Showing posts with label mobile web. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mobile web. Show all posts

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Mobile: Stating The Obvious

To say right now we are in the mobile era is to state the obvious. It is like in the 1980s AIDS became big news. But people are still figuring out AIDS. I have a feeling mobile is something like that. Tech giants might spend the rest of this decade trying to figure out mobile.

Mobile first companies have a leg up in that sense. But then they are going to have to figure out the web in due time.

Mobile is not the Internet as we knew it, just like the Internet was not computers as we knew them. Mobile is a new beast with its own particulars.

A child is not a small adult. Mobile is not a smaller version of the web, it is not MiniMe. Mobile is no child.



Fred Wilson, Mark Zuckerberg And Mobile
Mark Suster's Web Second Applies To Instagram
2011-2015: A Mobile Stretch
Netizen Has Arrived: A Link From AVC
Twitter, FourSquare: Mobile Web Thingies

Mobile revolution, economy trip up tech giants
consumers' waning love affair with the stalwart PC and infatuation with mobile -- the most significant tectonic shift in the industry since the advent of the Internet ...... raging mobile hardware demand .... About 800,000 shoppers made their first-ever eBay purchase through a mobile device. ..... "Mobile is not proving to be as straightforward as people thought." ...... a worsening macroeconomic environment. ..... The biggest stunner was perhaps Google, which shed more than $20 billion of market value after it reported that its core advertising business had slowed. ....... Click prices declined for the fourth consecutive quarter .... Zynga, the poster child for mobile transition woes ..... the evolution of mobile Internet, social networking is usually the first to spread around the world, followed by games and then advertising ...... Perhaps hardest-hit are Intel and others closely tied to the PC chain .. While Intel dominated that space in its prime, in smartphones its market share is less than 1 percent
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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Wordpress For Mobile App Creation

Drag and Drop Ltd LogoImage via Wikipedia
ReadWriteWeb: Like WordPress for Mobile App Creation: Cabana is a Service to Watch: Is it possible for a visual drag-and-drop mobile app creation tool to deliver a sophisticated product? ..... Drag and drop addition of features like a camera, check-ins on services like Gowalla or Foursquare, integration of the Instagram photo API and many more things are possible. ..... There is a clear demand for this kind of light app publishing technology
This is the future people. Until the mobile web attains the same levels as the big screen web, we will need apps. And just like every offline business needs its own specific website, the mobile phone app has become the equivalent of the website on the big screen web. And the only way to meet that demand would be through services like this that promise to take the wizardry out of mobile app creation. Anyone who can drag and drop should be able to build an app.

Friday, October 15, 2010

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

Image representing Etsy as depicted in CrunchBaseImage via CrunchBase

I am in my 30s. Isn't it a little too late to be asking that question? I take solace in the fact that we live in an era when people will have a few different careers before they retire and go ahead and die. That would be fine except I seem to be having a few different careers at the same time, in parallel: no complaints. I have tried to learn positivity from my man Obama.

Finally I might have found it: a for profit micro finance startup with IPO ambitions. (Microfinance: The Next Big Thing?) And the fact that I am about a year away from my green card feels like no hindrance at all. I will just get someone else to incorporate the company. The conversation is in full swing, the work is on.

Google Car, Google Monorail
Physically Aware Internet
Solar Panels To Roll Out
To Natural User Interface
Offshoring The Wind Harvesting: Google Wind
Etsy, GroupOn, Zynga
Becoming Whole With The Mobile Web
NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 26:  Microfinance pioneer...Image by Getty Images via @daylife
Before this I have been emailing my 12 line resume - in text format, my machine does not have Microsoft Office on it - to all sorts of people on Craig's List. For the longest time I did not even send cover letters. What is that? The thing is I have never had a job. Don't ask how that came to be, but that is the fact. Then I started sending cover letters, the same standard, half hearted cover letters where I was calling all sorts of jobs my "dream job." The truth is there is no dream job out there. My dream job necessarily has to be self created.

Then I have thought of tech consulting and social media consulting. (An Online Social Media Instructor, Not Your Usual Yoga Guru)
NASDAQImage via WikipediaThere are more than a dozen coders in India on stand by for me as we speak. I find them projects, they get working, I pay them their hourly rate, take my cut, and we all end up happy: that has been the idea. (Becoming Whole With The Mobile Web)

I just talked to the guy in Kerala last night, and to the dude in Pittsburgh today.

I was going to doodle along for a year like that, doing a few things, but not really doing much, learn some Scala along the way, (Al Wenger Wants To Learn Scala) and get into the mobile web upon getting my green card. I have a mobile app in mind that would grow from the small screen to the big screen.


I have had people ask me if I might have run for president if I had been born in the US. First of all, people, I am utmost flattered. But that question is too theoretical. That is like asking what would life be like if earth had moon's kind of gravity. The mental exercise is not worth it. Microfinance fascinates me, the affordable housing issue in NYC does not.
Groupon logo.Image via WikipediaThere are a few things I wanted to do in tech, but then I will keep my serial entrepreneur options open, and perhaps I will get to invest in ideas that I might not get to bring to fruition myself.

Large scale group dynamics is my thing. I am really, really good at it. (Iran) Even when I have expressed Nasdaq headed tech company ambitions, I have thought more in terms having money to pour into microfinance, and less in terms of private jets. But why take that long route? Why not go straight into microfinance? There is no limit to how much money you can raise if you do it right. This is potentially a market in the trillions of dollars.

But make no mistake, the tech part of this startup is central to what it is going to be. This is first and foremost a tech startup. The concept feels like having your cake and eating it too.

This is one brave new century.

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Sunday, October 10, 2010

Becoming Whole With The Mobile Web


It is said we live in an era when people will have not a few different jobs over a lifetime but a few different careers. The one job for life thing went out the window a long time ago. It has been so very true for me.

The immigration humiliation of the past two plus years has been a major blow to self esteem. You show up for enough tech events in town and you leave the impression you are one of those people whose startup never took off. The truth is I am about a year from my green card, and the startup thing will have to wait until then.

What to do has been no minor struggle.

A lot of people who know me think of me as a politician, and I have done some political work, sure, some pretty cutting edge stuff, I would like to believe. But I am who I am. I am a Third World guy. I don't think I have ever seriously contemplated running for office locally. I can get excited about microfinance, but affordable housing? I am not so sure. I am glad plenty get excited about that, and the people are well served, but I am not in that rat race personally.

It is not just a demand issue. It is not just about what the world wants. It is also a supply issue. In politics what excites me is the executive. The US presidency I find fascinating. But I could not say the same about the legislative branch. And that tells me I am cut for tech entrepreneurship. That fits into my personality type. I need much action.

Minus the web I am a fragmented person. I was born in India, grew up in Nepal, now live in America. America is not one country to me. There is the rest of America. And there is New York City. I try to think of New York City as a country on its own. I make a point not to step outside the city boundaries. And I am someone who has been to all parts of America. No one who ran for president of this country has seen as much of America as I have.

It is through my three blogs that I become whole: Democracy For Nepal, Barackface, Netizen.

Larry Ellison takes his sailing pretty seriously. I take my politics pretty seriously. But I don't see myself in politics. I don't even see me doing the Bloomberg thing. I am perhaps too global. It is a mindset, it is a world view. In my case, it is just who I am.

I set out to raise 100K for my startup in 2008, and I did. I put the bank account in my business partner's name. ("Are you sure you want to trust me with all this money!") The Democratic primary over, I was going to focus on the startup like a laser beam. The McCain thing was not going to be much of a contest. I did not think so.

Back then it was about getting into the ISP space that I had started to call Web 3.0. How do you bring another five billion people online? By now I am much more interested in the mobile web. Looks like the mobile web has already engulfed much of humanity. Well, it is Mini Me for much of the world, but it is a start. Being able to do mobile phone banking is nothing less than revolutionary.

I have yet to buy my first smartphone. I have been pretty much broke during these two plus years of immigration humiliation. But I also look down upon that screen size. The goal has to be big screen wireless broadband for everybody. Third World people are not Mini Me people. And I spend so much time online everyday already that when I am offline I like being offline, untethered. You have to smell the roses, or in the case of New York City, the foul smell of the subway. I think that is also important.

When I do my startup in a year, right now it looks like it is going to be something in the mobile web space. I have a few ideas. I am going to learn some coding in the mean time, enough to lead teams.

In the mean time I will do pro blogging, social media consulting, I have coders who will work for you, I give them their pay and take my cut: let me know if you need some cheap, remote coding done. I am open to getting a job. I am about to put my profile up on a modeling site. I believe I could handle that on the side. I did get a call. I need to call back. I am open to more.

I could use some help with the pro blogging. Every startup worth its salt has a social media presence. This is like outsourcing some of the blogging. You let me do a post or two or three. On your part that would require you giving me an hour or two of your time, in person or on the phone, in person preferred, when you tell me your full story, your full story, and your startup's full story. And by full, I mean full. And you let me talk to the key people on your team. And you email me all the pictures you want to go with the posts. And I would spend hours on the posts. And after the posts come out, you should want to link to them from your site. If you get the full story out, that helps with your hard core users, they feel more included, and become more loyal, and it helps with the press. If they can do all the background research on you with little effort, they are more likely to do stories on you. And more stories the better. Every article written about you is so much free advertising. And it helps with your future investors. I don't have space issues like the mainstream media. I can give as much space to you as needed.

The attraction of the mobile web is that you are working with a pool of five billion people. There has to be an app for that. It is about becoming whole as a person. To me it is. I have a mobile web app in mind that grows to also end up with a big screen web presence. But one year is a long time in tech entrepreneurship. Maybe I will go back to my original idea. Maybe I will set up shop in Queens. But software speaks more to my butterfly effect instincts.




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Monday, September 06, 2010

Mobile Web: For Real

Fred Wilson - The Naked TruthImage by Randy Stewart via Flickr
A few days ago Fred Wilson linked to a blog post of mine, and now TechCrunch has linked to that blog post by Fred Wilson.

If you know Fred Wilson, and if you know TechCrunch, this is a good thing.

There is a clear distinction between the mobile web and the big screen web. Some people don't think there is. Them you get to ask, where have you been these past few years?
TechCrunch: The Real Social Network: Your Mobile Contacts: the best indicator of who I actually interact with socially the most in real life are the calls I make and the texts I send — it’s all mobile interaction. ...... location is the bridge between social networks and actual social life
I have talked about location and more specifically FourSquare many times at this blog. All you have to do is conduct a search in this blog's search box to find out.

Mobile web is for real. Location is key. Location is the starting point to the mobile web experience. And that is why a company like FourSquare will beat companies for whom location is not the starting point of the experience.

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Friday, September 03, 2010

Is The Mobile Web In A Category Of Its Own?

Image representing John Battelle as depicted i...Image via CrunchBase
To me the answer is obvious. Of course the mobile web is a category of its own. Where have you been these past few years?

Twitter, FourSquare: Mobile Web Thingies

Fred Wilson responded to my blog post this morning. He declared we are in resonance.

Fred Wilson: Mobile First Web Second

John Battelle responded disagreeing with Fred.

John Battelle: It's All The Web

Of course it is all one web. But we are also all one humanity. Why do we talk of different cultures and heritages? Why do we talk of white and black and brown and yellow people? To acknowledge and respect and celebrate those various heritages is not to deny the wholeness of humanity.

I am in disbelief that John Battelle said what he said. Where has he been these past few years? The mobile web has so taken off. It is not possible he missed out on that.

The meme that the web is dead that has really taken off recently in some circles does not go well with me. I don't think iPhone apps are anywhere close to competing with the larger web. The iPhone apps enrichen the ecosystem, but they are a small subcategory.

Dead Web?

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Twitter, FourSquare: Mobile Web Thingies

Image representing Evan Williams as depicted i...Image by The Economist via CrunchBase
Twitter Blog: Evan Williams: The Evolving Ecosystem: "Twitter is too hard" ..... we were doing users a disservice by not having a great client on each of the major mobile platforms ..... Total mobile users has jumped 62 percent since mid-April, and, remarkably, 16 percent of all new users to Twitter start on mobile now ..... 46 percent of active users make mobile a regular part of their Twitter experience.....while smart phone clients are important, there are even more people who use the mobile Twitter web site and/or SMS. We've been seeing strong growth in both of these areas..... users of programs like TweetDeck are some of the most active and frequent users ..... The number of registered OAuth applications is now at almost 300,000—this number has nearly tripled since Chirp.....we currently have more than 145 million registered users and the performance of our Promoted Products has exceeded our expectations.

FourSquare more so than Twitter, but Twitter too. FourSquare was never really meant to be a big screen web thing. Twitter can work on the web, but not FourSquare. But even Twitter, it can be argued, is primarily a mobile web thing. It is meant to be a mobile web thing.

I keep thinking in terms of the Twitter of things. (The Internet Of Things) I think most tweets sent in the far future will emanate not from people but things. Or perhaps there will be a next generation company that will focus on primarily being the Twitter of things. And the "tweets" will not be words at all.

I have been late coming to the mobile web phenomenon. That is rather curious for a Third World guy.

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Friday, February 26, 2010

The Foursquare Rap: Badges Like Us



Lyrics:
Mr. Silvas in da building
Checkins by the hundreds, thousands, trillionz

Ayo I know its my first stop
Look at that leaderboard and see me at the top

Bouncin to new places, adding em quick
I know all the TO-DOs and I got all the tips

Show up at the Bar and I check in Right Away
Sent it to my Twitter cuz Im here to stay

Looks like you got ousted welcome to the game
This is Foursquare bitch! Gowalla aint the same!!

Now that Im the mayor, now that Im here
Gimme my free breadsticks AND my cold beer!!

La la la la
How it feel to wake up and be the mayor of the city!
La la la la
Tryina get that Crunked badge, drinkin like P Diddy

[Chorus]

Got a rock like this
Cant use an iPhone, AT&Ts a piece of shhh

No one on the corner had an app on this
So I used my mobile web, wasnt very quick

You can learn where to eat just by checking my feed
Checkin checkin my feed checkin checkin my feed

Follow my lead its the road to success
Never need a reservation, they always say YES

But I cant teach you my swag
You can pay for a coffee but you cant buy a badge

School of social media Imma grad
I hope this hits techcrunch or else Ill be sad

Its Newby
Checkin w/ the groupies eating lotsa sushi

Newwwbyy
Bet you didnt know we could flow like thiiiiis

[Chorus]

Lets talk about the knockoffs, they just imitating
They cant even compare and no were not even hating

Copyin foursquare cuz you lack innovation
How could you turn down Googles valuation?

So let me say it now, let me be clear
Foursquare is the app that all you should fear

Hockey stick growth, all star investors
Lots of passionate users, all beta testers

I add lots of value, Im a superuser
You cant spell your top venues, super abuser

Dont checkin to your house, thats just really lame
Ill snatch up all your badges, call me David Blaine

Your checkins are fake, theres no way those are true
20 stops in one night? IM GONNA CATCH YOU!!

And whats up with all these randos trying to friend me?
Im checked in off the grid like TIGER WOODS B!!!!!














TechCrunch: Badges Like Us: FourSquare Gets Its Rap Song
Location! Location! Location!
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