Posting from my mobile

I am posting this message via my new and shiny sonyericsson k800i... It has a great 240x320 screen and still maintains a rather small form factor though it may still be considered big to many consumers. Anyway i have a lot to say but i am getting tired of typing with its keypad even with its t9 dictionary. So i will continue this from my PC later.

Snow in Jerusalem

From time to time I will probably write here about special experiences that are not related to mobile content... Well, today we had a a very special experience here in Jerusalem: Snow...

Those of you living in Europe or the USA (Or in fact in almost every other part of the world) probably don't understand what the fuss is all about, but here in Israel it rarely snows, and in fact in the area which I originally come from (Tel-Aviv) it *never* snows. So enjoy this picture I took outside my house of a Jerusalem alley covered in snow.

Mobile is a different medium than the Web/PC/TV

I was actually about to write today a post about mobile user generated content (in another shameless attempt to promote GamearraY...), but while writing the draft I found myself having to explain a very important claim I always make: mobile is a different medium than the Web/PC/TV.

This claim is relevant not only to next generation mobile content, but also to current mobile content. When developing content, one must understand the target media for it, and this applies to all forms of content whether it's games, videos, music etc. And while it seems as a very obvious rule in content development in general, it seems that players in the mobile market sometimes miss that point, and the main reason for that is that mobile media was used to be defined by its technological barriers rather than by its actual usage patterns.

For example, when devices were B&W with screen resolutions that would even make 1980s consoles manufacturers very proud, no one thought about delivering videos to the mobile since it was simply impossible to do so, thus making the mobile by default to be a wrong medium for video. Later on, when color screens appeared and resolutions became more reasonable for videos, the mobile medium was redefined, and videos began showing up, though there were still many problems preventing customers from enjoying a worthwhile experience (Streaming was not an option and devices' memory size was too small to contain real quality videos, so all we got were 2 minutes clips with degraded quality).

Nowadays, the new devices have QVGA screens (240x320) that actually allows playback of MPEG-1 videos in about its original resolution. Bear in mind that this is the quality we used to have in VHS tapes and also VCD discs, so it's not bad at all, and given the small size of the typical device, the video should look quite crisp. In addition 3G networks allow for video streaming thus enabling TV broadcasts directly to the mobile or video on demand (Not to mention devices with TV receivers which are less favored by operators since they don't have to go through the network). Also, the storage current devices have allows for storing hours of VCD/DVD quality video.

So now that we know that we can deliver videos/TV to mobile devices, the question remains do the mass of mobile subscribers actually want that kind of a service? Note that the real issue here is not a matter of the ability of the "sender" but rather a matter of acceptance by the "recipient". Now, the reason I started with video/TV is that unlike gaming, TV is used by a major proportion of the population of all ages, so if both mediums (TV, Mobile) are equally good for broadcasts and videos, we would expect to see the same penetration rate on the mobile a few years from now.

But here exactly the usage patterns of the medium come to play: Though I do foresee a bright future for mobile TV/video, especially in the youth segment, I really (really) doubt it will ever reach the regular TV penetration rate, in fact I am quite sure it won't be even near that. And the reason for that is that even though the mobile medium is catching up technology-wise with other TV/video mediums, it is still an entirely different medium; And the most critical factor for TV/video consumption is the form factor: Mainstream phones have relatively small screens, and even smartphones and hybrids don't have screens that can compare with current days "supersized" TVs (or even with old small portable TVs for that matter...). In any case, most people will just not sit and watch full length movies or even TV episodes on a 2 inch screen.

And even though resolution/colors may improve - the screen size will stay the same. Why? Because mobile phones are used by over 2 billion people worldwide primarily as a personal and mobile communication device, and while some customers will love the added-value of other services (and hopefully some content services will even become mainstream over time), the most important factors for them when buying such a phone would be the factors that make it a good personal and mobile comm. device - and one of these factors is simply the size. Only a fraction of the population will prefer a bigger screen over a phone that actually fits in their pocket and is comfortable to hold and talk with....

So what kind of video can succeed in the mobile medium? Probably short bits of funny videos, the ones that people send each other in e-mails (And now exchanging through YouTube). This is certainly something I can see happening not too long from now. The attention it requires from you is for a short period of time, and unlike "sitting" to watch a movie/show, it's more casual and random. To watch your favorite shows - you will probably wait for your big screen TV at home...

Another thing that can succeed are real time events. While your mobile phone screen is small and wouldn't be your first choice - if you are stuck outside and your favorite football team is having their most critical game - you would probably want to watch that, even on a small screen. Same thing for breaking news that interest you. And here we can see a big advantage of the mobile medium over its peers - its mobility. For real time events, the mobile medium can certainly be a good fit with what the consumer actually wants...

I have just covered TV/videos in this post (and even on that there's so much more to say), but of course that the same principles apply also to other types of mobile content. We have to grab the essence of the mobile medium and understand where are its advantages and where are its shortcomings. Not everything that works on other mediums that may seem the same on first sight can work on the mobile as well.

Maybe later on I will make a post about mobile games, as this is the primary field I have been engaged on in the past year.

P.S. - I was actually having a hard time to find the exact figure for TV penetration, because articles are talking about penetration of digital TV and advanced technologies - but since I found this article that says that more than 80% of American households have a DVD player, I guess it is safe to assume that TV penetration rate is nearing 100%...

The first M3RPG - back in 2003...

I thought it would take me some time to get to the subject of M3RPG (=Mobile MMORPG), but I just bumped into what I think is a great example of how these should look and behave.

The game is called TibiaME and it was developed by a German company called CipSoft. It was launched in Q1 of 2003 and it is based on their online MMORPG Tibia (Though there is no convergence between online and mobile users - each have their own worlds and can't interact with their counterparts).

The relatively early release date surprised me, even though I really can't know what it looked like and how it behaved like when it was first released , the current version is quite impressive and it seems like they have gotten the basics right:

The graphics looks good and fits the "atmosphere" of MMORPGs - but it is also quite simple, which makes it very playable on current mobile phones. In fact the graphics' view is top-view (and not 3D, isomorphic etc.) which is not uncommon to find both in mobile games and also in the older PC strategy/RPG games.

In addition, the gameplay seems to match the mobile medium, even though I didn't play too much, the interface is easy to use on mobile devices, and it can be seen that these guys made some efforts to scale down the never-ending features sets of regular MMORPGs.

Another thing that surprised me is the relatively small effect the network latency has on the game. One of the known problems of M3RPGs is the latency of data transmissions over mobile networks (especially non-3G ones). These can be a few seconds, and obviously cannot be tolerated in real time games - for example you wouldn't want to shoot at an enemy, only to find our later that he already moved away, and instead you shot your best online friend that happened to move to the killzone while your mobile network was having its siesta...

To see how things are latency-wise at TibiaME, I downloaded the game to two different devices connected to a regular non-3G GSM network, entered the same world, and started playing simultaneously on both devices, walking around with both players on the same area, so each one could see the other. Now, of course it wasn't as smooth as online multiplayer games, but on average the latency wasn't bad at all: There were even some times in which it almost look like real time (But on the other side there were times where it took the player a few second to appear in its place). But more importantly, the effect on the gameplay is somewhat reduced because of the fact that players cannot fight with each other, but only with the computer players, and while this may disappoint some users, it is probably a must in order to "mask" the latency's effects (For example, a non-RPG but rather a shoot 'em up game would probably not pass the latency test, since the speed of the game and everyone there is critical, unlike RPGs which are more slow-paced).

In terms of business model, they have an entirely free edition that anyone can download, and there's no cost for connecting to their server (besides the operator's charges). But, if you want to make your character stronger you can buy a premium subscription for 10Euros/4months. In addition you can also download the gold edition of the client in $5 (The gold edition is reported to have 13K downloads via Handango).

In addition, the deal they signed with T-Mobile Germany was revenue share for the data charges (A deal that is quite rare these days). Players of TibiaME are using 400KB/hour and at the time that the deal was made it was estimated at 0.72-3.6Euros/Hour at the time of the deal, so you can easily do the math on the potential of this if it becomes popular and addictive.

Anyway, the "theory" here seems to be right on the money, but the question is, how does it all go in practice? I tried to search for recent articles on TibiaME that would share some data as to the usage, subscriptions etc. but unfortunately I couldn't find any. I just found older articles (dated 2003-2004) following the launch.

However, in addition to the fact that the service is still running (since 2003!), there are signs that TibiaME did gain some user base. Their support forums have about 5,500 registered users, and there are dozens of recent posts (How recent? Does "today" counts?...) and when I entered the TibiaME world myself - I wasn't alone - there were at least a dozens of users at the same time in the specific world I chose. And of course if the download numbers of the gold edition at Handango is true - that's also great (Because for each paying user, there are free subscribers that are paying for data services, and while CipSoft doens't collect those - it shows the potential an M3RPG can have).

There's also a case study written by Forum Nokia about TibiaME, but it was written in June 2003 so it doesn't have the required perspective. By the way, this is the same Nokia that promotes Sega's Pocket Kingdom as the first M3RPG, but if you read their claims carefully you can see that they actually know they are not the first: "The first worldwide massively multiplayer online mobile game" (as opposed to TibiaME which is more European-based) or the following quote taken from this site: "The 1st MMO for the N-Gage game deck" (As opposed to TibiaME which is available on Symbian series 60 and recently on Java as well).

Anyway, I hope to write on Pocket Kingdom as well sometime, but this post is long enough as it is... And if anyone has some real data as to the success of TibiaME, post a comment.

First post...

Well, finally I got "caught in the web", and I am now a proud member of the bloggers community...

First, let me tell you a little about myself: My name is Ofir Leitner and I am the Founder of GamearraY, a start-up company backed by JVP Studio. GamearraY develops a platform for user-generated mobile content (currently specializing in games as the name suggests...). Our platform empowers users and let them personalize and customize games, share them with their friends and play them both online and on their mobile (And we have an underlying technology that allows us to work cross-platform on all Java-compliant devices).

My motivation to start this blog was the current discussion regarding next generation mobile content. Operators are talking about it, Aggregators are talking about it and content providers are talking about it. Problem is no one know *exactly* what "it" is...

One of the events that made me understand how "burning" this issue really is, was the Orange Partner Camp at Cadiz that took place in October 2006 (in which GamearraY was a finalist in their innovation contest).

Just by looking at the sessions list, it was clear that the Orange Group (like other operators) is putting real efforts on finding the next generation mobile content. The sessions included among the rest: "Let's talk about user generated content", "Let's talk about Communities and Web 2.0" and "Let's talk about next generation content services". Not to mention the abundance of sessions on gaming, animations and videos.

Since mobile content is suffering from some stagnation, it is now clear to everyone that something has to change. Whether it is the content itself, the business model, the value chain or whatever else. In any case, even after finding the "formula" to make it all happen, the challenge is still the market acceptance, and as we know, this takes time... So now is the window of opportunities for all of us out there to get it right.

Even though it seems nobody has the solution yet, there are a few prominent directions that appear to contain the answers. These include changing the business model to ad-based (and free for the users themselves), user-generated content, web/mobile convergence and true mobile communities (it really boggles my mind why this didn't happen yet). In addition to these that can apply to all content types, each and every content category has its new developments as well. For gaming, multi-player and social gaming seems to be two of the most promising directions nowadays, and some people (including myself) are also talking about the first mobile MMORPG, or maybe the more accurate term should be MMMRPG (or M3RPG in short. And don't bother, I already registered that domain :)

Anyway, since I just got started and there's so much happening out there, I will try over the next couple of days to update this blog as frequently as possible. I also appreciate any comments since "we are all in this together", "2 brains are better than 1", "add your own cliche here" (We spoke about user generated content - didn't we?...)

But seriously, let's keep this discussion rolling, there are many angles to cover and they are scattered all around the globe... I am sure we'll all have fun in the process (and don't forget to tell your friends...)