If you're paying close attention to Apple's television iPhone ads, you've seen what could be Google's most important contribution to mobile computing; presence-related commerce listings.
The segment of the iphone ad showing someone reacting to a spur of the moment whim for seafood and using his iPhone to pull up a list of nearby restaurants and their locations is the best example I've seen yet of location or presence-based commerce.
It's an important component in mobile services and its probably going to become one of Google's, not Apple's or AT&T's, crown jewels.
I still travel a great deal-- like a great many retired Americans-- and I'm just as subject to whims as the next person, even if that person is a mega-buck venture capitalist. Would I like to be able to search for a good BBQ restaurant when I'm in Sacramento? Or good to the last bite of tortilla Mexican food, when I'm in Azusa?
"Hell yes I'd like to know where those restaurants are and how to get to them when I'm in the tiny berg of Rescue, CA or in Azusa, in southern CA." The cell phone is the perfect instrument for delivering that information to me when I think I need it. But like most people, I'm not just interested in restaurant information. I can guarantee that I'm also a good market for concert and entertainment data, as well as the location of good VW mechanics, the occasional organic produce market and sometimes even a good ole fashioned gun show at some run down county fairground.
But back to Google, mobile search, cell carriers, the i-, g-, and other cell phones. Mobile and presence-based platforms will be transformational. First, the capabilities of such devices will require that Google, Yahoo, AOL, or any other company that wants to play in this space will need to focus on carrier relationships, a task most silicon valley-based technology companies have failed miserably. And carriers know that presence based commerce represents a multi-river revenue stream, but are mostly unprepared to sell ads to local merchants, and the smallish ad agencies that serve regional markets. The same, for now, is also true of Google. While its sales force is going great guns, it's in the unique position of making numbers by collecting the cream at the top of the market milk bottles.
The problem with the current market is that the majority of the businesses--except banking institutions-- i want to use my cell phone to connect with in the mobile search model are in the twitchy category called "Small business."
Can you imagine the scream from Master Mechanic Terry at Father Noel's Volkswagen Workstadt in San Mateo when he's told the cost of being a mobile advertiser with Google will be $15,000 or so a month? I think I'll be able to hear him tell the innocent ad sales person to "sod off" all the way down here in Southern California. The same scene will be repeated at Carmen's' and LaTolteca in Azusa, except the profanities will be yelled using words I understand, but which would have caused Little Jimmy's mouth to get washed out with lye soap by Mama Helen, the "mamacita" of my youth.
So the question then for Google, Apple and others at the top end of the chain becomes "what do we have to provide small businesses to entice them onto the mobile commerce bandwagon?" This is a much more complex scenario that I think will involve carriers, or regional portals. And the more I think about it, the more i believe that this is a space where Yahoo, regional advertising consortia or even AOL, as well as established media organizations like the LA Times and McClatchy Media can establish viable commercial positions.
Think for a minute, what organization has the contacts and experience needed to sell mobile, presence-based advertising to small businesses? I don't think its Google or even AT&T/Cingular.
One of the steepest angles in the geometry of mobile commerce that needs to be overcome is the glacial pace at which US consumers adopt new handset technologies. And for mobile commerce to take off new handsets are needed. Throwaway flip phones lack the horsepower, interface, screen and other attributes needed to make mobile search and mobile commerce a compelling consumer experience. Apple's iPhone is a great first step, but in reality it's little more than a basic technology demonstrator.
My bet, however, is that it's such a good basic platform the technology preview events scheduled for later this year will--for the first time-- be awash in Apple hardware, which means that to facilitate good demonstrations and overcome the weaknesses of the Cingular network, most of the producers of thiese show, and the demonstrators that use iPhones, should now be contacting AT&T/Cingular to make sure they have the requisite COWs (cell towers on wheels) in place to insure good iPhone demonstrations.
In conclusion, iPhone is a great first step, and Google probably isn't very far behind. Both companies have the capabilities to prize open the mobile commerce market, which will be driven partly by mobile search. However, in the emerging mobile commerce model, new partners that can work with Google, hardware makers (handset) and cell networks are needed. The sales and marketing professionals who can tactically drive this are not found at Google or among cell phone network corporations, they'll come from regional media outlets, savvy portals like Yahoo and anyone else who beats the bushes and drums up businesses with small businesses, which are the backbone of regional markets.
For ten years-- going back to my tenure as a Demo event producer, I've beat the drums for mobile search driven, presence-enabled electronic commerce. Over time I came to believe problems with Blue tooth hand set implementations, poor cell network signal saturation, and faulty WAP browser code hindered adoption. All those problems have now been solved and the time and technologies are in alignment. At last.
Can I get an "Amen," brothers and sisters-- Jim Forbes still beating the mobile commerce parade drum from a rural mountain top in rural San Diego County.
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