Wireless Influencers

I went to a meeting with some influential people in the mobile biz yesterday and got some good insight re: the impact of iphone and android, advertising opportunities, carrier relationships and device manufacturers, etc...but rather than bore you with all the mobile ecosystem, open platform, application, technobabble...i thought id share some of the stories that came out in the discussion that reflect the potential power of mobile:

Family/Kids
- There was a study that was shared that showed that tweens in Western Europe increasingly use their thumbs to ring doorbells instead of the pointer finger. The result of texting so much..
- And that’s if they ring doorbells at all..teenagers have been increasingly just texting their friends when their close to or outside their house so they dont have to see the parents..and the kids just come outside
- Adults with children text at three times the rate of adults with no kids because they have to to communicate with their kids
- The future of email is in question because kids today primarily communicate via text and social networks...and share photos that way as well..
- Kids lose everything. their coats, books, even their wallets..but they never lose their mobile phones because they tend do some activity on it every 5 minutes on average..
- One great anecdote...one guy talked about how one of his friend’s family came over to their house..and as soon as the kid got there he said i want to play on the trampoline..he asked him how he knew they had a trampoline.and he said on the way over, he looked up his house on the google earth app and zoned in and saw the trampoline in the backyard
- Another guy said his daughter taught him how to use everything on his iphone..she was 9
- And the best story was one guy told a story about how he had a new baby and his grandparents flew in from wherever and weren’t allowed in the birth room for obvious rooms..but they were in the room right next to them..as soon as the baby was born, he took a picture and posted it online from his phone..so all his friends, family, etc..saw the new baby before the granparents who were right there next door..they got a call from their other son who said the baby is a boy and described what he looked like, etc..they were stunned...

The Numbers
- There are now over 3.5 Billions Mobile phones in use around the world
- Every minute there are 1000 new subscribers
- The crossover will happen in three years..where more people access the web via cell than pc..mostly due to raw numbers..meaning there are so many more mobile phones than pcs that once broadband and pricing barriers get cleared this will happen.
- On that note, in the US, for the first time, ESPN on one american football game this year, had more traffic coming in from cells than pc’s
- 60% of all calls and texts from any one individual go to less than 5 people
- Although there are only 13mm iphones in use..there are more applications downloaded to iphones than all other phones combined

Cultural Nuances of Mobile in Developing Nations
- In many developing nations cell phones are a status symbol
- Also it’s a point of identity..many people don’t have street addresses, so this is their address
- Vodaphone has a great service called M-Pesa that allows you to transfer money to other people in places in developing nations and lets people with no bank account, no credit cards, etc..get money from a local m-pesa agent..

Where its going...
There are a ton of big companies, small companies and talented start-ups that are working on incredible numbers of innovations to improve the overall functions and speed of mobile. But there is a big and legitimate fear in the industry that the crumbling economy will stifle much of that innovation and put most of the startups out of business...Thats certainly possible, but in my view with a downturn also comes great opportunity. Talent from layoffs will be available, and people really focus...knowing that their product has to be truly great and have immediate impact to get any funding...Remember google blossomed out of the last bust...

And the last point, which i was glad to hear came from Ted Matsumoto an exec VP at Softbank Mobile (and formerly Qualcomm founder) and similar to earlier themes we've heard from pioneers..is that his goal and his companies goal is to make sure that they focus on making the whole mobile experience simpler and easier for the end user...you can bet he'll be the one who succeeds in this space if he keeps that as his focus:-)