mTrends - mobile media lifestyle trends - m-trends.org

2007 was a very prosperous and exciting year for mobile technology in general, still we’re just at the beginning of a new era of more magic to come in the mobile and web convergent area’s. So, traditionally I’m writing down 10 Mobile Trends for the coming year, always a good personal excercise how close one is predicting mobile market trends and an indicator of what I think will matter in 2008.

Read my Mobile and Wireless Trends for 2007 and check for yourself my gut feeling on what happened yet and what is still to come. It seems very obvious and easy but predicting trends can be tricky, just try it for yourself! Check also my del.icio.us for some interesting predictions from other technology blogs I bookmarked during holidays. One of my favorite readings during holidays is still Carlo Longino’s and Russell Buckley’s yearly predictions at Mobhappy. Do check them out!

So here are my Mobile and Wireless Trends for 2008:

1. Google’s Android and the Open Handset Alliance will definately take off in 2008. While the iPhone is doing probably the best job embracing mobile and web convergence, the Apple OS is still a closed system and used by a rather small market segment of users. Nokia’s Nseries - though all remarkeable devices - didn’t produce any breakthrough Symbian OS changes last year and is still too buggy to go mass-market - I don’t see my sister or father perform a device software update; which leaves the opportunity for Google and the Open Handset Alliance to get the new Linux-based operating system Android on several cutting-edge smartphones before year-end. Mobile OS, a truely competitive space in 2008!
   
2. The Rise of the Mobile Social Networks. M:Metrics released some promising data mid-2007 on the rise of the Mobile Social Networks. With the big social media networks all going mobile in 2007 (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Bebo, …), this trend will continue to rise in 2008, sustained by more flat rate introductions on different markets.
   
3. Apple will be seriously attacked by the music industry on its own, once disruptive, iTunes business model. 2008 will be the year of further downfall of DRM and the raise of watermarked audio-files. With Sony BMG planning to drop DRM - the last of the Big Four record labels with Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and EMI Music, to throw in the towel on digital rights management. The end of DRM might embolden a host of new, online download venues initiated by the Big Four in its searches for a successful digital strategy. Note also the rise of new business models (!) giving away DRM-free, ad-supported music downloads, like the recently founded Rcrd Lbl by Peter Rojas. Read my DRM Free at Last! for a recent overview and links to previous posts on this topic.
4. Telefonica will introduce the 3G iPhone. To be announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February?
5. The return of the Location-Based Services. Since Nokia introduced the Nseries N95 with built in GPS, Location-Based Services are becoming exciting again. A new wave of mobile services and applications build on the location of the user (cell-ID and/or GPS) will see the light this year, driven by the open Google Maps API and flickr’s geotagged photo function. Read also my early 2005 coverage on the formerly known MoSoSos.
6. First iPhone competitors coming to market. Nokia will introduce a serious competitor for the iPhone. It has the hardware manufacturing intelligence and knowledge to come up with its own multi-touch screen interface. Biggest challenge for Nokia (and other manufacturers) will be to keep the OS user-experience as simple as the iPhone. Expect some great innovating devices from HTC too in 2008! (checkout the HTC Touch Dual).
7. Mobile Video Blogging starting to taking off. Though still to be used by early adopters, mobile video blogging tools such as Kyte.tv mobile are already doing a great job with Floobs and KaZiVu also looking very promising (both still in beta), not to forget about YouTube Mobile. All eyes will be on Seesmic however that has the right start-up vibe - instigated daily by its impressive experienced shareholders (and web 2.0 icons) and its very active beta-testers community. Imagining Seesmic to be used on your mobile phone is an easy one, the challenges for Seesmic are to bypass the complex technical issues and delivery of its great idea.
8. Mobile search, as already predicted last year will continue to be one of the most important and most used mobile applications. I keep this one in my list adding that some new players might disrupt the big Search market players, not having figured out the real mobile search issues such as accuracy, context, relevance, latency and the correct display of local and niche results.
9. PRM (Personal Rights Management) and Privacy policies and procedures will be high on the agenda for every entreprise and conscious connected individuals. Already talk of the connected crowds at LeWeb3, opening the Social Graphs might appear cool in your social media community but has to be done right! As a starter, check out Dataportability.org and watch Robert Scoble explaining his recent portability issues with Facebook.
10. Twitter and the breakthrough of the ultimate Mobile Presence Tool. Yes, Twitter is the utlimate mobile presence tool, since it’s the easiest to use (through SMS and mobile web access), and most accurate to stay connected at any time from anywhere… Jaiku has a definately a richer client but Twitter is the most easily integrated into most of your social networks, checkout MoodBlast that can simultaneously update multiple chat clients and web services presence tools. 2008 will also see the rise of lifestreaming apps like Tumblr, surprisingly simple on the web and looks great on your mobile phone.

Some of the downers of 2007:

- the sudden death of great blogger Marc Orchant - my deepest sympathies to Marc’s family.

- the whole blognation’s saga - one nation, many bugs…
- and just recently Om Malik’s heart attack - wish him strength, get well soon, Om!

Definately an urge for all bloggers not to forget about their daily excercise, no less!

I wish all my readers a great and magic 2008!

I’m heading to San Francisco next week for the Mobile 2.0 and Web 2.0 Summit related events. One of THE events I’m looking forward, organised by friend Caroline Lewko from WIP Connector is the Essence Event on October 23.

Only 2 blocks away from Moscone Center to party, mingle with Mobilists and to network with rogue influencers; probably one of the most essential get togethers during CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment 2007.

es•sence (s ns)

the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience

Subscribe here to the invitation only list, only 160 places left when writing this…

Caroline invited me to write something on online branding and PR of emerging companies in the mobile market space for this months’ newsletter of the Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP). Many people ask me if they should use a PR company to get their message and brand out there and I often reply - it depends at what stage the company is. There’s a lot of good ideas out there that can be turned into real business and easily promoted on the Internet in technology channels, but I see mobile as a very specific market due to it’s roots in telecoms. It’s only in the last 2-3 years we see a lot of convergence happening in different areas, so depending where your market focus is, you can target specific groups to communicate to.

Read my 3 key tips and stuff to avoid using PR in the mobile industry at WIP Connectors website or download the newsletter directly here (pdf).

Having ‘mobile’ and ‘trends’ in my header asks for a yearly overview of mobile and wireless trends insights for the coming year. You can check here which trends I wrote about last year.

In a poll Richard Mac Manus held amongst Read/Write Web readers last week, on The Biggest Web Trend of 2007, the Mobile Web came out on the third place of coming web trends for 2007. Online Video / Internet TV was voted most popular (though the poll stays open until 31 December), the continued rise of browser-based apps (Ajax, Google, etc) as second. RSS and structured data - my personal favourite, and Rich Internet Apps (Apollo, WPF, etc), respectively on nr. 4 and 5.

Watch the online video trend going mobile in 2007, just check what teenagers do with a PSP these days and how easy it is to get YouTube on the device (see image below). Results 2, 4 and 5 are the logical evolution of web 2.0. Will the Mobile Web finally breakthrough to the masses next year? Having readers putting it upfront in a poll of a popular weblog such as Read/Write Web is a significant indication for more. How about you?

For Richard’s original “2007 Web Predictions” post - one of his most read posts of 2006 btw, he asked me for 10 Mobile Trends for 2007 you can read in that same post. I wrote down 10 mobile trends for 2007 very spontaneously, not having really thought about them before and without having the time to doublethink them through. Reading them over again now, I think it’s actually good to have written down 10 trends spontaneously - try it yourself… so, I invite you to check how good my gut feeling was next year

I’ll repeat them here again for my readers:

1. Flat fees will become more affordable bit by bit.
2. Thus, more user-generated content will become available to the phone; opening the way for mobile users to start using new web/mobile 2.0 services on their phones, such as podcasting, RSS feeds, more user-generated content to upload and use.
3. Big Media Youth Networks going mobile - MySpace, YouTube, MTV and many more players will resolutely go mobile; allowing users to upload pictures, videos and create/consumer content straight from their mobile phones. And to share with friends (including mobile forwarding functionality).
4. Mobile search - the big players will start positioning seriously in the mobile market (watch out for deals with carriers/operators and device manufacturers)
5. Mobile ads - the market is growing at a rapid pace (just watch AdMob’s ad views ticker box daily)
6. QR codes will start to enter retail markets.
7. Mobile image recognition will pop up in mixed marketing campaigns.
8. Cell Phone memory card swapping - to exchange music/video files.
9. Multiple network download hotspots become available in urban zones - enabling ‘on the spot’ mobile download and internet access possibilities via wi-fi/wimax/bluetooth/nfc/etc…. (all build in or available immediately)
10. Rise of ’smart client’ solutions, for convergence of content and application functionality on mobile devices in general.

I think 2006 was a very prosperous year for mobile in general. On a personal level, I got the chance to meet and work with some of the best people around in mobile in Europe and US, we’re just at the beginning of a new era and more prosperity in the mobility sector.

Special kudos to Kelly and Lisa at gotomedia, Russell and Carlo at MobHappy, Oliver at MobileCrunch, Caroline, Andy, Richard, Martin, Dave, Fabien, Stuart, Julia, Josep, Carles, Justin, Francesco and Gabriel, Jari and Micah, Ignacio, Debbie and her team, Peter and José, Markus, and last but not least Darla and all the women working in Mobile.

I wish all my readers and blogging friends an excellent and peaceful 2007!

m-trends.org is selected by Fierce Wireless readers into the Top 20 Wireless Industry Blogs.

Thanks to all the readers who voted for m-trends.org, I really appreciate your support!

After a month of nominating and voting, Fierce readers picked 20 blogs that certainly represent the crème de la crème in industry coverage. FierceWireless links to most of these blogs on a regular basis and so they deserve the recognition of being a Fierce Favorite. After thousands of votes and a list of nearly 80 blogs, these are the 20 that our readers picked as the best…

Though my personal top 20 looks slightly different, I think the blogs selected are in majority representative of what’s out there. I’m really proud and happy I’m listed next to well known industry blogs like Gizmodo, O’Reilly Emerging Telephony, Engadget Mobile, GigaOM, The Mobile Technology Weblog, TechDirt Wireless, Phonescoop and MocoNews.

It’s great to see that a lot of fellow mobilist bloggers like Russell and Carlo (Mobhappy), Emily (Textually), Ajit with Open Gardens, Justin (MoPocket) and Darla are represented in this selection. You can view the complete list in alphabetical order here.

Some great blogs seem to be missing though, for example where are MobileCrunch and All About Symbian? (btw: now hosting this weeks’s excellent Carnival of the Mobilists #52)

I’ll suppose this will keep me going despite the fact that it’s getting more and more difficult for me to make time available to blog. Many thanks again for all who supported me!

To be honest, I am not really a “top this and that” kind-a-guy, but recently I wandered how popular mobile blogs (bloggers writing about mobile & wireless technology and lifestyle) are in the overall blogosphere. We all know there is a Technorati TOP 100, not that’s it’s completely accurate - here today, gone tomorrow, but I think it gives a good overview based on the number of links people make to a blog, which is ‘a’ measure of popularity of course. I just want you to know that this is not an intend for an official top but rather a personal evaluation I wanted to share with you.

The Technorati top currently is crowded by (now classic) blogs such as EnGadget, Boing Boing, Gizmodo and a lot of blogs reporting on web 2.0, including tech writers such as Michael Arrington (TechCrunch), Scobleizer and Om Malik, just to name a few out of all the other great blogs out there.

I was actually surpised finding Smart Mobs just out of the TOP 1.000 (!), which made me think there are a lot of sites inbetween the 100 and the 1.000 that think mobile is not so important to write on, or mobile blogs are maybe just too boring for many readers - apart from the gadget sites, and/or maybe they are just too specialised? Yes, the ‘good old boys’ in the TOP 100 are writing about mobile too once in a while of course and for sure, the mobile lifestyle as we report on regularely isn’t mass market just yet. I can see easily however my dear mobile bloggers collegues becoming more and more popular as mobile will become more important in our day-to-day lifestyle in the near future.

So, here are the popular mobile blog sites, according Technorati.

1. Smart Mobs - rank: 1,033 (4,755 links from 1,081 blogs)
2. textually.org - rank: 1,181 (3,213 links from 1,009 blogs)
3. MobileBurn - rank: 1,868 (5,609 links from 766 blogs)
4. All About Symbian - rank: 2,833 (1,864 links from 589 blogs)
5. MobileCrunch - rank: 3,465 (1,538 links from 508 blogs)
6. MobHappy - rank: 4,920 (1,344 links from 390 blogs)
7. pasta and vinegar - rank: 6,187 (1,145 links from 332 blogs)
8. The Mobile Technology Weblog - rank: 7,928 (2,565 links from 262 blogs)
9. Mopocket rank: N/A (569 links to this URL sorted)
10. Open Gardens - rank: 9,230 (510 links from 232 blogs)
11. Mobile Mentalism - rank: 11,626 (465 links from 189 blogs)
12. Techdirt Wireless - rank: 12,632 (434 links from 175 blogs)
13. Darla Mack - rank: 13,125 (859 links from 169 blogs)
14. Communities Dominate Brands - rank: 13,203 (446 links from 166 blogs)
15. m-trends.org - rank: 17,238 (435 links from 132 blogs)
16. mobile jones - rank: 18,012 (343 links from 127 blogs)
17. The 3G Portal - rank: 18,195 (352 links from 126 blogs)
18. The Pondering Primate - rank: 19,256 (255 links from 120 blogs)
19. gotomobile.com - rank: 22,255 (226 links from 106 blogs)
20. Mobile Opportunity - rank: 23,427 (229 links from 101 blogs)

If you think it makes sence keeping such a top and even extend it, give me a wink and I’ll think to keep this updated every now and then. Please note that this is just my personal check on mobile blogs I’m most familiar with, if I should have left somebody out, please contact me so I can correct if I’m completely missing the ball here.

Note that these figures and ranking are updated nearly daily at Technorati, so if you read this in a couple of days, the numbers will probably have changed.

Note for Justin: you should claim your blog!