Colin Charles Agenda

This is a busy week for the MCMC. They’ve just announced that Mobile Number Portability (MNP), will now be a reality (a rather delayed reality. There is a FAQ available. Key things to note:

• Don’t terminate your mobile number before porting - only active numbers can be ported
• If you’re contractually bound (12 months, etc - such offers apparently can exist, with incentives to consumers) porting will be denied (unless you break your contract, I guess)
• Prepaid users beware - all existing credit doesn’t transfer over - so use it all up!
• A request to port, therefore, is notice to your current provider to terminate subscription
• Porting can take between 5-10 business days (utter bollocks, this kind of thing should take hours)
• You may get suspended international roaming during porting, so beware

Its about time. It will only cost a minuscule RM25 to change the provider. Customer service will clearly have to improve (this would be the sole reason I move off a network, IMHO)

A long time ago, Adam (017 - now owned by Maxis) used to offer “free calls” to 017 numbers, for users on a postpaid plan; plus they had the cheapest prepaid options. I was a heavy phone user in those days - it was a long time ago, during the Nokia 5110 days (so late 90s?).

Wonder how many new service offerings like this will crop up? Optus has free 20 minute calls to Optus customers (Yes Time, from 8pm-midnight), 3 has free 3-to-3 calls for 10 minutes anytime of the day, and so on. But knowing what service provider people are on, is key. This is the main reason I carried 2 SIM cards (and phones) in Melbourne.

Well, here’s to saying goodbye to 012/017 being Maxis, 013/019 being Celcom, and 016 being DiGi.

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I’m sitting here at a talk about the mobile industry now, and its all mostly focused on an overview of the mobile platform(s). Its basic (for me, but from the wide range of attendees, I think they got a lot out of it)… Location based services, APIs, Java, XHTML, all the joyous buzzwords. There’s plenty to do in the mobile industry, in terms of content creation in Malaysia (and Australia, fwiw). Lots of sites don’t have mobile specific sites, and scrolling, etc. is a pain.

Wild idea being thrown around in my head… Content creation isn’t complicated. At the last government event I attended, apparently, MOSTI has got lots of money to throw around. Some of the amusing things people got 5-figure funding for, included a guide to Malaysian beaches (not mobile related) available. Smells to me like a weekend hack for easy money.

Bandwidth is a problem… Metered bandwidth per kilobyte/megabyte isn’t something many in Malaysia think about (anyone in Australia knows the pain of this - but limitations make us present content better, IMHO). Its expensive. But I think this is a problem that will fix itself, as mobile data becomes more ubiquitous.

Then comes how to monetise this whole shindig. An interstitial does not work - they are annoying, they are a waste of bandwidth, and Mowser tried them and I believe removed them because they were largely a failure.

Mobile AdWords? Google doesn’t believe there is a market for this in Malaysia (or maybe anywhere else outside of the US). Its chicken-and-egg - till a market is built, Google won’t enter it, I’d guess.

Banners? The Star has it on their mobile site. They don’t have any public information as to how successful they’ve been. But this seems like the strongest option, currently - use an ad system powered by Slash, go out to advertisers and create unique tiny banners for them. However, this goes beyond the weekend hack idea… and that just becomes too much work.

Location based services tied into a mobile website. This could work… My social life is largely unplanned (professional life on the other hand is driven by calendars, that SMS me of appointments, even). Say I’m around the MidValley Shopping Mall, its 12:10am, and I decide I have time to kill. Access the site, it figures that there’s activity at MidValley at that time: bowling, The Dark Knight in Gold Class starting in 10 minutes, etc. Book a ticket through the site, get a commission? Banner ad for bowling, so its a “promoted” link/sponsored link, over the regular stuff (again, breaks the weekend hack rule).

If data is always on, coupled with your location, if you’re near a Burger King, it might blast you with ads saying “bring this coupon in, buy a meal, get a free ice cream”. Bluetooth based advertisers, beware - always on data+location will kick you in the nads.

OK, talk’s over, time to be social! Looks like we won’t have the Google talk after all… Thanks again to Daniel for organising this…

I was at part of the Open Mobile Exchange at OSCON today, so here are a few scraps of notes that I found interesting (from various speakers).

While we do live in the shadow of the iPhone now, this is going to change.

Every person in the modern world uses Linux multiple times EVERY DAY (even if you don’t know it). Linux is everywhere.

The AppStore is something that’s making the iPhone rock. The reason Windows is so popular, is because there are so many applications. This is changing in the open mobile world: think Android, for example.

There are 3.3 billion mobile phones (more than PCs, cars, telephones, credit cards, and TV even).

When Apple sends a million phones in the weekend, its a drop in the ocean when Nokia sells a million phones a day! The iPhone is about usage (German iPhone users use 30 times more data; Google notices 50 times the number of searches from iPhone usage)

• User Interface - Vimeo has a video, “OpenMoko train wreck” which compares to why its a FAIL versus the iPhone
• Access to Device Characteristics (camera, location, accelerometer, network, security, privacy) - today you really don’t get access to this, this needs to happen, really!
• Standards
• Performance - Firefox 3 for example, is very performance oriented. Remember, we’ve become bandwidth gluttons (webpage size has tripled since 2003… 22 times since 1995!). We’ve all been spoiled by having high broadband connection… look at Yahoo!’s 14 Performance Rules (34 today).

There are numerous mobile web browsers, and so little documentation about them today.

Leveraging Mobile Open Source for New Wireless Apps and Services
Stefano Maffulli, Funambol Community Manager
(instead of Hal Steger)

• Push email, PIM synchronisation
• Younger generations are using more than just voice, in mobile - its SMS, data, chat
• Nokia Ovi (http://www.ovi.com/) - Nokia is using this to monetise user generated content

Average American gets 3,000 visual stimulus messages per day. That’s a lot of advertising!

Its worth noting that MySQL will have a big presence at OSCON 2008. All this, thanks to Sun, as Sun’s a fairly big sponsor (Platinum Sponsor), and we’ve got a humongous booth!

There are booth talks, that you must attend! They range from getting started with the MySQL Community, MySQL 5.1, MySQL Workbench, MySQL Cluster, and many more. Expect to see the schedule up at the booth (and yes I know, there are a whole heap of already interesting talks in the program, but a lot of the talks at the booth are also scheduled during breaks).

Today, I saw the ad copy, which reads “Our Booth is Your Booth”. “We have whiteboards, tables, electrical outlets and fresh coffee. Come to converse, share ideas, participate or simply to vegetate.”

Seriously, that’s advertising that bodes well with me. Note that OpenOffice.org will also be there. See you at OSCON :)

In what I call a great advertising scheme, Leora Zellman, a blogger, photographer, brand evangelist, etc. is offering her sexy body as ad space.

Her body will cost you on an hourly basis, she’s mostly logo focused, but will also wear schwag, like t-shirts and caps. Buy her back, butt, or chest, they all have varying prices. If athletes do it, why not us regular Joe’s, right?

Well, its not like we all don’t do this. I wear t-shirts with penguins, dolphins, and various other bits all the time. In fact, I haven’t bought a t-shirt in over nine years.

Will this work? Maybe. At a geek conference, every other geek is probably wearing stuff with logos on them. Might be useful for new products? I’ve never actually looked at a t-shirt and thought to myself, “Hmm, I need to check that URL/product out”. Maybe other’s have?

Reminds me of the time Leah Culver sold advertising space on her laptop. Also, on another tangent, Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur spoke about Amanda Congdon using her body to promote her content, Leo basically saying it wasn’t smart. Check out net@night episode 51 for more.

Well Leo, most of the popular blogs in Malaysia, are “photo blogs”, of people “camwhoring”, i.e. showing themselves off in places. Is it sustainable? Maybe not. But will it bring popularity and money in the short term? Probably yes. Some even go on to getting fame ;)

Anyways, enough ranting on this. Best wishes Leora, and to all the other “camwhores” out there.