MobHappy

2006 Predictions 17 and 18

17. Mobile payments still won't take off outside Asia.

18. Presence, or some sort of availability management software/system will be a hotly desired feature by the end of the year.

The mobile phone is a wonderful thing. It lets us make calls and send text messages and check our e-mail and all sorts of other things pretty much any time we want, from any place.

The mobile phone is an awful thing. It interrupts us with phone calls, text messages and e-mails all the time, no matter where we are.

Thus the problem. There's a significant need for a balance to be struck between the two, putting people in control of the inbound communications on their phones while still taking full advantage of all the different ways in which they can communicate. With calls, it's easy -- put your phone on silent, let the voicemail pick up if you don't want to answer. Texts make things a little more difficult: you can simply ignore text messages, but in many cultures, there's an expectation that texts will be immediately answered. So if somebody sends you a text, and you don't respond, what will they infer? Things become even similarly complicated when e-mail, IM and other services get added in.

It's easy to be overwhelmed by all of this. There's always the solution of just turning your device off, but to do so means being unplugged from the network, whether it's a social network, a work one, or something else. The best solution would be able to control how people are able to reach us at any given time, while communicating to them our current level of responsiveness.

I've had several friends tell me that their employers have been willing to get them Blackberrys or similar devices, and they've asked me my thoughts. The first thing I say is that while I think those kinds of devices are great and fun and useful, along with all their benefits comes an unspoken expectation that since you can receive your email at any time, that means you can -- and should -- respond at any time. How that plays out depends on their job and their boss, really, but there's always the question if the benefits are worth being able to be reached by work e-mail at any time. It's an all or nothing question, but with presence, it wouldn't have to be.

So as services like push e-mail and mobile IM become more pervasive, so will the desire to be able to control them. We should own our mobile phones, they shouldn't  own us -- and there's a great opportunity for companies that can crack this.

2006 Predictions 15 and 16

15. Mobile virus FUD will continue unabated, but with no real threat or impact.

16. Mobile blogging and photoblogging will grow, filling in a personal media-sharing gap intended for MMS.

MMS has never materialized as a replacement for SMS, mainly because it's not suited for the types of communication at which SMS excels. Marketing MMS as "like SMS, but with a picture" doesn't make it so. After all, how do I ask someone what they're doing with a picture -- and furthermore, why would I want to, particularly for a much higher cost than a simple text message?

SMS is great for simple one-to-one communications, perfect even. The ability to be able to send somebody a photo every once in a while is nice, but it's little more than that. With the rise of digital photos, sharing services and blogs, communicating via pictures has become a one-to-many activity, something to which P2P messaging isn't always well equipped. People like to share their photos -- look at Flickr, Ofoto, Xanga, Myspace, Facebook and so on. Melding the mobile with these types of services will grow, conspiring to still hold MMS usage down.

We've written before about applications like ShoZu that let people send their mobile photos to their own Flickr site, along with applications like Nokia's Lifeblog that let them post to their own blogs as well. These solve one side of the equation -- letting people share their photos from their mobile -- but the other side, accessing the shared photos from a mobile, is still a bit difficult. This is one place where an RSS-to-SMS service, like Yahoo's makes a great deal of sense. Replace sending multiple MMS with a single upload to Flickr, then Yahoo's service sends an SMS to all your friends when the Flickr RSS feed gets updated.

Instead of building their own moblog offerings or opening photo-sharing services based around pushing people to order printed photos, operators could instead leverage these existing services and help people better use them with their mobile devices. There's far more value in helping people get their photos onto an open system like Flickr or Blogspot than trying to fence them into a proprietary operator-labeled service. Nobody's going to send the same MMS with the same picture to ten different people anyway, so why not encourage people to use MMS (or whatever means) to upload the photo to a web service, then help them get word out to their friends' mobiles to come and look at the photo?

Photo and video sharing, along with moblogging are ideal uses for the mobile, because they're forms of communication -- the central characteristic of the mobile phone. But MMS isn't really the ideal medium. It can, though, instead of being a one-to-one service, be the platform for a one-to-many service. Facilitating this one-to-many sharing via mobile will be a hot market in 2006.

2006 Predictions 13 and 14

13. Java Apps

Up until now, Java (J2ME) has been mostly a platform for mobile gaming.

2006 will see a whole bunch of non-gaming applications, ranging from messaging/IM to banking, from presence management to browsers, like the new Opera Mini.

Watch the wave come in.

14. Wi-Fi enabled 2.5G Phones Go Mass Market

So far, wi-fi enabled mobiles have been specialist and high end models. 2006 will see this feature in more mainstream, mass market phones, assuming (and it's a big assumption) that operators agree to sell them.

This means that you can potentially surf the net via a hotspot or at home. And even make VoIP calls at a far cheaper rate than offered by network operators - and if the hotspot is free, your call will be free too.

Analysts are very divided over the impact this will have - will it be the death knell of operators as we all stand in one place (you can't move around, as you'll loose your connection) making cheap calls?

I think it won't have much of an impact at all next year. Setting up the phones will beyond the ken of most people, even if they understand what their phones can now do. It seems that although many of us buy new models becasue they have lots of features, these are forgotten as we leave the shop, as we settle in to the old patterns of voice, sms and the occasional game of Snake.

Wi-fi on phones will have a negigible impact until the phone automatically detects the best quality/best priced network to use and hands over from one to the other without bothering the user. That's what? At least 5 years down the line.

So yes, some of us techno fiends may set up our phones and make the odd VoIP call in 2006, but operators can sleep safely in their beds next year - from this danger at least.

Image from Slate.com

2006 Predictions 11 and 12

11. It will become common for low-end devices for emerging markets to have color screens and cameras.

12. Myopic thinking, bad pricing and pointless services will continue keep mobile music from realizing its potential.

I'm thinking this one is a slam dunk for Russell's year-end review next December, but I don't want to get too over-confident. Still, I can't help but feel this one's a little too easy to predict. Alongside mobile TV, operators won't shut up about mobile music. But, like so many things, theire understanding and implementation of it is off-base.

Operators want to put themselves at the middle of users' music experiences, and replace the iTunes Music Store, Napster, and any place else from which they buy music, online or off, and they think that offering dual-delivery downloads to both mobile and PC will help them accomplish this, and also justifies prices much higher than the typical online services.

They need to accept that people are never going to buy all their music from their mobile operator -- they've never bought their music from just one source, whether it was one particular record store or another, or Starbucks or Amazon or Target. Operators assume they can replace these sources, many of which feed on providing instant gratification, because people can now by music anytime, anywhere. But seeing a CD at Starbucks and deciding to buy it along with your latte is very different than thinking, "hey, I want that new Bob Dylan CD *right now*" and whipping out your phone and paying $2.50 a track for it.

Another problem is that people don't compartmentalize their music into "music I can listen to on my stereo," "music I can listen to on my computer," "music I can listen to on my MP3 player," and they won't add "music I can listen to on my phone". People just have their music, and expect it to travel across all their playback devices. The problem with dual-delivery isn't getting music bought on the phone to the PC, but getting it from the PC to other portable devices. But looming even larger is the difficulty, if not inability (depending on the operator and handset), to get music users already own -- regardless of the source -- onto their phone.

To blame this on mobile operators isn't fair. I prefer to blame the entire music industry that's forced the adoption of copy-protection technologies, and companies that are happy to implement them because they provide a significant amount of lock-in to particular products and services. The problem is all the lock out that occurs on the flip side. If mobile operators really wanted to make waves in the music download business, they'd do everything they could to foster interoperability -- let users play songs on their phones from any store, let songs from their store play on any device, and so on.

But, of course, if they let people do that, there's the potential they'd never buy anything from the operator. Forcing customers to use their store if they want to listen to music on their phones forces them to make a choice -- use the operator store, or don't use the phone for music. That's a zero-sum game, and one they're not likely to win.

2006 Predictions 9 and 10

9. Mobile TV and P2P video struggle again in 2006

10. Happy Slapping - more attacks and export potential

Unfortunately, Happy Slapping has really gone mainstream in the UK now, with more and more attacks reported. Just in the course of the last month, we had our first celebrity Happy Slap on c-list, Myleene Klass as well as the first murder convictions associated with the phenomenon.

Just in case you missed the Happy Slap thing (which must mean you don't consume UK media), what sounds as if it might be a childish prank, is actually illegal assault. These attacks sometimes result in serious injury and murder, as we see above. The idea is that a group of kids/youths beat someone up, film it on their video phones and then circulate it among their mates, for a laugh.

Films are usually circulated by Bluetooth, so are impossible to prevent or track to their source, even if they are discovered by the authorities.

You can read my theories into the origin of these attacker here. I have actually seen some happy slapping attacks on video and they are genuinely violent and stomach-turning. It's not comic violence in any form.

Sadly, my 10th Prediction is that we'll see a lot more of these attacks, along with copycat Happy Slapping outside the UK - the US and Germany would be my best guess (assuming this hasn't happened already).

This will be accompanied by idiots blaming mobile phones and not society for the problem, as well as clueless MPs calling for action.

Member of Parliament, Mr Adrian Bailey, for example has already called for mobiles to be jammed in school grounds. Do they let anyone into parliament these days? Doesn't the man know:

1. Jamming phones will be about as effective as jamming all cuckoo clocks in schools, as this would neither disable the camera nor the Bluetooth functionality.
2. Some kids need their phones and mostly for perfectly legitimate and legal reasons - like phoning parliament to protest about the standards of MPs these days and how they seem terminally stupid in comparison to yesteryear.
3. Most Happy Slapping attacks take place away from school grounds anyway. It's like banning automobiles from driving on railway lines as a way of reducing drunk driving related deaths.

2006 Predictions 7 and 8

7. MVNOs will gain in popularity, with new services announced and launching regularly. But the thinning of the herd will also begin, with at least one high-profile casualty before the end of the year.

8. RIM will take it on the chin, even if it comes out of its patent suit okay. Push e-mail will become a commodity offering from carriers, and rivals like Visto, Seven, Nokia and Good will make gains in the enterprise market, partly because of their support of all types of mobile devices.

Things are again looking good for Research In Motion in its patent fight with NTP -- the latest update has the Patent Office saying it expects to throw out all of NTP's relevant patents, and it's moving quickly to beat the tight schedule the judge in the case has imposed. I'm not going to wade into the issue of the patents too deeply -- there are people with far deeper knowledge on that topic than I -- other than to say I think the right move is for the USPTO to revoke the patents, and I hope this and other high-profile cases will lead to a badly needed overhaul of the US patent system.

The court case, though, is the least of RIM's concerns. Several rivals are waiting to pounce as the spectre of a Blackberry shutdown has lead plenty of potential (and existing) customers to explore other push e-mail options, giving companies like Good a significant, if somewhat artificial, marketing boost, increasing their foothold in the market. This exposure will help them in the long run, in addition to any customers they can grab in the short term.

But the real rivals for Blackberry are the carriers it depends on for sales on connectivity. They're realizing that people like getting their e-mail, both business users, and to a lesser extent, general consumers. Push e-mail will quickly become a commodity, carriers offering the service either for free or very cheaply as a way to push data charges. They'll do it on all the devices they sell, whether it's through built-in messaging applications or J2ME e-mail clients. Most people, even business users, will find this a good enough solution, both in terms of cost, but also because they don't have to switch to a bulky Blackberry device, they can use whatever handset they want -- even their existing one. They might give up the Blackberry keyboard, but can get a Treo or other device that has one instead.

RIM has licensed Blackberry Connect to other device manufacturers, though devices that feature it are coming out in a trickle rather than a torrent. The crux is what RIM can add to the Blackberry service to make it better than a commoditized offering -- and from where I'm standing, I see very little. The differentiation in delivering e-mail to a mobile device and processing responses is pretty invisible, and isn't apparent at all when users have a smartphone that can handle attachments and do all the other things a Blackberry can, with the added bonus of supporting far more add-on applications than the Blackberry OS.

So, if RIM ends up prevailing in its patent fight, its stock will undoubtedly bounce and some observers will say it's smooth sailing for the company. But, in reality, 2006 will be a tough year for the Blackberry.

2006 Predictions 5 and 6

How are we doing so far? Don't forget to leave a comment.

5. Ringtones implosion accelerates, as one of the shortest boom and bust cycles becomes clear to all.

6. Gizmondo withdraws from handheld gaming sector.

Gizmondo must be one of the big failures of 2005 and I'm really, really (no, really!) puzzled as to what the hell's going on there and why they seem to have access to so much money.

Firstly, they want to take on incredibly strong incumbents in the handheld sector, Nintendo's GameBoy and Sony's PSP. Not to mention N-Gage, that was patently struggling, despite the might and distribution strength of Nokia behind them. Why on earth would any company want to try this with limited resources?

Well, if the product was competitively priced, had a bunch of extra features and crucially, a range of great must-have, exclusive games, they may just stand a chance. But no, the games portfolio was shite and limited and it was more expensive than the entrenched incumbents.

And their distribution strategy in the US was laughably to hang out in a few malls.

Were their senior execs contrite and modest in their demands while overseeing this fiasco? Did they hold back their salaries for when they could demonstrate that this unpromising approach had worked? Not a bit of it! Salaries included several million dollars of cash and options and luxury $250,000 dollar cars.

Then we have loads of corporate shenanigans including buying companies owned by directors and paying off privately incurred legal bills. Admittedly, some of these actions were corrected, but why were they allowed to happen in the first place?

And did we mention "legal, accounting and consulting costs" in the first six months of 2005 of $75 million? And a net loss of $220 million in that period?

Pretty bad stuff - what next? Maybe some of the directors were a bunch of convicted white collar crooks that investors has entrusted their money to? Err, yes actually. On this discovery, they resigned.

Someone do the decent thing and put them out of their misery. No one can really believe that this mess can be saved. Can they?

So, Prediction 6 - Gizmondo must die.

2006 Predictions 3 and 4

3. 3G won't kill Wi-Fi, WiMAX won't kill 3G. There will be no killing of rival radio technologies.

4. Operators will still struggle to find the key selling points of 3G.

Mobile operators are still struggling to figure out what to say when customers ask why they should switch to 3G. Video calling failed miserably as a USP, and cheap voice and text remains the lure of choice for some operators' 3G offerings. They think that music and video will do the trick -- but they're wrong, there, too (we'll explain why in a couple later posts). What else have they got -- mobile turkey shoots?

Operators will have some success getting people onto 3G networks through a sort of soft forced handset upgrade. While they won't stop selling 2G handsets, the only  cool ones available will be 3G ones. So if you want something new and something hot, at some point on many carriers, you'll have to go 3G. That may be more successful, really, than trying to sell people on any sort of application they've currently got.

The underlying problem here is how carriers approach this sort of thing, and their insistence they be at the middle of everything. If they haven't yet come up with something -- a few things -- to convince people that 3G can add some value to their life, they're not going to without changing how they go about it. The concern is that they'll be relegated to bit pipes, doing nothing but selling network access. There's two sides to this: first, there are plenty of successful ISPs out there that make money. Second, if they're smart, they can be more than just a bit pipe, if they're smart.

Operators need to be additive -- their role should be to add value, and if they're successful, people will pay. They need to facilitate communication, entertainment and whatever else people want to do, and make it as easy and fulfilling as they can. Typically, they take the opposite approach, limiting what people can do. Want to moblog? Use their blog site, with their rules and their charges, and lose your content if you change operators. Want to watch TV? You can watch anything, as long as it's something the operator sells you. Then, look at the flip side. Want to send something to your own blog? You're on your own. Want to watch your own video? Have fun getting everything set up. The whole attitude is "it we don't sell it, we don't want you to do it."

If carriers are going to insist on taking an active role in everything people do on their phones, they've got to take an active interest in making sure that people can do whatever they want. A total reversal of their attitude is needed, changing from explicitly telling people what they can do to letting them do whatever they want to do. Embrace this mentality, and people will figure out on their own what the value of 3G is.

So this is supposed to be a prediction -- well, that part's simple enough. Carriers won't figure this out in 2006. Expect more of the same old locked down networks and applications, and expect 3G to stutter because of it. This is one prediction I'd be happy to see not come true.

2006 Prediction 1 and 2

Welcome to MobHappy's 2006 Predictions!

While Carlo and I are away, chilling out, we've written these for your entertainment. While they're a bit of fun on one level, we also take them quite seriously and if previous years are a guideline, we're not bad at them. If we score a point of every right one, 2005 saw us with 17/19 and 2004 with 6.5/8.

We've done a full 20 - two each week day - a one liner and a slightly more considered piece. Please comment and leave feedback, as that's what makes blogging fun for everyone.

So let's crack on.

1. Apple launches the iPhone (as opposed to co-operating with a Moto phone) as MP3 and phone convergence accelerates.

2. Mobile Marketing - The Market Thaw

Mobile Marketing has been going to be big next year since 2001, unless you've been reading my predictions. But every year it's really failed to gain much traction and for every brand dipping its toes into the mobile marketing sea, you've had another running back up the beach to safer campaign territory.

2006, in my view, will start to be the sea change. 2006 won't be the year it explodes, but we'll certainly start to see more brands get involved and there's a real danger of agencies making some money from it.

Why am I thinking along these lines?

I admit there's a huge amount of gut feel here and listening to the market, but that shouldn't be discounted, as anyone who's ever read Malcolm Gladwell's Blink will appreciate.

However, this is supported by some important trends.

Firstly, we have demographics. It's always been the case that marketing departments tend to be led by people in their late 30's and 40's. Senior agency people in charge of selling campaigns were around the same age. This meant that that 5 years ago, these people weren't even using sms and needed to have it explained to them.

So despite all the evidence that their customers were big on sms and using their phones for other stuff, they didn't really feel it and couldn't relate to it. At the same time, the agencies were full of people who couldn't think joined-up mobile, so poor little mobile marketing had no chance.

5 years on and we have a new generation of marketers in charge. They won't exactly have grown up with a phone in their hands as the under 25's have done, but they'll certainly be heavy users of mobile and it'll be in their psyche. This means that when mobile ideas are proposed, they'll understand with both their brains and their hearts.

The final piece of the demographic jigsaw is customers themselves. Everyone uses sms these days, therefore it can no longer be accused of being niche. More importantly, it's so bleeding obvious that for anyone under 30, their mobile is the most important possession. They're simply obsessed and rarely spend even a minute without glancing at it, fondling it, checking it for messages. Only a congenitally stupid marketer can ignore this, especially when combined with the stats showing the rapid decline of old media in terms of consumption and influence.

Another trend is the mainstream agencies are finally noticing mobile and that they have to start changing quickly if they are to survive after the old 30 second ad is finally buried in the next couple of years. All the bright agencies are looking at the implications of this and are really starting to embrace change. I don't think these guys are going to drive the market, but they do learn quickly once something has their attention.

That doesn't mean we're not going to see loads of doomed attempts to put banner ads on phones and run 30 second ads on them.

I also worry that there's a dearth of creative people, who think up the campaigns, who understand the technology involved in mobile. While the customer shouldn't be bothered with HOW things work, campaign originators do. So unless you understand what's possible, you'll never push the envelope in any meaningful way.

In fairness, the corollary applies. The techies who run the back end, aren't capable of coming up wiith good campaigns, as they don't understand marketing. So we need people who can operate across this void, naturally and instinctively.

Mobile marketing is a child of engagement marketing and is perfectly suited to that engagement process of creating dialogues with customers. This is the secret of success in mobile and brands considering getting involved must have dialogue at the heart of their campaigns.

2006 will see a lot more innovation in sms (much more than yet another "text and win"), forays into WAP and Java, experiments with sponsored content and some intelligent (and legal) innovation in location-based promotions. It'll really start to explode in 2007/8 and brands need to start learning now before they start having to play catch-up.

2005 Predictions Reviewed 15 - 19

And so, we come to the final few predictions I made, with my score running at 13 out of a maximum 14 points to date. How did I dio in the final stretch?

15. Adult services continue to quietly boom

Yes, this is continuing to boom as far as all the data I've seen, which I have to admit isn't very much.

People often miss the point of mobile porn, pointing out tiny screen sizes as not being friendly to view images and video, for example. That's like saying sms doesn't work as it's hard to input the text - if there a need for something, people will put up with poor experience and usability. Especially if that need is err...urgent.

What mobile can offer the adult services user is privacy, on two levels. Privacy from others viewing what you've been looking at (computers are often shared or tracked by IT departments), but also portable privacy - no one would think twice about popping into the loo with your mobile, whereas taking your laptop would raise a few eyebrows.

Points 1.

16. Cheaper calls, fixed price packages

I was wrong on this one, but I think it'll happen this year - I was just a little ahead of the market. Watch out for an MVNO to start this inexorable trend.

What I said was that we'll see an "all the voice and data you can eat for $50 a month" package? Or $25 or $100 maybe?".

Still, no points for me on this one.

17. Java Portals

In the last two months of last year a load of brands announced that they too were launching their own Java portal and going direct to the market, cutting out the operators. This included no less than The Sun, MTV, GMTV (UK breakfast TV), Celador (Millionaire) and Endamol (Big Brother).

My prediction was that this would go strangely silent as they realised quite how difficult and therefore ridiculously expensive this would be. You see, despite Java purporting to be a common platform, it actually needs an awful lot of testing and tweaking to work on every handset.

The strange silence continues as I award myself a point, unless I've missed all the launches. I'm quite pleased with this one, as it went right against what everyone else was saying at the time.

18. WAP

I said it would continue to grow strongly. Latest stats say in the UK that it's come up from 1.3 billion page impressions a month to 1.82 billion. But the MDA are a little lax at releasing the latest figures, so it's probably significantly more.

Points: 1

19. Child Tracking Fails to Take Off

This sounds like it's a parental dream - know where your little darling is whenever you feel the need.

Unfortunately, it's flawed as a concept as you only know where the phone is, not the kid. Therefore, it's next to useless in those cases when it would be most useful - when the child is abducted or when the little fella doesn't want you to know that he's off partying, not doing homework with a study buddy.

It's certainly failed to get traction in the UK and I haven't heard any success stories, so I'll claim my point.

So there you have it, 17 from 19. Please feel free to comment or critique.

This is my second to last post for 2005, though Carlo and I will be posting virtually over the holiday period until our return on January 9th. This means that we'll be posting our predictions for 2006 during that time.

My final post will be the Year End Carnival of the Mobilists - look out for it later, together with some special guest stars!

The Worst In Mobile, 2005

It's roundup and prediction season, when everybody looks back on the past year and looks ahead to the new one. We're no different of course, with Russell reviewing his predictions from last year, and our new ones to come very soon. I'm going to take a slightly different tack the next couple days, looking at the best and worst in mobile in 2005, starting with the worst. These are the products, services and ideas that went down like the proverbial fart in church this year, in no particular order:

- the Vodafone 702sMO and 702MO handsets: These were two 3G handsets Vodafone put on sale in Japan -- about two years two late. When 2-megapixel cameras were common, if not the norm, Vodafone and Motorola start selling this wonder, with its stunning VGA camera, delivering 310,000 pixels of poorly lit, blurry wonder. The 702sMO gets special recognition: in a land where flip phones undoubtedly reign supreme, why the companies thought anybody would buy not just a crappy phone, but a crappy phone in a candybar form factor, is well beyond my mental abilities. Unsurprisingly, the phones flopped and were yanked.

- Let's stay with Vodafone Japan, for its covers to make handsets look like lumps of cheese. Vodafone Japan's really in trouble, and as one of its many misguided attempts to right the ship, it released a range of covers for a Toshiba handset that let users disguise them as tires, dinosaur eggs and... cheese. Surprise, surprise, the gimmick didn't turn the operator around.

- NTP's push email product that's being hurt by RIM's Blackberry system. Oh wait, that's right, NTP's never made a product to be hurt by RIM. So they deserve a bajillion dollars.

- Verizon Wireless' EV-DO offering. Get "Unlimited Broadband Access for $59.99 a month." * with a qualifying monthly voice plan as well. ** and a 2-year contract. *** and don't think about doing anything other than web or e-mail. **** and we use a different dictionary than you, where "unlimited" doesn't mean "not limited in terms of number, quantity or extent", but rather "you can use as much as we think is okay".

- Gizmondo. It would be a shame to single out the device alone, when the company's executives deserve just as much, if not more scorn. High salaries, expensive cars, questionable relationships and ties to the criminal underworld -- all in a year's work in the handheld gaming business.

- Crazy Frog. Enough said.

-And last, but certainly not least, the Motorola ROKR. Since it's nearly Christmas, I'm feeling slightly generous, so I won't build on my extensive back catalog explaining how and why the ROKR sucks. Needless to say, it failed to come even close to living up to the ridiculous hype surrounding it. And there's nobody to blame for that but Motorola. So, deservedly, the ROKR gets my STNKR of the year award.

Now it's your turn -- what were the biggest mobile failures of 2005?

2005 Predictions Reviewed 7 - 14

This is a continuation of yesterday's review of my predictions for this year. My score so far 5 out of 6 - not bad so far.

7. Apple launches the iPhone

Well, actually I first predicted this back in August 2004, when it was genuinely a "wow! do you think so" thought. And by January, it was a pretty easy call.

I did write though "But I hope it doesn't try to cut corners by re-purposing a standard Moto phone and interface. It needs to start from scratch and show us how it should be done."

Shame they didn't listen and it must be the biggest hyped flop of the year.

Points: 1

8. Mobile Marketing Explodes - Not

I think I was spot on the money here again. A year of talk, a year of agency hype, desperately trying the crank-start the market, but in terms of results, we got a few "text and wins" and not much else.

When will this go mainstream? Every year since 2001, it's been "next year is going to be the year", apart from my predictions, of course.

Actually, certainly in the UK, the mobile marketing scene is looking grim, with one or two notable exceptions. Most of the original players are downsizing - or at least pulling in their horns - as they struggle to find a business model that makes sense.

Will next year be the year then? Read our 2006 Predictions to find out.

Points 1.

9. Blogging continues to go from strength to strength.

Hard to argue against that.

Points 1.

10. Mobile Phone Virii

I wrote that it would be a year of hype with the real story being "... that to catch one you'd have to be as unlucky as to get struck by lightening on a clear day while standing in a rubber suit at the bottom of a swimming pool."

Incidentally, if you think this predicting lark is easy, look at what Deloittes wrote in their predictions for 2005:

"Electronic viruses will run rampant in PCs, cellphones, PDAs and gaming consoles. Nuisances such as unsolicited e-mail (spam), unsolicited instant messages (spim) and attacks on Bluetooth-enabled devices (bluejacking) will become common."

MobHappy 1.

11. Mobile Video Slow to Take Off

I wrote that I thought there would be a market for short, downloadable video clips (as opposed to TV) but that because it would be "pretty costly in both data download costs and content costs" it would be slow to take off.

It certainly has, so I'll give myself a full point for 2005, though the jury is still out on the long term.

Point: 1

12. MP3 and Mobile Converge

I think we'll see that 2005 was the year when stand alone MP3 players peaked.

What is certain is that the market continued to converge, as predicted.

Points: 1

13. DRM

I said that it would be high on the agenda, but it was doomed to fail and that

"...it might be a better use of the content owners' considerable energy and talent to think how they can work with the new trends of their business model, rather than trying to stuff the fully grown adult lion back into the bag it doesn't want to go into, with their bare hands."

Well, it was certainty very high on the agenda and the whole Sony Fiasco proves my point way beyond even what I expected.

Points 1.

14. Voice is the Killer App for 3G

How the 3G operators have struggled in 2005 to come up with another reason to buy 3G handsets, other than cheap voice calls. We've had speed, video calling, dating applications, video downloading and a few others besides thrown at us.

But the phone is primarily about communication, as least so far and voice remains the master.

Points 1.

So, I'm a little embarrassed to write that my score is 13 out of 14 so far. If you disagree with my scoring feel free to tell me in no uncertain terms!

Also, if you have any predictions for next year, write to us and we'll feature the best ones in a post soon.

Tune in tomorrow for the final ones, where I'm going to lose one more point - or will it be more? And look out for next year's predictions over the holiday period.

Image from Chervokas Blog.

2005 Predictions Reviewed 1 - 6

Back in January of this year, I wrote a whole bunch - 19 in total - of predictions for 2005. How did I do?

Over the next 3 days, I'm going to review these and try to assess my performance. I'll give myself 1 point for each correct one, with a maximum score of 19, if you're paying attention. Feel free to challenge my score if you feel I've been over-generous or (less likely!) too hard on myself.

Before I launch in though, MobHappy's new 2006 Predictions will be published during our break between Christmas and our restart on January 9th 2006. Each day, we'll feature two predictions and really nail our colours to our mast.

If you're away too, don't worry, we'll republish them at the end of that week, when you've had a chance to catch up.

OK, here's a review of the first 6 from 2005:

1. P2P File Sharing

I predicted that P2P File Sharing would boom in 2005, as kids shared video and music over Bluetooth.

This is a very hard one to score, as no one really knows - these transactions are untraceable, after all. It is happening though, certainly in schools in London and some in Germany, but the question is, on what scale?

I think I'll be hard on myself and conclude that while this form of sharing is widespread, it has yet to "boom" as such. However, it is only a matter of time and with the might of Nokia promoting it, via their Sensor app, I think we'll start to see things happen more next year.

The problem this raises for operators is that they get no revenue and no one can ever measure the scale of the abuse.

Points: 0 (or is that too harsh?)

2. Location Based Services

I said that LBS would fail to take off this year and I've been pretty much right. A few interesting grass root initiatives, but nothing mass market.

The main fuss has been kid tracking schemes, which I think are flawed anyway and there's no sign of traction there either.

Points: 1

3. SMS continues to grow like crazy.

Points: 1

4. MMS continues to flounder.

Right here too, I believe.

MMS is too expensive, too difficult to use and still has compatibility issues between networks. Perhaps most crucially, most phones aren't set up to use it - a scandalous wasted opportunity for the industry.

Points: 1

5. Video Calling fails to take off.

Right here too.

This time last year, dating was being hailed by the likes of 3 as the saviour of their video calling fantasies. Not so, I wrote, as video calling is very rarely complementary to your looks, so it's possibly the worst use for the service.

I think video calling's potential is filming things and events, rather than your face. So live action from a sports game or gig, for instance, or reporting a problem in the field.

Maybe new generations will take to the face thing, but for now, it's a dead duck.

Points: 1

6. Mobile TV doesn't take off either

Millions have been poured into mobile TV last year and this, with very little sign of traction so far.

The issue is that while people might like the idea, they don't like the idea of paying for it. Ultimately, my theory is that it'll be bundled into a bunch of other services or considered simply a cost of doing business for operators.

Points 1.

So, in total 5 out of 6, so far. The trouble with these analyses is that it's hard for us all to remember exactly what it was like last year when I wrote them. I can tell you, quite honestly, that they weren't as easy to call as it might seem today.

You'll see what I mean when your read our 2006 predictions or compare what we said with some other analysts.

Tomorrow, we'll look at how I did on things like Mobile Marketing and Mobile Viruses.

10 predictions for 2006

According to Cellular News inCode has released its Top 10 Global Wireless Predictions for 2006. It seems like we're at that time of the year again!

inCode's are interesting not the least because they claim to have got 90% and 80% right in the last two years. Yikes, that's almost as good as us - but you'll have to wait a bit for ours, as being quaint and old-fashioned, we think that these things are best tackled round about the New Year.

There's some interesting stuff here, although you don't get a 90% record by going too much out on a limb. However, these were some I found worthy of note:

1. Music MVNO

They predict that an MVNO will emerge specialising in music and entertainment - they just stop short of suggesting Apple in this role but it's difficult to see who else could pull it off. This is particularly the case as such an MVNO will have a degree of "coolness" and "... this innovator will resolve pricing and download disparities". And sort out world peace in their spare time, I should think.

Having said that Amp'd is pitching its hat at this market too, so this is going to be a hot sector for 2006.

2. Advertising funded Voice Calls

They predict that it's going to be a big year for VoIP, with new models emerging, such as advertising being the revenue generator and voice the loss leader.

Hmm, not so sure about this one. If we're talking VoIP from computer to computer, Skype has already set the standard of free, no strings attached and because of that people put up with very dodgy quality at times. If companies start trying to belatedly introduce interruptive advertising into the conversation, people will abandon it in droves.

3. Mobile TV Struggles

Analysts seem to be divided on this one, with some arguing that it's the greatest thing since colour TV and others saying it's a pig. Personally, I fall more into the later camp. I certainly see that there's a demand for mobile TV of some sort - I'm just very sceptical that the demand translates into willingness to pay extra for it.

4. Wi-fi Vs 3G

It's been a while since I tried a 3G phone (2 years or so, since I gave up in disgust) and I'd assumed that the teething problems were resolved, especially given the success of 3 and more latterly Vodafone in the UK. However, this report suggests that reception of 3G in Europe inside buildings (!) is not so hot.

If true, this leaves an opportunity for a 2.5G and wi-fi combo that could see off 3G pretty much permanently.

Anyone have any experience of a contemporary 3G phone in Europe? Can you make calls inside?

5. First Bit Pipe Operators Emerge

This would be quite radical as it suggests that an operator will bite the bullet and abandon its retail brand altogether, retreating into a wholesaling role for a series of MVNOs. If operators were truly honest about their core competencies, this does actually make a lot of sense. They get to specialise in network infrastructure, engineering and technology innovation, all of which they do very well. Someone else gets to look after the customer relationship, branding and marketing, pricing and services, which many of the operators don't do well at all.

The problem with this approach is that the operator is left with a commodity-based business, which means that it's very exposed in the future. A commoditised service invariably can only sell on price in the longer term, leaving it very vulnerable to the emergence of cheaper competition.

However, given the huge investment required to launch a new network, it's unlikely that competition would ever emerge from that source. Meaning that the first mover to abandon its retail brand and the massive cost-base this represents would be able to make hay for some time and steal significant business from its still-encumbered competitors.

But it would take a truly brave board of directors to see this initiative through and I can't see it happening in 2006.

So that's my comments on their predictions and the others are worth a read too. Look out for MobHappy's predictions in the next few months.

Thoughts on Convergence

There's been a lot of talk lately about converging mobile and fixed lines with technologies like UMA. The common thinking goes that mobile networks will grab traffic from fixed lines when users can take advantage of the benefits of mobile networks and the cheap prices of fixed VoIP in a single device -- but I'm beginning to get a little skeptical converged products will live up to the hype.

There's no doubt that something like UMA sounds great. I'd love to be able to get the rates of my Vonage connection, particularly on international calls, on my mobile phone from any hotspot. Just thinking about what that could do to ridiculous international roaming rates sounds great, too. But there are a couple obstacles I see. First is the assumption that converged mobile services will grab a lot of traffic from fixed lines. One study recently said that two-thirds of Western European mobile calls are made from the home or office, which says to me that people aren't always choosing the cheapest alternative.

Granted, there's a lot of uncertainty in drawing my conclusion solely from this figure -- there's no distinction between incoming and outgoing calls, for one thing, and it gives no indication of how many calls still go out over the fixed lines. So are users as interested in always using the lowest-cost option as we assume? Perhaps that's where the automatic technology can come in, choosing the lowest-cost network available at any given moment. But that can create a pricing problem, since it may not be clear how much a user's getting charged at any given moment.

The second, and bigger obstacle, is the carriers themselves. The iTunes phone has been conspicuous most by its absence, with some of the delay attributable to carriers being reluctant to introduce a device that essentially cut them out of the value chain. How will carriers with fixed-line corporate relations take to offering a product that will serve to cannibalize fixed-line revenue?

I'm expecting virtual operators to lead the way with UMA, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them use it as a way to get into virtual broadband sales as well. I also expect incumbent carriers to resist offering it as long as they can -- after all, why cut prices unless you have to?

Final Predictions - Java, WAP and Child Tracking

Here's my final predictions for the year - I hope you've enjoyed them. Is there anything I haven't covered or that you'd like a fight about :-)

17. Java Portals

Despite the reports of big media jumping on the Java Portal bandwagon, I think their strange silence will continue as they find just how hard this is to implement, with a user benefit of questionable improvement over WAP.

18. WAP

Grows even more. 1.3 billion page impressions a month (just the UK) is just the tip of the iceberg.

19. Child Tracking

People will work out that this doesn't really do what it's meant to ie protect kids in a meaningful way. Abductors know that they need to ditch the kid's phone, so it only really gives parents and kids a very false sense of security.

A further problem is the kids themselves. If you're out on a hot date, while you're meant to be studying with your best girlfriend, guess where your phone's going to be, if you know it's being tracked?

In fact, this using the phone as an alibi, also means that you can't use your phone for the very reason many parents give them out in the first place - to be used in an emergency.

So, sooner or later, parents are going to realise that being able to track a child's phone doesn't mean they're either safe, or that the phone is where the child is. So what's the point?

Isn't it far better to try to rely on the old ways of doing things, for once? Talk to your kids. Make sure they understand the dangers of the world. And keep talking to them.

Technology isn't always the answer. Back in the 60's, the NASA spent millions developing a pen that worked in zero gravity for their astronauts. The Russians used pencils.

Prediction 15 and 16 - Adult Content and Fixed Price Plans

So, moving to the end of this series of predictions, we have 15 and 16:

15. Adult

Adult stuff on mobiles will continue to boom quietly. Lots of people do it and no one talks about it.

Then there'll also be P2P adult stuff that may actually drive some video calling -flash video :-)

Apparently the peak time for downloading naughty stuff on your phone is right after lunch. The theory is that men sneak off to the bathroom to..... or is that TMI? (Too Much Information).

And of course, Shag Phone sales continue to boom. I wonder if anyone will release a brand of that name? Two phones for the price of one. Equipped with voice, sms, camera, video. And a dummy address book, perhaps?

Damn, I've just noticed someone's registered the domain name, after I christened the thing.

16 Cheaper calls, fixed price packages

It's got to come sooner or later, despite operators dragging their feet. How soon will we see an "all the voice and data you can eat for $50 a month" package? Or $25 or $100 maybe?

No one likes nasty surprises, least of all big bills when you're expecting a small one. "All you can eat" could unlock the doors of the data market for operators and one of them will break ranks and offer it in 2005.

Maybe one of the new MVNO's?

Prediction 12, 13 and 14 - MP3, DRM and 3G

Continuing my series of predictions for 2005 (even though we're now in February), here's 12, 13 and 14 - 3 for the price on 1, as they're quite short.

Incidentally, someone made a derogatory comment about an earlier prediction saying words to the effect that "you really went out on a limb with that one". I deleted it as the contact details led back to a dodgy gambling site, which I took to be a rather pathetic attempt at comment spam.

[Comment spam is where dubious sites leave comments on blogs in order to try to trick Google into increasing their ranking.]

Having said that, if anyone has other (legitimate) comments, derogatory or otherwise, please feel free to leave a comment. Or better yet, if you have a prediction, please share it with the rest of us.

As far as "going out on a limb" is concerned, some go further down the branch than others :-)

Some go against received industry thinking - and certainly the thinking at mobile operators (such as MMS and LBS) -some go with the flow and some are included for the sake of comprehensiveness.

Anyway, if you think you can do better (or as well!) feel free to jump in - the conversation is lovely!

Anyway, here are the predictions:

12. MP3 and Mobile Converge

Say no more. Already happening and watch for more of the same.

Where does this leave Apple and its iPod though?

13. DRM

The lesson about Digital Rights Management seems to be that the cleverer the encryption gets, the cleverer the crackers get. Thus DRM controlling songs and films, for instance, seems to me to be doomed.

But it won't stop them trying and it'll be high on 2005's agenda.

Though it might be a better use of the content owners' considerable energy and talent to think how they can work with the new trends of their business model, rather than trying to stuff the fully grown adult lion back into the bag it doesn't want to go into, with their bare hands.

14. Voice is the Killer App for 3G

As 3 have found in the UK, the disappointing killer app seems to be cheap voice calls.

This was also VC, Jason Purcell's thinking when I interviewed him last week.

Prediction 11

Here's number 11 in my series of predictions for 2005:

11. Mobile Video

Unlike mobile TV, I think short clips of video sent to your phone could be a big and exciting market. For instance, sports highlights, comedy, even trailers of new films.

Chances are though that these will be pretty costly in both data download costs and content costs, so maybe that'll slow take-off.

We also have the launch of Premium Rate Video, which should logically go gang-busters. With the caveat the content providers mustn't get too greedy.

One of the prevalent myths of the mobile sector is that unlike the online world people are "happy" to pay for content. Well, no one is happy to be ripped off (buyer perception is all) and it's one of the factors holding back MMS, for instance.

So if this is to take off, operators must price for volume and look at promotions to encourage trial. The market for $5 downloads (plus data charges) for a couple of minutes of video is going to be small. The market for $2 will be much bigger and for $0.99 - hey, that's when we'll have a business. With the further caveat that the clip is prime quality.

Prediction 10

Prediction 10 was:

10. Mobile Phone Virus

More and more mobile virus stories will hit the headlines. Only for the real story to emerge that to catch one you'd have to be as unlucky as getting struck by lightening on a clear day while standing in a rubber suit at the bottom of a swimming pool.

Mobile viruses (to date) are non-stories. But as P2P file sharing takes off, who knows?

By the way, Prediction 9 if you're following this was about blogging, not mobile. Bloggers writing stories about blogging can be very self-indulgent, so I skipped this one this time.

But, if you are interested, this is what I wrote:

9. Blogging

Continues to grow and dominate the news and opinion agenda. The age of the Pro:Am is upon us. Get involved in the conversation, corporately or personally as the revolution tightens its grip.

Business blogging will be the big thing this year. As Tom Peters says:

Blogging, I firmly believe, is the premier emergent marketing-brandbuilding-lovemarkcreating tool of our times! It is the premier way to have intimate-engaging-informative-WOWing "conversations" with Clients and prospects! This all goes double for small enterprises and niche enterprises; and goes triple for the Professional Services; and works wonders in the Public Sector as well.

Do you see Blogging in these exalted lights? If not, why not? Please...Blog-As-If-Your-Professional-Success-Depended-On-It. (Hint: I think it does.)

Begin today! Appoint yourself Chief Blogging Officer. Or, better yet, Chief Intimate Client Conversations Officer!

A little over the top perhaps, but the message is right, methinks.

Since then, I came up with the idea of auctioning ad space on this blog on eBay. There's two days to go and it can still be had quite cheaply ($52).

So don't forget to place your bids if you want to hit 40,000 readers interested in the mobile space.

Prediction 8

Continuing my predictions for the year ahead...

8. Mobile Marketing Explodes

...not this year I'm afraid. The marketing industry still doesn't get it, despite sterling efforts by Vodafone and a handful of passionate advocates to convince them.

The ad industry needs to get to grips with this medium, not the least because the old big media model on which they built their house is crumbling around their ears.

Moving from big media to the highly fragmented niches of mobile and online call for new and complex skills that I simply don't think the agencies currently possess.

But being in denial is not the answer either.

Post Script: Actually, maybe this is a little harsh. I think clients are beginning to "get" mobile and understand that perhaps there's more to it than Yet Another Text 'n Win promotion.

I think what we may see in 2005 is a lot of testing and experimenting before it really starts to happen in 2006/7.

The big agencies still don't get it though. And I don't think there's much of a future for stand-alone outfits like Flytxt (sorry guys - please prove me wrong!).

The big opportunity therefore is a start-up who can do joined up marketing, which incorporates mobile and online into its offering. But the key is to offer creative promotional marketing excellence, together with a deep understanding of mobile. Not mobile marketing nous on its own.

But hopefully more money will start to flow down the mobile stream this year.

At the very least, the ad agencies need to think about using the mobile channel within their advertising. They finally nderstood about putting website URL's up there. Why has it taken so long for them to put an SMS short code for customers who want more info?

Disagree? Leave a comment or drop me an email. russell at creative-weblogging dot com.

Prediction 7

Here's Prediction 7 of my ongoing series. It doesn't seem quite as surprising as when I first made it in the summer....

7. Apple

Well, when I first predicted the iPhone a few people took my $100 bet on a launch, with a "so long, sucker" grin. But then more and more pundits joined in and now it's been leaked and then announced by Apple.

So an iPhone seems like a pretty safe bet for 2005 now. But I hope it doesn't try to cut corners by repurposing a standard Moto phone and interface. It needs to start from scratch and show us how it should be done.

Prediction 6

My Predictions for 2005 continue:

6. DRM Rises up the agenda

DRM continues to dominate the conversation and will continue to do so.

However, it's pretty obvious these days that all DRM is doomed and content owners need to live with that and adjust their business models accordingly.

Every time a foolproof DRM system is launched someone cracks it within 24 hours and tells those that want to know all about it. Some of these fools can be darn clever :-)

Read Cory on DRM for more.

On a music related note, I thought this snippet from Umair Haque (via Om Malik and Emergic) was interesting:

But my money is on clubs becoming music distributors/retailers - when you go to a club, you can get the DJ set or selected tracks beamed into your player. This is a natural evolution for clubs, the most iconic of which (Tresor, Ministry) have evolved naturally into labels with dedicated shops. There are huge synergies here - we go to clubs to hear the tracks DJ's have selected - that's the value they add. But we don't get to consume them later without incurring significant additional cost (ie, tracking down the right tracks on the right CDs at the right record stores). Eliminating this additional cost creates huge gains for consumers.

The image, in case you're wondering is the logo of Soul Seek, the free file sharing platform, without any insidious, evil spyware. As recommended by DJ Dangermouse. I'm not suggesting that Soul Seek condone anything like DRM busting or anything illegal, by the way.

Prediction 5

Continuing my Predictions for 2005, I covered video calling in my fifth in the series:

5. Video Calling

As 3G handset penetration slowly increases, there will be more people to call. Conventional thinking should suggest that this means more people will start using video calling.

But why would they want to? I'm still not convinced people are ready for this, apart from niche applications, like deaf users being able to see sign language.

Dating is being hailed as the big white hope, but if you ever try a video call, you'll notice that it makes you look downright ugly, with a huge double chin. If you hold the camera at a more flattering angle, you're holding it at arm's length, above your head and feeling pretty silly.

We will see more and more headlines about mobile flashing. And the adult uses of mobile video calling will be another growing niche.

But mainstream? Not yet.

Update: Tom Hume's response to this was that perhaps the key is not person to person that's relevant here, more place to place. In other words, I might call Tom in England to show him the wonderful snow and brilliant sunshine (perfect for tomorrow's ski trip!) and he might show me errr....Brighton's glowering, dull skies and grey, uninviting sea.

This is a very good point and I can see there's loads of practical applications as well as social/gloating ones. For instance, I may want to show a courier company a parcel that has been smashed up or prove photographically that their driver was late. An real/estate agent might want a colleague's second opinion on a property or to film a bank robbery and beam it to the police.

So video calling becomes a way of evidencing or recording stuff on a daily basis.

Prediction 3 and 4

Welcome back to my daily dose of Predictions for this year. If you've read the original artilce as a whole, skip this one!

Today I've bundled 3 and 4 together as they're both about messaging and the first is rather short :-)

3. SMS

Continues to grow like crazy. We ain't seen nothing yet.

4. MMS

Meanwhile, its ugly second cousin continues to flounder.

It's too expensive on two levels. Firstly, any cost is too expensive if a user doesn't understand what she gets out of using it for. So operators need to look at ways of incentivising trial. Clue: this doesn't include throwing mega bucks at TV campaigns and competitions/contests.

Secondly, it's too expensive anyway. Cut your prices, guys and give the market a chance to get started.

Having said that, there's still a plethora of usability problems, not the least of which is the failure of anyone to take responsibility for making the things work out of the box. We KNOW that retailers don't make this happen and that operators and retailers bitch and whine about each other's failures.

But until someone sits down with Charlie Dunstone (of Carphone Warehouse - the UK's largest mobile phone retailer) and his ilk and looks for creative ways to crack this issue, MMS will continue to sit unloved and unwanted.

This isn't going to change guys, unless you change your approach.

Once these problems are cracked, I still think it's far from plain sailing for MMS. A well composed and well thought through MMS will require a considerable investment in time and some artistic ability. Will most users bother?

MMS equates primarily to HTML email - how often have you EVER used an HTML email in the last 5 years? OK, you may use it to format an email nicely. And you're received countless ones from businesses. And maybe you've passed on a few that you were sent - like jokes, people are happy to pass them on, but only a tiny, tiny percentage of people ever make them up.

One hope in the industry is mobile marketing coming to the rescue of MMS, in much the same way as they're the primary users of HTML email. I'm not convinced as the cost per MMS is still way too high.

The best that mobile marketers can do is to produce such compelling content that seeding it to a few users will lead to a viral splurge as people pass it on. But that's damn tricky to do - persuading people to pay through the nose to pass on your advertising!

So I'm afraid we're going to see another year of MMS languishing promisingly but lazily on the "poorly executed ideas" pile.

19 Days

I broke one of blogging's golden rules the other day when I wrote "20 Predictions for 2005". That golden rule is "keep it short" as we're all too busy to read and analyse long posts.

So, following some email feedback, I thought it would be worth breaking the whole post into bite sized chunks and re-posting them over the next month - a sort of "one per day" approach.

If you have read them diligently - sorry, but you can always just skip over them.

That'll also allow people to comment in focused way instead of "Whoa - that's a lot, but yeah I agree with number 3 and 6, but number 7 sucks...or was it 5? Whatever..."

Please leave a comment as all bloggers love feedback and it also makes it more interesting for everyone else.

The first one was P2P file sharing on mobiles:

1. P2P File Sharing

So far, the mobile world has been spared the massive assault on revenues that has plagued the record industry. Having said that, despite said assault, CD sales do continue to rise, so there's some muddled thinking going on somewhere.

There have been quite a lot of small experiments, niche sites and geeky mobile users swapping files and ringtones, but it's far from moving into the mass market. You could get your hands on, for instance, a cracked N-Gage game within a week of launch, if you know where to look.

But I predict that this cottage industry will boom in 2005 as kids get fed up of paying three times more for a few notes than they get charged for downloading the whole track at legitimate sites like iTunes.

While a proportion of this will take place over the PC, I think Bluetooth and local P2P sharing will light this particular fire.

There's even a possible business model here, if you think about it. And I don't mean relying on advertising.

UPDATE: Since I wrote that a few days ago, we looked at the phenomenon of Happy Slapping where what are basically assaults are filmed on video phones. The resulting films are passed all over the UK by Bluetooth.