When it’s just mobile only

The internet in Africa is a bit different from the wireless, 3G, 4G, LTE bandied networks we keep babbling about in the developed world.

With a dearth of infrastructure, the vast majority of people (an estimated 1.5-billion globally, according to the UN) have no electricity. More people in Africa have a mobile phone than access to electricity. That means, for a phone to be functional, it needs decent battery life. These feature phones have anywhere up to a week. Secondly, many have the two other must-have features: an FM radio and a torch. Radio remains the killer app in Africa, especially for mass communication.

The kind of services African’s use on their feature phones are also a bit different from the shiny applications around social media updates that we obsess and complicate our life with in the developed world.

They use services which helps them check on whether medicine is authentic or expired like mPedigree;

Their farmers use feature phones to find out where they can get the best price for their produce using services like Farmerline

In a severely conflict driven society they use open source web2.0 mashups to do real-time live mapping of disasters or elections (Ushahidi); and for communities to communicate with each other like Mxit and FrontlineSMS

This is a country which because of its historical, political and  economical inequalities, allowed the utility of mobile to serve its purpose, than get caught in technological diatribes.

Africa is not mobile first.

It is not mobile also.

It is simply.

Mobile Only.

Source: CNN

Mobility payments

Is set to be a $617 billion industry by 2016. ( Gartner)

No wonder stories on mobile card readers, payment apps and  card swipe readers have consumed  terrabytes of editorial space across tech portals and blogs across the world.

Remember Square?

Curiously though, Gartner also presents data that shows, 80% of the worlds mobile money transactions are happening in East Africa, specifically in Kenya- which is fast turning out to be a hotbed of mobile innovation.

Not in the US of A.

Not in China.

Not in South Korea

Not in India

And the service that’s making a killing helping Africans using simple feature phones to send money to each other, is M-Pesa.

A mobile-phone based money transfer and microfinancing service for Safaricom and Vodacom, the largest mobile network operators in Kenya and Tanzania. Currently the most developed mobile payment system in the world, M-Pesa allows users with a national ID card or passport to deposit, withdraw, and transfer money easily with a mobile device.

Half of Kenya’s GDP now moves through mobile money, and M-Pesa reportedly handles $20-million a day in transactions.

Pity the western PR mills don’t push stories on innovations like this which leaves us to read 50 updates a month on what Jack Dorsey is doing next with Square.

Maybe it’s just myopia.

Or Maybe. Just maybe it is a semblance of western media colonialism and cultural imperialism.

Check the video below.

Jolla - The Phone

Yes those ex Nokia folks, who left Nokia in disillusionment (over marrying Windows as an OS), to create a new phone are on the verge of launching one.

Based on MeeGo, Jolla will have its own proprietary Sailfish OS, a linux based mobile operating system, which will be open sourced and will be an integrated platform across mobile phones, tablets and smart TV’s. 

Sailfish for starters will also be android app compliant out of the box.

The phone will simply be called….you guessed it.

Jolla.

Kudos guys. You did it.

image

<Tangent>

I tried to be inquisitive to find out more on what Jolla( the word) actually means. Here is what Google gave me.

image

Got me thinking even more.

<End Tangent>

 

Photo Credit for Jolla Phone: Engadget

For more information head over to the Engadget article here.

Source: Engadget

Firefox mobile OS developer preview phone - Call for Html5 apps

Yes. The debate will continue for a while, but the proponents of an open/ devoid of walls mobile ecosystem , powered by HTML5 will have one more thing to talk about.

Firefox today launched their own mobile OS developer preview phones, where applications built on HTML5 can also communicate with the hardware of a mobile client. 

Interesting, given that millions of consumers, use Firefox to browse the web everyday.

With a mobile OS the Firefox experience on mobile will no doubt improve significantly- one more pointer on how the internet is changing towards a mobile first approach. 

WIth these developer preview phones Firefox no doubt wants to bring in the developer community to create HTML5 apps for its use which can work on these phones using Firefox’s mobile OS.

Developers who want to start by building an app for their website on the Firefox mobile OS can do so from here. 

Having it’s roots in web browsers, Firefox, like Kickfolio is also giving a browser based app simulator where developers can test their apps on a desktop before they port it on to mobile.

Developer’s though, have to purchase the preview phones to actually build applications which communicate with the hardware.

Question is whether Firefox OS for mobile can be ported to other hardware, where hardware OEM’s come forward to use it as a primary OS for their mobile phones. The success of any OS will be on the hardware integration and adoption of the entire package  (hardware + OS + application ecosystem) by consumers. 

With the preview phones for developers, Firefox will get developers to build HTML5 apps for its OS and its hardware. However, can they get other major hardware OEM’s like Samsung, LG, HTC to jump ship, given that Android is more or less deeply integrated with them? 

Exciting developments - though more and more, the allure of a single technology stack  (HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, Web API’s)  to create applications and deliver it across the web, mobile and devices is finding new takers.

Nice innovation here though, by Firefox. 

Source: hacks.mozilla.org

50 gigs for free

Yes.

Really.

50 gigs of cloud storage for free. No credit cards. No payment after six months. 

Just log in and upload.

MediaFire today launched their android app allowing android users 50 gigs of free space in the cloud. With this MediaFire now has both an iOS and Android app allowing users to upload their pictures, videos, et all on the cloud. 

The only con: The app does not have a folder sync option and all uploads have to be done manually. A small gripe though for all that space. 

Source: play.google.com

Generate your app icon

In today’s age it must be a pain for a mobile graphic designer/ UI person to design for the plethora of screens one has to cater to. iOS, Retina, Android, Tablets, Phablets- the screen sizes differ along with their resolution, making it necessary for designers to design the app icons separately for each screen every single time.

Well things just became a tad bit easier.

Nice hack by Makeappicon here.

Just take your basic icon design, upload it and the program will automatically rezise it to your needs for both iOS and Android devices.

Neat!

Source: makeappicon.com

The Great API bandwagon

The really cool thing to do these days, is to use a social network API to create another social network of the same social database inside your website/ app/. Everyone goes wow, even though no one knows why it was done in the first place. But it looks cool and sounds sexy yet nerdy enough to make you come across an uber cool digital apparatchik. 

It is a happy ending for all.

Marketers are happy cos they have shiny Facebook fans/LinkedIn Lovers and Twitter Stalkers inside their brand new campaign landing page/ web app etc , thereby giving the perception of a closed network with social features. Social media companies smile at this tomfoolery but lease the api to make some money and cash their cheques ( since their ad business is not really booming) and digital gurus soak in the adulation of innovation.

Thing is people like Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, Reid Hoffman created extremely cool products and then created signature api’s to market the content and features of their platforms. That’s why they were the REAL innovators. They understood that when people shared the content and features of THEIR platforms then the word of mouth brand advocacy of their products increased manifold.

When we borrow their APIs today we actually give them free branding and even pay for it and what is even more ironic is that in this entire deal they gain more than we do.

So before joining the API bandwagon, try and see if YOU have content which is worth sharing. Not contacts. People are already hyper-connected, they do not need another platform to do a job which they can anyway do on the social networks they are already in.  Try and see if you can create a functional signature api or lease APIs which can help you share the content which you OWN with your community, wherever they are, in a frictionless manner. Try to track your advocates via an interest graph. You will do a world of good and real innovation by increasing awareness and engagement for your own brand.  You will increase your organic web presence and enable content syndication and distribution, without paying a dime.

You will generate a community who come to you because they value your content.

Oh and by the way API stands for Application Programming Interface- but then you already knew that.

Freemium is the new premium

In the valley there is a saying. ” What you can do good, I can do better for free” 

And it seems to be working.  

Especially if we look at mobile, as per intelligence reports, 2/3rds of the top grossing apps  on Apple’s iTunes are for free. Not only that ; the top ten grossing apps, routinely generate anywhere between USD50,000 - USD 200,000 per day. 

Yes. Per day.

And what’s driving this growth? In-app commerce.

So how does in-app commerce work?

Simple really. The developer creates a free version of an application or game, which is feature loaded enough to get the primary user base in. But once they are in and have gone through the basics, the developer also gives extra levels or features which are equally enticing but which are paid for the consumers to engage with. It is here that the primary spending is taking place- and thereby accounting for 60 percent of all revenue among the 200 highest-grossing applications in Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Marketplace

When you create a great product which people want to genuinely use; it drives up the adoption rate. And once you have the numbers, the in-app commerce model, can entice an already hooked consumer base to open up their purse strings. 

Why mobile matters- even if it is not paying off today

Here is something interesting from Facebook’s S-1 filing. Take a read ( it’s informative) and you will come across this.

“We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven. Accordingly, if users continue to increasingly access Facebook mobile products as a substitute for access through personal computers, and if we are unable to successfully implement monetization strategies for our mobile users, our revenue and financial results may be negatively affected.”

Yes. That’s Facebook’s own admission. A company at the brink of a $100 billion valuation.

So even with a cool $100 billion dangling in dreams, they know that they don’t really have skin in the game when it comes to mobile. 

Now let’s rethink why they bought over Instagram for $1 billion, even though Instagram’s only claim to fame is a growing user base and some filters. No revenue strategy yet.

The only thing Instagram has is a completely mobile user base, who use the app only on mobile. Instagram does not even have a web interface.

In an application led, cloud communicating walled garden, it is the mobile app which will be in focus.

It is good to get some skin in the game today, where it would matter tomorrow.