habits x time x location = recommendation

These days many start-ups are focused on location based services or making money with the local merchants (many of them in the coupon field). Well, even though everyone is pointing to the incredible big yellow pages business most of might seem to not really think about two mayor issues:

1)      The local merchant

The owner of a Pizza restaurant or a fashion shop around the corner is a professional in his field, but (most of them) have very little understanding of online business and how much they can spend on user acquisition (average turnover per customer, customer life time value etc…). Until a couple of years ago there was only the representative of the yellow pages and maybe one local newspaper/magazine that were asking for some of his money in return of the shops appearance in their media. But today this person is getting calls/visits not only from the Yellow Pages guy, but also from Qype, Foursquare, Groupon, Google and numerous of other companies. But his Media Budget is limited and for the services itself the User Acquisition Costs are relatively high (without subscription it wouldn’t be affordable). However, he needs to decide to whom he should give his money to. I bet that most merchants are still going for the Yellow Pages since they know the sales rep very well and the rest of them might go with the bigger and well known ones. So why should this person deal with another partner?

(My personal view on this that it is time for a local business hub – someone who is doing the sales and then distributing this through the different channels. Look at all the groupon clones and how much they have to spend on sales.)

The merchant wants to spend his money wisely and he wants to drive more customers into his business. That’s why it also important to take the customer into this view, because without the right audience the merchant doesn’t even considers paying for it.

2)      The user

I really like sites who help me to discover things around me that otherwise would be literally invisible to me. So the review sites are doing a great job for me. Coupons are only relevant to me if I know the business, because I don’t want to spend anything on a bad service/restaurant etc.

The big advantage of the new services is not that I can search for something but that I get recommendations of what I might like. This is real value to me as user- Location based service should be more focused on recommendation than search (even though a good search is mandatory). So this leads me to the headline of this post: one killer feature for mobile lies in this business. If a service knows my behavior (I love Italian restaurants, but I really don’t like Indian restaurants) it can match this information with its database and check for similar results. This is very closely tight to my location and to make it even more useful to the time of the day. So this means:

Habits x time x location = recommendation

Such a service would be my daily guide and hopefully would surprise me with many new ideas about where to go. And this could drive many customers to new places. This is only possible with a large database companies like Yelp in the US or Qype in Europe have. So to all the Start-Ups in this field: Create a compelling product for the user, focus on the mobile usecase and when this is working it might be much easier to ask the local merchant for some money.

Viral Video: Nokia’s N8 Foosball Fever

Today I saw a new Nokia commercial, usually this is not that amazing to write about (this is true for almost any commercial by a big company). But this commercial by Nokia (disclaimer: I work for Nokia) for the new phone N8 is just amazing. I am sure that this one will be huge success, because it is the male audience will love it. Foosball, Kicker or however you want to call it is so popular and especially now when the soccer world cup is starting soon. I posted it right away on facebook and twitter.

What I also really like is that you can watch the different tricks/moves separately at the end of the movie and they even called the tricks by their name. Great work!

My favorite Apps and Tools

I am sure that everyone has their favorite tool or App. Yesterday I was thinking about the Apps on my mobile phone and the Tools on my computer that are most important to me.

Mobile (Android OS)

• facebook (because it is great to kill some time)
• NewsRob (a very lean and efficient feedreader, so I catch up with the latest news on the go)
• Evernote (very good piece of software that helps me to write down very quick everything that comes to my mind while I am not in front of my computer)
• Qype (my guide for restaurants and bars)

On my computer

• Balsamiq (currently I have to make a lot of mockups of websites and this tool helps me to do this as fast as anyhow possible)
• Pivotal Tracker (a very good tool to coordinate a software project)
• Google (Mail, Docs, Calendar > everywhere accessible)
• Spotify (because it is just so convenient)

2010 – also known as the year of location

You hardly can find a newssite about the internetbusiness these days that is not writing about location based services and location based advertising.  Currently foursquare seems to be the most coveted investment opportunity for some VCs and an endless amount of new companies want to enter this space recently. But who will benefit from this trend most?

This market will be dominated by the big players who have access to the map infrastructure. Why? Well because soon the map will be one of the most used feature on any phone because more and more content and apps will be based on location data (plus free navigation for the user).  It is almost like Apple and itunes. Apple provides the infrastructure and the user and tons of developers are fighting for the audience and thus generating money for the gatekeeper (in this case Apple with its 30% revenue share).

I see Google and Nokia in the best position. Whereas Google is the leader in the webspace with its search and Google Maps, Nokia is in a strong position in the mobile space with an amazing market share and the NAVTEQ map data. No matter how those companies will evolve their products they are the gatekeeper for many revenue streams (like location based advertising) in this field.

2010 will be very interesting for location based services with many new companies entering this market, with big players who are working on their products and some more mature startups (like Yelp) who either sell their business or start to make some good money.

The value of web 2.0 for my shoemaker

Recently I had an interesting discussion with the shoe maker around the corner who also is in the ‘lock and key service’ business. While he was fixing a show for me I was looking for his Qype reviews on my phone. I asked him about what he thinks about services like Qype.

He had no idea at all! The only thing he was mentioning was that he was worried about bad reviews. I agree that in a business like the ‘lock & key service’ people almost expect bad reviews (opening a look and towing a car on a weekend must be the most profitable business on earth without a need to care about customer retention), but they still hope to find a good one when they need help.

So how should a person like him actually use this service to attract new customers to his tiny shop? He is great in fixing shoes and in unlocking doors, but a dyslexic in marketing his business.

I tried to explain him the value of user generated reviews. On the one hand there is the influence of these reviews on Qype and Google as well as on the user who read the reviews. On the other hand he needed to understand the incredible value of the mobile use case for his ‘lock & key service’. The first one is easy – the tags are important for the search on Qype and the reviews are more important for Google. The user are looking for ‘fixing shows + Hamburg Schanze (the area where his store is located)’ or ‘lost key + help + Hamburg’.

The mobile one goes in line with the keywords. Imagine: You are locked out and can’t get in your apartment. What are you doing? You call a key service and persons with a smart phone are looking for one on Google or Qype. After they found services in their area they briefly judge them by the reviews. You don’t want to call the €300 rip off service. You are looking for a service like the one from Uwe M. who charges less and is also very friendly to the customers. So a good listing (keywords, pictures etc.) plus good reviews can drive a lot of additional traffic/customers to him.

The next time he prints new business cards for his store he might add his Qype URL as well as asking satisfied customers for a review.

iPhone OS vs Android

For the last week I had the chance to use a HTC Magic running on Android OS. What I experienced in this time made me to deliberate about the potential of Android. The first time I got in touch with Android was when we received the G1 at cellity. Since the phone failed to grab me and the Android market wasn’t really well equipped with apps, I didn’t work with it like was used to play with the iPhone. But now with the HTC Magic (and the HTC Hero incl. multitouch) and some more Apps in the Android Market I became acquainted with Android really well. Apple will experience another serious competitor in the future because of three main reasons:

1. more Android phones are out there (very soon)

The first Android phone was the G1, which hasn’t the same nice appearance than the iPhone. But now with the HTC Magic (a very good looking phone), the HTC Hero and other phones from companies like Samsung or SonyEricsson running on Android OS soon there will be so much more customer out there. This means for any developer that it makes more sense to develop on Android than on any other OS in order to reach as many as possible users. This leads me directly to the next point:

2. easier to develop for Android

A friend of mine has been for quite a while a coder, but he never has been into mobile software at all. Since he recently also got the HTC Magic he started to wonder about how he could develop on Android and he was really impressed by how easy it was to develop a small app (the app just graps the data from his operator about how much of his free web traffic he has used so far and how many calls he has made). The documentation seems to be very good, whereas some coder who started working on iPhone Apps said that it was a kind of a hassle.

3. the UI is better

The last major point is the UI. Don’t get me wrong – I like the iPhone, but Android is making more out of it. Wheras Apple offers just many Icons on a Desktop Google presents the main functions on one screen. So the Search, Mail, Favorite contacts (HTC Hero is doing this) and so on are next to the Apps I favorite most. Apps I don’t really need that often are somewhere in the background. Any handset manufacturer now can change those settings (depending on what they think they user like most). The way they are doing this is the right one: Put the main features on my desktop and allow me to add some personal apps next to it.

source: YouTube; phonedog

If Apple sticks to its Icon Collection on its iPhone I think Android will appeal more to the mass market and Apple can’t just rely on their Appeal – there will be more handsets like the HTC Magic, which look easily as nice as the iPhone.

Finally I also want to point out the fact that HTC is already using Micro-USB and not a very special solution which basically just costs money and produces extra waste.

My first week at Nokia

Last week I moved from Hamburg to Berlin for my new position at Nokia (Nokia Gate 5 GmbH). Since the city was already familiar to me I really looked forward to experience the Nokia Spirit. Nokia Berlin is great, especially the focus on services is so exciting. In the near future the software running on the phones are crucial and users will judge a phone (which they should buy at the end of the day) by the overall package they get (and the services on the phones are an integral part of it). Through this all handset manufactures want to get back to higher overall sales prices per phone hoping that the customers perceive those phones as worthier. I really look forward to be a part of the team who is working on services for the world largest handset manufacturer.

Joerg Land

Nokia to acquire cellity – social address book

On the 24th of July it has been officially announced that Nokia is about to acquire cellity, the company I am working for.

cellity - social address book

I feel honored that Nokia took cellity to strengthen its competencies in the social address book field. We developed at cellity an unique approach about how the future of contacts (on the phone and the web) could be and I really look forward to keep working at Nokia on this topic.

Here are some articles about this story:

Nokia press release

cellity blog post

TechCrunch

GoMo News

Gründerszene

Deutsche-Startups

Spiegel Online

t3n

twitter

Does Micro-USB as a standard make a difference?

On the 29^th of June it has been announced that the major handset manufacturer are using Micro-USB as the Standard phone charging port. This is a big step for the customer since this would mean that any phone of these companies can be recharged with the same phone charger. This step hasn’t been taken voluntary, because it was planned to enact a law in Europe that was targeting the same goal.

Some people are still arguing that this doesn’t result in any reduction of waste, but in my opinion this does have two implications – one for the environment and one for the customer.

1. Customer

The customers just have to care less on carrying the phone charger with them as they have to do today. Hotels will supply chargers and you just can ask anybody for one. Furthermore does no one have to buy new chargers (mine are getting lost, damaged etc. quite often) since there should be always a spare one.

2. Environment

In the short run this won’t make any difference, but I predict some changes in the long run. Handset manufacturers might not offer a charger when selling a phone anymore since anyone will have chargers from their previous devises. This makes it not only cheaper to produce a phone it also means less waste, less package and less weight/space to transport.

I couldn’t figure out how large the ecological footprint (CO2 etc.) of a phone charger is, but these figures indicate that their footprint might be not to little:

“There are currently between 350 million and 400 million active mobile phones in circulation in the European Union, the Commission said. People are replacing their phones at a rate of 180 million per year.” source: Paul Weller, computerworlduk

Is this enough?

I really want any mobile device to use Micro-USB, so even my Nintendo DS could work on this standard. Furthermore should the manufacturer think about a plug in like Blackberry offers (see the picture) which make the chargers even more universal.

Hopefully the manufacturers will become even “greener” in the future and the customers demand handsets with a less harmful environmental impact.

mobile 2.0 europe in Barcelona

I went to the mobile 2.0 europe event in Barcelona last Friday for a meeting of leading people from mobile companies.
While the event wasn’t visited by as many people as I had expected it to be it still turned out to be very interesting. The panels were about 4 different topics – openness, context (LBS), beyond free (earning money) and play (music). On the panel, especially the context one, were really good people speaking about the topics their companies are working on. Especially the location based services discussion got me. Ted Morgan from Skyhook started with his keynote about how GPS-Tracking on mobiles has changed since the introduction of the iPhone and what they can get out of the data they collect (he mentioned that the highest amount of location request on a certain day came from the RIM head office).
Also Tommy Ahlers (ZYB/Vodafone) and Felix Petersen (plazes.com/Nokia) gave quite interesting insights into their view of potential developments we might see in the future including the basic requirements in terms of the data they need to create the services. Well, it is still at the very beginning, but it has the potential to enrich our daily live significantly.

There were also some Start up pitches; I would like to pick out two of them – Layar and RJDJ. Layar is a software created by sprxmobile which basically uses the camera of your mobile (currently only if you have an android phone, because they need the compass inside). So you look through your camera and Layar shows you information about what you are just looking at. One example was about real estates, so the user can see which apartments are available, which size, the price and so on.

source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/random0/

Picture: Me with Ilja from GetJar

The other start up I want to mention is RJDJ by Reality Jockey Ltd. presented by Michael Breidenbruecker (Co-Founder of Last.FM). RJDJ is a software making it possible to create your own music by using the sensors of the iPhone (movement recognition and microphone) of the iPhone.
It is pretty hard to explain unless you haven’t seen it: Michael about RJDJ; very nice demonstration of RJDJ.
The business model behind it is about the price for the App in the Appstore and the platform they are giving to the users so they can offer their music at any price they would like to get (Revenue share with RJDJ). I definitely will get this tool as soon as I get the new iPhone.

So thank you Rudy (mtrends) for organizing this event, which was held at the ESADE Business School and for putting it on the same day than the Sonar music festival – I really enjoyed both events.