This morning I enjoyed breakfast with mobile operator 3 in central London. The small meeting was to introduce the new marketing director John Penberthy-Smith and to re-focus the vision of the mobile Internet with the X-Series. Also participating was Skype, Yahoo!, Jaiku and the London School of Economics.
The aim of the breakfast meeting was to take a closer look at the Mobile Internet.
This happened sort of – but what did become apparent is the different perspectives and ways which the mobile internet is perceived and the ways that it can progress. 3 touted some extremely impressive uptake stats of mobile Internet and IM services.
*Yahoo! 82 million page views from July 06 to Jan 07 – MSN 118 million pages sent*
Hugh Davies 3’s Director of Corporate Affairs also played moderator and kept the whole thing on its toes.
I would like to thank Carsten Sorensen (London School Economics) for taking me back twelve years to when I was doing my Masters in Economics – in the short presentation he gave I felt as though I was younger, fitter when he pulled up a slide on technology theory – quite simply overwhelmed in nostalgia.
Tony Saigh from Skype’s appearance made it clear that VoIP is still very much on the 3 agenda. We didn’t believe him when he said it was Skype’s decision to stop Skype OUT services! Later I quizzed John Penberthy-Smith on this and he agreed, even though 3 was embracing Skype it is not ready to warm to Skype Out services as this would indeed cannibalise the voice business model.
James Tipple Marketing Director Connected Life at Yahoo! did a good job promoting Yahoo! Go 2.0. I haven’t upgraded this yet – but it’s on the agenda. Someone cheekily asked him what the problems with Go 1.0 were; which brought some similes to the meeting. James did mention that Yahoo! wanted to help 3 "increase revenue" but that was the only mention of the potential of mobile advertising.
Jyn Engstrom (I really hope I have spelt that correctly) from Jaiku pushed microblogging. He was convincing but we think he is slightly ahead of the game and as consumers start to mix with IM; social networking and micro-blogging purely on mobile might be slightly advanced for the average Joe. Saying this, it’s fantastic that 3 is looking, communicating and talking with Jaiku and its just what the company needs to push its services to a new level. Also if the Jaiku service was delivered with an environment where cost or use was governed by an all-in subscription (GBP 2.50 per month for all Jaiku use) it could grow phenomenally. 3 might then actually pull of the first non-i-mode; i-mode service subscription model in the UK…. (you know what I mean!)
I enjoyed listening to the theories of the mobile Internet. Everyone that spoke; spoke passionately about individual products and services. It was extremely clear how mobile operators, such as 3, embrace the mobile Internet but it is media companies that are creating the most dynamic made for mobile services. The inclusion on Yahoo! Go and Flickr on the X-Series doesn’t only look good; the fact that searching is free and billing affordable it actually delivers an all embracing solution for 3G users. It’s the taste that might engage the consumer and actually make services mobile.
The future definitely holds more X Series type devices for 3 and 3 promoted the fact it was different and a leader in the internet space. I am an X Series fan and whoever stole mine – I hope they are happy with it!
As I await my new 3 device, one thing is clear. 3 want to be the most innovative and the leader in the Mobile Internet … it’s not a bad thing to want.
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