
Mobile Growth: Don’t Bet On It - epi0Bauqu
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=504
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i_am_neuron
Well, this sounds like a typical POV of the person who never used mobile
internet device (iPhone, for example, performs best in this role).

Of course, screen is small, but there are a lot of UI specialists dealing with
this and a bunch of developers ready to port their applications to mobile
devices (have you seen Facebook client for iPhone?). I would not replace my
IDE running on the PC with its mobile version, but geez, apart from that what
else are you doing on your PC? Exploring Flickr? Updating Facebook status?
Shopping on Amazon? Reading blogs? We could do all of that mobile, even now.

Mobile phone with internet access could potentially become a source of not
less important revenue stream for anybody offering anything on the internet.
Simple example: mobile operator (owning the identity and bank account info of
the phone owner) could act as identity provider for online micropayments and
charge them to the subscriber's mobile account. I could go to my friend's, see
an interesting CD, scan its barcode with phone's camera, be redirected to
Amazon immediately and pay without entering credit card details, using my
mobile phone account -- all in couple of clicks, on one device.

I would not bet on mobile growth, I would bet on mobile shift. 4 times 2
minutes spent with surfing the web on iPhone on the go could be oh so much
more rewarding (in terms of revenue attracted) for any internet service I am
using, than 8 full hours in front of PC.

~~~
mattmaroon
Yeah, it would sound like that unless you actually read the article, in which
I mention that I've been using mobile devices for 5 years.

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river_styx
_Second, people will, until some radically new, currently unforeseen
technology becomes available (and I’m talking way beyond Blackberry/iPhone
here) prefer surfing on the PC over the web when both are available._

That's really the key issue. Most people don't lug around a laptop or PC
everywhere they go, so in most situations outside of home/office, the forced
choice between phone and PC doesn't exist.

Also, I often use my iPhone at home for browsing, because its Safari is good
enough to make it not worth my while to boot up the laptop. I've seen many
others do this as well.

~~~
pchristensen
I do this too.

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dazzla
If you want to see the future of mobile you should not look at the USA but
Japan, Malaysia, Europe, etc. The iPhone has been a good catch up for the USA
but even that is less restricted outside the USA.

~~~
mattmaroon
Japan has a lot of stuff that we don't and that never really works here
because our cultures are so different. They'll buy a device so laden with
features that they don't even know how to use 3/4 of them, because they value
that. We'll buy a device that looks better and is simple to operate.

The iPhone is a much better model of what Americans want now (and possibly
what the Japanese will want in 5 years) than the feature packed phones they
have.

~~~
menloparkbum
I lived in Japan for a year. The reports about how advanced the Japanese
mobile phone situation are a bit overblown. The most popular service was still
i-Mode, which is old, proprietary and severely limited. It is kind of like if
"Prodigy" ran on mobile phones.

According to wikipedia:

Even i-mode's creator, Takeshi Natsuno, has stated "I believe the iPhone is
closer to the mobile phone of the future, compared with the latest Japanese
mobile phones."

~~~
mattmaroon
Interesting. All of my knowledge of Japanese patterns comes from mobile sites
and articles I read, so admittedly it all has a filter and could be somewhat
inaccurate.

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biohacker42
I agree with a lot of that, Matt put into words a lot stuff in my head that I
couldn't.

But I don't think the point about payment is true. People in Europe already
buy all kinds of crap with their phones.

Everything just shows up on your phone bill, no credit cards to fuss around
with.

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maxklein
No they don't.

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biohacker42
_Indeed, in Japan and in Finland people already buy goods via their phones._

From here:
[http://www.pcworld.com/article/122590/use_your_cell_phone_in...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/122590/use_your_cell_phone_instead_of_your_credit_card.html)

I would have found better references if I had more time and google didn't keep
returning results for vending machines which dispense cell phones, instead of
allowing you to pay via cell phone.

~~~
mattmaroon
I've read about that too, and it is pretty neat. I could totally see phones
extending small credit lines (and maybe larger ones to customers with better
credit scores) to be used that way. It will still never match the efficiency
of our credit card industry though, just due to sheer numbers.

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maxklein
Of course people prefer to type stuff in a big screen instead of a small
screen. In that respect, big screens will continue to dominate, but what we
will see is that the screen of phones will become big. You dock your iphone,
it becomes your laptop. Apple is working on this, I heard.

~~~
mattmaroon
Then is that really mobile growth? I mean, it might replace a PC, but that's
not growth, it's just switching from one device to another.

The iPhone has a long way to go there. It can barely even run flash on that
potato chip of a processor.

~~~
maxklein
Oh processors will be fine. The problem is in heating and batteries, and that
is almost there. I am at a certain prominent laboratory often, and I have seen
what is happening in that area.

Mobile is changing. It's absolutely not about small screens anymore, it's now
about a generic app running OS, and the screen is just a display format of the
app.

Apple didn't see this coming when they released the iphone, but google has
seen it, and now apple has also got the message. The phone has become the
computer, the question is just who is going to create the first full screen
scalable phone that interfaces with a standard keyboard.

Your perspective is wrong, because you are looking at what was, and what is,
instead of what will be.

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mattmaroon
Well, I see the rampant complaints about the iPhone 3G's battery life, and the
relatively slow improvement in batteries overall. It's going to take a
tremendous leap for a phone to match my laptop's dual core processor, and have
a graphics card that can power an external display, while getting battery life
that's tolerable to most people. You really think it's almost there?

I'm definitely not privy to any research labs, but I've seen nothing in the
past, or in current literature, to make me optimistic about that big of a
leap. Laptops still lag significantly behind desktops in general, especially
at the same price point. Why should phones not lag even further?

Also, even if what you say is true, and they swap laptops for phones, that's
not growth, it's just a shift. If they still use the phone primarily docked,
where they would previously have used a PC, and only 10% of the time mobile,
then it's only 10% growth from Google's perspective.

~~~
maxklein
Well, it's not a big secret - I spend time in Fraunhofer labs, and we get a
lot of stuff that is paid for by companies doing research. There's good stuff
out there, but it's just not yet commercially viable. But the technology is
there.

I ran Windows XP for years on a 400mhz PC just fine. Mobile processors may be
slow, but they are fine for the uses that they will be used for in the near
future - email, chat, social networking and the iPhonesque games. Also, one
can switch between dedicated simpler processors to more complex processors if
battery life were an issue.

Technologically, I see very little problems with the concept. The problem lies
more with distribution, acceptance and all the business interests whom it does
not favor to have this out there.

Growth will come in that people will choose to purchase mobile devices that
double as a laptop, instead of purchasing a new laptop. So you are right in
that it won't bring in new people, it will just cause a movement from one
device to the other.

~~~
mattmaroon
Right. Mobile sales will be fantastic for hardware manufacturers in the
future. Though I still agree with Dvorak in that I'm always going to be a
little skeptical about paying $2,000 for something I could easily drop into a
toilet and ruin. Not saying I won't do it, but I'll think twice about it.

(I actually did once drop a phone in a glass of iced tea, but it somehow
worked afterward.)

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johnrob
When a phone comes with an internet connection and a fully capable browser,
it's not really a 'phone' anymore. It's just a small computer.

Looking at it another way, if a phone has a capable browser, then you really
don't have to do any extra work to support it - just build a web app as you
normally would. Every site on the internet becomes a "mobile site".

There's no reason the leading internet sites won't also dominate these new
pocket computers as well. The only reason that wouldn't be the case is if they
had to build some a new product in order to capture the market - which by
definition is not the case.

~~~
mattmaroon
Obviously you've never tried to surf normal web sites on a phone. It's an
experience that I imagine to be about as fun as giving yourself a tracheotomy.

~~~
axod
You serious? I'm pretty happy using Safari, zooming, etc Sure, it's a small
screen and you might have to pan around a while, but it's certainly usable.

And as the parent pointed to, I very rarely use mine as a phone. It's a
portable internet device.

~~~
mattmaroon
Most people use their mobile primarily as a phone or email device. Most people
will always prioritize those functions above web surfing because they will
prefer web surfing on a PC and are usually near one.

And why would you want to deal with all of the zooming when you can just have
a monitor? I mean, it's great when you're on the road, which is maybe what,
5-10% of your waking hours for the average Joe, but at home?

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axod
I don't buy that at all. What about people stuck on a train? What are you
going to do? Surf the web on your iphone. What about if you're waiting in a
dentist? You're going to whip it out of your pocket, and surf. Yes, compared
to time spent at a PC, this is a small amount of time. But I'd bet the usage
on the iPhone is the browser, then email, then phone/sms (With games+music in
there somewhere).

I don't even think young people use their phones as phones (voice calls) very
often now (UK anyway). It's all sms.

Of course it won't replace the laptop, but it replaces a lot. It's much easier
to wake up, pick up the iPhone and check a few sites, than get on your laptop.

I agree about the zooming to a point, obviously if there was a hologram
projector or something, it'd be great. But the scroll/zoom works for now.

~~~
mattmaroon
So what do we disagree on? I'm confused now.

I surely wasn't suggesting that nobody will ever browse from a mobile. Just
that it will remain small potatoes relative to non-mobile for quite some
times, especially in terms of profit.

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TrevorJ
Given the subsidized upgrade paths that most mobile providers give you, the
half life for a mobile device is less than for a desktop.

The experience gets better with each generation of new hardware. The killer
app of mobile devices is that you DON'T have to be next to a PC.

People are willing to trade a heck of a lot of functionality in order to not
be chained to a desk.

With apps living more and more in the cloud, the value of having connectivity
anywhere will only increase.

~~~
mattmaroon
The experience doesn't get that much better. I've been using it for 5 years.
Data speeds have greatly improved, especially with EVDO Rev A. Keypads today
are barely better than the Treo 650's. Apple's made some definite strides in
making the touch screen usable (far beyond the old Palms) but it's still
vastly inferior to a 19" LCD and a mouse, and improvements will now come
incrementally.

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iloveyouocean
Scenario:

Google comes out with killer mobile apps, including some location aware,
flow/stream, whatever stuff that leverages all the info. and advertising, etc.
that Google has, plus new mobile centered advertisers (Businesses that are not
traditionally searched for). Its so good that none of the carriers can
duplicate it.

These applications drive carrier revenue by encouraging data usage, mobile
payment usage(in a future form), 'location usage', etc.

Google realizes people are not clicking on ads (as much as when 'browsing' on
a PC). So they do two things, charge the carriers to offer their services(take
a share of mobile payments they generate, data usage, etc.) and charge
businesses to get their ads in front of people on mobiles, perhaps on a non
CPM basis.

Is this 'growth'? Yes. Its very possible people will 'search' (to use the term
very loosely) for different things from their mobile than they do on the web.
Fast food coupons, vs. straight info. And its also very possible that
'searching' wont be typing into a search-box, but instead some type of flow
based suggestion mechanism.

~~~
mattmaroon
You have a very high buzzword per paragraph ratio going there. If we were
playing buzzword bingo, you'd win.

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jfarmer
His assumption is that the only mobile growth that matters is smartphone
growth, but that's not true.

You can build lots of valuable stuff using just SMS.

~~~
mattmaroon
Such as? Google already has SMS products, and everyone already has SMS, yet
it's a negligible source of revenue for them.

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known
Not true. In India the growth rate is 10 million new mobile connections per
month.

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nuclear_eclipse
Please read the article: That's still not an argument to bet on the mobile
web; even at a rate of 10m new connections, the vast majority are not
smartphones, and will likely not have any major monetary presence on the web
in the near future.

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rwebb
ok. even if it's 10%, that's 1M new smartphone users a month in india, which
is massive growth. i don't agree with this article at all. even though matt is
a gambling man, i'm guessing he's not shorting companies banking on mobile
growth - he's just trying to get traffic to his blog.

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azharcs
You are being too bullish here. India is a country with a per capita of $1000.
71.6% of the people earn less than $2 a day. As i have seen the mobile growth
in India, i know it has grown by leaps and bounds, but it is not the
population from which you can make money of.

Almost every one has a mobile here, even some of the poorest people. The
reason for that is the dirt cheap handsets combined with lifetime connections,
you can get a handset for $28 plus a life-time connection for $12 and you are
connected for life. I really don't see this people buying $300 smart phones
and start using Google or buying stuff from internet. It is not going to
happen and when i see this huge companies talking about how they will make
tons of money from China and India, it only makes me laugh. Again just have to
wait and watch.

~~~
mattmaroon
Exactly. Which is not to say that I don't expect India (and the rest of the
BRIC) to some day be a source of revenue. It will, undoubtedly. They're
getting their economic act together.

But it's going to be a process that will take more than 5 years. When they
have a GDP per capita of $40k, they'll be worth a hell of a lot to whichever
search engines they use.

But even then, the growth won't be attributable so much to mobile (even though
it may come through that channel) as to developing nations.

