This particular talk is by Jan Chipchase, principal researcher at Nokia, and is titled, Our Cell Phones, Ourselves. He’s got a pretty sweet gig. He travels around the world, observing people and their use of mobile phones, amongst other individual and social behaviors.

I always find it valuable to be reminded that adoption of a given technology globally does not necessarily occur fit the same pattern as in developed nations, much less the US.

For example, listen to the story about African makeshift “banking” via mobile phones. Would we call sending money in this manner a “wireless transfer”?

UPDATE: This post pokes a bit of fun at Nokia. I do this for the sake of humor, not because I dislike Nokia or its products. They’re making some great devices, and as they roll out more CDMA phones in the future, I wish them the best of luck. Plus, I’m on Verizon and I would love to have a smartphone option besides a Blackberry!

I’m adding a conclusion to the top of this article to ensure you get something “useful” from reading. Then you can continue reading the rest of the post and just have fun!

Conclusion

Much of the focus of innovation in the mobile industry is around user experience and interaction, which is great news for us users. From mobile gaming experiences to social networking to web browsing to usability to voice recognition to location-based services to music and multimedia innovation, companies like Nokia are focusing on making their devices more capable, more versatile, and easier to use. Mobile startups will be excited to hear that the global corporations are open to accepting “not invented here” technologies and integrating them into their products.

Example of a sexy cell phone. This is the kind of outfit your phone should wear to high-tech speed dating.

The Rest of the Story

San Diego’s CommNexus periodically hosts the business equivalent of speed dating sessions with mobile companies.

In the words of CommNexus:

“MarketLink a.k.a. High-Tech Speed Dating:

MarketLink is a FREE program that pairs local companies with multinational corporations hoping to identify and license new technologies. MarketLink brings parties of mutual interest together by orchestrating an event that will offer selected companies the opportunity to present to technology executives from visiting corporations in a personalized 1-on-1 session.”

These events are intended to match the innovation needs of the global corporations with the innovation strengths of the small companies and startups that otherwise might be ignored or by their larger, more popular peers. (Like a standard Hollywood depiction of high school, the jock/quarterback spends an entire semester sitting next to his one true love in chemistry class, but doesn’t realize she exists until she takes off her glasses and lets down her hair for prom.)

I recently received notice of an upcoming “High-Tech Speed Dating” session with Nokia. (According to the email, Nokia had 37% of the global device market share in Q4 2008, which is all the more remarkable considering they haven’t sold a device in the US since candy-bar phones in the ’90s.*) The list of prospective technologies, titled provides useful and concrete insight into the R&D focus of the mobile industry today. Here’s Nokia’s list with my comments in red:

What Nokia is Looking For:

Nokia is interested in engaging and partnering with firms that have next-generation or disruptive technologies in the following areas:

Social Networking

– Looking to combine the best characteristics of Twitter and 12Seconds with their new microblogging service, 12Characters. The most common message sent is, ironically, “12Characters”. (Go ahead and count.)

Mobile Internet and Browsing

– Researching nanotechnology advances such as nanotubes, because the internet is a series of tubes, and the smaller the tubes, the more internets you can fit in a phone.

Multimedia (Future Innovations)

– Not just plain multimedia, but future innovations multimedia, like special episodes of Lost made just for mobiles. They’re like the TV series, but edited down to only scenes where the plot is advanced. They’re 15 seconds long and come out once every two weeks. (Can you tell I’m a frustrated Lost fan?)

Music (Future Innovations)

– Not just plain music, but future innovations music, like when guitars have been replaced UFO Flutes (blowing into an alien’s ear while covering combinations of his 8 nostrils to produce different pitches)

Email and Messaging Solutions

– Nokia is rushing to roll out integrated email in its phones before anyone else thinks of it. It’s considering naming the phone the Belatedberry.

Location Based Services and Applications

– They’re calling their location-based service the “System To Always Locate & Know Everyone’s Region” (or STALKER)

Audio / Voice Quality

– Why do you keep asking me, “Can you beer me now?” I wouldn’t be talking to you on a cell phone if you were close enough to hand you a beer.

Voice Recognition

– Until I can whisper sweet little nothings into my phone and it replies with confidence-building compliments about my wonderful personality and dazzling good looks, voice recognition has room for improvement.

High Speed Connectivity and Side Loading

– Nokia is turning up high speed internet to the max. They’re skipping from 3g up to 11g.

Enhanced Usability

– I think these “enhancements” are related to the implanting of silicone cases to make the phone owner’s pocket bulge bigger.

User Interface

– We need something to compete with the iPhone

Touch UI Innovations and Performance

– We really, really, really frickin’ want to beat the iPhone!

Antenna Technologies

– I hope they’re not bringing external antennas back, they haven’t been gone long enough to be retro yet

Sensors

– The accelerometer senses when the phone user consumes too many shots and falls of his barstool, automatically playing “Another One Bites the Dust” in response

Battery Technologies and Power Management

– Some day in the future, Nokia cell phone batteries will be so powerful that when you plug your phone into your hybrid’s lighter jack, the phone charges the car

Video / Photo Editing for Mobile Environment

– Because navigating a timeline of hundreds of clips, transitions, titles, and effects is so much fun on a 24″ monitor, why wouldn’t you want to do it on your 3″ phone screen while waiting in line at the grocery store?

Gaming Experience Enhancements for Mobiles

– You’ve already heard of iPhone apps where the accelerometer is used for hitting an imaginary golf ball or where shaking the phone finds a restaurant. Nokia is combining an accelerometer with a blood alcohol content (BAC) sensor near the microphone for its new game “The Drunken Stumbler.” You score points based on the combination of high BAC + low stumbling + # of dials to ex’s.

Mobile OS

– Rumor is a San Diego biotech firm is doing genetic engineering to crossbreed the iPhone OS, Android, and the Palm Pre OS into some sort of super-mobile OS. Only time will tell how many extra camera eyes it will have.

* I didn’t actually research this fact. I just don’t see Nokia phones around.

BUGbase with keyboard and display modules

No, this is about the BUG do-it-yourself gadget from BUG Labs.

From their site:

BUG is a collection of easy-to-use electronic modules that snap together to build any gadget you can imagine. Each BUGmodule represents a specific gadget function (ex: a camera, a keyboard, a video output, etc.). You decide which functions to include and BUG takes care of the rest, letting you try out different combinations quickly and easily. With BUG and the integrated programming environment/online community (BUGnet), anyone can build, program and share innovative devices and applications. We don’t define the final products – you do.

BUG debuted around CES 2008, and this year, at CES 2009, they announced five new BUGmodules. The BUGprojector sounds awesome, enabling the projection of a 480×320 screen (using DLP® Pico™ technology from Texas Instruments) anywhere. Another new module is BUG3g GSM, adding phone functionality and SIM card input. So, you can basically build your own custom phone with off-the-shelf hardware.

The BUGbase is an ARM-based computer running a Linux kernel and all the software is open-source. I know what you’re thinking… “An open-source, Linux-based phone. Are we talking about Android here?”

No, this is separate from Android, although there has been talk on the BUG boards about modding Android and running it on the BUGbase. But there is definitely some crossover in possible applications and customizability with important implications for the BUG Labs team and the future of their product.

Now that developers can buy an Android Dev Phone (or use a normal T-Mobile G1), many of the hobbyist applications that might have been created on the BUG can be built on Android instead. The G1 has many of the same features out-of-the-box that BUG provides in BUGmodules, including: touchscreen, keyboard, accelerometer, camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, microphone, and speaker. Of course, the G1 doesn’t have a video projector yet, but the aforementioned features cover the most common use-cases for a handheld gadget.

The BUG product initially struck me as a great toolkit for college students studying computer and electrical engineering and computer science, or even mechanical engineering. The platform is entirely open and documented, including the electrical and mechanical CAD files. As someone who studied engineering, I can say that the BUG sounds like a more exciting project than the usual programmable rolling robots I played with in school. All those robots could do is run into walls.

With the BUG, I can build a gadget that hangs around my neck, detects when I’m walking, pulls my GPS location, and searches the internet (via Wi-Fi or 3G) for nearby ice cream shops. (This search behavior is based on the following logic: if I’m moving, I’m burning calories, so I’m probably hungry, so I definitely want some ice cream.)

But with Android and the G1, we can do the same thing (at least in theory), and the phone is smaller and cheaper than a BUGbase with all the necessary modules. Plus, if I write this application and other people like it, too, I can share it with thousands, or millions, of other Android users. The Android userbase is undoubtedly many times larger than the BUG community.

It seems that BUG is up against some serious obstacles, so what do they do to carve out their own niche?

I love ideas like this that encourage creativity, play, and learning, so I hope that the BUG is successful. Here’s a few stratey suggestions:

Evolve the BUG developer environment to a point where someone like me, a non-programmer, can handle creating simple applications. At that point, the device will be accessible to kids and can serve as a enriching learning environment. This puts BUG in the neighborhood of toys like LEGO Mindstorm. Android is focused for use by professional programmers, so BUG won’t have the competition in this market segment.

Create lower-cost components. This corresponds with the above recommendation. If there were a BUGbase with a reduced feature set and a lower cost, it could be used by children and by schools.

Focus on gadget applications not served by Android and smartphones. As a generalized and versatile platform, the BUG won’t be able to compete directly against devices designed to be phones and mobile internet browsers. So, focus on the capabilities that the Android and G1 can’t touch. This includes applications using the projector module and… well, I’m not sure what else. But I’ll keep my eyes open for cool ideas and add them when I find them.

That’s all for now. Do you have any more ideas? How does the BUG stand out against Android as a platform for gadget experimentation?

It's all a big social media circle

It all started when I decided to apply for the position of Founder’s Associate at Twitter. Rather than a standard cover letter, I submitted a strategic analysis outlining Twitter’s current competitive state and its options to win the microblogging battle and larger social communications war. The primary tools used were scenario planning and Porter’s 5 Forces.

I then presented this analysis in a session at BarCampSD (San Diego) on November 12, 2008 to an audience with great interaction and sharing of thoughts.

Fast forward to the present. I have been a bit off the grid the last couple weeks while traveling home for Thanksgiving and working on the family business. So, just yesterday I read the news that Facebook had, so far, unsuccessfully negotiated an acquisition of Twitter.

About time. Their partnership was my first recommendation in the strategy presentation.

In my mind, at least an attempt by Facebook to acquire Twitter was inevitable for these fundamental reasons:

It’s a mutually beneficial relationship

Twitter gets a business model, as tweets are displayed amongst advertisements in users’ feeds.

Facebook buys Twitter’s large, existing userbase and brand recognition rather than battling Twitter head-on with a modified status feature.

They need each other

Twitter has, by far, the largest userbase of all microblogging services. But yet its size pales in comparison to the number of people using Facebook. It’s hard to imagine another way Twitter could scale its userbase so quickly.

Facebook is missing out on all the conversations that occur outside its walls on Twitter. It would be beneficial for Facebook user frequency and volume to have Twitter conversations integrated with profiles, the Facebook platform, and the rest of the user’s social graph.

I called this scenario “Slap in the Facebook World”, describing a situation where Twitter must either partner with Facebook or watch as Facebook builds a Twitter clone and leverages its size to bully Twitter out of the ring.

Other scenarios included in the presentation:

• “Twitter in the Cloud Behind the Curtain” — Twitter as a service provider, with revenue coming from premium API access
• “Microblogging the Microsoft Way” — The microblogging platform with the largest corporate userbase wins the consumer game
• “Open Sesame” — Open standards and open source win (e.g. Laconica) and no company makes significant revenues directly from the product

If you’d like to check out the strategy presentation, I’ve embedded it below.

Disclaimer: I made this presentation quickly and for the purpose of sharing indirectly, not for delivering a speech. Therefore, I don’t advise following my example in such text-heavy slides and lack of graphics. You will put your audience to sleep!

One great iPhone feature is its ability to feed a user’s GPS coordinates into a location-based service, or LBS. This expands the usefulness of GPS beyond navigation to enhanced social networking activities. TechCrunch recently reviewed the state of major LBS applications for iPhone, and I recently attended the Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Meetup, so it’s time for me to throw my two cents in the pool.

Regarding the title of this post: No, I’m not yet overly concerned with privacy issues regarding the sharing of a person’s location at this point. I just couldn’t think of any other good acronyms at the time. But privacy will a serious matter for the creators of LBS software, and I’m sure they will be working hard on getting the balance right between sharing location with wanted friends and avoided unwanted threats.

The major problem with the LBSs I’ve seen so far is they could more accurately be described as LBFs, or Location-Based Features. These applications don’t provide a full user social experience and don’t really stand up on their own.

As soon as Facebook and MySpace release their own location-based channel into their massive existing user bases, these LBS forerunners, as admirable as their pioneering work is, will be trumped out of the market. I don’t see significant, proprietary innovation occurring at the existing LBS firms, thereby reducing the incentive for Facebook and MySpace to acquire the technology rather than just building it themselves. Plus, any integration tasks would be as significant as building the service in the first place.

Many of the current LBSs seem to be aiming to compete with Yelp’s user-generated business review service. Again, they can quickly be trumped as it will be easier for Yelp to build an iPhone app that pulls GPS coordinates than it will be for a brand-spanking new LBS to build a competitive database of user reviews. Loopt has partnered with Yelp to use its reviews, but again, once Yelp builds the app, why won’t I just use that? Yelp already has my bookmarks and personal reviews, both which would be very useful on the mobile app.

LBS Logo Collage

Venturing a little off topic:

Imagine creating a review while you’re still at the restaurant! (Or after walking out the door if your girlfriend doesn’t approve of you tinkering on your phone during dinner.) The app knows what restaurant you’re at (as long as you have a GPS signal). It can ask you questions to prompt things you might forget later: “Was the service attentive?” or “Were the bathrooms clean?” You can upload photos of the food or interior while you’re still there.

Back on topic:

One last thing.

We don’t know how a LBS should be designed yet because it creates a new paradigm for the way society interacts.

This isn’t the fault of the current providers, but it does highlight the challenge they face it meeting customer demands and continuously upgrading and modifying interactions. For example, how often will I want even my friends to know where I am? How often will I end up changing my discoverability status back and forth? What if I turn discoverability off for an annoying “friend” but then we run into each other at the bar — will I have to lie to cover the fact that I’m digitally hiding from him? Will my phone prompt me for my status every time it detects I’m walking out of my house?

Nobody knows the answers to these questions just yet, but I think we’ll know soon enough.

One of the great things about taking a trip to the West is the peaceful serenity of the plains, prairies, buttes, and mountains. Everyone needs to disconnect from the grid occasionally and reflect on our amazing planet and the beauty that surrounds us, typically missed because his nose is buried in a cell display sending a text or checking status updates. At that point, even a 21st century man feels a connection to his ancestors who roamed this country on horseback, their newest ‘gadget’ the carbine rifle.

But then, even a nature-loving man like myself begins to miss a few things about the Internet, discovering firsthand the withdrawal induced when a beer falls over in the tent and quickly transforms a high-tech mobile gadget into a tent stake hammer.

Here are the top 5 things I miss now that I no longer have on-the-go mobile Internet access:

1. Can’t send mobile updates to this blog!
I had set up a couple methods to post in addition to the normal web interface, namely Jott and email-to-post. (Note: I haven’t found a way to post to WordPress.com from email, just self-hosted WordPress.)
I’m setting up Shauna’s phone now so we can hopefully Jott to the blog from it instead.

2. No more GPS
I used my LG Voyager not only as a mobile phone, texting machine, and Internet device, but also as a GPS navigator. This is not a good function to lose on a cross-country trip, as it’s one of the most useful features! It’s valuable for many reasons: get directions, find your current location, search for local businesses, and see how long it will take to get somewhere.

3. No mobile campground searching
It turns out it’s difficult to find a comprehensive, printed listing of campgrounds — at least one that’s not the size of a phonebook. I miss being able to search sites like Woodalls for campgrounds in a given radius.

4. No instant online photos
Until my camera adds a cell phone, I’m getting by with the cell with added camera. It doesn’t provide great photos, or even a flash, but it does the job of getting a photo from capture to sharing across the world in less than a minute.

5. No more phone
I thought I was done after #4, but then I realized that I do occasionally use my cell as a phone. I am so 2007…