MEX day 2

May 03, 2007 | Comments

More bits and pieces from MEX since my last post:

  1. What's the cost to the operator or handset vendor of adding in context-aware features, compared to the (commercial) benefit?
  2. 61% of women carry a phone in their handback. 60% of men in right trouser pocket.
  3. A great presentation from Argo Group showing off real-world results from their test suite: response times for text messages during NYE, what happens when things go wrong with MMS delivery: "you need to think like the user, test like an engineer"
  4. Fantastic break-out session with Christian Lindholm, Scott Weiss and chums: including revelations about large internet portals taking a more scientific approach to usability than handset vendors; the need of insight and intuition to make great products (whereas usability can get you to "good");
  5. Measuring device usability by counting numbers of support calls generated;
  6. Christian wondering out loud why the Motorola Z8 has such a Series-60 like UI during a panel session including Matthew Menz, Head of Interaction Design at Motorola :)
  7. Annti Ohrling of Blyk talking about their research and their intention to concentrate on text-message push marketing

All this, and a verbal kicking from James Pearce too, after I ventured the idea that fragmentation (as a consequence of open standards) was in one way an opportunity for companies like FP (or others who are out there solving device fragmentation problems - Argo Group, Volantis, etc.). Never been told that I should be ashamed of myself by a speaker at a conference before :)

Nice to catch up with you afterwards tho James :)

links for 2007-05-03

May 03, 2007 | Comments

MEX day 1

May 02, 2007 | Comments

I'm camped out at MEX for 2 days, wearing my analyst/blogger and FP hats.

It's been interesting so far - great bunch of folks, an intimate atmosphere, good venue, and some familiar faces. I like the format too - talks or panel discussions with frequent breakout sessions.

I'm here as a guest to take notes formally, so won't be publishing an exhaustive report, but some impressions and thoughts so far:

  1. Cliff Crosbie of Nokia was excellent talking about the importance of the retail environment, though we weren't clear what percentage of handsets are sold via this channel nowadays. Message: if you want to sell these products, make sure your sales force are knowledgeable, confident, and appropriately incentivised.
  2. Mike Grenville's break-out session on retail, where we concluded that we need simple pricing, building trust by letting users try things out, and across-the-value-chain incentives so that sales staff benefit from educating customers about mobile data services.
  3. The Prada phone has sold very well, and (coincidentally) has the strictest ever guidelines for retail display.
  4. There's a contradiction between wanting openness in all business dealings, and a well-integrated user experience running from content, through handset, to network.
  5. Big Brother vids generated 50x the traffic for Vodafone live and 10x as much revenue when they were made free to download as when they were sold.
  6. Vodafone see mobile as a satellite of fixed Internet use nowadays, apparently.
  7. The address book keeps being mentioned as a gateway to Internet services: score one, Mr Johnston :)
  8. Telecomms is Apple-obsessed right now, and (I think) ignoring that fact that the products their jealous of (ipod, Walkman) are all single-use devices whilst mobile is general purpose.
  9. Christian Lindholm: "Skype is interesting because of its intergenerational appeal"
  10. Contextual UIs which take the environment into account are (a) hard and (b) of questionable value.

All this, and Mr Heathcote lurking in amongst a crowd of on-brand Happy People in Nokia presentation...

links for 2007-05-02

May 02, 2007 | Comments

links for 2007-05-01

May 01, 2007 | Comments