Livewire

Are you satisfied with the service provided by your telecom provider? When was the last time when you had a good experience with your telecom service provider? To many, the answers to above questions are: no and never!! This blog attempts to bring an aspect as to why this might be the case. 

Let’s go back to basics and discuss what telecom services are used for. In the good old days, there was, and still is, the traditional post delivery service where communication between people and organisations are through the exchange of written materials (e.g. letters). Then came the telephone where speech communication was made possible. As technologies move on, we now have emails, the Internet and mobile technologies. What is the common theme of all of the above? It is the transport of information or data from one place to another. That sounds simple enough. However, in this information age, providing and managing telecom network and technologies to do that are much more complex.

Continue reading "Why aren’t that many good telecom services around?" »

Posted by Sauming Pang at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Virgin Mobile is running a promotion with a partner company called SentForever that will make your text messages intergalactic instead of simply ending up on your friend’s phone. The service uses a high powered transmitter located Cornwall, UK at BT’s Goonhilly earth station. While I shudder at the fact that other intelligent life may be bombarded by messages such as “U R my BFF LOL!!!!” because I am not sure they would deem us as intelligent (you can decode the message at www.internetslang.com), I am impressed with the value of the promotion to Virgin Mobile. In a down economy, they are running a free promotion utilizing an interesting gimmick that captures the sender’s and receiver’s first name, last name and email address which could provide a wealth of new leads for Virgin Mobile. I am always impressed with Virgin’s ability to connect with their target market and this is another example of their thinking outside of the box.

Posted by Jeremy Kloubec at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We have more video available than ever before in the form of video on demand for television, internet and mobile devices. The amount is staggering when you add in user generated content and broadcast,. The good news is that, according to a recent Neilsen report (http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/11/viewing_across_screens_grows_n.php), the average US household is watching TV for a whopping 8 hours and 18 minutes a day! You then add the 27 hours of online and 3 hours of mobile video per month for a seemingly massive customer base that cannot get enough video (or time outside the house).

Continue reading "Video Everywhere, But How Do I Find It?" »

Posted by Jeremy Kloubec at 07:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here is some news that may have flown under your radar, Nokia is supposedly launching a MVNO in Japan in 2009 (http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/nokia-launch-its-own-mvno-japan/2008-11-24). This received considerably less press than Google looking to buy spectrum in the US, but has similar ramifications as it gives the handset giant an ability to test the waters as a service provider (obviously not owning network assets) in an eastern market targeting high end phone users. The significance here is the evolution from handset provider to creating direct to consumer relationships via retail stores (online and offline) to owning content with Nokia Live venues to providing content platforms for mobile service providers to now being the mobile service provider. Assumedly, Nokia should understand phone distribution, content retailing, provisioning and billing enough to be successful if their service is attractive to their target niche.

Continue reading "Expanding the Value Chain and Bumping Into Incumbents" »

Posted by Jeremy Kloubec at 04:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, the evolution of web browsing experience triggered by iPhone, Android, Blackberry and other new devices have attracted   a large mass of users to mobile web. Even the mobile browsers like Safari and Opera have started to evolve to dramatically improve the mobile web browsing experience. With these radical changes taking place, the lines between the PC and Mobile browsing experience have started to blur. But do the B2C websites keep pace with this mobile web evolution?

Continue reading "Are websites keeping pace with the Mobile Web evolution?" »

Posted by Sandeep Chandrasekar Seshadri at 06:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I have been sifting through a number of articles lately in regards to long tail video content. The latest meme has been the death of the long tail, I would say more specifically, the death of monetization of user generated video content. Just to be clear, long tail content available from various artists and producers will continue to be consumed by niche users, there is a model to monetize those revenues with a large digital library that is not moving physical goods (see The Long Tail by Chris Anderson). Additionally, certain user generated videos will continue to draw “crowds”. However, there are a few different trends that are affecting the model that we initially assumed where money would follow the user generated content (UGC) eyeballs.

Continue reading "Death of Long Tail User Generated Content?" »

Posted by Jeremy Kloubec at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the more interesting developments mixing technology and politics has been the intent of the US President Elect Obama to create a CTO cabinet position for his White House team. Currently, there is not a single position in the Cabinet that drives technology strategy for the White House and this only seems like a logical position to create. My question would be “why did this take so long”? No major company operates without the use of technology to help run their business. Furthermore, leading companies use technology to create competitive advantage against their rivals through an optimized supply chain, business intelligence capability, sales force tools or a number of other uses. The same should hold true for the US government which is a massive entity in its own right.

Continue reading "CTO in the Limelight" »

Posted by Jeremy Kloubec at 03:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the past years, we have seen the Wireless industry undergoing a significant change – the service providers’ walled gardens have continued to disintegrate with the explosion of the content and applications available for Mobile phones. In my opinion, a couple of factors have contributed to this phenomenon.

Continue reading "As mobile phone content explodes, the Walled Gardens crumble…" »

Posted by Sandeep Chandrasekar Seshadri at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Two recent stories really caught my attention as innovative ways to drive additional advertising revenue. The first comes from Sky TV in the UK and the second from MTV Networks (part of Viacom). I would consider both case studies very significant and unique.

Continue reading "Innovative Ways to Drive Advertising Revenues" »

Posted by Jeremy Kloubec at 04:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)