Mobile World Congress time again

Well, its that time of the year again when the mobile community makes it way to Barcelona.  While a number of new products and services are expected to be launched, I look forward to seeing how companies position themselves again one another - traditional, new and asymmetric players.  Key themes that we believe will emerge for 2012: the push for small cell/hetnet architectures, the importance of OTT, particularly around video, the evolution of retail, the adoption of mobile health, and the battle for the connected home.

If you are going, bring lots of business cards and, from what I hear, bring your walking shoes, as the transportation strike is likely to continue during the show.   We'll report on our findings from MWC when we return. 

Monetizing mobile on Android – and HTML5

Future: Mobile 2011 – the Rutberg event at the St Regis in San Francisco opened with an interesting discussion amongst Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype and Groupon. For me, the key point of the discussion was an observation about one of the key differences between the iOS and Android business ecosystems – monetization.

Although some of these services, such as LinkedIn, do not (yet) pursue monetization on mobile, there was a broad consensus that the key challenge for Android is monetization; whatever the numbers say, Android customers are currently much less prone to spending money on mobile apps and services, and that’s a key challenge for this mobile business ecosystem.

Indeed, with the move to HTML5, these challenges may increase. Despite their limitations – such as the horrendous merchandizing of the Android Market – there is at least a clearly defined and well established path to market; this is not yet defined for HTML5. OK, so this may be a forlorn hope, but can we learn from these challenges with native apps, and do a much better job?

Who can we look to for this done really well?

Suggestions gratefully received.

In a post-PC era, HTML5 wins even on the PC

In a post late last night on Ars Technica, which focuses primarily on the impact on Windows developer, there’s a critical kernel:

Microsoft Vice President Julie Larson-Green, in charge of the Windows Experience, briefly describes a new immersive application—a weather application—and says, specifically, that the application uses “our new developer platform, which is …. based on HTML5 and JavaScript.” [emphasis added] 

The quote is at 3:45 in this video:

So, as we enter a post-PC era, beautifully illustrated by this post from Horace Dediu of Asymco, HTML5 dominates even on the PC:

Entrepreneur: noun – antonym: French Government

From dictionary.com:

en·tre·pre·neur: noun
A person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk [emphasis added]

From the theatre of the absurd:

A year ago, the Elysée had published a summary (. pdf) on the creation of investment funds, which explained that the objective of France Patents would enable SMEs to more easily sell their inventions, by delegating their marketing [to] the state company [emphasis added]

The French government proposes to make itself an intellectual property dealer.

The Minister of Higher Education and Research, Valérie Pécresse, the Minister for Industry, Energy and the Digital Economy, Eric Besson, and the Commissioner General for investment, Rene Ricol, give this morning at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris launched the “ Patents France . A project that made the company’s common commercial State and the Caisse des Depots a purchaser and reseller of patent licenses that researchers will be encouraged to deposit in greater numbers.

Isn’t ‘French state marketing company’ an oxymoron?

I really don’t know whether to laugh, or cry, or both…

Netflix’s dirty secret – the content sucks!

Although Netfliix’s Instant Streaming Service is now available on a bewildering variety of devices, has grown explosively and drives an impressive valuation on the stock market, here’s the dirty secret…

…the content sucks, despite Netflix’s claims:

We have thousands of movies & TV episodes available to watch instantly right on your TV via an Xbox 360, PS3, Wii or any other device that streams from Netflix, or to watch instantly on your computer

The screen capture below is from Instant Watcher, where Netflix’s own customer services reps are sending people to see what’s available. Now it’s not that some of the high-ranked content is not highly-rated, but it’s not exactly mainstream or mass market.

Top of the list: ‘Animal Kingdom’. Great rating from Rotten Tomatoes:

With confident pacing, a smart script, and a top-notch cast, Animal Kingdom represents the best the Australian film industry has to offer.

OK, that last comment could be damned as faint praise.

Reviewed by the New York Times:

The intensity of the film’s nihilism is underlined by Antony Partos’s ominous semielectronic score. The relative absence of gun battles and car chases helps “Animal Kingdom” build and sustain a mood of deepening dread. It goes out of its way to deglamorize the criminal life and portray its family of crooks as warped psychopathic thugs in a losing enterprise.

The film’s depiction of the raw fear lurking below the brothers’ braggadocio is the most pronounced emotion in a movie whose focus on the personalities of its criminals suggests an Australian answer to “Goodfellas,” minus the wise-guy humor.

The knotty screenplay, which proceeds in fits and starts, makes a daring and mystifying leap near the end of a story that culminates with a trial that is never shown. The crucial hunk left out of “Animal Kingdom” leaves it feeling lopsided and incomplete, if still gripping.

• nihilism
• deepening dread
• fits and starts
• lopsided and incomplete

So, how did it do commercially? According to Wikipedia:

The film has grossed US$4,350,187 in Australia.[13] It is the third highest grossing Australian film at the Australian box office for 2010, behind Tomorrow, When the War Began ($9.2 million), and Bran Nue Dae ($7.56 million).[citation needed] Worldwide, the film has grossed US$5,775,563.[2]

Yup, about $6 million worldwide.

And it goes downhill from there: Naked Ambition: An R-Rated Look at an X-Rated Industry

In this documentary, celebrity photographer Michael Grecco journeys to Las Vegas where he captures candid behind-the-scenes images of adult film stars at the AVN Expo, the American porn industry’s premier trade show.

I only know about AVN Expo because it’s always on at the same time as CES in Las Vegas each year, but this is a truly bizarre choice, and it’s the second highest ranked content on Netflix Instant Streaming?

What about the next one on the list: God of Vampires:

• opened on ten (10) screens
• grossed about $57,000

For the next one, ‘Opposite Day’, I will let the first reviewer summarize:

I watched Opposite Day yesterday and it was possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. My wife couldn’t believe how awful it was either...

...It seemed as if the writer of Opposite Day didn’t know his own plot. Situations presented for supposedly comedic effect were not indicative of the alternate reality that we were supposed to accept...

The director seemed to think the audience was dumb (over explaining concepts that ruin the suspension of belief even in young children). Maybe he was overcompensating for the horrible writing...

...I am willing to glaze over most faults I find in a movie like this. However, I should have turned this movie off way before it turned me off so entirely. I do not see how anyone can truly enjoy this this movie. It is not so much that it is stupid, it is that the writing doesn’t even try to be funny.

...This movie lacks humor and tries to rely on sight gags that not only get tiresome from repetition, they are so dumb that a typical child will have his/her intelligence insulted. My 5yo son loves movies, but was bored with this – anyone older than him would not even care enough to make a joke like “This film is great – WAIT – it’s Opposite Day!”

As I said, the content sucks.