Agile Development - A Product Owner's Story

Yesterday I was asked to sit on a panel of 'experts' (a grouping of which I'm loathe to include myself) at the Mobile Messaging & Value Added Services conference in London.  The topic of discussion was around the issues of mobile data network capacity and the potential friction between apps developers and content providers and the networks.   It was a really interesting discussion, and the research I had to do led to some interesting revelations which I want to share with you.  So here are my thoughts on what might happen to the mobile data networks as usage increases, who will see the benefit in terms of revenues and who will really drive the issues. Exposing the Myth of Network Saturation Firstly it is, currently, a myth that the network is struggling because of the rich, high volumes of data being streamed over them.  In fact it's the signalling for handling data calls that is currently causing most concerns for operators.  Over 80% of traffic on t...

You’d be forgiven for thinking that in this day and age of iPhone, iPads, Blackberrys and Galaxys, if you’re business doesn’t have a Smartphone app it’s somehow behind the curve.  And you’d probably be correct as Smartphone apps become a necessary tool in your marketing armoury as web sites became several years ago. Before plunging in and getting an app for your business though, it’s worth considering the pros and cons, pitfalls and challenges for producing “an app for that”.    It’s also worthwhile speaking to experts  who can help ensure your foray into the world of iOS and Android is a successful one.   First of all you need to think about what your app will do and what value it will add to your customers.  With over 100,000 apps available for download on the Apple iTunes App Store alone, you need to be sure your app will stand out from the crowd and that your customers and prospective customers will actually bother to download it.  Seco...

As often mentioned in my previous posts, SMS provides an excellent, low cost communications method where one or both parties are on the move or away from the office.  It can be used in a number of business scenarios and one area I was recently asked to look at for BT was field force automation. Many businesses, large or small, have employees who need to work, at least some of the time,, out in the field.  Social workers, nurses, GPs, builders, plumbers, insurance claims inspectors, security guards, electricians and so on all spend large amounts of their working day away from headquarters.  Communicating with these key workers when they're away from the desk or workshop can be crucial to the effective running of the business.  Also, increasingly, keeping in touch is crucial for their safety, especially those who make site or home visits alone. So why is SMS so perfect for communicating with these people.  Simple.  It's cheap, easy to set up and reliable....

Interesting bit of news I found on the Internet...  Android phones have outsold the iPhone in the US for the first time, in Q4 2010.   Apparently, according to the survey, Apple sold 24.3% of the 63.2m smartphones sold, Google Android counted for 28.7%.  RIM's share for its Blackberry device dropped to almost 7 percentage points to 31.6% but it is still market leader in the US. As both Google and Apple shares continue to rise, it looks like Blackberry could soon slip back into third place so expect some form of competitive reaction from RIM in the form of offers and price reductions.   Google have targeted a much broader segment of the market, whereas Apple is more focused on the mid- to high-end of the market, so it is to be expected that Google is growing more quickly.  Google is more widely distributed also, whereas Apple like to keep a strong hand on where and how (and dare I say at what price) the iPhone is sold.   What will be intere...

I've been banging on about mobile payments via this blog and in the ears of anyone who'll listen for years now.  A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a rumour I'd heard that the new iPhone 5 from Apple would include an NFC chip which could be used for "contactless" mobile transactions.  Like the guy on the water slide in the Barclaycard advert, except instead of paying for his banana with yet another slab of plastic that needs to be kept in a wallet, Apple's plans are to allow the iPhone to replace the card.  So a swipe of your iPhone or, according to an article on Bloomberg.com, your iPad and you can pay for a whole raft of things. Think using your iPhone to get through the turnstiles on the London underground, swiping your iPhone to get through the turnstile at the football match or touching an Amazon poster with your phone to order the latest episode in the Call of Duty series.   Now those of you in the business will know this has been touted for some t...

It's all happening in the world of Mobile Marketing.  Hot on the heels of several US supermarket chains launching location based mobile loyalty programs (see my previous blog entry), coffee giant Starbucks has launched a mobile payment services across it's 6,000+ US stores.  The new service allows customers with smartphones (iPhone and Blackberry initially) to download an app that can be "charged" up with cash or loyalty credits and then used to make purchases in store.  A counter-top scanner will read the barcode displayed on the phone's screen and instruct the EPOS till to deduct the value of the voucher from the transaction total.  Starbucks hope this will eventually replace their pre-paid loyalty card system which has seen some $1.5bn worth of 'credits' loaded up on to them over the last year, a CAGR of 21%.  One in five transactions in a US store is via the Starbucks card, with many people disliking having to carry yet another card, Starbucks could be...

You either love the idea or you loathe it - location based social marketing (LBS Marketing).  Depending on which side of the fence you sit, you're going to love or hate the latest trend in mobile marketing as LBS services become a reality, thanks to the plummeting costs and increasing power efficiencies of GPS chip sets.  Most new devices include a GPS device these days which allows apps to accurately and quickly identify your location. Gone are the days where GSM triangulation was the only technique available which was not entirely accurate, relied on a strong mobile network signal and was subject to, arguably, extortionate per look-up charges by the mobile operators ("you do surprise" me I hear you ironically say). Retailers in the US seem to be leading the way in the West (Korea and Japan have been doing this for years) with many large supermarket giants and restaurant chains combining mobile social networking with GPS positioning to attract increased foot fall to t...

Who said SMS was yesterday's messaging technology?  The "Simple Messaging Service" that was originally designed as a tool to allow network engineers to communicate has become the personal messaging tool of choice.  Experts and analysts have been forecasting it's demise for years, firstly with MMS then email and instant messaging over the new "fast" GPRS and 3G networks and now notification messaging via Smartphones.  The problem with this is that it still relies on affordable and ubiquitous, fast 3G network connections to really be effective.  SMS works on 2, 2.5 and 3G so is available almost everywhere (even where there's insufficient signal strength to maintain a sufficiently audible voice call).  More importantly, SMS costs are predictable.  You can't really claim it is inexpensive as, character for character sending an SMS to the house next door is more expensive than sending the same message via satellite communications to the moon.  The attract...

Happy New Year to everyone who takes the time to read my blogs on Mobile Marketing, and here's to an exciting and successful 2011 to you all... My big predictions for this year isn't exactly earth-shattering, but they represent major milestones for the industry and for the way business in general will be conducted in the not so distant future.   The big one will be the rise of mobile smartphone apps in the workplace and in business scenarios.  I'll come on to this in a minute.  First of all my other two predictions are as follows, but you've probably read these a million times before in other articles.  Firstly, mobile computing is getting all touchy-feely.  The net book is living on dangerous ground as the highly portable and extremely usable tablet will replace it.  iPads, Galaxys and others will start to dominate new sales of low to mid-range computing devices.  I treated the family to a new iPad at Christmas and already it's a key part of ...