I was really touched by this technology by Rationalcraft on Winscape.  The fact that a user is connected to the screen with there mobile device is definitely where things are going in the world of cross-media.   This example is only for the purpose of Augmented Reality of landscapes, but think of this kind of TV display and the ability to zoom-in and out of a sporting event like you were there live.  Almost like what we can do with maps, but with live streaming.  Very cool stuff.

With the recent announcements of Apple and the iAD release even thought the mobile networks such as Crisp, Millennial Media and a variety of others are launching services around iAD, I have been in discussion with many mobile ad networks that are a bit worried.

In the online advertising world there has been  the ad network business, the ad server business, the ad exchange business, the yeild management and analytics business and a variety of others. Even the buy and sell side have been separated to match the processes of the agency world.  In Apple’s endeavors to enter this space, they made a very interesting choice to be in the Ad Server, Ad Network, Ad Exchange and then manage the publisher relationships.  They went after the entire value chain!  At least is seems this way?

iAD could have been potentially an adserver strategy  like Doubleclick once was to the Ad Networks.  They had two products; one for Agencies and one for Publishers.   The only different would have been that  Apple integrated an Ad server like strategy into the platform, and then let the creativity come from the ad networks that surround around it.  The fact that Apple bought an ad network ( Quatto) to be part of iAD is like the analogy of  Google buying Doubleclick and integrating in an adnetwork.  Nothing is wrong with this when you are in a position to do so.   I think Apple might have been potentially wiser to stick with ad server like strategy over an ad network one for starters to be more neutral in the industry, as this is just my feeling as it would have been in alignment with the iphone platform strategy today…. just being sandwiched in the middle and taking a cut of the action.   To also become an  ad networks  would mean some level of competition to get brands to place ads via Apple versus the other ad networks for inventory…..time will certainly tell how Apple manages this, and even though being agnostic might had been a good first choice, they are in a great position build a great ad network for themselves and own everything since the world and users love the product.

Hard to be agnostic when you have the entire value chain and you want others to sit next to you, that is for sure.   It is like Apple becoming a record label trying to pull artists away from other record labels to join their network at the same time asking the record labels to link to their distribution…. I guess you can say they are doing this somewhat as well.   Apple has done a great job at being agnostic to a certain point even though it is a closed ecosystem.   There was a comfort in partnership and a long term trust from participants.

So I guess now that  they have the momentum, why not do it themselves? Google did this with Doubleclick.   Is this not like  it has been in the media world all the time? Companies do a lot of syndicating back and forth..  Disney definitely sells ads for its network, and so does most other media.   It is a clear indication that direct networks will stay  the predominate force for direct  network publishers.  I guess you could ask, how a company like Glam is any different?  They own a lot of publishers that are part of their focused verticals.  The difference I guess is that Apple now owns the entire thing ( the horizontal as well)  when content moves through the platform.

There are many early adapters already out there that just watch media on their PC’s, Mobile and do not even own a TV set.   Most likely they are in their 20’s or even younger and part of the new generation.   I myself grew-up with TV and still can not help coming home in the evening and turning on the Tube.  I like to lean-back and relax over my favorite news shows, sports, re-runs of Startrek and occasionally catch a move that I have either seen in the past or just never had the time for.  I have been frustrated with the programming of SHAW cable, but have not felt the need to pay more for additional channels.

However recently, I have felt a certain lack of need to turn on the TV set as much as I used to.  I am definitely an early adapter, but with media, I still enjoy the feeling of the newsprint through my fingers and the sensations of enjoying the high-quality content of a paper magazine.  This can not be helped as I grew up with this form of media, and it is definitely ingrained in my senses. TV had definitely been my main form of media consumption, but with all of the recent advances with content online my mind seems to be shifting.

I now imaging a great LCD hanging from my wall,  but with a connection to the internet as a main source of content to consume.  We just in fact might drop our monthly SHAW cable subscription, as the availability of free content on the web has started to embrace me more then the poor programming and choice over at SHAW.  Again, even though I am in my 40’s and a lover of traditional media, it has really started to die for me in the method of delivery.  Today already, I consumed several video’s from youtube, watched some favorite shows on Fora.TV and caught a couple of pod-casts.  I even watched some of the Masters over the weekend that was streamed.

So it  is starting to happen to me, then it is clearly a point in time that this transformation has really begun I believe.  Unless SHAW gets better at programming, the need to pay that monthly $50 or so will go away…

It is amazing that couple of years ago, Google was a search engine company with a great business model around advertising.  As they grew, so did their products and services.   From the vision of ” organizing all of the worlds information to make it readily available” to now a Media company with their fingers on everything as they transformed into to a major media company with several hundreds of products all free powered by advertising.   In a funny video released recently by  Time.com’s Odd Todd , you can get a good laugh over all of the value of these products, that are free, but in Beta.  Google has been a key player in the foundation of the web as we know it.

Chris Anderson talks about the Free-Conomy in this session at the Commonwealth Club about how to leverage free to build and grow a business in the digital economy. Google clearly had the vision and prowess to leverage this philosophy and become the giant we all know and love.

….But now, Google is getting into the hardware business.  We all thought that they would enter the mobile space with Android only based the software model of opensource and free, but somewhere along the line their complete strategy and vision seemed to change dramatically with the launch of Nexus One.

Moving from free open source API’s and software to the pains of managing inventory ( PCB’s. LCD’s, Batteries, etc)  and building products is quite a different animal and business.   I originally thought that the purpose of Google’s journey surrounding the Nexus One was one of creating a reference platform for them to build and develop what they believed was the ultimate mobile device in order to better serve their efforts around the building the best Android platform possible, but now the gPad?

We all wonder that when something goes up, it must come down… and this Nexus One to the gPad example reminded  me of the old Jewish folktale from the Wise Men of Chelm called “Ruined by a pair of shoelaces”. Is entering the hardware business and chasing after Apple, Nokia and Rim the first step to getting to over abundant and completely getting out of control? It at least made me think about it, and even though there is a long way to go in the evolution of media, why now to become a hardware player?

Strangely, but lots of panic from all the app developers today, when @Ev on the corporate blog announced the acquisition of Tweetie’s owner Atebits.  To me this is clearly an obvious direction and it could only be predicted.  In reality it should not really affect app developers as it is a very similar model to Google and syndication.  Think of all those websites that are powered by Google-Search?  It is like Google having a search engine without all the different types of its own end-user experiences to build and test out their business?  They need to best understand and support the end-user first and foremost.  The Web2.0 world already established the model for syndication, and it would be the kiss of death if either Google or Twitter stopped offering api’s for developers and publishers to syndicate and let the vertical world evolve.

However, the differences between Google and Twitter is that Google is an advertising company and Twitter was just growing larger and larger as a bit-pipe. Google was once in the similar situation and added advertising as the balance to only building out a user-base in the beginning.  In order for Twitter to start to build up its advertising business ( which will probably be the next announcement) required them to have the ability to test and launch it first through their own properties…. hence Tweetie.   It is like Google not having a tool-bar strategy to test cookies, etc…  This is my reasoning why the Tweetie client will be free and just called Twitter.  They needed this kind of product to test and build the best user-experiences to surround their product and build out all the API’s for syndication.  Now especially advertising.

I am bullish on the fact this acquisition took place at this time, and it looks like Twitter is really coming together to potentially be  the next Real-Time Search and Real-time advertising engine that links to mobile.  They now have a platform to test and evolve as a free app…..

So in my mind the Twitter+Tweetie is basically Twoogle.

Richard Ting, Head of Mobile R/GA posted in his posterous a very cool example of connecting an iPhone Application to an Automobile.

This is again the taste of the future of cool apps connected to “things”…..

Facebook has been successful in not only owning the user, but they do a great job in “viral marketing”.  Will this growth continue or will privacy kill them? Will they become the next Internet? Will they form that unique strategic partnership with Apple?  They are consistently going from country to country and becoming the underlining social graph.

However, there are countries that have not become dominated yet by Facebook.  Not only are they in the top of Apple’s portfolio of must downloaded applications, Mobile has been know to be a usage case of social media ( >50%).  Many strong mobile players such as Mocospace, AirG, Brightkite, Loopt, Gowalla, Foursquare keep on growing, but the shear volume of growth of Facebook is astounding.

Many companies have leveraged “Facebook Connect” as a way to build there usage base, and they seem unstoppable.  Bebo is up for sale, and the other social networks are taking on a completely new business models.   Even Twitter has not shown the growth yet as Facebook, and as Facebook has prided itself with Direct to the end-user, they can bring any kind of app as integrated into their platform and just crush the competition.  Location was launched recently in Facebook, but when are we going to see extravagant maps tied to the overall service.

As they say, “what goes up- must come down” so it will be interesting to see where they peak or will they just become the WWW…. or FFF.

Today is a very exciting day in the field of brand marketing and advertising!  It marks the day of the Advertising Revolution in my mind. Steve Job announced iAD at the iPhone 4.0 Dev conference.  It has been something we have all been anticipating for some time.  I myself have been looking at the ideas around emotional brand marketing and interactivity with mobile as a core part of our work here at ADObjects.   As the mobile device is so personal it is our emotional amplifier.  It is with us night and day and clearly something we just can not keep our eyes off of… it goes way beyond the SMS lead, but what experience surrounding the brand.

Our vision and motto: Digital Hand. Analog Touch is further realized….

Well Apple gets it and keeps revolutionizing upon the vision of all of us in the media space for what the true mobile device can be all about. Besides creating a massive ecosystem for publishers to bring unique new tantalizing experiences via applications, they have set a new bar in bringing out this exciting platform for brand marketers…

Here is some of the coverage……. not only is today the day of the Golf Masters where Tiger Woods is back with NIKE,  Steve obviously is bringing NIKE as an example at such a serendipitous time.   NIKE is attacking brand marketing from all different angles today!

1) iPhone Nike Ad Demo

Here is the coverage on Techcrunch

2) Apple Announces the iAD mobile advertising platform

And here is the comprehensive coverage of the day on gdgt.

3) Live iPhone 4.0 coverage

So now we have video, information, click-to-action and all different exciting formats blended together for brand marketers in a unique delivery system that came from the foundation of the mobile advertising company Quattro Wireless.  Regardless of what they paid for this company, Apple has been able to transform the vision of unique engagement marketing into there magical experience around the iPhone. Google has been about reach and performance via clicks-on-links.   Apple is about reach and performance based on clicks-on-emotions.   Our from this we will see new metrics emerge for the foundations of brand marketing as part of the conversion funnel such as CTE ( Click-to-Emotion).

How exciting is it going to be now to see how all the incumbents match this challenge.   Google is still in discussion with the FTC over Admob, Microsoft has been so focused on Search, and all the mobile advertising companies out there are trying to innovate in there own right with new mobile ad formats and concepts to bring differentiation.   This is big day as it will definitely get  media buyers to go deeper with their creative producers in the agencies to build that new from of brand-experience  for their clients with mobile.

My article in Japanese for the Nikkei BP IT Pro [ CTIA 2010 has gone Android ]

It has been 7 years since I lived in Japan or have been fully operational in Japanese.  Last November, I visited Japan on a M&A due-diligence project and found the changes to the mobile landscape overwhelming.  About one year prior, I was fortunate to be invited by a Canadian Government trade mission on the cross-border business development of the independent music industry and felt that Japan was still locked in the closed internal format wars that separated them from entire planet over the last 15 years.  Japan was a leader in the development of the 3G ecosystem, but it was very Japan focused.  Companies like Nokia and others attempted to bring in Global 3G products,  but it proved to be very costly to reset all the device requirements and to develop a separate category for a Japanese only marketplace.

However, Apple launched iPhone in Japan shortly after via Softbank.  Their visionary CEO Masayoshi Son ( an individual with his team that has built an empire on cross-border tech business/platform investing and facilitation such as Yahoo-Japan) championed the existing system with this some what risky proposition at the time. By Sept 2009, the iPhone was exploding in device sales and by the end of the year it was recorded close to 3M subscribers.  I saw in one trade journal that Japan was the fastest growing market for iPhone sales per capita and the transformation had begun.   The iPhone product was launched very much with the same business model as the rest of the world with a very small launch team just outside of Hatsudai station at the Apple Japan Corporate HQ.  By the time I had arrived the market was changing.  Techcrunch Japan had just gotten started, and the feeling of  the Silicon Alley entrepreneurial spirit had found a way in the Japan mobile space.  There were thousands of iPhone apps available for Japanese consumers, and the touch interface just did not seem to matter.   I found people proud to put their iPhone on the table in front of them at the local Kissaten ( Coffee Shop) as they chatted with colleagues with one had holding that exotic cup of Java, and the other a Marlboro.  I had heard that over 40% of the Apps came from outside of Japan, and it was the first time that the  international content industry had just blown through the Japanese system within the comfortable pipeline created by Softbank and Apple.

This experience got me very excited to see that now there was finally an opportunity for Japanese prowess in the mobile industry to start to go global.  Yes, this was a platform created by the North American Dev team in Cupertino, but the manufacturing was in China and now the content was coming from everywhere around the Globe in one scalable process.   This was a first step in the process for real cross-border development and innovation to begin that surrounded an App ecosystem.  Although, 3M is not a large number when we talk about the incumbents of the Japanese system, or is this the full game-changer to the Japanese market, but it was a beginning.

I decided that it would be time for me to start to bridge my consultancy practice over to Japan as my second International country of clients.   As of 2007, I had been working with the Finland tech scene and had the opportunity to work with several Finnish companies looking for global strategies and mobile market entry into North America.  That pipeline has continued to grow, and we will be visiting Finland at the end of this month on our periodic trade mission.

The mobile content industry has really now gone global with the explosion of the iPhone.  It has changed the dynamics of marketing, content delivery and advertising toward the dream all of us had in the mobile industry for many years.  2010 has really the year to define mobile as the transition has begun for media players to treat mobile on equal terms as part of the overall media strategy.  This is not just at a country level, but the cross-border international opportunities have really started to accelerate.

I returned back to Japan in January to speak about the cross-border opportunities surrounding North America.   In the 10 days I was there, it was apparent that Japan really was my second home, and my 7 years away might have just been too long.  My schedule became packed with meetings with a variety of different companies looking at their position for marketing and sales outside of Japan;  however, the focus seemed to be on China.  It is apparent as a first priority many Japan mobile companies  have looked for international expansion with this gorilla neighbor.   Over the last 15 years, the US Market had proved to be very difficult for many Japanese companies, and you could probably say that there are less then a couple mobile companies that have really been able to make their  US International efforts successful.   The odds have not been so great, and with the large market ( today there are over 500M subscribers) , the close proximity and the technology gaps, China is hard to ignore when it comes to the next step in an expansion  and an International strategy.

I hope my presentation has some effect, as I compared the opportunities between heading to China and then looking toward North America.  The room was filled with start-up CEO’s, Media companies and a variety of others interested in this debate.  The presentation went for over 2 hours into the late evening, and I was surprized I was able to bring back for the first time in a long time my dormant Japanese speaking skills for this kind of  format.  The big discussion points were of course around iPhone, but what I found that was even more profound was the interest in “Android” and the “iPad”.

Android….

NTT DoCoMo made it clear that they would be the leaders in bringing this to market.  Yes, we all knew that Softbank would follow and that we are now looking at a similar AT&T versus Verizon type of phenomena in Japan with Google and Apple playing tag-team to open up the marketplace ( at least it seems that way?)

Android was key part of my presentation as after being with Nokia for so many years, it felt like Google took the play-book right out of Nokia’s hands and have started to execute on the same dream.  Nokia had for so many years tried to bring an open philosophy to the market and the mobile industry, but they just might had been a bit too early.  I do not think Nokia has at all  run out of steam, but they did pull out of Japan and left a vacuum right when the time was for entry.   For Google to compete against Apple and to launch something fresh might have just been the timing for this perfect storm of a  teeter-totter like strategy.  Of course, Eric Schmidt sat on the board of Apple during the conception of the iPhone strategy, and it only makes one wonder if this was some kind of grand plan in market attack between the two companies at any level.

Well Android looks like it is here to stay, and it has become a powerful force as a Global Open Framework.  Apple was able to “blow a hole through the window” and now all the flies and everything can come through.  Open is now the flavor of the month, yet Apple keeps coming out with new and exciting products and services that the balance between Open and Closed is still evolving.

I met with a representative from Nikkei BP, and they asked me if I would work with them on different mobile projects around  North America effects and the Japanese market.  I was even asked to  represent them by covering the CTIA event in Las Vegas this last month.   I look forward to more and more of these types of project down the road and will continue to fine-tune my writing and evolve my Japanese journalist skills.

I will publish an English version of the article on this blog shortly to follow.

The recent blog post by John Battelle ( SearchBlog) prompted me to share some of my own quick thoughts on Foursquare, Apps and syndication of the Twitter bit-pipe.

I myself started to use Gowalla, Foursquare, Brightkite and a variety of others and I have to admit that had very similar feelings to what John had to say.   I also found that it is not what they offer today, but what they could be…

Up until now many location based services were based on Lat/Long and following you on a map.  Google latitude was just this.  Seeing my little face on a map was cute, but having it follow me around all the time somehow just did not make sense ( for me anyway).  Even thought it was system of opt-in, it was designed very much so as a 1x opt-in.  What I find so powerful about Facebook is the ability to always opt-in with a status update.    This is what I believe has become the real power of these services;  the ability to always control your opt-in by checking-in.  Instead of the lat/long trace, an individual can opt-in  ( check-in) to a location and leave notes or syndicate out their status via Twitter, Facebook and any octopus service they are tied into.    The application is the key point of user experience and these services have started to really attract users and build offers with marketers as per their check-in.   Even though I still use Twitter quite a bit via the web interface, I have started to use more services that appeal to me and just push it through Twitter as well.  Having the relationship with the end-user at the Application level and then building relationships with brands and marketers could be the real power here.  Over time as more and more services present themselves that are competitors to Twitter and unless they own the end-user in some sense, their ability for true marketing and managing the sales funnel could become quite difficult to keep control.  Could they end-up as a dump bit-pipe?

We all have been waiting for Twitter to showcase their new advertising business model ( which seems to be delayed), but as a bit-pipe they have pushed a key mass of  the end-user relationships to the developer communities.  It isn’t surprising to me that Fred Wilson ( a lead investor in Twitter) made the announcement today that Twitter is at an inflection point and may start to build and leverage its own applications to enable the “killer app”.  Yes- Twitter has built a very powerful syndication model and a strong loyal gathering , but the ownership of the end-user is something that is very key in balance to attract marketers and advertisers; that direct relationship has traditionally been key for media  and media sales.   However, if they did have the advertising machine, like in the case of Google, then syndication is a very strong balancing act for buffering and building out distribution.  Some how I feel like Twitter has sandwiched themselves in the middle with out the control over the end-user completely, and with no monetization engine just yet.  This is like flying with out flaps on the each wing on either side, so to speak?  You can go fast, but were is your control…

So as Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite and others  battle it out for control of the end-user and the unique interface to the local community, twitter may in fact just become just another vertical feed provider  in the growth of real-time conversations and local.