunately, he completely fails to back it up in the article itself. Instead, he mostly focuses on why regulating open access in the wireless space doesn't make sense -- a statement we tend to agree with. Regulating mandatory openness is excessive, and hopefully unnecessary as the industry realizes that openness actually provides more value and opportunity. It's on that point that we appear to disagree with Hazlett. He claims that walled gardens are better for innovation, arguing that innovations like the Blackberry and the iPhone came first to US networks because of their closed, rather than open, nature. That's not necessarily accurate. It's much more likely that both came to North America first because both Apple and RIM are based in North America. And, it's worth noting that both have expanded overseas.

Hazlett then uses the example of i-mode as another example of a success story of a walled garden -- but ignores that it was actually the freedom and openness aspect of i-mode that made it an initial success -- and it was the closed nature that later limited it. By enabling many developers to compete, real innovations were created. It wasn't because it was a walled garden, but because the folks behind the project recognized the benefit of being quite open within that platform. Hazlett also seems to ignore the longer term history of most walled garden platforms. They may have initial success by creating a limited sandbox, but almost all of them eventually suffer as people go in search of more open and more innovative platforms. That's what happened with AOL. It's also partly what caused i-mode to stumble when it was unable to keep up with the innovation of others in the space. So, yes, it's true that mandatory openness may not make sense, but it's a huge leap to go from there to saying that walled gardens promote innovation. Walled gardens simply leave open the opportunity for someone else to innovate a more open solution.

Filed Under: innovation, walled gardens

Are We Getting Any Closer To The Wireless Holy Grail?

from the keep-searching dept

For years and years we've been hearing about how software-defined radio was the holy grail of wireless technologies. The idea is that the wireless radio is software-based, rather than hardware-based, and therefore can change on the fly. Thus, a single device can, in theory, do a lot more. For example, it could automatically find the best network and switch you to that network, even if it involves a totally different type of network. That's cool in theory, but it's very, very difficult and can lead to a lot of complications. There was a lot of hype about the technology a few years ago, but it's been pretty quiet for a while. That may be changing as Vanu Bose's company is starting to get some new press coverage long after his SDR company first got attention (in part, because he's the son of the founder of Bose, the speaker company). Of course, reading through the NY Times article on Vanu, it doesn't sound like we're really getting anywhere near the big vision of SDR that people talked about half a decade ago. Instead, it's still being used for very basic things. That's not to say it's not a promising, and potentially revolutionary, technology. It's just to note that we're still a very long way from it living up to its potential, even if the press is suddenly writing about it again.

Filed Under: sdr, software defined radio, vanu bose
Companies: vanu

Yes, I Know Biking And Blackberrying Don't Mix

from the i-can-take-care-of-myself-thanks dept

We've been told that driving while on a cell phone is bad, so is blackberrying while biking worse? Given how legislators are finding it necessary to pass laws forbidding cell phone use while driving, perhaps it's only a matter of time before we start seeing anti-berrying-while-biking laws as well. But, what's wrong with just leaving it to common sense? Back in the 80s, I remember reading about the Winnebiko, a recumbent bike fitted to the gills with electronics, in Popular Science. The Winnebiko was fitted with a chord keyboard on its handlebars, so its driver could type out magazine articles while he biked across the country. He seemed to be able to do that quite safely, so thank goodness nobody tried to tell him that it was unsafe. Let's leave some safety decisions in our own hands, please. I have faith that our my self preservation instincts will stop me from riding a bike while juggling chainsaws, so there's really no need to pass a law telling me that.

Filed Under: cellphones, safety

AT&T Realizes That Upload Speeds Are A Selling Point

from the about-freakin'-time dept

Most broadband is advertised these days solely on its download speeds (or rather, what those speeds might get "up to" under ideal conditions). However, for a while, we've been wondering when more broadband providers would realize that the internet isn't just about downloadable "broadcast" contest, but in multi-directional communication. That is, when would they realize that people value the upstream part of their broadband connections? There had been some talk about this a few years ago, but most marketing is still focused on just the downstream speeds. That's why it's interesting to see AT&T now hyping up the fact that it's boosting the upload speeds on its 3G wireless network. AT&T (from back when it was Cingular) has fallen way behind both Verizon and Sprint in terms of offering 3G data services around the US. It launched much later and has had trouble ramping up the network as fast as its competitors. However, by upgrading the upload speeds, it looks like AT&T is searching for some differentiator it can use to compete. While it may just be partly a marketing gimmick, at least the company does seem to intrinsically realize that in an age of VoIP, user generated content, virtual worlds and video games -- upload speeds really do matter to many people. While it may not be a huge enticement, it's worth watching to see if others start boosting (and hyping) their upload speeds as well as their download speeds.

Filed Under: 3g, upload speeds
Companies: at&t

'Free, With Ads' Phone Calls Trying Yet Again

from the at-least-on-the-company-side dept

At the height of the dot com boom, there was talk of how just about any business model could be shifted to the "free, but with ads" business model. That resulted in the ability to get free computers, free DSL and even free cars... as long as you were willing to put up with ads (or in the case of the cars, cover your car in ads). The concept died down a bit, going back to the traditional areas where such a business model made sense (newspapers, television, etc.). However, it seems like the idea is making something of a comeback in the telco realm -- at least on the company side. Whether or not users actually buy into it (or, rather, view enough ads to make it worthwhile) remains to be seen. First up, is Blyk, a company that we discussed a year ago, but which is finally launching. It doesn't appear that they've adjusted their business model (free mobile phone service and they put ads on your mobile phone) since we panned the whole concept. Similar efforts haven't gone very far, so it's difficult to see this suddenly getting much traction.

Perhaps even more interesting (though even less likely to get anywhere) is another company, named Pudding Media, that wants to offer free phone calls in exchange for displaying contextual ads on your computer. Yes, the company is claiming that it will use voice recognition to listen in on your calls, determine what you're talking about, and then pop up relevant ads on your computer screen as you talk. The obvious comparison is with Google's contextual AdSense (specifically within Gmail). However, early on people were pretty creeped out by the contextual email ads, and it would seem like people are even more likely to be creeped out by voice recognition systems parsing phone conversations. On top of that, there are so many options now for people to get cheap or flat-rate calling plans, that you have to wonder if this type of solution will really attract many users. The company is likely going to focus on bolting its contextual ad solution on top of other providers, but that really depends on how well it actually works. It appears the company is launching at DEMO this week, which I'll be attending, so I'll try to test it out and see.

Filed Under: ads, free, phones
Companies: blyk, pudding media

Ah, So Now Intel Says 2008 Is The Year For WiMax

from the don't-bet-on-it dept

Intel has been hyping up WiMax for ages, to the point that many people (including reporters) believed it existed when didn't. In fact, Intel even declared WiMax a proven success before it existed. Now that's marketing! While there's a decent chance that WiMax will eventually be successful, it's reached the point that we have a hard time believing anything Intel has to say about the technology. So, when they come out and say something like 2008 will be the year for WiMax consider us skeptical. The good news is that we're not the only ones. That Wired article is written by Bryan Gardiner who expresses his skepticism and quotes some WiMax skeptics and points to Intel's earlier overstated claims on the technology. Either way, the idea that 2008 will be the year for WiMax simply reminds me of the fact that some wireless company or analyst firm seems to have declared every year since 2003 the year for "3G wireless." Now that we're moving on to what some people consider "4G," it's only fitting that we have four or five years of people claiming that next year (no, really this time!) will be the year for WiMax.

Filed Under: wimax
Companies: intel

The Ongoing Blind Belief In Mobile Broadcast TV

from the it's-gonna-be-huge...-except-that-it's-not dept

For years the big research companies have been putting out report after report after report claiming that mobile broadcast TV is going to be a huge moneymaker. However, there seems to be almost no real evidence to support this. In the 80s there was an attempt at mobile TV that went nowhere. Yet, the studies keep coming. The latest is from Juniper Research predicting that mobile-broadcast TV services will be a $6.6 billion market by the year 2012, which is very soon for a market that there are still a ton of questions around. This isn't to say that mobile video isn't an interesting service, but it's difficult to believe that the market for broadcast style TV is one that many people would ever pay for. There are many reasons why. First off, mobile users are quite often "on the go," meaning that they don't necessarily have the time or inclination to be watching broadcast TV programs. Instead, they're more likely to want to do mobile specific things -- short clip videos or videos that are more communication than content. Most importantly, however, it's difficult to believe that there's really money in mobile broadcast video because a combination of tools like TiVo and Slingbox mean that people aren't going to have to pay to watch what they want, when they want, where they want. I can already get mobile broadcast TV on my phone today -- thanks to a Slingbox and a smartphone with unlimited data. Why would I possibly pay more for it?

Filed Under: mobile tv
Companies: juniper

Perhaps Up North 'Unlimited' Means Something Different Than It Does Here

from the haven't-we-been-through-this-before dept

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a connectivity provider limiting how people use their connectivity -- as long as it's clearly laid out in how they pitch the service. Unfortunately, too many of these services advertise "unlimited" service, but mean the exact opposite. In the US, Verizon Wireless used to do this. When confronted on it, they tried to doubletalk their way around the issue, claiming that it was "unlimited data for limited types of data" (read that phrase a few times). However, eventually, Verizon Wireless realized how ridiculous this was and started to back off the claims of unlimited data. Unfortunately, that sort of thinking hasn't reached the folks at Bell Canada, who are apparently advertising an unlimited service, while hiding an awful lot of "limits" within the terms of service. Again, there's nothing wrong with them deciding they need to limit the service -- but if they're going to do so, they shouldn't be advertising it as unlimited. It's amazing that no one's been charged with false advertising for these types of misleading ads.

Filed Under: limited, unlimited
Companies: bell canada

GPS 'Selective Availability' Ends -- Where Are We Now?

from the map?--we-don't-need-no-stinking-maps dept

The US GPS system set its 'Selective Availability' levels to zero back in May 2000, and now the DoD is permanently removing the feature that allows the US to degrade GPS signal accuracy at will. While this probably saves US taxpayers a few pennies by not having to include some unnecessary signal processing parts in new GPS satellites, the decision also seems to mark a turning point in the availability of wireless location data. With more and more location based services cropping up that don't actually rely on GPS signals, such as the location-aware mobile search from Sprint and Microsoft which triangulates a caller's position between cell towers, the access to accurate location data is becoming commonplace. In fact, as more terrestrial wireless signals broadcast potentially-useful location data everywhere, the idea of using far away satellites to tell us where we are seems like an archaic concept -- and projects like Galileo begin to sound even more redundant. The adoption of GPS (or location-aware) devices reduces the uncertainty in several aspects of our lives -- giving users the sense that they *can't* get lost. So interestingly, the DoD's decision to switch from possibly hiding location information in order to keep Americans safer -- now to accepting that accurate position data is a critical component of our economy's future efficiency -- indicates a tacit admission that the open accessibility of information really does make us more secure.

Filed Under: gps, lbs, location, microsoft, sprint
Companies: microsoft, sprint