Goin' Mo-bile!

If you have a BlackBerry, have you checked your email on it while at your office? If you have an iPhone, have you viewed weather, news, or YouTube while at home? If you use an Instant Messenger, have you found yourself using Text Messaging on your phone more frequently? Have you listened to music or watched a video on your phone? How many photos have you taken with your phone in the past month—instead of a camera—and sent to a friend or uploaded to Facebook? Have you used your phone lately like you would a Personal Navigation Device to locate a store and provide directions? If you answered yes to any of these, welcome to the mobile revolution.

This revolution is in full swing despite the global recession. Sales of expensive smartphones are growing, while sales of lesser phones are stagnant in the developed world (note: the developing world has now begun the first wave of the mobile revolution with entry-level and ultra-low cost devices, so new markets will fill demand for basic mobile phones). While Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and others can supply the developing world with lower margin handsets for years to come, they have to work fast in order to catch up in the smartphone game, where the iPhone and BlackBerry continue to increase market share. And it has not helped matters that handset manufacturers have to deal with mobile carriers. Most carriers think they will control the flow of subscription services, advertising, and transactions on their data networks. Seems logical enough, but they may want to ask any executive with an ISP—cable company, telecom, or independent—“so how did that strategy work out for you?” Even the handset manufacturers expect a piece of the mobile data economy, and this impacts their desire to innovate in ways where they might lose control of these revenue streams. They should ask Dell, H-P, Gateway, and other computer manufacturers how much they are making in e-commerce revenue from Amazon, advertising revenue from Google, and subscription revenue from Salesforce.com.

Only the first two chapters of the mobile revolution have been written so far—first we all got cell phones and then we got basic data service—so how can we predict the next chapters? I suggest that analogies to the Internet revolution are worth exploring for clues. The native mobile application ecosystem popularized by the iPhone reminds me of Netscape’s Navigator browser. Do you remember what the Internet was like BEFORE the Web browser? As a user experience, it sucked. The browser made the Internet accessible to the masses, and led to an explosion in creative applications. While mobile websites ending in .mobi were an early attempt to cope with the form factor of a mobile phone, using a browser on a phone seems as arcane and clunky to me as FTP and Gopher seemed once we had Netscape. The native mobile app eliminates the need to type a URL and “surf.” Regardless of whether I have a phone with a keyboard or a touch screen, I want to minimize typing and surfing... I want what I want, and I want it now. I still have a little patience at my desk, but when I am standing on a street corner, I want to access applications and information on my phone quickly and easily.

So who will be the winners and losers in the mobile revolution? Obviously, the mobile handset manufacturers that deliver quality smartphones will be big winners. If any handset manufacturers want to believe they can maintain market share by continuing to develop slick clamshells and flip phones with cool sounding brand names, but aren’t cutting edge smartphones, they will be losers. The market will consist of smartphones and ultra-low cost devices. The good news is that the big winners will be consumers and businesses globally, as modern communications are brought to the developing world and the developed world enters the next chapter of the mobile revolution, taking modes of interaction and commerce to new levels of productivity and creativity.

I don’t think we can give Pete Townshend credit for envisioning this revolution in The Who’s 1971 hit song “Goin’ Mobile”, but maybe it will be My Generation’s anthem.