Where’s the product placement in mobile gaming?

It started with a discussion I was having was discussing with one of my cousin’s friends who was into digital media (pertaining to my career and stuff) and he mentioned that gaming was an area ripe for mobile advertising. So I basically went out to do some research and realized that most of the advertising is banner based i.e. either during the game, before and after the game, there are banners displayed that you click to probably go to a website of the advertiser or can make in-app purchases. I think this is ridiculous. No one playing a game is going to click on a banner or ad and go out of the game to make a purchase. That’s just unrequested interruption that a player will ignore.

It just seems that mobile advertising seems to track the web based model very closely rather than acting as the digital replacement of several different kind of ad strategies. One example which I don’t think is being exploited enough: product placement. And what’s really wetting my pants right now is a remix of a game, a product placement and a mobile coupon (I am getting too obsessed with this mobile coupon concept for my own good!).

For example, let’s say someone playing Angry Birds finishes a particular level (I understand Level 14 is one of the more difficult ones), there are already inherent rewards built into the game in terms of his scores or getting to move on to the next level. However, what if there were the possibility of also obtaining extrinsic rewards as well? For example, because he finished a tough level, he gets rewards such as: a 20% off on Mango merchandise, a free hukkah/ nachos combo at Times Cafe (This nachos and hukkah at Times Cafe is driving me crazy….i love them both !) or a 50% off on say three movies at Reliance Big Cinemas. You can choose any one and the reward (now obviously you realize we have now entered into the realm of mobile coupons) automatically gets registered against the player’s mobile number and the player continues with the game. Now at any time (before the expiry of the coupon) after playing the game, the player can access those coupons to get their requisite discounts.

One way to do this is tie up with advertisers at the game development stage itself. Something like in Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog – along with picking up gold coins, you also pick up a discount for 20% of a Pepsi or 30% of a Bacardi Breezer or something. And later versions can have tie-ups with other advertisers. So depending on which version of the game you download, the offers will differ.

But even better, the best part is that I don’t see a reason why a particular coupon needs to be integrated in the game. If a profile-based advertising model can be built (where the customer needs to maintain an updated profile….duh!), the offers can be updated everytime the level starts  through GPRS. This brings in another dimension to the typical content provider-ad network-advertiser model as shown below:

Credit: Contextweb

Notice something in the diagram on the left? The word “users” don’t seem to appear anywhere. That’s because the current advertising model rests on the basic assumption that people who use a particular content are interested in specific type of advertisements/products. That may be true for only specific types of content providers (technology blogs, MMORPG) where the content is somewhat specialized and the fan following are of a specific psychographic. But how do you extrapolate that to casual games like those from Zynga’s or general news such as CNN where there is no specific demographic that watches the kind of news/ content they provide. This is where I believe a user profile would be extremely important at the ad network level. I have some ideas on how that needs to be built-up but it requires some serious level of trust in the ad network (and that is a vicious circle – you don’t give information because you don’t trust them, they don’t have any information to safely maintain and hence have no way to win your confidence). However, if you do build that up , the game suddenly gets more interesting, a lot more rewarding and hell, the mobile coupon business gets a serious shot in the arm.

In fact, if any of you played the Mario Bros. games, there are these bricks you hit in the game levels and get these gold coins/ mushrooms (yummy!) that add to your powers. Now, imagine the same game remixed to include product placement (I’m going to use “hitting the brick” as an example of a specific desired action to access an ad/offer). During the game, there is also another brick that if you hit, opens an interface which offers you various coupon rewards ( as explained before), you immediately choose the option you want (including one that implies “none of the offers are interesting or relevant to me) and continue playing the game. The way it would be designed is that as per the original code, if such a brick exists in that game level, then use an API to download content in a pre-defined format during game load and when the brick is hit, display the content. So when the game level is loading, the API connects to the ad network and basically, downloads various relevant ads (based on the user’s profile). When the game is played, and the brick is hit, you get the requisite content i.e. the offers. In fact, the design can be modified either to display various offers that the person can access at the end of the level or when he hits the brick. More importantly, the design should ensure minimum intrusion during game-play i.e. literally simulate as much as possible the collecting of coins as per the usual gameplay. It should not simulate an unwanted distraction instead of a valuable reward. The song and dance around the offers can come after the level is completed.

I can easily imagine people sitting in cafes and restaurants playing games to get discounts on meals at that restaurant/ cafe. That would become similar to something what Scvngr is doing except that their games are a lot less complicated than a Angry Birds or a Super Mario Bros. game. In fact, it would be the reverse of what Scvngr is doing, in the sense that in a Scvngr model, both the game and the offer are store-specific, while in this model, the game is location/ store agnostic but the offers are not.

It seems to be an interesting and a more powerful way to enhance the mobile advertising process. I wonder what I am missing?

Why MNP may not just impact churn but also VAS revenues

Note: Some aspects of this post has been detailed here and if you didn’t find that interesting, I doubt this one will either

MediaNama: What’s been the impact of the multi-SIM environment, in terms of VASrevenue?

Anil Pande: VAS is the first casualty when a user is constantly switching SIMs. The lastthing he will do in such an environment is subscribe to any monthly subscription service.He wouldn’t like to commit to that. There will be a certain class of users who will have oneSIM as a primary SIM, and subscribe to some services, and none on a secondary SIM. Incase of the student community, where there is no primary SIM, the subscription rates willgo down significantly.

I have heard quite some stuff about Reliance Comm and its employees, culture and the constant griping about salaries but man, total respect to Anil Pande. He has really nailed it time and again on VAS in his interviews with MediaNama. Well I have to agree to some extent that non-GPRS services have not really taken off but I feel that that’s more of an utility issue than a technology issue.

Anyways, I’m digressing from the issue. I remember I was explaining one part of my project to my cousin (who is into market research) and his first question was: “If you need this data, say from the mobile operators, then why do you think that they won’t enter it either?” I think that this comment from Mr. Pande clearly nails that question. With MNP already being launched selectively in various circles, no subscriber would want to be locked in or more specifically give up some service they like just because they want to shift operators. Mobile numbers already acted a very strong lock-in and people don’t probably want to get into that situation again. The fact that it is called “Value-added service” itself is a clear indicator that these serve to act as a revenue enhancing product from subscribers of the telecom service provider rather than as a independent content provider/ platform (read: sell new products ton only Reliance subscribers rather than spin it off as a separate business and sell content like other content providers to anyone with a mobile irrespective of the service provider). The difference between the two is the difference of acting as a utility vs. making money of differentiated content, something we partly discussed here and here. And if they do, indeed to act as a content provider, then suddenly, they are suddenly striped naked of their gatekeeper role (which is no longer a feasible role) and have to compete with the hardened content providers as well. Given that data services are being looked at a source to stanch the revenue bleed that has come to signify this sector, can volumes alone (rather than sale of content at a premium) be adequate?

If service providers think they are locking-in customers, it’s time they re-think that now. They are actually locking themselves out of the market.

Note 2: A large part of this post is based on the assumption that subscribers are really looking forward to MNP as an option to change their services. However, differing opinions seem to arise on the impact of MNP

An IDE/ text-editor for the rest of the sciences

This is a total braindump from my previous post on How to Learn. One thing I didn’t mention in there was one of the reasons that I could learn programming much more easily was the usage of IDE or an Integrated Development Environment. Think of the difference between coding in a basic text editor such as Notepad and an IDE/ language specific text editor as the difference between writing a document in a simple text editor such as notepad versus in Microsoft Word. Word is a lot richer in terms of features and functions allowing you to bold, italic or underline a word to more complicated functions such as review, commenting or tracking changes in the documents, table formatting, etc.

One of the most helpful features in IDEs/ language specific text editors is listing the available functions in a particular context. For example, if you want to convert a double (decimal) number “d” to its string equivalent (as a text; remember even in Excel, you can’t perform string functions such as concatenate on numbers; you need to convert the number as  a text), you just type “d.” and automatically all the functions that can be performed on a double data type gets listed, of which toString() is one; choose it and automatically the statement gets updated with the correct syntax. Something like this:

Another help using such applications is that it can highlight incorrect syntax or compilation-errors on the fly. So you know something’s wrong and the app gives you a guide as to where that error might possibly lie. There are obviously a lot more complicated functions and features in an IDE such as integration with web servers, databases, and other systems without leaving the environment/ application itself but I want to focus on the two simpler features that I described above. For one simple reason: If learning a programming language can be so enhanced by using a context-specific text editor, I wonder how the same, if implemented, could help learn all the other sciences and arts as well.

Think about human physiology as an example: If an assignment was “Describe the flow of blood around the human body”, how would an IDE based learning behave? I’m going to pretty much subvert the class structure as per the OOP concept and use my own concept of OOP for physiology so please don’t mind. So the parent class may have cardiovascular system, containing sub-classes heart, arteries and veins. Then, you would have lungs as a seperate class which would be part of both the cardiovascular class (filterting the blood of CO2 and adding O2) and the respiratory parent class (for the structure and the actual storage of air). So if you were building the structure, you could not do an heart.distributeblood() since the heart does not distribute the blood, it only pumps it into the aorta. Similarly, a femoral artery (artery that distributes blood to the groin area) cannot have the function bloodfromheart() since it would get its blood from the aortas; not from the heart. Similarly, the heart could not contain the attribute haemoglobin since only red blood cells contain haemoglobin. And so on. This plug-and-play model would help:

1. Understand which part / sub-class can perform what function;

2. Understand each part’s source and destination

3. More importantly, understand what function a particular organ cannot perform

4. Put together the pieces of the puzzle. If one organ’s artery and veins are configured correctly, on running the application, blood will “flow” through the organ keeping it alive. If it’s wrong, then blood won’t flow and an error is thrown up with the details. This allows the student to further troubleshoot that specific area/organ. I don’t intend this to be necessarily designed as a computer application. It could even be something like the Crystal Maze game that used to come on TV:

Yeah, I know, as in life, some people are a lot slower than others in the Crystal Maze . But whaddya think, wouldn’t this be a better way to learn? I would have loved it if my day was filled with puzzles, context (rescue the patient) with guidelines on where errors are being generated without mentioning the solution, wouldn’t it be clearly a more absorbing and better learning experience ?

NetFlix could easily be the next StarTV

Well, ever since NetFlix has started its streaming service, the adoption of the service has been incredible what with its  expectation to acquire almost 5m new subscribers this year. Interestingly, NetFlix has eschewed the traditional content (UCG like YouTube and Vimeo) and the traditional revenue model (ads). NetFlix focusses only movies and TV shows and only as a subscription-based model.

NetFlix Business Opportunity by Reed Hastings:

The beauty of this service is that the subscriber choice and segregation does not happen at a “channel” level (such as choose StarTV or Zee) or a “bouquet level” (News, Regional, GEC, etc.). It happens even more granularly at the episode (Season 1 Episode 1 of Scrubs) or the serial level (Scrubs). Hence, this kinda increases the signal-to-noise ratio (useful content to stuff I dont watch but have to pay for since it’s part of the bouquet). Right now, NetFlix is pursuing more of a catalog strategy (as in all the older episodes) rather than a premium TV channel with pay-per-view. But I believe that apart from this, this is the exact service delivery model that will dominate the media landscape in the future if  a single pipe-to-the-home kind of strategy is followed by the integrated teelcom operators i.e. the “bouquet” would be a landline, internet and cable / DTH. At the backend would be a content delivery server which will dish out the content as and when the subscriber requests it through a media interface (TV setup box/Internet webpage/mobile app).  In such a backend architecture, even my ad platform can easily be built to deliver customized ads to each subscriber. The ad purchase model would be based more like the AdWords model rather than the current media buying franzy that happens since content would not be broadcasted but delivered to a specific IP-based device.

But as Reed Hastings, CEO, NetFlix says in the presentation attached: ”almost no customers leave cable for netflix””. Why? We offer only a fraction of the content of the CST, and no sports

(CST refers to Cable / Satellite /Telcos)

Exactly ! One of the real hinges on which such a model could revolve is the giant libraries of content that will be required. If producers of such content are ready to work on such a platform, is there any reason we would need Star and Zee (from the perspective of the content which they aggregate and distribute – not the original content they produce)? Am I missing something here? What is the weak link in this argument/model ?
 

I have written about this earlier as well

On IVR menus

We all know what a pain customer service is. Usually, banks and telcos are the usual suspects but it pretty much applies to all B2C companies. Now that smartphones are profligating through both developed and developing countries, it’s time to probably re-think the way one of the key parts of the customer service - the design or more importantly the usability of the IVR.

With all the apps that various companies are already offering, I think another app should be launched by each of these B2C companies (like ICICIBank, Vodafone, etc.) for basically wading through the IVR. This would work as follows (Note: Only for phones with some kind of operating system which is capable of launching third party apps)

1. The entire IVR map should be available on the phone along with a clear label of what service each node in the tree would provide. This is not a confidential design really as any of the competitors can decipher the entire design of the IVR within 30 minutes of logging on to the IVR.
2. In case an authentication is required (such as the account number, pin code or the debit card number), the same should be highlighted at the node on the IVR tree itself
3. Updates in the IVR tree should be checked automatically every time the app is launched.
4. From a usability perspective, it should be in the language chosen by the user.

This automatically helps the user immediately go through the tree and easily get to where he needs.

Advantage for the user:

He spends less time on the IVR and then, after giving up, wasting more time in queque waiting for a customer service executive

Advantages for the company:

Same thing. It results in more effective utilization of the IVR and the customer service centre thus reducing the costs of both customer touch-points.

4. A more advanced version of the software would allow you to directly choose the option you require from the GUI of your phone and basically the app itself would navigate the tree based on the hierarchy to choose the service.

Take the example of the tree below:

So in the example menu hierarchy above, suppose I wanted the option of the call hold facility as highlighted in the diagram above, I could just select it and the phone would simulate the pressing of the keys 4 (For products and services), 2 (For sub-menu DT and VAS) , 5 (For sub-sub-menu Call Mgmt Service) and 4 (Finally for call hold service) in that order
The main challenge is not reversing the path to determine the order of the numbers to be pressed but the simulation of pressing the keys to choose the option. I remember in landlines (tone dialing), each of the 9 digits pressed emitted a tone at a different pitch and frequency based on which the instrument could identify the digit pressed. Not sure how handsets identify dialing numbers in the mobiles. I’m sure an identical principle works here and in touch screen phones, since it’s entirely software controlled, there could be a way to simulate the pressing of the key for each of the choices. In fact if an API can be built into the IVR, it could actually do away with the key simulation since the application can be integrated with the IVR through an API. Some IVR vendor like Cisco should be in a position to actually build both the app (with a template where the IVR hierarchy can be updated) and the API and sell this as a value-add to the service provider. There would also be an issue in terms of authentication when the software needs to prompt the user for a username / password. But that would need to be integrated into the app. I think an API is the way to go.

5. Further, an even more advanced version would also probably inform me of my position in the queque to the call centre (after I move out of the IVR; the option of “Press 9 to speak to a customer service executive” ) so that I could decide whether to stay in the queque or alternately further explore the IVR tree to see if I can find the service I need.

Let’s accept the fact that today’s IVRs are a waste of time. All they do is either encourage the subscriber to disconnect the call in utter frustration leading to customer dissatisfaction or route his call to the customer service representative thus unnecessarily increasing costs. There has to be a better way of designing them without it seeming to the customer that it’s just a roadblock between him and the service he requires from a CSR.

UPDATE: Oh I was thinking about this before I slept and I realized one thing. If I used an API, i would require a data session to navigate through the IVR, but if I needed to go to the call centre, the app would have to initiate a seperate voice session since voice quality on the current data networks is a bitch. I wonder how that would work?

Wah Taj ! Part 1

Despite Z’s relentless pushing me to go , the plans finally once again got re-confirmed 5 minutes after this post. Anyways, another road-trip (after a really loooong time) was irresistible. Went over to RJ’s place on Saturday evening, got sloshed till 3 am and left for Agra at 8:30 am. Anyways, I’ll probably write about the actual trip in another post. I just wanted to pen down two thoughts on the actual monument. The first one in this post:

1. You know how stories start with something unremarkable but you still read the book anyways cos’ you KNOW there is going to be a BANG! time. The moment that keeps your fingers glued to the pages or your eyes fixated on the screen. That whatever you’ve seen so far has been made for this moment. This post is about a similar build-up. It just seemed that that was exactly how the Taj is kind of unveiled to you. It starts with standard red sandstone gateway inlaid with marble patterns and inscriptions. Looks like your standard historic monument

The gatehouse itself is around 46 meters in depth and is completely dark. And the exit (into the gardens surrounding the Taj) is in the shape of the the typical Mughal entrance. From this point of view, you can partially see the sparkling white marble of the Taj Mahal (atleast from afar) surrounded by the azure sky.

Go further down the gateway, and the doorway then frames the Taj beautifully. I guess the entrance was so designed that it would frame it symmetrically. The contrast of the darkness of the gateway (the nearest to you) against the bright whiteness and the blue of the sky (farther away) creates this awesome effect and is what takes your breath away of this first glimpse of the complete Taj.

And then, you spill over into the enclosure of the Taj and this stark contrast then gives way to a riot of colors of green gardens, the sky and the Taj reflected in the pool (al Kawthar) and the work of the doorway as a frame of the Taj is replaced by the entire sky itself. Sounds a little poetic, but I am not sure how better to describe it.

So it’s not just the sheer beauty of the Taj but how the whole think is unveiled to the person: bit by bit. I call it the stripper theory: (Am consultant => will have my own theory): The business of a stripper is not just based on how she looks topless but more about the entire undressing process. THAT’s what keeps us guys hooked on. If she came onto the stage topless, the excitement would be much less. When she comes in dressed as a slutty nurse, a policewoman or even Catwoman. It’s not about seeing a naked woman. It’s about the fantasy.

It’s what happens when Steve Jobs says: “Oh and one more thing!” before he reveals an iPod (from his pocket) or an iPhone or a Mac Air (from an airmail envelope to show how thin it was). It’s about how the product/service/ experience is unveiled to the user. Whether it’s the booting process of an OS, or the setup process of a software product or even the unpacking of a Mac product. I’m not an GUI expert or anything. But man, this was some eye-opener

Photo below is just to emphasize the contrast between the red sandstone of the gateway vs. the white marble of the Taj that you finally see.

Rest of the photos are on the Flickr page here

Media buying at $100? Brilliant !

 

‘Nuff said.

Check this out: How I ran an ad on Fox News

Didn’t realize Google AdWords was so well-designed for their television campaigns:

TED Talks: Tim Berners Lee

An SQL query for the Internet? That’s what the Sir Tim Berners-Lee proposes to do with his concept of linked data. Tim compares the search on a complex protein between Google and  a search through his linked data architecture. Google- millions of results; not relevant, the linked database – 32 hits; all relevant.

While it is a little unfair to compare a generic Internet to linked data for such a specific query, the implications are pretty cool. Usually, when we come across tables, it is usually the summary of all the analysis performed. Or you get documents. Not DATA! Time demands raw data! Can you imagine governments putting up entire databases on the Internet – public domain information, obviously and then we can actually query that data for our own requirements. I remember downloading Excel sheets on Netflix rentals from the Long Tail blog to see if I could tease out some of my own inferences. It was pretty cool !

 The gap I see is the intent of people to “upload” raw data. I can’t imagine that even though you purchase a report from a research company, they would give you access to the entire database of data. But Tim takes this concept to an entire new level. That of linked data for relationships. He goes:

In fact, data is about our lives. You just — you log on to your social networking site, your favorite one, you say, “This is my friend.” Bing! Relationship. Data. You say, “This photograph, it’s about — it depicts this person. ” Bing! That’s data. Data, data, data. Every time you do things on the social networking site, the social networking site is taking data and using it — re-purposing it — and using it to make other people’s lives more interesting on the site. But, when you go to another linked data site — and let’s say this is one about travel, and you say, “I want to send this photo to all the people in that group,” you can’t get over the walls. The Economist wrote an article about it, and lots of people have blogged about it — tremendous frustration. The way to break down the silos is to get inter-operability between social networking sites. We need to do that with linked data.

 If this does work out, though, suddenly, the Internet will be a much richer source of information. See the talk here.

Edit: Finally, managed to get the video embedded. Check it below:

And this is the result, a year later: WOW !!

 

The fragmentation of the mobile industry

Credits: Damith C. Rajapakse

Brilliant post from Richard Wong. This was one of the few things I’ve been trying to figure out when I decided to work on a project on mobile apps. There is no standardization – no write on .Net and watch it run on 95% of the world’s computers; hell, even within Nokia handsets, some run on Symbian and some don’t even have an OS. What’s a man got to do to get his app possibly running on all handsets! Nopes, not going to happen. Forget the OS. Even the standards aren’t clear on what may dominate in the future.

Apart from this, I would assume even the purpose and the target consumers would matter. This is kind of obvious. You wouldn’t develop an iPhone app for a farmer in India. Nopes.

Wong hammers out these points for mobile entrepreneurs:

Don’t wait for the Magic Bullet

Bound The Problem & Get Down the User Learning Curve.

Geography matters

Get a guide

I can see why mobile operators are wary about stepping into the app space. Fragmentation will kill any hopes of generating billions of dollars like your voice and SMS services did. Fragmentation means not just standards and platforms but also the long tail of mobile applications and products. I guess this means we have to keep coming back to the same point: The platform with the most attractive services/ applications/ products wins. More importantly, what’s going to be interesting is the shift in balance of the who-has-whose-balls-in-their-hand phenomena. Till now, mobile service providers  could dictate anything to the content providers since most of the services were network dependent. Now, if you don’t like the terms and conditions of Idea, well, just create a version on your website that can be directly downloaded onto the handset through the PC. (In a wierd reverse-Facebook like thing, none of the mobile operators have the monopoly of Facebook in social networking to demand much from the content provider. Now the platform has to pander to the content provider) This just gets more and more interesting

Interesting reading: Fragmentation of Mobile Applications

Is an app store feasible in India?

I have been ranting and raving about how application stores are the next big thing over and over. One thing that I haven’t really talked about (and frankly, not thought of deep enough) is the feasibility of implementing such a application model in India. I mean the handset model that really took off was a Nokia basic model (no Symbian, just a text-based menu) which also had a torch built in. Low-ARPU prepaid consumers constitute 95% of the subscriber base. That’s how it is here. So if you really try to build a model around synching your PC to a phone, it’s a FAIL! If you try building a model where you require a browser to download content, that’s a second FAIL (Again, I’m not talking about the pockets of cities and metros where people still flash their hacked iPhones around – this is about the remaining 98% of the people).
The only thing you could have on the handset is a single text based menu (like how we have for “Contacts”, “Messages”. All you CAN use is SMS like this service. That is pretty much built-in to any service provider’s connection. So with this kind of handicap, what service can you really provide? That is basically where design is going to play its most important role now.

Scenario1: I kinda get some kinda inspiration from the client-server model. I guess, at least in India, there is a market for developing a telecom platform (similar to the iPhone operating system) on the mobile cloud, which accepts text requests from subscribers, performs all the complicated processing, and returns the result in another SMS. Other slightly advanced,handsets which allow display of graphics could deliver slightly more complicated results such as wallpapers. This is the kind of model that is used for CRBT products where there is no configuration in the subscriber’s handset but on the vendor’s database. Hence, the called party can actually hear 16-tone songs even though ths called party just has a Nokia 1100. One advantage of this kind of architecture is it keeps the server independent of the model of handset (which is one chronic problem among open-source operating systems like the Android) wherein the same application developer has to develop different versions of his product for not just different OS but different versions of the same OS). Develop a base application for a handset that only lists services available (all text-based)

Scenario2: The major problem is with authentication since you can’t have SMS without clear text. The only option I see is using a secure IVR (the one that ICICIBank uses for authenticating PIN numbers) either for only authenticating or even choosing and starting the service. No wait! That will increase the costs for a start-up dramatically (but not for a platform service provider). It will also get complicated as more and more applications come on board. The IVR tree would end up acting like a retail store where the higher payers get shelf space at eye level while others get it at floor-level. So yeah, the design of “the store” on a text interface is going to be pretty interesting.

Scenario3: Maybe, the same can be done using the current distribution model of telecom operators where services can be browsed through “brochures” in retail outlets and “activated” through physical vouchers or e-recharged.

Scenario4: Maybe the service delivery platform can capture IMEI numbers. I know telecom service providers use IMEI numbers to identify the type of handsets being used by the subscriber. Now, that the Government has made it mandatory, this maybe a good launch pad.

Scenario5: Even better, if Android does overcome it’s version issues, would the incremental costs for a handset be adequate to substitute low-end phones with a slightly more expensive medium-level smartphone?

Scenario6: From Nikhil Pahwa:

Feature rich, lower priced handsets are key to an evolving telecom consumer base: as the prices go down and features improve, more and more people will buy handsets and discover new features. More cameras mean more content is created, the mobile Internet access allows many the access to new functionality. What we need now, is more India-specific better apps on the handsets, to enable access to more services. The device manufacturers are key for the app economy – lest you forget.

This provides so many opportunities and so many challenges, mostly design related! Man, may the best design win!

PS – I’m still reading up on how Africa has flourished on a mobile economy. That would be an interesting way forward.
PS2- Some interesting stats from Nokia’s Ovi Store. India is one of the top-10 countries for purchasing apps from the Nokia store. And, as expected, the slightly higher-end phones such as the 5800 XpressMusic and the N97 are the handsets leading the game. However, one statistic missed was the percentage of handsets Nokia sold in these countries from which purchases were actually made