Digital Swarm

In 2009, a Network Challenge by DARPA placed 10 red weather balloons in random locations around the US and awarded a $40,000 prize to the team that located all 10 the fastest.  A team from MIT managed to do this in less than 9 hours using a combination of multi-level rewards, crowd-sourcing, camera phones, and data mining http://archive.darpa.mil/networkchallenge/darpanetworkchallengewinner2009.pdf). The MIT solution was a powerful illustration of leveraging the ties of social networks with the ubiquity of mobile device and their sensors (camera, etc.).  We are beginning to see the "power of the crowd" show up in more everyday examples such as idea sourcing (Brainstorm, Spigot, etc.), problem reporting/tracking (SeeClickFix, CitySense, etc.), Social Search (Evri, Quora, etc.). Continue Reading...

In 2009, a Network Challenge by DARPA placed 10 red weather balloons in random locations around the US and awarded a $40,000 prize to the team that located all 10 the fastest.  A team from MIT managed to do this in less than 9 hours using a combination of multi-level rewards, crowd-sourcing, camera phones, and data mining http://archive.darpa.mil/networkchallenge/darpanetworkchallengewinner2009.pdf). The MIT solution was a powerful illustration of leveraging the ties of social networks with the ubiquity of mobile device and their sensors (camera, etc.).  We are beginning to see the "power of the crowd" show up in more everyday examples such as idea sourcing (Brainstorm, Spigot, etc.), problem reporting/tracking (SeeClickFix, CitySense, etc.), Social Search (Evri, Quora, etc.). Continue Reading...

Today, we are inundated on a daily basis with information and news about Smartphones and Tablets, the Mobile Internet, and 4G Wireless.   In particular, the terms wireless and mobile seem to be used interchangeably without much thought.  So are we in the mobile wave or the wireless wave and what’s the difference?

Early wireless solutions provided a means for making calls or sending bits between two stationary users through the air instead of over wires.  Then came cellular or mobile networks, with a new set of user devices, that allowed people to communicate from almost anywhere on the move.  Today, those same mobile networks are allowing us to do everything from accessing the internet and watching a movie, to navigating our way to a store and checking the status of our pets.  And just to make somewhat confusing, many of the things we will connect to via these networks are not mobile, like our refrigerators, electric meters, or TV sets.

While the mobile device and smartphone revolution has been remarkable by empowering users with broadband and computing anywhere they go, the more transformative revolution is just emerging, the “Internet of Things”.  There will be nearly 10 billion things connected by the end of 2012 and only about half of them will be people.  By some estimates (like the Word Wireless Research Forum), this could grow into the trillions by 2020.  Yet up until the present, the hundreds of millions of connected objects such as truck fleets, environmental sensors, and smart meters were considered part of the closed “Machine-to-Machine” or M2M world, virtually inaccessible from standard consumer devices.  (Even the term "Machine-to-Machine is intimidating to the average person!) This is changing.  Fueled by the integration of technologies such as WiFi, Bluetooth, QR Codes, NFC, and Zigbee into mobile devices, we are lowering the barrier for people to interact with objects and open up a new category of innovations we call P2M or “People to Machines”.

With a few touches on your smartphone or tablet, you can check for an open parking spot from a meter, text your oven to preheat before you get home, turn the air conditioner on or off, get a tweet from your pet’s collar when they eat, or view the ingredients of a product when you scan it.  Wireless is the pervasive cloud that ties all of these things together to enable new forms of interaction.  The figure below illustrates how mobile is just a subset of the broader ecosystem that wireless ties together.

 

It is important to note that Mobile users have some very unique needs and expectations that differentiate them from fixed wireless users.  While Mobility REQUIRES wireless as the medium (since people would not want to walk around with a long cord attached to them), Mobility implies immediacy, or communications and applications within "arms reach".  It also increases the value of location, context, and proximity as critical to understanding the users needs, much more so than with fixed wireless users or things. Continue Reading...

With the recent progress of smartphone virtualization using hypervisors like OK Labs (http://www.ok-labs.com/) and Bluestacks (http://bluestacks.com/) that allow a single device to run multiple OS's, smartphone market laggards Microsoft and RIM could, who lack a compelling app store model, have a potential path to get back in the game.  Especially Microsoft, with only around 7% of the smartphone market, but with a much improved Windows Phone 7/Mango interface and seamless integration with office, adding access to the Android app store could be a game changer.  For enterprise users that are still very much tethered to Office and related Microsoft platforms, the ability to easily run work applications and then access the vast number of third party personal productivity and entertainment apps on the Android App Store could be a great thing.  They key will be performance. Continue Reading...

As class action lawsuits are handed out for invasion of privacy in the Carrier IQ scandal http://www.tuaw.com/2011/12/05/apple-samsung-others-sued-over-carrier-iq-scandal/) and highly invasive shopping tools such as Shopkick, Aisle411, and Foursquare see an early lift in impact on what people buy, it raises the fundamental question: are all these interactions making our life better?  Every user must make their own privacy vs. benefit tradeoff, but the minute these interventions are perceived to be non-value-added (like SMS spam or irrelevant offers), then users will start to shut them off.   Now Locaid http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39275/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-12-09) offers to find the location of any mobile device just buy putting in the number.  This uses a location capability installed by the carriers to determine location for 911 calls but now could be exploited for a wide range of commercial uses. Continue Reading...

This week, the FCC begins a 45-day public trial of the Telcordia Whitespace Database (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fcc-announces-public-trial-of-telcordia-television-white-space-database-135037253.html) Whitespace represents the unused TV bands from 54-862MHz, usually available in 6MHz increments.  The spectrum must be used on a non-intereference basis which requires a dynamic database look-up based on the user's location.  The first 45-day trial used Spectrum Bridge's database and this new trial will use Telcrodia's.  The propagation characteristics of whitespace spectrum are very good (can support up to 800Mbps up to 10km) which is why some refer to communications in these bands as "Super WiFi". Continue Reading...

We have all seen the data.  Over 100 million smartphones in the US by 2015.  44 billion app downloads by 2016.  80% of Fortune500 Companies testing or deploying the iPhone and 65% are testing/deploying the iPad. Continue Reading...

With the announcement of the Kindle Fire Tablet this week (http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/38690/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-09-29), we can officially say that the convergence of cloud + mobile is underway.  These worlds have traditionally been separated with the cloud being about virtualizing services and data sources so they can be accessible anywhere, and mobile being about getting services and data onto devices for users on the go.  But now, we are seeing the multiplier effect of having services/data in the cloud and being able to easily access those same data/services on any device on the go.  With better speeds available from wireless networks like 802.11n and HSPA/LTE, more services/content accessible via html5 in the browser, and faster processing on the back-end via in-memory technologies, we can now get more functionality with simpler devices. Continue Reading...

In the past I have talked about the "Gift Economy" concept (a term most recently coined by author Howard Rheingold) being critical to successfully unlocking the potential of mobility in the future.  (Gift Economies are defined by users investing effort/taking action for the benefit of the greater good versus expecting something in return as is the case in a transaction economy)  There are plenty of recent examples around us like Wikipedia, Participatory sensing networks like CitySense, or even the recent Arab Spring with regime changes coordinated via SMS/social messaging.  I now have an example right in front of me thanks to one of my colleagues at Mobiquity, Jonathan Stark, our VP of Mobile Architecture (and author of several leading books on iOS and Android Development).  Jonathan recently launched a "gift economy" type experiment by posting a picture of his Starbucks Card online and allowing anyone that wanted or needed a cup of coffee to pay for it with a picture if his card downloaded on the screen of the mobile device. Continue Reading...

I gave two talks at the recent Devcon5 Conference in New York City on "Venture Capital in a Mobile Virtual World" and "Seeding the Start-ups"(http://html5.tmcnet.com/conference/newyork/Agenda/Agenda-at-a-glance.aspx)  Some of the highlights from my talk were: 1) Mobile is a distinct wave (personal, ubiquitous, payments, point-of-decision, behavior measurement, social context, and augmented reality to name a few); 2) Despite the fact that wireless VC investment is rising to $1B+ in 2011, in is still a shadow of the $4B spent in 2000 and pales compared to the $8B spent in Cleantech;  3) Of the 114 wireless deals done this year so far, 65 are early stage/series A and the largest deals included $100M in Square and $50M in Foursquare;  4) New York is quietly becoming a major investment hub for wireless on the back of its strong media/advertising corridor.  New York + Boston now equals the total VC wireless/tech investment in Silicon Valley in 2011;  5) Hot areas for investment include network traffic shaping/offload, video optimization, social media integration, apps/middleware, mobile analytics;  6) HTML5 is lowering the barrier to entry for mobile apps (less dependency on 3rd party software) and new apps store models like Facebook and Amazon;  7) the wireless wave is causing significant "creative destruction" and is presenting new opportunities at the boundaries/intersections of traditional industries (example - Kindle); 8) Large players will need to adopt a co-innovation approach in order to attract the participation of smaller companies with creative, innovative solutions;  9) Several carriers such as AT&T and Verizon have created co-innovation testbeds to make their networks/resources accessible to entrepreneurs/developers;  10) seed funding is available for good ideas and investors are willing to move fast (our own new venture, Mobiquity, was able to close on funding in less than 3 months from the initial plan)
The frenzy around mobile investment is building, but this time, the economics (cheap smartphones/tablets) and market reach (10B devices) are there to support the returns to make this more than another bubble.

  Continue Reading...

I have talked a lot about collective group behavior and "Digital Swarms" in past blogs, but collective behavior starts with single individuals changing their own behavior which is where mobile become such a revolutionary platform.  The notion of providing people information or insights that can "nudge" their behavior must be done at the right time, in context to have the right effect.  Something only mobile can do as a communications medium, since it can reach the "last foot" wherever you are.  Feedback loops have existing for sometime (such as showing you your own driving speed in a school zone or showing you calories burned on an exercise machine), but mobile is taking this to another level of engagement (http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/06/ff_feedbackloop/all/1) 
Whether its helping a patient take their meds when they are supposed to (a $100B+ impact to the US healthcare system), getting a consumer to curb their energy use at peak load times, getting a driver to practice safe driving habits, or getting an investor to save for retirement, every industry will be attacking the same universal problem of behavior change. Continue Reading...

I recently ran a panel on the impact of Mobile+Social+Cloud on enterprise applications at the INNOVATE conference hosted by Global Logic in Palo Alto (http://www.innovate.globallogic.com/).  The panel itself was very diverse with representatives from SAP, SalesForce, Citrix, HP, SugarCRM, and Yammer discussing a range of issues from security and control of the cloud to changes in software development and business models.  While the group diverged on its views around the dependability of cloud services like Amazon EC2 for mission critical enterprise apps, they agreed on shrinking development cycles, the need for more “user-centered” design, and the drive towards more integrated or “stacked” applications. 

Even more interesting than the panel was the keynote by Geoffrey Moore talking about the need for a tectonic shift in Enterprise IT from “Systems of Record” to “Systems of Engagement” driven my Mobile+Social+Cloud.  Empowered end-users are demanding the same rich experience from enterprises that they are getting from consumer applications on their smartphones and tablets.  Enterprises that fail to innovate around the user experience will be subject to wrath of users that will find ways to innovate around them.  In the past, I have called this the “Big Flip” where the decision power and influence know longer resides with central IT but at the edge with these highly empowered end-users equipped with better technology than what the enterprise has in many cases.

While it is easy to point out the dilemma these organizations face, the harder part if figuring out what to do to fix it.  Many companies have looked for the quick fix by migrating their data to the cloud, adopting social networks for business, deploying tablets, or even trying to build a set of new mobile apps to address some of the obvious near term opportunities opportunities.   While these seems like reasonable steps to start on the journey, they may be window dressing on the a deeper issue lurking below the surface.  Does the organization need to change its fundamental approach to innovation to capitalize on this new technology wave?

Unfortunately, the innovation model in most large companies is broken as has been pointed out by countless thought leaders from Clay Christensen to Geoffrey Moore.  Yet most companies plunge into mobile and social the same way they address other critical needs in their business, throw resources at it and hope it gets fixed.  Without fixing the underlying innovation model, you may build one or even several beautiful apps, but will you be able to repeat it?

Based on some of my previous research around innovation models, there are several key building blocks that organizations should look to develop in order to get ahead of the mobile internet wave:

1)   Excellent sensing capability – the ability to observe and detect latent users needs and anticipate new inflection points in user behavior, technologies and business models will be critical to identifying the next set of high impact mobile opportunities for your business.

2)   Co-innovation testbed that supports the development and validation of new solutions with customers and partners.  This should include and integrated mobile-social-cloud environment and adequate seed capital to get these ideas to the point of proof of concept.

3)   Iterative Pilot Process that allows for quick deployment and updating of the pilot solution based on feedback from users in the field.

4)   Venture-like organization structure and incentives that enables the pursuit of higher risk, transformative solutions without the burden of short-term ROI metrics.

It goes without saying that every organization must tailor its innovation model to it own unique mission and culture.  But don’t assume what has worked in the past is sufficient for innovating in the future.  Failing fast, cheap, and often with users at the center of development and feedback will be a prerequisite to getting to game-changing solutions in the mobile+social+cloud era.

Continue Reading...

While there have been a number of very cool Augmented Reality (AR) apps developed such as Google Goggles, Layar, Monacle, there has been little revenue to speak of produced by AR.  So until now, it has been about possibilities and cool factor.  But the recent activities by Sony show that AR may be hitting an inflection point (http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/37637/?a=f).  Sony has developed SmartAR platform to be leveraged in new games/toys. Continue Reading...

Many of us in the wireless community have been talking about cognitive radios for years as a potential "game-changer" in the competitive landscape.  Not only do I still believe this to be true, but I believe we are now on the doorstep of realizing the technology instead of just talking about prototypes and pilots.  Of course the Gnu Radio (http://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/show/gnuradio) has been evolving an open sources environment around software radio platforms for years, but the real disruption is likely to come from the current device manufacturers who have a huge incentive to incorporate cognitive functions into smart devices.  We are seeing the early signs with Apple's "Dynamic Carrier Selection" patent (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/apple-patent-could-cut-the-carriers-out-of-the-iphone-equation/11341) would allow the users device to select the best network based on their location and need. Continue Reading...

In my book, The New World of Wireless: How to Compete in the 4G Revolution (http://www.amazon.com/New-World-Wireless-Compete-Revolution/dp/013700379X), I talk about  "Killer Bees" scenario where users lose trust in wireless networks due to breaches of privacy.  In this scenario, the Digital Swarm never fully develops to its full potential as users are unwilling to share their personal data for the greater benefit of all.  It will take a critical mass of health, financial, energy, security, or other personal data from many mobile users to drive real benefits.

The recent accusation of Apple, Google and other device/OS vendors accumulating user's location data without their full knowledge (http://www.wirelessweek.com/News/2011/04/Policy-and-Industry-Lawmakers-Apple-Google-Location-Sharing-Legal/?et_cid=1458682&et_rid=54169515&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.wirelessweek.com%2fNews%2f2011%2f04%2fPolicy-and-Industry-Lawmakers-Apple-Google-Location-Sharing-Legal%2f)  This is now under congressional investigation and depending on how this progresses, could result in public backlash, or worse, new privacy legislation that will over-restrict the ability to track information from a users mobile device.  Much of the innovation going on around mobility today is around context-aware services or applications. Continue Reading...