Global Mobile : Applications and Innovations for the Worldwide Mobile Ecosystem [1 ed.] 9781573877923, 9781573874625

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Praise for Global Mobile “Nothing gets marketers closer to their consumers than mobile and nothing captures or educates on that better than Global Mobile. It’s a must read for the future.” —Greg Stuart, global CEO, Mobile Marketing Association “One might easily mistake this for a book about mobile. It’s really about the history of our world at the precipice of transformation. Full of astonishing facts and insights, this easy-to-read and well-edited compendium helps us understand the prolific and profound shifts that augur the world’s most accelerated global upheaval.” —Florie Brizel, author and mobilologist “Timely, comprehensive, and ambitious, catching and documenting the world as a major transformation takes place; an excellent resource … just what students need to dip into frequently as background to the wider world of mobiles and mobiles in the wider world in order to see the broader social, cultural, and economic context of the changed world of learning.” —John Traxler, professor of mobile learning and director, Learning Lab “Mobile is now a global phenomenon. But different geographies have different emphases within mobile. Few books provide the global perspective. Bruck and Rao’s excellent book provides insights from global experts and thus helps cross pollinate ideas. I very much recommend it.” —Ajit Jaokar, founder, feynlabs/futuretext, London “A must read … presents the various dimensions of the mobile ecosystem that has become omnipresent in our daily lives and work. These various perspectives also inform us of the world we inhabit today and the future we are heading into globally, from multiple lenses.” —Sundeep R. Muppidi, PhD, MDP, past secretary general of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre, Singapore, and associate professor of communication, University of Hartford (CT) “Mobile is redefining the way we service the citizen, student, shopper, and user. While mobile consumers have become faster, incumbent institutions have not managed to keep up. Global Mobile provides key insights from mobile leaders across the world. This book is an essential toolkit for governments, businesses, and brands that need to reconnect to their mobile consumer.” —Gary Schwartz, author, Fast Shopper, Slow Store, and mobile chair emeritus, Interactive Advertising Bureau and Mobile Entertainment Forum “Global Mobile provides a tour de force examination of the transformative impact of mobile communications around the world.” —John Pavlik, Northwestern University, Qatar

Edited by Peter A. Bruck and Madanmohan Rao

Medford, New Jersey

First Printing, 2013 Global Mobile: Applications and Innovations for the Worldwide Mobile Ecosystem Copyright © 2013 by Peter A. Bruck and Madanmohan Rao All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published by Information Today, Inc., 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, New Jersey 08055. Publisher’s Note: The editors and publisher have taken care in preparation of this book but make no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the use of the information or programs contained herein. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and Information Today, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Global mobile : applications and innovations for the worldwide mobile ecosystem / edited by Peter A. Bruck and Madanmohan Rao. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-57387-462-5 1. Mobile computing. I. Bruck, Peter A. (Peter Aurelius), 1950- editor of compilation. II. Rao, Madanmohan, editor of compilation. QA76.59.G56 2013 004.167--dc23 2013009194 Printed and bound in the United States of America. President and CEO: Thomas H. Hogan, Sr. Editor-in-Chief and Publisher: John B. Bryans VP Graphics and Production: M. Heide Dengler Managing Editor: Amy M. Reeve Editorial Assistant: Brandi Scardilli Cover Designer: Lisa Conroy Copyeditor: Bonnie Freeman Proofreader: Penelope Mathiesen Indexer: Becky Hornyak www.infotoday.com

Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Introduction: A World Gone Mobile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Madanmohan Rao

P a r t

O n e

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1

FOUNDATIONS Mobile and Megatrends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Tomi Ahonen

C h a p t e r

2

The Psychology of Mobile Technologies . . . . . . . 47 Pamela B. Rutledge

C h a p t e r

3

Mobile Theories and Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Yi-Fan Chen

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4

Digital Gemeinschaft, the Control Revolution, and Technologies of Social Mediation . . . . . . . . . 93 Rich Ling

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5

Competition and the Evolution of Mobile Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Chetan Sharma

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6

The Business of Mobile in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Lawrence ‘Lars’ Cosh-Ishii, Mobikyo

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7

Mobile Web Design Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Janine Warner v

vi Global Mobile

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8

Mobile Spectrum: Overcoming Challenges of Scarcity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Lynne Gallagher

P a r t

T w o

C h a p t e r

9

MOBILE IMPACTS Mobile Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Patricia Mechael, Ada Kwan, and Dayle Kern

C h a p t e r

1 0 Mobile Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Jon Mason

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1 1

Mobile Phones and Journalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Stephen Quinn

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1 2 The Mobile Media Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Xu Xiaoge

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1 3 Mobile Entertainment: The World Is Overflowing With Screenagers! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Ralph Simon

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1 4 Mobile Value-Added Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Sanjay Uppal

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1 5 Mobile Workforce: The Rise of the Mobilocracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 iPass, Inc., Kate Blatt, and John Gallagher

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1 6 The Role of Mobile Social Media in Enterprises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 Tobias Brockmann and Stefan Stieglitz

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1 7 Social + Location + Mobile: SoLoMo Analytics and the Transformation of Shopping . . . . . . . . . . 311 Phil Hendrix

Contents vii

C h a p t e r

1 8 Mobile and Small Business: Emerging Trends and Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 Andrew Pearson

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1 9 The Mobile Opportunity in ICT4D . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Ken Banks

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2 0 Mobile Phones and Financial Inclusion . . . . . . . 363 Anir Chowdhury and Partha Sarker

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2 1 Rural Mobile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385 Bashir Patel

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2 2 Mobile Telephony in Rural Areas: A Case Study in Puno, Peru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409 Mireia Fernández-Ardèvol, Roxana Barrantes Cáceres, and Aileen Agüero García

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2 3 Mobile Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429 Seang-Tae Kim

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2 4 Mobile China: Opportunities and Challenges . . 447 Xu Xiaoge

Part

T h r e e THE ROAD AHEAD

C h a p t e r

2 5 Mobile Innovation Ecosystems: The Global Mobile Monday Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467 Jari Tammisto

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2 6 Mobile Excellence: Awards and Mentorship Processes for Innovators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483 Osama Manzar

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2 7 Mobile Innovation Trends: Beyond the Hype Cycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505 Anuraj Gambhir

viii Global Mobile

C h a p t e r

2 8 Mobile Operators: Shifting Value Chains . . . . . . 521 Karim Taga and Clemens Schwaiger

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2 9 Policy and Regulatory Issues in the Mobile Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539 Russell Southwood

C h a p t e r

3 0 Mobiles and the Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555 Pavan Duggal

C h a p t e r

3 1 Mobile Partnerships and Alliances . . . . . . . . . . . . 567 V. Sridhar

About the Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581 About the Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593

Preface It has been a delight and a pleasure to put this book together and also an honour and a privilege. As Global Mobile goes to press, it is just two decades since the first short message service (SMS) message was sent from a mobile phone, in 1993, slowly but surely triggering an unprecedented mobile media boom around the world. Mobile has, in less than 10 years, become so formative in individual lives and societies that it is not merely normal or even essential, but rather forms the basis for much of human interaction. In many sectors of society, mobile is not just the prime technology, it is arguably the only medium. Mobile is riding a cumulative wave of technology foundations, starting with Moore’s Law (computing power doubles every 18 months, accompanied by a 50 percent reduction in cost), as well as dramatic improvements in optical transmission, data storage, screen resolution, and network switching. Beyond technology, numerous pressing questions are being debated today in the realm of the mobile phone and other wireless access platforms. For example, What is ubiquitous mobile access doing to our learning and information processing capacity? How will it redefine work–life balance? Can traditional media really reinvent themselves via mobile media? What new forms of storytelling and narrative are enabled by mobile media? Which despotic government is the next to be toppled by smart swarms using mobile social networks? How will copyright laws work for mobile content? How should crises be covered using a mix of broadcast and mobile media? How can mobile operators increase average revenue per unit in the face of intense disruption from internet giants? How can citizen journalists harness the power of smartphones and SMS alerts while also avoiding rumours and hoaxes? Is mobile really the perfect marketing medium? How can regulators juggle the evercompeting priorities of the global mobile industry, local players, consumers, and citizens? What new syllabi, technology partnerships, and internship arrangements can help academia prepare students for the mobile world of the future? What ix

x Global Mobile

impacts will wireless media have on mobile natives of the future? Are mobile social networks becoming the next democratic wave—or surveillance webs for law enforcement agencies and corporate powerhouses? What new pricing points of the next mobile devices will help bridge the digital divide? The different regions of the world add their own local flavours to this mobile brew. How will the emerging powers of Asia jostle for leadership with the incumbent mobile leaders in Europe and the U.S.? What innovations from Africa will leap into other emerging economies? What will be the next gamechanging startup to emerge in Latin America? What kind of role can mobile communications play in the landlocked nations of Bhutan and Bolivia or in small island nations such as Fiji and Cape Verde? Global Mobile does not answer all of these questions, but it begins the conversation and reflection in a substantive and incisive manner. The book joins a growing number of publications on mobile media, but it is among the first to blend perspectives directly from experts in industry, government, academia, and civil society. Several other fine books on mobile address these sectors separately, but none brings all four together. This book is unique, if we do say so ourselves. Its 31 chapters open up to readers a comprehensive richness of topics and span the often unsettling complexity of issues, which is noteworthy, considering that all the authors maintain a tight focus on mobile. More important, the writing stays largely away from the fallacies of technological determinism or social constructivism. Rather, the book presents a circumspect view of the various enabling moments of mobile and the varied consequences in nearly all aspects of individual, social, political, cultural, economic, and civil life. In our journeys across the world as researchers, speakers, consultants, and awards organisers, we—the two editors of this volume—have been inspired and humbled by the people we have met and the range of innovations we have encountered. Few of our counterparts in other industries are witnessing anything as powerful and profound as the mobile wave; mobile communication is not just a major vertical industry in its own right but also a horizontal enabler, and even a disruptor in sectors ranging from news to finance and in activities from socialising to marketing. We met through the World Summit Award (WSA), which is the United Nations–based follow-up activity of the World Summit on the Information Society (www.wsis-award.org). We have reached out through our networks in various sectors, such as the Mobile Monday innovation community (www.mobilemonday.net) and the WSA Mobile, anchored recently in Abu Dhabi (thanks to the Abu Dhabi Systems & Information Centre). We regard it as our duty to the mobile community and those outside it to share our cross-disciplinary insights and networks. We are deeply grateful to our 35-plus contributors from various disciplines and from around the world,

Preface xi

who have generously given their time and expertise to this project. We also thank the Information Today, Inc., team members for their encouragement, advice, and patience during this long but fruitful exercise. Global Mobile is divided into three parts: foundations, impacts, and futures of mobile. The Introduction provides a good overview of the scale and scope of the book and summarises some key contributions of each chapter. The book provides a useful framework (based on the “8 Cs”: connectivity, content, community, commerce, culture, capacity, cooperation, and capital) for assessing mobile media impacts across industries and countries. It also classifies the mobile information societies of the world into seven types, based on a combination of these factors: restrictive, embryonic, emerging, negotiating, intermediate, mature, and advanced. We’re very pleased to present Global Mobile at this timely juncture. The number of mobile connected devices recently exceeded the human population, revealing the sheer scale of mobile diffusion. Even more impressive are the qualitative insights our expert contributors provide into the cognitive, social, cultural, economic, and political impacts of mobile. We trust the book will be embraced as required reading for those involved across the spectrum of mobile media: operators, technology players, academics, educators, journalists, advertisers, public relations agencies, brand marketers, policymakers, legal experts, students, and especially youth. Finally, in true 21st-century style, Global Mobile has an online companion (www.wsa-mobile.org) and a twitter account (@WSAoffice). Questions? Fire away, and we hope to see you in sequels and companion volumes to this book! Peter A. Bruck Salzburg / Abu Dhabi / Ottawa

Madanmohan Rao Bangalore / Singapore

I n t r o d u c t i o n

A World Gone Mobile Madanmohan Rao

From dramatically changing business and political climates across the world to grammatically changing spelling and sentence structures via short message service (SMS), mobile phones are transforming countries and cultures in unprecedented ways. The convergence of digital communications environments, from mobile and internet to broadcast and personal media, is sometimes referred to as the Evernet or Supranet, and interesting variations are emerging in the diffusion and cultural acceptance of mobile media around the world. The study of mobile communications is turning out to be one of the most interdisciplinary fields ever, and books such as this one are good examples of such collaborative research projects. This introduction provides an overview of the mobile ecosystem, identifies a wide spectrum of opportunities and challenges for different players, and highlights insights from the contributed chapters in this book. “You can tell what a culture values by what it has in its bags and pockets,” popular science author John Agar said in 2003. The pocket watch, a rarity in the 17th century, became an expensive status symbol for business professionals in the 18th century and was owned by the majority of the adult population in the 19th and 20th centuries. Watches provide the closest historical parallel to the remarkable rise of the mobile cellular phone, observes Agar. Like watches, cell phones started off as expensive status symbols, costing as much as a car, but are now owned by billions of people worldwide. Paralleling the boom in mobile communications around the world, a wave of innovation has emerged in wireless organisational networking, promising to usher in a new world of untethered knowledge workers and flexible network organisations. Wireless local area networks for plug and connect applications 1

2 Global Mobile

have rapidly emerged in offices, homes, hotels, warehouses, hospitals, and stock exchanges. Public WiFi hot spots have created quilts of connectivity across airport lounges, libraries, conference venues, and cafes.

Literature Insights Technology innovators have driven a dizzying pace of digital media evolution during the past three decades, and the next wave is powered by developments in embedded chips and hybrid networks. Physicist Michio Kaku (2011) interviewed more than 300 of the world’s top scientists to present a fascinating view of what the next 100 years of inventions and their impacts may look like. Just as, two to three decades ago, many computer pioneers predicted some of what we are now witnessing in the world of ubiquitous mobile devices, many scientists and labs today are able to make educated guesses about emerging technological innovations. These include internet-enabled glasses, wireless safety chips embedded in clothes and automobiles, and nanotechnology devices (Table I.1). A range of market research firms also offers insights into what may be possible in the next decade of mobile innovation. These firms include International Data Corp. (IDC); Gartner, Frost & Sullivan; Yankee Group; IMS Research; eMarketer; ABI Research; Forrester; Berg Insight; Pike Research; InStat; BIA/Kelsey; Pyramid Research; and Juniper. Their predictions cover mobile device penetration, mobile transaction volumes, mobile internet usage, app downloads, machine-to-machine communications, healthcare impacts, mobile search patterns, mobile cybercrimes, music streaming, digital publishing, mobile shopping, and a whole lot more. Table I.2 summarises some of the research trends and predictions through the year 2020. But that is getting ahead of the story a bit. Let us begin with more recent milestones in the mobile world. In the U.S. and much of western Europe, more than half of mobile users in 2012 are estimated to own smartphones (Nielsen 2012; Smith 2012), and half of social media usage happens via mobile phones. In 2012, the number of mobile-connected devices exceeded the world’s population, and the sales of smartphones exceeded those of PCs (Morgan Stanley 2012). Research from Ericsson (2012) estimates that there were 2 billion internet users, 5 billion mobile users, and 1.4 billion social media users in 2012, and that 200,000 SMS messages were sent every second. Mobile data traffic surpassed voice in 2009 and became double the voice traffic for the first time in 2011 in terms of bytes of data. Exciting though these numbers and trends may be, the aim of this book is to go beyond numerical extrapolations and delve into the qualitative dynamics of

Introduction 3

Table I.1

Technology Evolution for the 21st Century. Source: Adapted from Michio Kaku, Physics of the Future (New York: Penguin Books, 2011)

mobile ecosystems. The numbers are illustrative of the scale and scope of the mobile phenomenon, but in-depth and long-term analysis calls for more theoretical approaches and interpretive frameworks. Mobile communication arguably constitutes the most successful and certainly the most rapidly adopted new technology in the world, according to James Katz (2008). It shows how miraculous technologies quickly come to seem ordinary and even necessary. Mobile communication has affected the quality of life in both exotic and mundane settings. In his authoritative Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies, Katz compiles 32 chapters on the cultural, family, and interpersonal consequences of mobile communication across the globe, as well as economic and political aspects. The handbook offers a wealth of insights: • Some youth find little difference between mobile and face-to-face communication.

4 Global Mobile

Table I.2

Mobile Forecasts Through 2020

Introduction 5

• Ringtones have become a form of social exchange. • Mobiles can blend with individual as well as family-centric processes. • The mobile phone is playing an important role in the modernisation of countries such as India. • Mobiles help create a sense of co-presence among tourists and migrant workers. • Mobile phones have been used for hyper-coordination of activists in the Arab street. • Mobile technologies aid democratic processes by monitoring election turnout but can also be used by terrorists. • Analog-era regulations and policies are ill-suited to the digital world of mobile. • Mobile communication has done more to overcome the digital divide than the PC has. • New divides are emerging between the “less poor” and the “poorest poor.” • Mobiles offer new benefits to illiterate and semi-literate users. • The mobile phone is critical to social role fulfilment and selfperception, irrespective of poverty level. Howard Rheingold (2003) provides one of the early and influential panoramas of the wireless and mobile ecosystem, ranging from wireless dating and political activism to reputation systems and privacy threats. He traces how wireless technologies are proliferating in multiple forms: wireless internet nodes, radio-frequency identification tags, and embedded microchips (in “smartifacts”). One should expect the unexpected when previously separate technologies meet, as with the marriage of the PC and telecom networks to create the internet, which spawned possibilities that neither of the parent technologies exhibited in isolation. “Just as existing notions of community were challenged by the emergence of social networks in cyberspace, traditional ideas about the nature of place are being challenged as computing and communication devices begin to saturate the environment,” says Rheingold (2003). Mobile internet will not just be a way to do old things while moving; it will be a way to do things that could not be done before. The mobile phone has jumped from a useful toy adopted by a subculture to a disruptive technology that changes every aspect of society. Some innovations are ahead of their time or will morph in unexpected ways and reappear later. “Sometimes a technological development appears to

6 Global Mobile

dead-end, when it is really in the process of side-stepping,” Rheingold rightly observes (2003). An interesting feature of digital media infrastructure is that computers are among the rare technologies that grow more powerful and less expensive simultaneously, thanks to growth patterns characterised by Moore’s Law (doubling of computing power every 18 months), Metcalfe’s Law (value of a network grows with the square of the number of nodes), Sarnoff’s Law (value of broadcast networks is proportionate to the number of viewers), and Reed’s Law (value of a social network grows exponentially with the userbase). Virtual and physical worlds are becoming increasingly enmeshed as computing devices are built into physical locations and wearable devices—creating smart rooms, digital cities, and global communication “skins.” Computers will eventually be so pervasive that they will “disappear,” in the way of electricity, which most urban citizens have taken for granted for more than a century. On January 20, 2001, President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines became the first head of state in history to lose power in a protest movement coordinated in part by smart mobs or smart swarms using SMS to broadcast and receive messages. “The Philippines might furnish early indicators of the way mobile communications could affect other countries where it is more costeffective to jump directly to a wireless infrastructure,” Rheingold (2003) observes. Developments such as the Arab Spring of 2011 have showcased the sociopolitical power of mobile social media more recently. Mats Lindgren, Jorgen Jedbratt, and Erika Svensson (2002) trace the evolution of the “individual as a mobile creature” through the ages of the huntergatherer society (constant movement), agricultural society (work restricted to fields), industrial society (extremely limited work mobility), and knowledge society (knowledge workers carry their work with them and are connected to the workplace). From a paucity of information, we are now in a world of “constant excess,” as the news and entertainment clock continually changes. Payment systems over the millennia have also evolved, from barter to money and to emoney. On the industry front, Dan Steinbock (2003) delineates the evolution of mobile communication into the pre-cellular and the 1G, 2G, and 3G eras, along with the national dynamics for each era, in the markets of the U.S., Japan, and Nordic countries. Portio Research (“Your Portio Research Free Mobile Factbook” 2012) compares the diffusion rates of mobile phones with those of traditional and social media (Table I.3). George Gilder (2000) coined the term telecosm (adding an s to telecom) to describe the world enabled and defined by new communications technology. Bandwidth is exploding, and its abundance is one of the most important social and economic facts of our time.

Introduction 7

Table I.3

Media Diffusion: Number of Years to Reach 150 Million Users or Units Sold. Source: Adapted from “Your Portio Research Free Mobile Factbook,” 2012

Developments in the “fibersphere” are shaped by fields such as quantum mechanics and photonics. “Both the telecosm and the microcosm spring from the quantum, with its paradoxical synthesis of definite and infinite, particles and waves, compression and expansion,” Gilder explains (2000). “The communications scene has changed from a pyramid of Bell to a tower of Babel,” Gilder says (2000), referring to the reconfiguration of AT&T and the Baby Bells in the U.S. and today’s myriad of diverse players around the world. “The internet is not merely a radiance of connections; it is a mesh of constant invention. It has fallen in the hands of a billion learners and value creators,” Gilder adds (2000). A key success factor for mobile phone adoption is user experience design. Christian Lindholm, Turkka Keinonen, and Harri Kiljander (2003) survey a wide array of design considerations that started in the featurephone era, such as design of navigational keys, SMS menu options, just-in-time usability, and cultural nuances of information-sharing behaviours. Much of these design considerations has been augmented in the era of smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. Several researchers have compiled lists of features that describe mobiles variously as tools, channels, platforms, and devices. Mobile devices are personal, multifaceted, time- and location sensitive, and response enabled (Martin 2011). Unlike other media, mobile is also a stand-up medium, often used while walking and even running. Smartphone usage is easy to ramp up because the necessary infrastructure such as internet is already accessible in many areas. Mobile penetration in most countries has crossed the 50 percent

8 Global Mobile

mark; indeed, in 2011 cell phone penetration exceeded the population base in at least 75 countries (ITU 2011). Mobiles are interactive, immediate, measurable, actionable, and fun (Krum 2010). In the world of business communications, a range of companies now offer analytics services to understand and interpret consumer behaviour. These services include mobile-only web analytics (e.g., AdMob, Bango, Mobilytics), traditional web analytics adapted for the web (e.g., Google Analytics, Omniture, WebTrends, comScore), mobile email tracking (e.g., ExactTarget, mobileStorm), application tracking (e.g., Flurry), and loyalty tracking (e.g., Unica, Responsys). Addressing mobile media’s revolutionary change to marketing, Jed Alpert (2012) cites the New York Times: “The text message may be the closest thing in the information-overloaded digital marketing world to a guaranteed read.” Alpert traces the origin of the humble SMS to Friedhelm Hillebrand, the German researcher who in 1985 set the length of SMS at 160 characters. The world’s first SMS sent from a computer came in 1992, and the first SMS sent from a mobile phone followed in 1993. “While the media tends to focus on smartphone apps, SMS messaging has become the everyphone app,” observes Alpert. As work–life balance becomes increasingly difficult (some even call it a myth), much attention has focused on the mobile knowledge worker. Michael Lattanzi, Antti Korhonen, and Vishy Gopalakrishnan (2006) chart the trends surrounding the increasing mobilisation of business and work, such as process mobilisation, productivity impacts, work-style diversity, and people management. Mobility is changing the way we work, the way we value work, and the way we manage work. Allen Wyatt (2005) classifies the world of workers into four types: deskbound workers (with assigned cubicles), teleworkers (working from other fixed locations), campus nomads (within the corporate campus), and road warriors (perpetually travelling). Each type has different needs in terms of network coverage, mobile devices, access services, and security levels. Craig Settles (2002) distinguishes between strategic and tactical aspects of mobile business. Strategic aspects include effective customer communication and enhanced internal communication. Tactical aspects could include product demonstrations, market research, and direct response communication. On a lighter note, mobile communication has spawned a whole new lexicon of words and terms that did not exist a few years ago: textiety, textlish, cathextism, textmate, sexting, flirtextatious, textual healing, obsesSMSsed, checking-in (via Foursquare), and even the Golden Age of App-ortunity! The proliferation of mobile devices can also spark new forms of cultural reclamation, as more and more people become equipped and motivated to chronicle and influence events. Mobile phones are useful tools for social

Introduction 9

change agents and activists during the phases of research, engagement, and participation. The tactical use of mobile phones can save lives during natural disasters, enable activists to monitor illegal logging, facilitate fundraising for NGOs, and help citizens report corruption and sign petitions. In this regard, mobile phones have been described as “the people’s media” (Bahague and Banks 2008). The Tactical Technology Collective has documented a range of examples of mobile activism: Ushahidi (documenting violence in Kenya), TXTpower (a consumer rights group in the Philippines), International Centre for Accelerated Development (election monitoring in Nigeria), Women of Uganda Network (activism against gender violence), and Amnesty International Netherlands (signature campaign against torture).

Framework of Analysis The structure and discussion in this book revolves around this author’s comparative framework called the 8 Cs of the mobile information society: the parameters of connectivity, content, community, commerce, culture, capacity, cooperation, and capital. There are two ways of looking at mobiles: as instruments and as an industry. As instruments, affordable and usable information and communication technologies (ICTs) can indeed transform the way societies work, entertain, study, govern, and live—at the individual, organisational, sector, vocational, and national levels. The 8 Cs framework is used to tease apart some of the key challenges in implementing the vision of knowledge societies, such as creating technology hubs, increasing ICT diffusion and adoption in developing countries, scaling up ICT pilot projects, and ensuring financial viability and social sustainability of ICT initiatives. As an industry, ICTs represent a major growing economic sector covering hardware, software, telecom/datacom, and consulting services (Table I.4). In emerging economies, development initiatives are now moving beyond top-down approaches and involve local partners and the business community. The private sector has spread technology to middle-income groups and sees the developing world and underserved populations as viable markets that require targeted products and innovative services (e.g., Nokia Life Tools, Reuters Market Light). “Between 1997 and 2001, mobile phone service was introduced throughout Kerala, a state in India with a large fishing industry. … The adoption of mobile phones by fishermen and wholesalers was associated with a dramatic reduction in price dispersion, the complete elimination of waste, and near-perfect

10 Global Mobile

Table I.4

The 8 Cs of the Mobile Information Society

adherence to the Law of One Price. Both consumer and producer welfare increased,” according to Robert Jensen (2007). Mobiles have reached the stage at which they can offer “population-level services” in emerging economies such as those of Africa, according to Gustav Praekelt (“Day Three: Mobile Marketing Association Forum” 2012) of Praekelt Consulting. “An African woman touches her hair 37 times a day, but accesses her mobile phone 82 times a day! There are more mobile phones in Uganda than lightbulbs. More than half of Africa’s population is younger than 20; they

Introduction 11

are the mobile generation,” Praekelt adds. Many African countries are “mobile only,” not just “mobile first.” In the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), innovators are emerging, ranging from value-added service (VAS) providers to mobile ad networks, and are expanding to other emerging economies and right back into the mature economies. A number of impact studies of ICTs have been conducted in sectors ranging from healthcare and education to the environment and governance, as summarised in Table I.5. Penetration of voice, SMS, and mobile internet services has spawned many pilot projects in areas such as healthcare, education, and commerce. But to truly scale up these pilot projects calls for adequate measures of project impacts. Care must be taken to build in appropriate metrics for monitoring and assessing the growth, impact, and performance of such development initiatives. While much attention has been given to financial sustainability, social and environmental sustainability of development programmes should be put on an equal footing. In the mobile world, consumers have never had it so good in terms of access options, pricing competition, and communications convenience, though challenges also arise with respect to infringement of privacy by aggressive telemarketers, a feeling of loss of personal space, excessive dependence on digital media by children, and lack of etiquette with regard to the annoyance of ringing phones in theatres and restaurants. Mobiles are regarded by some industries as potential saviours—or disruptors. In 10 years (2000–2010), the U.S. newspaper industry lost the ad revenue levels it had taken 50 years (i.e., from 1950 to 2000) to build, according to industry figures. While the future of print may be uncertain in the U.S. newspaper industry, perhaps tablets can rejuvenate publishing in an electronic incarnation. As for television viewing, the mobile has become the companion screen or the social screen, creating new forms of social TV. Wireless media have significantly transformed organisational communications and business workflow, ranging from calendaring and alerts to customer relationship management and logistics coordination. At the level of the multi-enterprise collaborative supply chain, mobile applications have improved speed, cost, and accuracy considerations in procurement, supply chain execution (fulfillment) and measurement (asset visibility), and service management (field force automation). While PCs and workstations have come under some criticism for “tethering” knowledge workers to their desks, wireless technologies may be the perfect answer to mobilising the workforce by letting workers capture and harness key information and knowledge attributes wherever they are, whenever they want, and however they want (Rao 2003b). Strategies focused on knowledge mobilisation via handheld devices and wireless networks can take knowledge management to an entirely new plane of performance, putting road warriors and field workers in the centre of the

12 Global Mobile

Table I.5

ICT Outcomes and Impacts. Source: Rao 2003c

Introduction 13

information and communications world via mobile portals and on-demand expert services. Wireless transformations are taking place not just in the corporate sector but also in the government sector, ranging from accident reporting services and parking meter solutions to emergency alerts and tax calculation apps. Major tectonic shifts are taking place in intellectual property rights, or the creation of technologies, content, and applications that can be enforceably licensed for royalties at various points in the wireless ecosystem. The rapid proliferation of multiple wireless technologies, along with the realities of scarce spectrum, can lead to numerous challenges for regulators, ranging from license allocation to the setting of tariffs. Uninformed regulators and corrupt government agencies can be detrimental to public interest issues in the mobile ecosystem. For the development community, universal access goals are also becoming moving targets, evolving from basic landline connectivity and wireless access to internet and then broadband.

Chapter Contributions: Highlights For this book, more than 30 expert contributors from around the world, representing every continent (except Antarctica), agreed to share their insights and experiences in mobile communications and media. These contributors come from diverse backgrounds, including teaching, policymaking, consulting, and innovating, and bring widely differing perspectives and writing styles. Their chapters are as interesting as they are informative. Part One of the book begins with the foundations of mobile as a medium. Tomi Ahonen’s panoramic opening chapter captures the scale and scope, as well as the excitement and passion, of the mobile movement. In just over three decades, the mobile industry has crossed the $1 trillion mark, the youngest and fastest industry to do so. Ahonen traces the convergence of mobile with industries such as news, games, advertising, payment, music, photography, and social media. Mobile, the 7th mass medium, has nine unique capabilities, such as being personal, permanently connected, always on, and accurately measurable. Mobiles enable augmented reality and can capture the social context of consumption. The innovation in mobile is relentless, and some predict that the world will change more in the next 10 years than it has in the preceding 100 years. Pamela Rutledge lays the foundation for understanding the psychology of mobile media. By enabling social connection, mobile technologies tap into the biologically based drive for social contact. Digital tools such as the internet have given us global awareness, but it is mobiles that give people the control to be personal. Mobiles have helped create a “place out of place” or

14 Global Mobile

“interspace” that allows users to be physically in one location but mentally elsewhere. Mobiles are challenging the meaning of public spaces and social norms for interaction. Mobile tools provide the ability to offload lower-value cognitive tasks so that the user can focus on creativity, analysis, and problem solving. Mobile technologies are changing individual expectations about opportunities and impacts of activism. Rutledge concludes by cautioning us about the many unintended consequences of design, making it difficult to institute rules and regulations. Yi-Fan Chen provides a thoroughly referenced survey of academic research into the world of mobile communications, especially its social, cultural, behavioural, and political aspects. Research in the field has focused on information-centric activities, as well as usage of mobiles in everyday life. The technology acceptance model can be used to understand the adoption of services such as mobile commerce and banking. Chen surveys research methods, contributions, and publications from around the world, in areas such as parenting, political activism, health communication, disaster relief, office work, and urban interaction, and ends by identifying location-based services and augmented reality as exciting new areas of mobile media research. Rich Ling traces the rise of mobile communications as merely the most recent installment in the continuing development of what Beniger calls the Control Revolution over the centuries. It addresses not just people’s interactions with technology but overall social dynamics. Mobiles have reached critical mass in society, making it difficult for people to be part of certain social and business activities unless they have a mobile phone. Mobiles have a dualistic nature in society: They provide structure as well as giving freedom. Mobile connectivity improves social connections but also lets work life intrude into personal life. The mediation effects of mobiles in some ways increase the “rationalisation of the world” and turn us away from tradition and kinship, while also providing greater security and exploration in relationships. Chetan Sharma shifts the focus to industry aspects of mobile by outlining the basic rules of competitive markets and highlights the challenges with respect to regulatory environments of mobile operators. Contrasts are drawn between the different regulatory models and market patterns in countries such as the U.S., U.K., India, Japan, and China. Sharma advises regulators and the political leadership of a country to be well aware of technology and market trends and to think of long-term interests rather than short-term gains. In an ideal situation, mobile operators and consumers should both gain, though mobile operators will face hard choices in technology forecasting and service design. Lars Cosh-Ishii turns to the nation as a unit of analysis of mobile ecosystems and shows that innovation and success of mobile in a country depend

Introduction 15

in large part on the smooth functioning of the entire mobile ecosystem, perhaps best exemplified in Japan. He explains the huge popularity and stunning revenues of Japan’s mobile internet ecosystem and innovations such as QR codes, cameraphones, and near field communication (NFC). These have led to remarkable successes in mobile advertising, mobile music, mobileenabled email messaging, payments, and mobile television. Since Japan’s March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, mobiles have become a part of national disaster communication systems. Cosh-Ishii concludes by affirming that Japan will continue to play a pioneering role in the world of 4G. Janine Warner focuses on a key success factor of mobiles—design—and provides useful insights into the evolution of web design and apps for the mobile interface. She highlights the challenges of designing for the small screen in a fragmented ecosystem, with multiple formats and a wide range of user behaviours and environments. She also makes the distinction between mobile web apps and native apps, with effective design principles for each. She advocates a responsive design approach to adapt to different screen sizes and provides a useful checklist of optimal mobile web design and navigation principles. She ends with a discussion on HTML5 and designing for users who are differently abled. Lynne Gallagher addresses the fundamental and finite natural resource driving mobile communications: spectrum. It is imperative that responsible and progressive policy decisions regarding spectrum be made that meet the needs of multiple stakeholders: industry, government, and citizens. Gallagher identifies the opportunities surrounding licensed and unlicensed spectrum in a range of frequencies—such as white space between TV frequencies. Special approaches need to be adopted regarding spectrum allocation and device power in rural areas and regarding government as regulator and customer of ICT services. Part Two of the book assesses the wide range of mobile impacts in sectors ranging from health and education to business and government. Patricia Mechael, Ada Kwan, and Dayle Kern address mobile usage in health information and services, in the context of the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals. Examples provided include disease surveillance, supply chain coordination, verification of the genuineness of purchased drugs, mobile telemedicine, health surveys, and raised awareness of healthy behaviours. Constraints include high costs, poor signal coverage, slow demand generation, inadequate human resources, existing social inequities, and privacy issues. As success factors, the authors recommend greater awareness of local contexts, social marketing, and stakeholder partnerships. Jon Mason explores the potential of mobile education within the context of elearning. Portable devices can help bring elements of physical mobility into classroom settings. Wireless sensors, cloud computing, digital publishing, and

16 Global Mobile

educational interactivity offer new pedagogic models of m-learning via online reference tools, curriculum material, external research, and strategic learning. Interesting trends to watch include eschoolbags, whereby digital textbooks replace all print-based content. Challenges arise in including rural schools and in guarding against cheating and cyberbullying. Stephen Quinn provides firsthand practitioner insights into the field of mobile journalism. Smartphones offer simple yet unobtrusive ways to record and edit video and audio, take stills, and deliver easily from the field. They make it possible to film in places where camera crews are banned or to use mobile phones to interview people who might be uncomfortable with a full television crew. Quinn traces the growth of mobile journalism and offers guidelines on newsroom structure and staffing to accommodate this emerging practice. Case studies are provided from around the world. Xu Xiaoge makes the compelling case that mobile news is not a gear change but a game change in the world of journalism and mobile experiences. Based on surveys and comparative analysis, he identifies the different kinds of mobile news, ranging from SMS to apps. Examples are provided of websites that allow users around the globe to post news items via mobile devices and of alternate news movements and mobile activism. Xiaoge argues that mobile journalism should be taught to all students, not just to journalism students. Ralph Simon provides a sweeping view of mobile entertainment, ranging from content and business models to user behaviour and legal issues. Mobile entertainment is now focused on a range of screens and sometimes multiple screens simultaneously. Mobile social media, mobile social commerce, mobile social broadcasting, and mobile social music are emerging directions of mobile entertainment, which is taking on global and local flavours. Numerous mobile entertainment startups are highlighted, as well as active industry organisations. Sanjay Uppal focuses on mobile value-added services, the set of services offered by the mobile operator that are beyond the basic voice and message service. The advent of smartphones and the rise of internet-platform companies such as Google and Facebook are posing new challenges to the traditional operator model via a democratisation of mobile services. Emerging trends include connected apps, the use of contextual information by operators, and the rise of the smartphone as a “recorder of digital life.” Kate Blatt and John Gallagher of iPass, Inc. address the opportunities and challenges created by the rise of the mobile workforce, whose members are now changing IT roles and management policies in organisations. Blatt and Gallagher show how mobility can increase productivity while also raising concerns about intrusion into personal life. The authors make many useful recommendations for mobile workers and organisational leaders, such as

Introduction 17

capacity building in order to better harness mobile tools and devising new cost-effective pricing options. Blatt and Gallagher end by identifying the “trivialisation of place” as a major consequence of increasing mobility in work. Tobias Brockmann and Stefan Stieglitz provide a comprehensive overview of the convergence of social media and mobile media, particularly in the enterprise context. Business-to-consumer and business-to-employee uses are highlighted, for activities ranging from customer communication to employee collaboration. But the risks to the corporate chief information officer (CIO) also increase (e.g., stolen devices, malware on mobiles). The authors conclude with concrete recommendations for CIOs with respect to organisational guidelines for social media. Phil Hendrix provides a ringside view of the emerging field of SoLoMo, the real-time convergence of data and services based on social media, location information, and mobile devices. Hendrix focuses on SoLoMo in the context of shopping and identifies drivers for this convergence, categories of digital signals, potential outcomes of analytics, and the computing challenges and solutions in this space. A new generation of startups and innovators is emerging in this domain, and while some companies have been nimble enough to adapt to these disruptive changes, it is still early days for the rest of the industry. Andrew Pearson traces the range of mobile device features that can be used for business: high-quality cameras, orientation and proximity sensors, accelerometers, talking personal assistants, GPS functionalities, Wi-Fi connectivity, contactless NFC, touchscreen capabilities, SMS, multimedia message service (MMS), QR codes, and apps. These features enable a range of business activities: mobile branding, mobile advertising, mobile banking, mobile commerce, mobile chat, mobile gaming, and other services built on the mobile web. Digital business models have moved beyond sticky websites to ubiquitous, always-on brands. Trends to watch include analytics and approaches to dealing with consumer privacy. Digital activist Ken Banks switches the focus to emerging economies and provides firsthand practitioner insights into the mobile-for-development movement. Drawing on a decade of experience, he shows how the most simple mobile solutions, such as SMS, have a long shelf life, provided developers work in partnership with local communities to truly understand those communities’ needs and help them devise appropriate solutions. Banks identifies the rise of locally inspired mobile innovation as a major trend in Africa and makes a number of recommendations regarding project replication, decentralised solutions, and participatory design. Anir Chowdhury and Partha Sarker build a compelling social and business case for leveraging mobile communication to shape financial access and opportunities for people who may not have traditional banking entitlement. They identify mobile phone–based financial transactions involving

18 Global Mobile

government and public sector agencies, as well as innovations in foreign remittances, micro-credit, and micro-insurance. Roles and partnerships of stakeholders such as banks, operators, and other third parties are identified. Recommendations are made for regulators and service providers to increase the reach and utility of mobile financial services. In a chapter packed with compelling data and visuals, Bashir Patel advocates progressive policies to ensure that the fruits of mobile communications, including mobile internet, are extended to the rural areas of the world, where most of its population still lives. The most important driver of mobile growth is the wave of liberalisation of the mobile market. The positive impact mobiles have on rural socioeconomic development is unequivocal, even with basic voice and narrowband services. Long-term challenges lie in increasing local language content and creating better partnerships between operators and service developers. Building on this perspective, Mireia Fernández-Ardèvol, Roxana Barrantes Cáceres, and Aileen Agüero García provide an in-depth case study of mobile use in the rural areas of Puno, Peru. In such areas, prepaid subscription was the most common payment option, and sharing of mobile phones was not unusual. Mobiles were used for sharing social and business information, micro-coordinating activities, expanding markets, and planning livestock operations. Youth tended to use high-end phones for offline entertainment (games, music) and not voice communication. The authors recommend that industry and government work together to make mobiles more affordable and network coverage more extensive. Seang-Tae Kim outlines the spectrum of mobile government services for citizens, businesses, and government employees. Mobiles have extended the scope and immediacy of government services beyond egovernment and can also improve democratic engagement if the service design is bidirectional. Numerous case studies are provided from developed and emerging economies, along with impact analysis. Emerging trends include enhancement of m-government through social media, sensor networks, and augmented reality, as well as m-government services between national governments. Part Two ends with a country profile of one of the most fascinating mobile media stories in the world. Xu Xiaoge describes the scale and scope of China’s mobile market, while also delving into details of media dynamics, health content, online activism, and regulation. Major social media from countries such as the U.S. are blocked in China, but their Chinese counterparts have gone beyond the copycat phase to the creation of new features. Companies in China need to strike a delicate balance between the bottom line and the party line, because the Chinese government, although keen on economic reform

Introduction 19

and advancement, also insists on keeping a tight lid on political expression and news. The chapters in Part Three identify emerging trends, opportunities, and challenges in the world of mobile, ranging from innovation dynamics and regulatory approaches to mobile law and multi-stakeholder partnerships. Jari Tammisto profiles one of the more unusual models of mobile innovation, which comes from the global Mobile Monday network, a community of developers and startups in 140-plus cities around the world. The local organisers bring together mobile developers and other mobile industry stakeholders for discussions and knowledge exchange based on core values such as volunteerism and trusted peer relationships. Tammisto highlights the success factors and challenges of this grassroots innovation model and offers a case study of Mobile Monday in Africa. Osama Manzar commends the World Summit Award (WSA) process, instituted during the UN World Summit on the Information Society, as an effective way of honouring and accelerating innovations in mobile content and services. WSA has inspired the “mBillionth Award South Asia,” for which more than 200 mobile projects and products are nominated each year. The awards are given in 10 diverse categories and are accompanied by a major conference and followed up with mentorship programmes. Such awards can also open up new avenues for research and multi-stakeholder alliances. Anuraj Gambhir offers a range of vignettes of mobile trends in areas ranging from infrastructure and services to devices and frameworks. He provides useful snapshots of the pace of change in digital activities and charts the evolution of mobile innovations along the hype cycle of trigger, growth, disillusionment, and eventual productivity. Snacking media, appcessories, natural user interfaces, connected cars, morphing devices, haptic feedback, mobile clouds, gamification, and wireless wellness are some of the topics touched on. Karim Taga and Clemens Schwaiger provide deep insights into the rapidly changing mobile ecosystem and the challenges for key mobile players, the operators. Consumer demands for more data services, the entry of over-thetop services in voice and messaging, regulatory pressure on wholesale prices, and intense competition have led to declining and at best flat mobile revenues for many operators, especially in Europe, although emerging markets are bucking this trend. The chapter provides visual depictions of such trends, identifies emerging alliances formed by operators, and describes five emerging business models. Russell Southwood highlights some of the key regulatory challenges brought about by the overlay and convergence of the internet on mobile networks. The mobile phone is becoming both a media platform and media itself. The internet was designed to be open to users through publicly available standards, whereas telephone networks are centralised and generally

20 Global Mobile

proprietary. Governments have used different rationales for shutting down SMS and the internet. Commercial players also have had their reasons to block certain apps. Southwood identifies new challenges in location privacy, as well as in further media convergence. Cyberlaw expert Pavan Duggal traces the growth of new kinds of crimes in the world of mobiles, ranging from theft of device or information to harassment and child pornography. Governments and legislators across the world have only recently started thinking about how to classify, detect, and deter crime in the world of mobile networks, data, and devices. Duggal compares mobile law provisions in India and the U.S. and offers recommendations to corporate leaders creating policies on the use of mobile devices at work. The book ends on a fitting note with the chapter by V. Sridhar on the importance of partnerships and alliances in the mobile ecosystem. Sridhar digs into the converging technology changes that are triggering alliances between various players of the mobile ecosystem. Case studies of such alliances between operators, device manufacturers, and internet and social media companies are presented, and we learn that the centre of gravity in such alliances is shifting from Europe to the U.S. The chapter ends with a discussion of Net Neutrality and recommendations for mobile operators, app developers, and policymakers.

The Road Ahead As the chapters in this book show, there is broad diversity in the diffusion of mobile markets and industries, over and above the existing matrix of social, political, and economic diversity. On one hand, markets such as the U.S., Japan, and South Korea are at the cutting edge in terms of advanced domestic wireless industries and export of these technologies globally; on the other hand, countries such as Afghanistan and East Timor are at the embryonic stages of the information society (see Table I.6, which builds on the 8 Cs–framework of Table I.4). Significant obstacles in this brave new wireless world include ensuring interoperability and migration among a bewildering array of standards, products, and bandwidths; developing local-language interfaces, tools, and content; increasing capacity for mobile strategies in sectors ranging from education and healthcare to small business and civil society; overcoming environmental challenges of ewaste and privacy concerns of digital data; overcoming the broadband digital divide; and social concerns such as parenting in an age of ubiquitous over-sharing of personal content. Rheingold (2003) warns that technology can be used to improve life and liberty and also to degrade them, as both a weapon of social control and a

Introduction 21

Table I.6

Classification of Mobile Information Societies

means of resistance. “Even the beneficial effects will have side effects,” he cautions. “Wearable computing communities” will have to deal with the consequences of leaving behind a “trail of electronic breadcrumbs,” which will become a “moving cloud,” leading to Orwellian concerns about a panopticonlike surveillance society. The population itself could become a collective surveillant: Big Everybody. Threats to quality of life can also arise as we become increasingly dependent on our digital tools and operate in a mode of perpetual interruption and hypercoordination. New forms of discipline and social protocols will be called for in this “post-human era.” Looking to the future, a number of researchers have used techniques such as scenario planning to interpret future mobile worlds. For instance, Bo Karlson et al. (2003) describe four possible wireless scenarios for the year 2015: creative destruction (fragmentation, threats to copyright), slow motion

22 Global Mobile

(health problems, power limitations), rediscovering harmony (sustainability, balance, peer applications), and big moguls and snoopy governments (big industry players in strong control, security problems). Lindgren, Jedbratt, and Svensson (2002) described four mobile scenarios for the year 2007: mobile Klondike (high enthusiasm for mobile services, media integration), trusted guide (trust becomes a sensitive issue, and only a few players are trusted), community lifestyle (subcultural phenomenon), and professional users (high prices, elite services). It would be fascinating to see the same team assessing its 2007 scenarios and coming up with scenarios for 2017. Richard Watson (2010), author of Future Files: A Brief History of the Next 50 Years and Future Minds: How the Digital Age Is Changing Our Minds, has come up with an interesting and provocative “extinction timeline,” wherein he predicts that post offices, telephone directories, desktop computers, keys, getting lost, and retirement will become extinct by 2030. A megatrend of the century is increasing urbanisation: In 1990, 16 cities had a population of 1 million or more; by 2010, 442 cities had crossed that mark. Seventy-five percent of the world’s energy consumption comes from cities, although only 2 percent of the world’s surface area is cities. This is where mobile and mobile to mobile networks can play an important role in environmental monitoring, public sector efficiency, and smart buildings, according to research from Ericsson (2012). Curitiba in Brazil is a wellplanned city in this regard, with 3G mobile broadband networks powering fleet management and electronic ticketing, thus optimising transport schedules and reducing fuel costs. Meantime, there is growing concern that a handful of digital titans is controlling much of social media content, including its mobile incarnations. There is concern, as well, that industry players will begin cracking down heavily on digital content sharing, which is rapidly expanding in mobile environments. According to Lawrence Lessig (2008), enormous opportunities await those who view art as a resource to be shared openly via digital media rather than as a commodity to be hoarded. Lessig argues that the “read-write” culture of mobile social media should not be criminalised but nurtured so that the next generation of the creative community can emerge. Despite the many challenges, the concluding note for Global Mobile is one of hope and optimism. Policymaking and estrategy formulation are becoming a major priority in industrialised and emerging economies. Mobile strategies are becoming aligned, not just with the technology industry or the consumer classes, but with underprivileged citizens and the overall environment as well. On a global scale, mobiles are one of the newer and more potent tools that can potentially accelerate achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals. In some areas, including higher education, healthcare services, and

Introduction 23

Table I.7

Millennium Development Goals and ICT Indicators

occupational advancement, ICTs are making significant contributions. In other areas, such as eradicating poverty and reducing armed conflict, mobiles have had a less direct role (Table I.7). “One of the greatest areas of potential is for ICT to create new behaviours or systems, rather than simply alter current ways of doing things. ICT makes disruptive change not only far easier but something that people desire, thanks to a shift in culture norms,” according to the Forum for the Future (2012). One of the main precursors to broad change is achieving the widespread connections and collaboration needed to take disruptive change to a scale at which it becomes the “new normal.” As devices gain functionality and mobile technology reaches a greater proportion of the planet’s population, digital media have a unique opportunity to help people collaborate and to harness the ideas and ingenuity of billions at the same time. In sum, Global Mobile is a call for more interdisciplinary studies of mobile media, ranging from cognitive and social to political and business aspects. Although ambitious in scope and range, this hefty book represents just the beginning of what we can expect to see in a world gone mobile.

24 Global Mobile

References and Resources Agar, John. 2003. Constant Touch: A Global History of the Mobile Phone. Cambridge, UK: Icon Books. Alpert, Jed. 2012. The Mobile Marketing Revolution. New York: McGraw-Hill. Bahague, Rick, and Ken Banks. 2008. Mobiles in a Box: Tools and Tactics for Mobile Advocacy. mobiles.tacticaltech.org. “Day Three: Mobile Marketing Association Forum, Asia-Pacific 2012.” 2012. Singapore. mobile.tech sparks.com/?m=201204. Easton, Jaclyn. 2002. Going Wireless: Transform Your Business With Mobile Technology. New York: Harper Business. Ericsson. 2012. Traffic and Market Report: On the Pulse of the Networked Society. June 2012. www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2012/traffic_and_market_report_june_2012.pdf. Forum for the Future. 2012. Connect, Collaborate, Change. www.forumforthefuture.org/project/ connect-collaborate-change/overview. Funk, Jeffrey Lee. 2001. The Mobile Internet: How Japan Dialed Up and the West Disconnected. Bermuda: ISI Publications. Gallagher, Lynne, and George Turnbull. 1999. Telecommunications in Action. London: Regency Foundation. Gilder, George. 2000. Telecosm: How Infinite Bandwidth Will Revolutionise Our World. New York: Free Press. ITU. 2011. ICT Facts and Figures: The World in 2011. www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/facts/2011/material/ ICTFactsFigures2011.pdf. Jensen, Robert. 2007. The Digital Provide: Information (Technology), Market Performance, and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector. Quarterly Journal of Economics 122 (3): 879–924. qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/122/3/879.short. Kaku, Michio. 2011. Physics of the Future: The Inventions That Will Transform Our Lives. New York: Penguin Books. Kalakota, Ravi, and Marcia Robinson. 2002. M-Business: The Race to Mobility. New York: McGrawHill. Karlson, Bo, Aurelian Bria, Peter Lonnqvist, Cristian Norlin, and Jonas Lind. 2003. Wireless Foresight: Scenarios of the Mobile World in 2015. Chichester, UK: John Wiley. Katz, James. 2008. Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Keen, Peter, and Ron Mackintosh. 2001. The Freedom Economy: Gaining the M-Commerce Edge in the Era of the Wireless Internet. New York: McGraw-Hill. Krum, Cindy. 2010. Mobile Marketing: Finding Your Customers No Matter Where They Are. USA: Pearson Education. Lattanzi, Michael, Antti Korhonen, and Vishy Gopalakrishnan. 2006. Work Goes Mobile: Nokia’s Lessons From the Leading Edge. UK: John Wiley. Lessig, Lawrence. 2008. Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. New York: Penguin Press. Lindgren, Mats, Jorgen Jedbratt, and Erika Svensson. 2002. Beyond Mobile: People, Communications and Marketing in a Mobilized World. New York: Palgrave.

Introduction 25

Lindholm, Christian, Turkka Keinonen, and Harri Kiljander. 2003. Mobile Usability: How Nokia Changed the Face of the Mobile Phone. New York: McGraw-Hill. Lunn, Megan. 2012. “Social Media to Preserve Endangered Languages.” Korea Times, February 21. www.koreaittimes.com/story/19919/social-media-preserve-endangered-languages. Martin, Chuck. 2011. The Third Screen: Marketing to Your Customers in a World Gone Mobile. London: Nicholas Brealy. Morgan Stanley. 2012. “Internet Trends.” CM Summit, New York City, June 7, 2010. www.slideshare.net/CMSummit/ms-internet-trends060710final. Nielsen. 2012. “Smartphones Account for Half of all Mobile Phones, Dominate New Phone Purchases in the US.” Nielsen Wire. March 29, 2012. www.nielsen.com/us/en/news wire/2012/smartphones-account-for-half-of-all-mobile-phones-dominate-new-phonepurchases-in-the-us.html. Newell, Frederick, and Katherine Newell Lemon. 2001. Wireless Rules: New Marketing Strategies for Customer Relationship Management Anytime, Anywhere. New York: McGraw-Hill. Rao, Madanmohan. 2002. The Asia-Pacific Internet Handbook, Episode IV: Emerging Powerhouses. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill. ———. 2003a. The Asia-Pacific Internet Handbook, Episode V: News Media and New Media. Singapore: Times Academic Press. ———. 2003b. Leading With Knowledge: KM Practices in the Global Infotech Sector. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill. ———. 2003c. Visions of the Information Society—The Nature of the Information Society: A Developing World Perspective. ITU: Geneva. www.itu.int/osg/spu/visions/papers/developing paper.pdf. ———. 2004. The Asia-Pacific Internet Handbook, Episode VI. Asia Unplugged: The Wireless and Mobile Media Boom in the Asia-Pacific. New Delhi: Sage. ———. 2012. Mobile Africa Report 2012. www.mobilemonday.net/reports/MobileAfrica_ 2012.pdf Rheingold, Howard. 2003. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. Settles, Craig. 2002. Wireless, Inc.: Using Mobile Devices and Wireless Applications to Connect With Customers, Reduce Costs and Maximise Profits. New York: AMACOM. Steinbock, Dan. 2003. Wireless Horizon: Strategy and Competition in the Worldwide Mobile Marketplace. New York: AMACOM. Smith, Aaron. 2012. “Nearly Half of American Adults Are Smartphone Owners.” Pew Internet & American Life Project. March 1, 2012. pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Smartphone-Update2012.aspx?utm_source=Mailing+List&utm_campaign=887ea743df-Smartphone_update_ alert03_01_2012&utm_medium=email. “Your Portio Research Free Mobile Factbook.” 2012. Portio Research. www.portioresearch.com/ en/free-mobile-factbook.aspx. Watson, Richard. 2010. Extinction Timeline. www.nowandnext.com/PDF/extinction_timeline. pdf. Wyatt, Allen. 2005. Mobile Workforce for Dummies. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley.

P a r t O n e

Foundations

C h a p t e r

Mobile and Megatrends Tomi Ahonen

Editors’ Note: This panoramic chapter captures the scale and scope, as well as the excitement and passion, of the mobile movement. In just over three decades, the mobile industry has crossed the $1 trillion mark, the youngest and fastest industry to do so. This chapter traces the convergence path of mobiles with industries such as news, games, advertising, payment, music, photography, and social media. Mobile as the 7th mass medium has nine unique capabilities, including being personal, permanently connected, always on, and accurately measurable. Mobiles also enable augmented reality and can capture the social context of consumption. The innovation in mobile is relentless, and some predict that the world will change more in the next 10 years than it has in the preceding 100 years. At the start of the new millennium, there were many new technology areas that seemed roughly as promising when compared to each other. The internet was among the strongest. Traditional media and telecoms were in strong growth, television was nearing the 1 billion mark in TV sets used worldwide, and fixed landline telephones had passed that lofty level worldwide. Wireless technologies, from Wi-Fi to satellite phones to cellular telecoms, were abundant. Mobile phones included many wireless technologies: cellular telecoms, infrared, and such new short-distance technologies as Bluetooth. In all fairness, the promise of cellular telecoms, or “mobile,” was actually more risky, even more doubtful, because of the vast expense involved in 3G infrastructure. There were some pundits and forecasters who even suggested 3G would bankrupt the whole mobile industry. The October 11, 2001, cover story in The Economist stated that the mobile internet was “the biggest gamble in business history.”1 A safe bet would be to believe in personal computers (PCs) or television or the internet. A far more risky bet was to believe in mobile. 29

1

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Since then mobile grew at a mind-boggling pace. During the past decade, mobile became the fastest-growing major industry on the planet, and by 2009, mobile passed the $1 trillion level in annual income, becoming one of the biggest industries on Earth. So to be clear, mobile today is far bigger than broadcast media (television and radio combined), far bigger than the computer and information technology industry, and far bigger than music, movies, video gaming, and the print industry (magazines, books, and newspapers). Mobile accounts for about 2 percent of the total gross domestic product of the planet and sits alongside a few other giants in the $1 trillion annual revenue club—the automobile, housing and construction, food, military, banking, and insurance industries among them. However, whereas many $1 trillion industries are older than 100 years— and some are thousands of years old—the mobile industry is only in its 30s. The world’s first commercial cellular telecom service went into production in 1979 in Tokyo, Japan, when Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) started a cellular mobile telecom service. Mobile was the fastest industry ever to go from zero to $1 trillion dollars in annual revenues. In the past three decades, we have witnessed the emergence of the fastest-expanding industry ever seen by humankind. That is pretty dazzling, and it is no wonder we see such astonishing success stories in mobile as Apple and Google and Angry Birds.

Megatrends Converging But that was the past. What about the now and the future? We are living in a time when more giant industries are converging than ever before. We will witness a different type of world record in this decade. This chapter does not address the evolution of mobile “from inside” the telecom industry, but looks at other industries from the outside of mobile. The mobile industry is the ultimate cannibal among industries. Mobile cannibalised voice calls from the fixed landline telecom business. Today, if you telephone someone, in five cases out of six, the phone that answers will be a mobile, not a landline, phone. Similarly, email celebrated 40 years in 2011. Mobile messaging entered consumer use in Finland only 18 years ago and is already far larger than email. SMS (short message service) text messaging, the world’s biggest data service, has three times more users than email and seven times more users than Facebook. It is quite reasonable to expect that the utility of a mobile phone or mobile messaging device will soon drive the mobile side to dominate communications. What of noncommunication uses of mobile? Content or data services on mobile started in Finland in 1998 with the advent of the first downloadable ringtone. Today, basic ringtones outsell MP3 files in digital downloads.

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Speaking to the CTIA Wireless and IT Entertainment Conference in San Francisco in 2005, the chairperson of Warner Music, Edgar Bronfman Jr., said, “Wireless will become the most formidable music platform on the planet.”2 Since then, subscription music services have appeared on mobile, starting with ringback tones, which are now bigger in revenues than global iTunes music sales. Sony brought its Walkman brand to music phones, and Apple admitted that it had to create the iPhone because music phones such as Sony’s Walkman phones were cannibalising iPod sales. The next big media content category for mobile was video gaming, which started when Nokia introduced the Snake on its mobile phones. It did not take long for games to find their market. Already in 2007, John Riccitello, chief executive officer (CEO) of Electronic Arts, the world’s biggest video gaming company, said that mobile devices help video gaming grow. Since then, the iPhone has become the world’s widest-reaching gaming platform, with more gaming users than the PlayStation platforms or the Xbox or Nintendo gaming devices (according to Morgan Stanley). What of TV and radio? The world’s first downloadable video clips viewable on mobile phones were introduced by MTV3, the television broadcaster in Finland, in 2001. Simultaneously in the U.K., video music channel MTV invented interactive television voting via SMS text messaging on the TV show Video Clash. The broadcast industry has been on a rapid collision course with mobile ever since. The BBC’s general manager, Greg Dyke, said in 2005 that in the future all broadcast content will be available on mobile phones.3 Now not only do people watch full television episodes and even full movies on the tiny screens of their phones, but there are premium “voice” services that deliver niche radio services via the mobile phone to specialised groups and smaller audiences. In India, for example, radio services (often live cricket games and Bollywood music) delivered via cellular phone networks generate more money than the total radio broadcasting industry.4 What of the PC industry? The world’s first smartphone was the Nokia Communicator, and early on, most PC executives were dismissive of the smartphone as “a real computer.” That story changed when they saw Apple’s iPhone, and since then, the major computer makers—HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo, and Toshiba—have accepted the smartphone as a true computer. In 2011, for the first time, more smartphones were sold than all types of PCs combined (including desktops, laptops, and even tablets such as the iPad). Apple is the world’s largest computer maker if we count all its computer products, including smartphones such as the iPhone. Nokia is the second-largest computer maker, ahead of HP, and Nokia’s ranking is based on selling only smartphones—no desktops, laptops, or tablets of any kind. On the internet side, the world’s first full, “real” internet service on mobile was launched in Japan by NTT DOCOMO in 1999, so the mobile internet was

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only 14 years old in 2013. But already today, more people are accessing internet services from their mobile phones than are using PCs. Google has been saying for 5 years now that the future of the internet is mobile. That is also what Yahoo! has been saying for many years. What of news? The first mobile phone–based news service was introduced in Finland by the Tampere-based newspaper Aamulehti in 1995 via SMS text messaging. It took a while, but in 2011, at the Associated Press (AP) Media Editors’ conference, the AP’s CEO and president, Tom Curley, said: “Media companies lost revenues with the internet but have a chance to change that with mobile.”5 So newspaper editors see that mobile is indeed a different medium from the internet. In my sixth book, Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media, I argued that mobile had unique abilities as a mass media channel and should be considered a new, distinct mass medium. Also of note, the AP managing editors clearly felt that it is easier to make money on mobile than to make money on the legacy internet formatted for PC screens. Advertising arrived on mobile phones in 2000 with MTV3 of Finland offering a free news headline service via SMS and sponsored by advertising. The advertising world moved slowly to mobile, but after the iPhone, global mobile ad spending roughly doubled annually for 3 years straight. Mobile advertising now receives increasing endorsements. Omnicom is the world’s biggest ad agency group, and its largest arm is BDDO, whose CEO, Andrew Robertson, said in 2005, “We are rapidly getting to the point where the single most important medium that people have is their wireless device. It’s with them every single moment of the day. It’s genuinely the convergence box that everyone has been talking about for so many years.”6 That is quite a powerful endorsement of the advertising opportunities in mobile. However, what of the advertisers? Ford became the first global advertiser to say that it will include mobile in every campaign it will run in the future. It said so in 2011.7 And Coca-Cola says the way to do mobile advertising is to follow Coca-Cola’s 70:20:10 rule, whereby 70 percent of the money goes to mobile messaging, 20 percent to the mobile internet, and only 10 percent to smartphone apps.8 That is well in line with U.S. food giant Kraft, whose mobile marketing strategy is built on “No Phone Left Behind.”9 One more giant global industry, credit cards, also endorses mobile. Visa said in 2011 that the future of payments is mobile. Developments on the money frontier include cheques, plastic money in credit cards and bank debit cards, contactless payments such as Oyster and Octopus cards, and emoney such as PayPal. But none of these have killed cash. Mobile money was invented in Finland in 1999 when Coca-Cola introduced the world’s first vending machines that could be operated with payments from premium SMS. Soon, mobile operator Smart in the Philippines launched a full mobile banking and payment system based on SMS, and the world’s first full mobile

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wallet launched in Japan on NTT DOCOMO using near field communication (NFC). Today, one in five Japanese consumers uses the DOCOMO system called Osaifu-Keitai and branded FeliCa. But let us return to Visa’s proclamation. Sweden was the first country to start discussions in 2010 about the end of cash, as Sweden already has nationwide payments working on mobile, and every Swede has a mobile phone. Kenya, Somaliland, Estonia, South Korea, and many other countries are in the race to be the first to eliminate cash and replace it with mobile money. The Dutch merchants association is lobbying the Netherlands government to allow shopkeepers to stop accepting cash payments in Euros. But the first country to give a definite date was Turkey, which said in 2011 that by 2025 it will stop manufacturing cash. Wow! After thousands of years of cash, we will see the end of it, and Turkey may well become the first cashless country in the world.

Every Threat Is an Opportunity Various industries are struggling with the opportunities and threats of this grand convergence. Industries deep into the transition offer valuable insights and guidance. No other business has been more disrupted by mobile than the camera and photography business. Mobile took only 80 percent of the business of the fixed telecoms, but in the camera industry, mobile has snatched 90 percent of the market. So let us consider the plight of the major camera, photography, and film brands. Cameras have existed for more than 150 years. In the past century, every decade saw roughly a doubling of the global camera population. The industry was growing at a rate comfortably faster than that of the global economy, and the big photography industry brands—Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Konica, Polaroid, and Kodak—entered the new millennium as strong, profitable companies. In 2000, nobody was suggesting that mobile phones would replace cameras. The world had not even seen the first rudimentary cameraphone. Whereas the previous century had seen steady growth of the camera industry, roughly doubling in size every decade, the 10 years from 2000 to 2010 witnessed the golden age of photography. The global camera population did not double in that decade; it grew 10-fold. Today, 90 percent of people who use a camera had never used one 10 years ago. But the incumbent camera giants did not fare well in the golden age of photography. Minolta and Konica have quit the camera business totally. Kodak went bankrupt. Polaroid did one better: It went bankrupt—twice. Canon and Nikon survived by shifting strongly to professional photography.

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Today the world’s bestselling camera brand is Nokia. More people take pictures and shoot video today on a Nokia-branded cameraphone than on all Nikons, Canons, Minoltas, Leicas, Hasselblads, Konicas, Polaroids, and Kodaks—and whatever other camera brands ever existed—combined. The golden age of photography saw all the incumbent photography brands suffer or indeed disappear. The winners are cameras with brands such as Motorola, Samsung, SonyEricsson, LG, Apple, BlackBerry, HTC, ZTE, Huawei, and Nokia. A traditional camera industry brand that best capitalised on the mobile opportunity is the optical camera lens manufacturer Carl Zeiss, which provides the optics for premium Nokia cameraphones such as the 808 PureView. There was a huge growth opportunity in the grand convergence, when a camera brand such as Minolta, a mobile handset brand such as Nokia, or a PC maker such as Apple, who recently started to make smartphones, could compete. There could have been smartphones by Konica, Polaroid, Kodak, Minolta, Canon, or Nikon—but there were none. They did not see cameraphones as a serious threat. It was like the big computer makers of the 1970s such as Burroughs, NCR, Control Data, and Univac, who did not conceive of the PC as a threat to their business. For every industry involved in this massive digital collision, every rival industry is both a threat and an opportunity. Who would have thought that a computer manufacturer could become a music store (Apple iTunes), that a telephone manufacturer could replace compasses and maps (Nokia Navteq), or that an internet search provider would manufacture smartphone operating systems (Google Android). If Vodafone can become a bank (M-Pesa across many African and Asian countries), then why can’t Citibank become a mobile operator or carrier? That is not a laughing matter; it has already happened in the Ukraine, where PrivatBank has launched its own SIM cards and branded mobile telecom services as a mobile virtual network operator, similar to the more familiar Virgin Mobile in markets from Canada to Australia.

Mobile Is the 7th Mass Medium There are seven mass media (in order of their introduction):10 1st mass media channel: Print 2nd mass media channel: Recordings 3rd mass media channel: Cinema 4th mass media channel: Radio 5th mass media channel: Television

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6th mass media channel: Internet 7th mass media channel: Mobile This categorisation of the media channels is useful to highlight differences and similarities. Recordings (early recordings were only “records” of music) are a sound-oriented mass medium similar to radio. Television is similar to cinema in being a “moving picture” type of multimedia channel. Television and radio are both broadcast media, so they are received simultaneously by the millions who have the right type of receivers. And so on. When many look at a mobile phone, they easily see a small pocket computer or pocket internet device. It is very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that a mobile service is “the same as the internet” and also that at some point, the legacy PC-based internet and the newer mobile phone–based mobile internet will merge. While that makes sense on first viewing, a deeper analysis of the opportunities involved reveals the fallacy in the logic. Mobile is actually a distinct mass medium and offers plenty of opportunities that the legacy internet cannot deliver. Just to give one example, ringtones are not installed on laptops, only on mobiles. But ringtones are a multibillion-dollar content industry that thrives only on mobile phones. That alone is proof that mobile is a unique mass medium: It can sustain unique content types that cannot be replicated on earlier media. Technologists now need to discover what kind of business opportunities exist on this new media channel and how to best capitalise on those opportunities.

Mobile Has Nine Unique Abilities Early on it was difficult to prove that mobile might be more than just a small pocketable computer and internet device. But as the industry grew up in the past decade, unique abilities of mobile have been and are being discovered. There are at least nine unique abilities accounted for so far: Mobile is the first personal mass medium. Mobile is permanently connected. Mobile is always on. Mobile has a built-in payment mechanism. Mobile is available at the point of inspiration. Mobile is most accurate in measuring an audience. Mobile captures the social context of consumption. Mobile enables augmented reality in media. Mobile provides a digital interface to the real world.

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A unique ability, as the name suggests, is the ability to do something not possible before. When recordings first appeared, there was no way to do recorded sounds before. It was only possible to sell sheet music so that someone could sing songs or play them on the piano or guitar or violin. The career of a pop star could not thrive in the print-medium era. An Elvis or the Beatles or Lady Gaga could not be “heard” through the newspaper or book or magazine. The ability to deliver sound as a media format was unique to recordings 120 years ago, when recordings joined print as a mass media channel. Pictures could be captured in print, but pictures could not be included in early sound recordings before videotape and the computer CD. Then came the moving picture or motion picture, with movies today epitomised by Hollywood, Bollywood, and Nollywood. Movies had found another unique ability, since neither print nor (early) recordings could replicate moving pictures. Now we have mobile, the 7th mass media channel. Consider the popular concept of location-based services. Location-based services are often mentioned as a promising area for new innovations and services for mobile media. They seem on first view to be unique to mobile. Location-based services cannot be done on television or recordings. Location accuracy on the internet might be possible but can rather easily be circumvented or disguised. So one might think location is a unique ability. Except that it is not unique to mobile. Cinema is location-based. Location-based advertising can be in the movies—by showing an ad for a local restaurant, for example, that is walking distance from that one cinema only. In another movie theatre, an ad could be sold to another restaurant. So location-based services are not unique to mobile. Mobile has nine unique abilities. Mobile is personal, permanently connected, and always on. It has a built-in payment mechanism, is available at the point of inspiration, and is most accurate in measuring an audience. It captures the social context of consumption, enables augmented reality (AR), and provides a digital interface to the real world.

Mobile Is the First Personal Mass Medium The internet suggested it was a personal medium, but that turned out to be an illusion. People share PCs too often and use multiple devices; often the devices sit behind firewalls; users can delete the cookies spying on their internet behaviour. When the internet first became a mass media channel in 1994, many tech pundits promised a targeting and personalising nirvana, with a marketing concept of the “segment of one.” The internet did not fulfill the promise of that segment of one or of the truly personalised mass medium. That degree of personalisation did not

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come about until the mobile industry added the concept of the globally unique subscriber identity with every individual mobile account. Our phone number is the nearest thing to a global digital identity number. The landline could not deliver this, as the home phone was used by all members of the family. But most people do not share their mobile phones, not even with their spouses. Services that fit into the personal attribute include just about anything that any individual might find to his or her personal taste, be it Formula One racing or James Bond movies or cooking or jogging. What is appealing to one might be unpleasant to someone else. The more powerful side of the personal attribute is that it includes all those things we may not want to reveal, such as a problem with health or a financial trouble. Mobile can address such issues without the shame and public humiliation. A notable example is the mobile service that helps older women in Pakistan learn to read. Modern Pakistani boys and girls get to go to school, but in earlier times, often only boys went to school and girls did not. Thus there is still a lot of adult illiteracy in Pakistan, mostly among women. Now there are simple lessons that teach basic reading and writing of Urdu, and an older woman can take one lesson at a time. These lessons are also designed for working in pairs, so that, for example, a daughter can teach her mother to read. Mobile is perfectly suited for such types of services.

Mobile Is Permanently Connected The second unique ability is that mobile is permanently connected. Other media, such as radio, TV, or internet, can also be permanently connected, but they were not designed to be left on 24/7, nor were the services built upon those electronic media designed to take advantage of the ability. In most cases, people are taught to turn off their radios and TV sets and PCs to conserve energy. In the cases of laptops, the battery usually does not last more than 3 hours, so permanent connectivity is not even feasible. But mobile phones were designed from the start to be left on for 24 hours and remain connected. That is how we are able to be reached, which in turn created the concept called reachability. Reachability is why most people, when told to turn off their phones at conferences or in meetings, will not in fact turn them off; they turn off only the ringers. People do not want to be unreachable. Permanently connected means that people even take the phone to the bathroom and sleep with the phone within arm’s reach. It is of course an alarm clock, calendar, and calculator as well. The mobile is quite literally the last thing people look at before they go to sleep and the first thing they see when they wake up in the morning.

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Permanently connected also means that mobile can reach people at any time. It is good for communication services, but it is literally lifesaving in terms of natural disasters. New Japanese phones come with earthquake and tsunami warning systems that alert the subscriber even if the phone had been set to silent. In many countries with life-threatening natural disasters, SMS messaging has been adopted as the primary national alert system because, better than television, radio, or the internet, an SMS message reaches most of the population and does so near instantly. For example, national SMS alert systems are in use in Indonesia for tsunami warnings and in Guatemala for volcanoes and earthquakes.

Mobile Is Always Carried The third unique ability is that mobile phones are always carried. The phone is taken everywhere. It used to be said that if a house was on fire, people would run into a burning building to save their photographs. Kodak chief marketing officer and author Jeffrey Hazlett says that is no longer true.11 Today, people value their mobile phones over their photographs, and it is mobiles that people will run into a burning building to retrieve. No other medium is carried permanently. There have been pocketable TV sets since the early 1980s, and they were much cheaper than the early phones with colour screens. Yet people do not carry those pocket TVs everywhere— how many even bothered to buy one? What of iPods or Playstation Portables or digital cameras? According to the Jacobs Media and Arbitron study in 2010,12 now that mobile phones are widely adopted, the use of all other pocketable and portable electronics is in decline. People are carrying even less their digital cameras, MP3 players, gaming devices, laptop computers, and the like. As the mobile phone is always carried, it means the mobile can be used to deliver digital solutions when traditional means are not practical. Typical early examples were the SMS-enabled Coca-Cola vending machines in Finland, parking meters in Estonia, and luggage storage lockers in Japan. More recently, airlines have adopted mobile phone–based check-in and boarding passes. A survey of airline travellers in 2011 by SITA and Air Traveller World13 found that 17 percent of airline travellers worldwide are already using mobile phone–based boarding passes or check-in services. One great example of what can be done with this ability comes from the German post office, which enabled mobile phone–based postage stamps, first deployed on the E-Plus network. To mail a letter or postcard in Germany, one can send a text message via mobile phone to the post office to purchase a virtual stamp. The post office sends a unique, 12-digit alpha-numeric code by return text message, and the consumer just prints out those 12 digits on

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the top right corner of the envelope, where the postage stamp would normally go. No trees need to die for postage stamps anymore, and these mobile phone–delivered virtual stamps can be sold anytime, anywhere in Germany. No more looking for the nearest post office and waiting in line to buy stamps: a brilliant, simple, and elegant solution that makes life a little bit better. It would be great if every post office adopted this solution; the idea has already spread to Denmark and Sweden. Some telecom experts claim that permanently connected is the same as always carried. They may seem to be similar, and they, no doubt, have some overlap, but they are not the same. One can have a digital device that is permanently connected but not always carried, such as the home fixed landline telephone. Meanwhile, it is possible to have a digital device that is always carried but not permanently connected, such as a laptop. So it is important not to mistake these two as being one benefit. Mobile has both these unique abilities, and useful mobile services can be built on either one of them or on both.

Mobile Has a Built-In Payment Mechanism The fourth benefit is that mobile has a built-in payment mechanism. This is perhaps the biggest key to understanding why mobile content is already far greater in value than fixed-internet content and why content owners fall in love with mobile: the money. For the first time ever, it is possible to enable a “click-to-buy” button on a mass medium and get payments: not just advertise to customers, but offer them a direct call to action. This is actual purchase enablement. In addition to being able to make payments, users can receive payments on any mobile phone. This ability has recently spawned mobile banking and mobile wallet-type services in many countries. In 2012, the World Bank reported14 that the number of countries where 10 percent or more of the population uses mobile payments has crossed 20; fifteen of them are in Africa, where a very large part of the population is unbanked. An outstanding example of innovations using this ability is the virtual credit card. In Kenya, MasterCard, Standard Chartered Bank, and mobile operator Airtel have joined to offer virtual credit cards via mobile phones. Kenyan subscribers can order a disposable, 16-digit, single-use-only credit card number via phone and receive the related security codes needed for a purchase. The charge is deducted from the user’s mobile banking account. The credit card number cannot be used more than once. In this way, subscribers who do not qualify for a credit card can still make a credit card payment. This is a creative way to deliver MasterCard services to people who may not even want a regular credit card but who may need the card for one-time use, such as in travel.

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Mobile Is Available at the Point of Inspiration The fifth unique ability of mobile is that it is available at the point of inspiration. This could be the need to take a picture, shoot video, write a Twitter comment, or record a sound. The only comparable instrument is the pen that many people carry to be able to take notes and write in any situation. But a pen is not a medium; it is only a creative instrument. Mobile is both a creative instrument and a mass medium. This means that mobile is natively suited for any usergenerated media content, including reports in online citizen-journalism newspapers such as OhmyNews of South Korea or viewer-generated videos and pictures of breaking news on CNN’s iReport. A perfect example of how this ability can be used comes from the U.K. Three museums got together with British high schools to create My Art Space (ooklnet.com/web), a treasure hunt and adventure in the museum. Students were encouraged to use their cameraphones to capture aspects of art they liked or disliked and then to share their photos with other students through blogs, forums, and mashups. For those students who did not have a good cameraphone, the museums loaned cameraphones. The program was so successful that students spent 4.5 times longer on the museum visits, in the presence of their teachers. One can imagine they learned much more in this way than from a traditional guided tour through the museum.

Mobile Is Most Accurate in Measuring an Audience The early, false promise of the internet was that it would deliver a “segment of one,” or perfect audience measurements. But this hope has been belied by multiple accounts, corporate firewalls, shared computers, internet cafes, deliberately falsified identities, anonymous servers, and the blocking and deleting features for cookies. The promise of perfect audience data via the internet turned out to be a mirage—but not so on mobile. On mobile, it is possible to know every individual mobile phone subscriber uniquely and perfectly. Having a prepaid account is no way to hide. Even without knowing subscribers’ names, it is possible to get their full digital footprint. Anything can be measured if a mobile element is included with it, from television and magazines to radio and billboards. Mobile is truly the Magical Measurement Machine. What mobile adds, of course, is the full power of the computer in the pocket and the connectivity, as well as all sorts of sensors and other data. A perfect example of incredible measurement via mobile comes from Japan. Imagine a normal dieting service or app for a phone or other digital diary or laptop. After every meal, users would need to enter information on what they ate, which would be quite a lot of keystrokes or other actions on the phone or device. The Caloriephone on the NTT DOCOMO network, on the other hand,

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has image recognition software programmed to identify food. The software can correctly identify the 1,000 most common dishes eaten in Japan today, from sushi to a cheeseburger and fries at McDonald’s. Now all users need to do is snap a picture of their plate, and the system does the rest, recording the meal and its approximate calories. Magical perhaps, but clearly mobile is a genius at measuring.

Mobile Captures the Social Context of Consumption The seventh unique ability is that mobile can capture the social context of consumption. This sounds complicated, and it is. The point is not what is actually consumed (or when or where) but with whom. Think of Amazon and its recommendation algorithm (although that is based on analytics of the actual consumption, not the social context of it). Amazon measures what individual book buyers do. Amazon sees what surfers buy, for example, and then compares the data of other buyers to derive very powerful patterns of similar purchases in a number of categories. But Amazon does not know who the book was shared with later, who was called or messaged while reading the book, who it was recommended to, or whether the recommendation led to another purchase. That is the social context of the consumption. The social context of the consumption is a measure, not of what is consumed, but of who is communicated with relating to that consumption. It is also possible to have a social context of consumption even if an item is not purchased (e.g., just by viewing a product profile). This is what many try to collect via the internet, but the consumer has to voluntarily indicate a preference—such as by using the Like button on Facebook or giving a rating on Amazon. But on mobile, and only on mobile, can the system automatically capture the social context of consumption. An early example from the Obama presidential campaign of 2008 should be illustrative. (As this is truly bleeding edge ability for mobile, very few applications of it exist in any space.) The Obama iPhone app for supporters with iPhones replaced the normal phonebook with the Obama campaign–related phonebook, and on the basis of U.S. area codes for phones (which tend to relate to the states), the Obama app would show the “context” of the presidential election polls for each state. Therefore, for any name and phone number in the phonebook, the Obama app would show the current polls at that moment for that state. This is an example of social context and not consumption. The app provided poll status information without someone needing to vote or being eligible to vote and without knowing other people’s candidate preferences. This information was collected merely by being able to capture the context of that consumption (i.e., interest in the election polls) without even the need of consumption (in this case, any voting activity).

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Mobile Enables Augmented Reality in Media The eighth unique ability of mobile is that it enables AR. AR has existed for some time in highly specialised technical instruments, such as advanced helmets and goggles used by fighter pilots. From about 2008, AR entered into mainstream mass market uses through the cameraphone. AR offers an overlay for the live reality seen through the cameraphone screen. For example, AR apps can help locate facilities in a city such as a cash machine or public toilet if the city has been programmed to show such information and the phone has the necessary ability, such as pinpoint positioning and a compass. The AR app can then show a dot or box on the image on the cameraphone screen to indicate the location of the desired facility. A similar app could also be used in a museum setting to overlay an actual image of an animal over its skeleton. AR is a very rapidly evolving area of mobile technology, and countless examples appear almost daily. Furniture store IKEA offers an AR-based furniture tester for the home. Users can pick any item from the IKEA catalog, point the cameraphone at a location in their home, and then position the item of furniture to see if it matches interior decorations elements (e.g., to verify if the colour of the sofa matches the carpet and drapes).

Mobile Provides a Digital Interface to the Real World The ninth and most recently identified unique ability is that mobile offers a digital interface to the real world. Mobile can turn an analog element into one with a digital interface. Examples include magazines with QR codes and AR; billboards with Bluetooth and NFC; and TV and radio programmes with SMS interactivity. But mobile is actually far more than just a method of bringing digital benefits to analog media. Mobile can also be used as a kind of remote control for managing things; for instance, farmers in India can control their irrigation pumps by SMS, and public toilets in Copenhagen can be operated via SMS. The German town of Lemgo has a novel solution for saving money on electricity at night: The street lights on the main streets are lit all night, but the street lights on the side streets are turned off. When local residents walk home on the side street, they can send an SMS to turn on the lights for a short time, say 15 minutes, after which the lights turn off automatically. Lemgo has a population of about 42,000 and saves €50,000 annually with this innovation, in addition to conserving energy.

Where Is the Future? As this chapter has suggested, many giant industries see mobile technology in their future. What of other trends? The giant global trend of social networking

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goes far beyond commerce—just recall the role of Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook in the Arab Spring of 2011. The book Communities Dominate Brands (Tomi Ahonen and Alan Moore, futuretext, 2005) maintained that social networking was the biggest change in human history in the past 100 years. Others have put it in equally dramatic terms. Business Week said in 2005 that social networking was the biggest change to humankind since the Industrial Revolution.15 The Economist took a more business-oriented view, stating in 2005 that companies that would not adapt to social networks would not survive.16 Google’s chairperson Eric Schmidt has said that social networking and user-generated content such as citizen journalism constitute “the defining aspect of humanity for the next 20 years.”17 Already more than half of Twitter users access Twitter from mobile phones. In February 2012, for the first time on Facebook, more than half of Facebook users accessed the service on mobile phones on a regular basis. Every major social network has said that the future of social networking is mobile! What of cloud computing? That is also another major tech trend, and most experts say that mobile phones will be the primary access method to services that are in the cloud. Cloud computing thus also supports the trend to mobile. This is not to suggest that everything on the planet will migrate to mobile. We cannot do teleportation (yet), so cars, bicycles, buses, trains, and airplanes will still be needed. We cannot eat “virtual food” (yet), so we need a real food industry and the agriculture that supports it. But I would dare to say that there has never been any industry that is at the centre of so many other giant industries. Yes, the internet changed a lot, but even at its strongest point of growth, the internet was not seen to disrupt as many giant industries as mobile is now. The same is true of electricity. Its impact was immense and global, yet mobile today transcends the reach of electricity because mobile phones have batteries and so can be used in regions with no electricity. It is not uncommon for people in villages in Africa and less affluent parts of Asia and Latin America to send mobile phones or their batteries to nearby villages to be charged. Some teachers use that as a gimmick to make sure the children come to school. Where the homes do not have electricity, the parents send phones with the children to school to be recharged. That means that mobile will continue to grow, and it is likely to grow even more rapidly. The numbers are already truly mind-boggling. The world had 7 billion people and 5.9 billion mobile phone subscriptions in 2011.18 Although not all those active mobile phone accounts are unique users, the planet is well past the point at which more than half of its population has a mobile phone in their pocket.

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At the end of 2011, the world had 4 billion unique users of mobile phones, walking around with 4.8 billion actual mobile phone handsets.19 This means, obviously, that many subscribers have two phones. In Europe, more than half of people with a mobile phone actually have two (or more) mobile phone accounts, which mostly means two phones.

Where Next? But the story does not end there. The world’s largest lock maker, Assa-Abloy, is deploying locks for hotels and homes that can be operated by mobile phone. Google, Vodafone, NTT DOCOMO, and many more mobile giants are in a race to deploy mobile money solutions around NFCs—19 percent of Japanese already make such payments daily. There was a border-crossing incident on the U.S.–Canadian border where a stranded visitor had lost his passport but had a scan of it on his iPad and was allowed to cross the border. In the future, citizens’ passports will reside on their mobile phones. In any case, citizens should make scans of their passports and drivers’ licenses and save them on their phones in case of loss or theft of documents. The innovation in mobile is relentless. In 2010, Turkey became the second country, after Spain, to accept SMS-based signatures as legally binding in contracts; Estonia became the second country, after Norway, to accept SMSbased tax returns. A tech giant that was recently reporting losses—Apple—became the most profitable tech company on the planet only after it changed its focus from computers and music players to mobile. PC industry tycoon Bill Gates was the wealthiest person on the planet. That honour now belongs to Carlos Slim, CEO of Mexico-based America Movil, the mobile operator-carrier across much of Latin America. Rovio of Finland, creator of the Angry Birds game, is spreading from mobile phone games to soft toys, T-shirts, and onward into movies, television, and even amusement parks. Mobile statistician and forecaster Chetan Sharma says the world will change more in the next 10 years than it has in the preceding 100 years. The driving force in that change is mobile, as mobile is a robust, economically sound industry that is not clinging desperately to advertising-based revenues alone. This is the best economic opportunity of our lifetimes. And not just in strict monetary terms, but obviously also in new creative and intellectual opportunities such as m-learning and m-health. Mobile is the richest and most rewarding opportunity and the epicenter of creativity today. No wonder Google’s chairperson Eric Schmidt says “Put your best people on mobile projects.”20

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Endnotes 1. “The Internet, Untethered,” The Economist, October 11, 2001, accessed January 22, 2013, www.economist.com/node/811934. 2. Elizabeth Biddlecombe, “Music Industry Highlights Wireless Opportunity,” Total Telecom, September 29, 2005, accessed January 22, 2013, www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=358313. 3. The Business, November 7, 2005. 4. Wall Street Journal, November 24, 2009. 5. Associated Press Media Editors’ conference, Denver, Colorado, September 15, 2011. 6. Gary Silverman, “Mobile Phones Will Replace TV as Most Important Medium, Says Ad Agency Chief,” Financial Times, April 7, 2005, accessed January 22, 2013, www.ft.com/ cms/s/0/67fb82e0-a702-11d9-a6df-00000e2511c8.html#axzz2Ijc2eKze. 7. “Ford Making Mobile Marketing the Cornerstone of Its 2011 Vehicle Advertising,” Mobile Marketing Watch, February 11, 2011, accessed January 22, 2013, www.mobilemarketing watch.com/ford-making-mobile-marketing-the-cornerstone-of-its-2011-vehicleadvertising-13140. 8. Coca-Cola presentation to the Mobile Marketing Association Forum, New York City, New York, October 2011. 9. Martin Wilson, “Going Mobile Need to Optimise at 3 Levels,” Bob Bermel—Niagra Mobile Marketing, October 3, 2011, accessed January 22, 2013, bobbermelconsulting.blogspot. com/2011_10_03_archive.html. 10. Tomi Ahonen, Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media (London: futuretext, 2008). 11. Kodak presentation to the Mobile Marketing Association Forum, New York City, New York, June 2010. 12. Jacobs Media and Arbitron Survey of USA Smartphone Users, September 27, 2010. 13. Kevin May, “What Are Passengers Doing on Their Mobile Phones at Airports?” Tnooz, October 4, 2011, accessed January 22, 2013, www.tnooz.com/2011/10/04/mobile/what-arepassengers-doing-on-their-mobile-phones-at-airports. 14. “Mobile Money in Africa: Press 1 for Modernity,” World Food Programme, April 30, 2012, accessed January 22, 2013, www.wfp.org/content/mobile-money-africa-press-1-modernity. 15. Business Week, June 20, 2005. 16. The Economist, April 2, 2005. 17. “A Conversation with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google,” Charlie Rose, March 6, 2009, www.charlie rose.com/view/interview/10131. 18. “The World in 2011: ICT Facts and Figures,” ITU Telecom Worldwide, accessed January 22, 2013, www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/facts/2011/material/ICTFactsFigures2011.pdf. 19. TomiAhonen Almanac 2011. 20. “Global CIO: Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Top Ten Reasons Why Mobile Is #1,” Information Week, April 14, 2010, accessed January 22, 2013, www.informationweek.com/globalcio/interviews/global-cio-google-ceo-eric-schmidts-top/224400178.

C h a p t e r

The Psychology of Mobile Technologies Pamela B. Rutledge

Editors’ Note: This chapter lays the foundation for understanding the psychology of mobile media. By enabling social connection, mobile technologies tap into the biologically based drive for social contact. Digital tools such as the internet have given us global awareness, but it is mobiles that give people the control to be personal. Mobiles have helped create a “place out of place,” or interspace, that allows users to be physically in one location but mentally elsewhere. Mobiles are challenging the meaning of public spaces and social norms for interaction. Mobile tools provide the ability to offload lower-value cognitive tasks and focus more on creativity, analysis, and problem solving. Mobile technologies are changing individual expectations about opportunities and impacts of activism. The chapter concludes by cautioning against the many unintended consequences of design, which make it difficult to institute rules and regulations. According to ITU (2010) and World Bank (Kelly et al. 2012) estimates, 90 percent of the world’s 7 billion people are now covered by a mobile cellular signal and, with global mobile-cellular subscriptions reaching nearly 6 billion by the end of 2011, one in four has access to a cellular device, even in the most rural areas. Around the globe, people can now communicate with each other as never before imagined throughout history. The magnitude of this impact is inseparable from the impact of the World Wide Web on the meaning of connection. Public access to the internet created a structural revolution that established new norms and expectations for communication and collaboration on a global scale, redefining established patterns of social action, interaction with information, 47

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and the experience of time and space. People, organizations, and governments around the world are adjusting to new technologies, and some are adjusting more willingly than others. These transformations are fraught with difficulties; the changes in how information flows are undermining existing political structures, redefining social capital, creating new divisions, and challenging individual beliefs and assumptions. This chapter will examine some of the psychological implications of mobile technologies on individuals and society in a socially networked world.

Changing Communications Models Each significant contribution to human communication has had profound repercussions at all levels of society. Mobile technology is no different. From the alphabet and writing in ancient Greece to Gutenberg’s printing press, innovations have changed the power structure of society by altering how information, ideas, knowledge, and social capital can be developed and spread. How, where, and with whom we can communicate shapes our core beliefs about ourselves and our understanding of the environment (Beck 1976; Rumelhart 1980). The printing press ushered in the era of mass communications, creating a new communications paradigm that was unidirectional and one-to-many, with a small number of producers broadcasting to large audiences (Ito 2009). Decades of research to understand the implications of this shift followed, based on the assumption that individuals were powerless to resist the influence of mediated communication (Giles 2003; Livingstone 1996). Even as theories became more sophisticated, the impact of media technologies continued to be conceptualized as linear, unidirectional, and negative (e.g., Gauntlet 2005; Giles 2003; McGuire 1974; Preiss et al. 2007). The dominance of this position perpetuated the perception of separateness where the media and technology are distinct forces, imposing their influence and direction on a passive user (e.g., Pannabecker 1991). This ability to separate media technologies from the users makes them handy scapegoats for social ills, as well as relieves the pressure to adapt to change (Biltereyst 2004; Miller 2006). Communications models were disrupted again with the wholesale adoption of the internet and social technologies, which introduced dynamically adaptive, peer-to-peer communications networks. Information rippled out around the world, no longer developed and curated by corporate media systems. The “many-to-many” world had massive reach and, simultaneously, personal collaboration and participation (Varnelis 2009), liberating Oldenburg’s conception of the hangout, or third place, from geographic tethers (Soukup 2006). The

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movement toward mobility accentuates this massive structural shift toward the paradox of networked communications; they are simultaneously personal and public, local and global. Networked communications, inexpensive and easy-to-use tools, and increased access challenge the validity of the passive audience assumption. In less than 20 years, the internet has set a new standard for communications that concurrently enhance autonomy and collaboration (e.g., Harp et al. 2010; Harris 2004; A. L. Howard 2010; P. H. Howard 2004; Kellner and Share 2007; Winston 1998). Where social technologies have redefined and merged the roles of media producer, distributor, and audience (Jenkins 2008), mobile devices are redrawing the boundaries that once delineated communications channels, challenging not only linear models but the notion of offline and online as separate realities (Baym 2010). Nowhere is this change more profoundly visible than in the shift from location-bound phone numbers to person-linked mobile devices that are an integral part of individual identity and public presentation, as well as embedded into the most mundane of daily activities (Arminen 2007).

The Unique Qualities of Mobile Communications define the foundations of social life. Mobile technologies enable communication free from the constraints of space and geography, with nearly seamless interaction among people around the globe. Handheld computing and cellular technologies enable multimodal communication and web access, creating new norms for connections and information use. Mobile devices have become so embedded in daily life that they are not only normal, but perceived as essential (Hemment 2005). With the ubiquitous adoption of mobile devices comes flexibility and autonomy, placing the locus of control literally and psychologically into the hands of the user. Mobile phones are a new technology wrapped in an existing mental model. New technologies often meet resistance to adoption because the technologies challenge existing schema and create cognitive dissonance. Mental models are powerful because they are the basis for how the human brain identifies, categorizes, and makes meaning out of new information so that it can be stored in memory for later retrieval (Hutchinson and Gigerenzer 2004; Klucharev 2008; O’Sullivan and Durso 1984; Rojahn and Pettigrew 1992). Resolution of cognitive dissonance can come from denial or by expending the cognitive effort to create new meanings and attitudes that support the adoption of new behaviors and social patterns (Agarwal and Prasad 1998; Morris and Venkatesh 2000). Mobile devices evolved from a known technology with a clearly understood social purpose.

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Mobile devices have revolutionized the way people can communicate because they enhance human experience through person-to-person connection and enable new forms of social action. A socially networked world of shareware and flash mobs is at odds with the traditional proprietary structures of the communications companies, and mobile users appropriate the centralized structure across a network culture of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), text messaging, and wireless (Hemment 2005). As a peer-to-peer structure, mobile devices form self-organizing networks of individual users, and these networks possess emergent properties that are much more robust than the artificially constructed networks built by traditional communications providers (Barabasi 2003; Marin and Wellman 2009). The redundancy in a self-organizing network decreases network failures, severely limiting the ability of any source to control information and concomitantly increasing the speed at which information spreads (Bampo et al. 2008; Gilbert et al. 2007; Heylighen 1999). We see continual demonstrations of this quality, such as the viral spread of the Kony 2012 video (Jenkins et al. 2012), the Red Cross efforts to gather support and resources during the Haitian and Japanese earthquake crises (Gross 2010), and commercially, the Twitter protests against Motrin pain reliever advertisements (Evans 2008).

Perspectives on Technological Impact The ubiquity of mobile devices has drawn attention to the power of mobile technologies to communicate experience, identity, and emotion and to shift everyday behaviors in ways that are potentially profound (Arminen 2007; Fogg and Eckles 2007). Research into the impact of communication technologies has been dominated by two contrasting views: technological determinism and social constructivism (Mesch and Talmud 2008). Technological determinism is a reductionist approach in which technology is a primary cause of social change and is responsible for the underlying structures of social organization (Chandler 1995). Hypotheses of impact are based on the affordances of each technology, often relative to the status quo, such as faceto-face communication. The technological deterministic perspective has resulted in polar views. One is dystopian, focusing on the comparative deficits of mediated communications, such as increased social isolation (Putnam 1995), the inability to form meaningful attachments or have a sense of presence due to limited social cues (Caplan 2002, 2007), or the increasing isolation of marginalized members of society (e.g., Mesch 2006; Mesch and Talmud 2008; Walther 1996; Walther, Anderson, and Park 1994). The alternative is the utopian view of technology that argues for increased democracy and civic participation (Cheong and Jie 2010), increases global empathy

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(Nicovitch, Boller, and Cornwell 2005), and overcomes the digital divide (e.g., Harp et al. 2010; Papa et al. 2000; Salmon, Post, and Christensen 2003). Conversely, social constructivists argue that social pressures drive the path of technology. From this vantage, social institutions interact in a symbiotic system with the environment, and cultural meanings, such as language and cognition, are a product of human interaction with the environment (Chandler 1995; Pannabecker 1991). Social shaping stakes out some middle ground by positing that technological affordances enable behaviors while social forces drive technological change through emergent uses (Baym 2010; Katz 2006). James E. Katz and Mark Aakhus (2002), for example, proposed the apparatgeist theory to explain how communication is shaped through the interaction of meaning-making around a device, as well as by the affordances of the device itself. Technical determinism and the sociocultural models all overlook biologically based drivers of human behavior. In doing so, they do not account for the importance of unconscious and instinctual-level filtering and processing to the formation of individual goals and motivations and, therefore, to the resultant attitude and behavior change, such as technology adoption, across society. Social connection is a primary biological drive at the unconscious level, and using it as a referent sheds new light on the rapid spread of mobile technologies and the adoption of social networks. In the 1940s, Abraham Maslow developed a hierarchy of needs model (Figure 2.1) that has become a culturally based rule of thumb across many disciplines, from business management (Bateman, O’Neill, and Kenworthy 2002) and design (Garrett 2003) to education (Huitt 2007). A. Maslow (1954) described human motivation as an ordered process in which the satisfaction of lower goals allowed individuals to move on to satisfying higher goals. The five levels, beginning with the lowest and most basic, are 1) biological needs, 2) safety and order, 3) connection belonging and love, 4) self-esteem, and 5) the desire for personal growth. This model is an easily applicable heuristic for human behavior, but more important, it exposes a widely held assumption that human connection is not the primary motivator of behavior, including technology adoption. Neurological evidence shows that humans are biologically wired to seek social attachment (Insel and Young 2001). Maslow’s model shows a popularly held view, but one that undervalues the biological nature of social connection at the most basic level: human survival. Conceptualizing human motivation as a system revolving around the biological imperative of social connection reframes the rapid spread of mobile and social technologies. How mobile technologies are used and integrated varies across cultures, contexts, and demographics—but why people seek to connect does not vary.

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Figure 2.1

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs undervalues the biological imperative of social connection, which is central to human motivation.

Social connection has been an adaptive advantage throughout evolution. Collaboration and connection were essential to survival behaviors, such as getting food or raising young. Social cognition co-opts neural networks for affective processing at the preconscious level as a survival mechanism (Norris and Cacioppo 2007). The rapid preconscious processing of emotional information is central to determining social context and cultural norms that dictate group behaviors such as cohesion, inclusion, and potential threats. By enabling social connection, mobile technologies tap into the biologically based drive for social contact and the attendant dynamics of social influence (e.g., Cialdini and Goldstein 2004), group affiliation (e.g., Smith, Murphy, and Coats 1999), social identity (e.g., Brewer and Pierce 2005; Roccas and Brewer 2002; Stets and Burke, 2000), and psychological well-being (e.g., Snyder and Lopez 2005). Social connection is essential to psychological as well as physical survival. The developmental psychologist John Bowlby (1982) demonstrated the irreversible mental health damage of children without early social connection. R. F. Baumeister and M. R. Leary (1995) developed the belonging hypothesis to describe the fundamental need to form strong relationships. They argue that people are motivated to cultivate and maintain social bonds through frequent personal contact. Howard Rheingold (1999) chronicled how the Amish, traditionally known for their reluctance to embrace modern technologies, have adopted the mobile phone. The Amish criteria for adoption is whether a technology brings them together as a community and culture or drives them apart. The Amish have persistently fought to maintain group boundaries and cohesion in order to preserve their cultural values. Their criterion for technology

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acceptance reflects both the biological drivers that influence “groupness” as a survival mechanism and the necessity of cohesion for the maintenance of a social group.

Mobile Impact on Individuals, Families, and Society Like any new tools, new technology invites experimentation and exploration as a first step to discover its capabilities and usability. The process of evaluation requires a cognitive investment to achieve some degree of mastery to get the knowledge that enables an individual to estimate a technology’s benefits for the individual’s explicit and inherent goals. The learning process to achieve mastery activates neural networks in areas involved in memory, attention, visual imagery, motor execution, and affective experience, creating vast new linkages and understandings (Falk et al. 2010; Falk and Lieberman 2013). Acceptance and initial adoption are the result of cognitive projections, or schema, of a new user’s value expectations (Gravill, Compeau, and Marcolin 2002; Rayburn and Palmgreen 1984). The assimilation, appropriation, and personalization of a new technology are the results of new learning and competencies that change attitudes, including self-concept and self-efficacy through the experience of accomplishment (e.g., Bandura 2002; Gecas 1989). Even small successes, such as texting, sending a photo online, or sharing a video, require proactive engagement, and the user is rewarded with digital evidence of technological ability (Fogg and Eckles 2007; White 2007).

Individuals Digital technologies have challenged our understanding of identity by providing opportunities to experiment and explore multiple identities and representations of self (e.g., Bargh, McKenna, and Fitzsimons 2002; Turkle 1984). According to K. Y. A. McKenna, A. S. Green, and M. E. Gleason (2002), digital interaction can have great benefits by providing opportunities to practice new behaviors and learn from observing others. Social modeling and learning theories (Bandura 2001, 2002) have been used to explain the impact of group participation on individual attitudes and behaviors and the ability to practice new behaviors in a safe environment or to observe desired behaviors demonstrated. Gay teens, for example, have found support and validation by connecting with people who have faced similar challenges (McKenna and Bargh 1998). In social identities theories, the self is socially constructed using salient intra-group characteristics to validate and enhance self-concept and selfworth (Brewer 1991; Obst and White 2005). Women who shared a passion for

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the Twilight saga experienced validation from connecting with other fans, which led to transformative experiences in their personal lives (Rutledge 2011a, 2012b). College students and suburban community members experienced an increased sense of well-being by connecting to social networks (Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe 2007; Wellman et al. 2001). Throughout history, various forms of ostracism from the “tribe” have been used to maintain order, punish deviance, and increase social cohesion. Mobile technologies have been shown to trigger the positive emotions of belonging through facilitating social engagement, as well as negative emotions, such as low self-esteem and decreased well-being, from being excluded from mobile conversations and text messages (Bianchi and Phillips 2005). At the same time, anonymity and lack of accountability via mobile devices can lead to antisocial behavior such as cyberstalking (Finn and Banach 2000), cyberbullying (Li 2006), and bluejacking1 (Thom-Santelli, Ainslie, and Gay 2007), although evidence suggests they are not as prevalent as often assumed (Postmes, Spears, and Lea 1998). Mobile technologies become personalized social constructions. Whereas PC-based resources are often shared, mobile phones are personal property carried around in pockets, purses, and backpacks and containing symbols and artifacts of an individual’s life and identity. G. Staid (2008) describes a teen’s mobile device as a “kind of ‘shell’ which encloses their social life and networks, emotional experiences, personal information” (150). S. Campbell (2008) argues that mobile devices, as wearable technology, are subsumed by the body as an integral part. Technology is an increasingly important part of one’s sense of self and presentation of self, especially for teens. Most mobile phones are chosen more for their aesthetic qualities and what they say about the user than for their capabilities. Mobile phones are “the first personalized medium for distance communication” (Arminen 2007, 433) and become demonstrations of personhood and selfhood (Campbell and Russo 2003). Teens express ambivalence about the constant connection of mobile phones, yet they almost never turn theirs off for fear of psychic disconnection. The always-on presence is theorized to be potentially problematic, increasing anxiety, psychological dependence, and lack of reflection (Turkle 2008). H. Geser (2006) and Rich Ling (2004) have portrayed the constant access and availability to social circles as an “umbilical cord.” For Geser, as for Turkle, this aspect has the potential to be regressive, stunting psychological and social growth. Some argue, however, that access to information and connection creates a positive experience of self through enhanced confidence and competence (Rutledge 2012a). Research by Ling (2004) suggests that much mobile communication is used to arrange social activities involving face-to-face meetings. The application of attachment theory (Ainsworth 1979) suggests that continual contact among connections functions as a glue

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that strengthens the bonds and qualities of attachments, both in anticipation of face-to-face engagements and in increasing the sense of presence to virtual connections (Rutledge 2011b). In this way, mobile technologies shorten the distance between individuals and their meaningful social networks and facilitate the biological drives for social connection. No matter what the proximal use of technology, from negotiating fair market prices for crops to posting Facebook updates, mobile technologies afford accurate and timely feedback and proof of one’s self-efficacy, the ability to take effectual action in one’s environment (e.g., Bandura 2004; Maddux 2005; Pajares 2006; Zimmerman 2000). The result is psychologically validating and has a cumulative positive effect on subjective well-being over time, through the upward spiral of positive emotions (Fredrickson 2004), engagement (Csikszentmihalyi 1991), and resilience (Masten and Reed 2005). A greater sense of self-efficacy and enhanced resilience increases an individual’s willingness to take on future risks and persevere in the face of difficulties or setbacks; these experiences in turn enhance perceptions of self-efficacy, continuing the upward spiral (Fredrickson and Losada 2005). The promotion of self-efficacy and human agency is an implicit result of positive technological interaction, from education, commercial activity, and civic participation to social support (Bandura 1982, 2002).

Families Mobile technologies impact families in a number of ways. In developed countries, mobile phones are the primary communication source for teens (Ito et al. 2008). Parents alternately appreciate mobile technologies for their ability to help keep children safe and connected to family and friends and express concerns about the level of use and constant connectivity (Lenhart et al. 2010). Mobile phones create new avenues of communication for sharing concerns and expressing affection difficult to reveal in person (Portus 2008). For families spread across large distances, mobile communications can provide the connection that maintains relationships, such as between grandparents and grandchildren living in different communities. Mobile telephones also help preserve both relationships and culture across extended families separated by great distances (Urry 2007). Migrant workers in the Guangdong Province represent approximately 30 percent of the provincial population, yet they are isolated, with no security and emotional exchange or support from family. Mobile phones allow the migrant workers to fulfill social and identity needs by accessing enews and mobile entertainment and maintaining social contacts with distant families (Wu 2009). In transnational Filipino families, mobile technology mitigates some of the effects of migration, at the

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same time giving rise to conflicts due to the changed realities of mother-away families and traditional role expectations in Philippine society (Cabanes and Acedera 2012).

Society Mobile technologies’ real power may be in the impact they have in developing countries, improving economic opportunities, providing health information and care, creating programs for literacy, improving water quality, and reconnecting families separated by hardship, crisis, or war. The Manobi Development Foundation (www.manobi.net/foundation) uses cellular technology to distribute market prices for farm goods to rural farmers in Senegal so that the farmers are able to negotiate fairer prices with middlemen. Manobi uses GPS to survey and register land to ensure it is inherited by legitimate family members. It also connects the mobile telephones of midwives to national birth registries so that rural children have birth certificates that will grant them access to education and healthcare. In Ghana, mobile technologies have saved time and reduced transportation costs, improving the profitability of trade. Traders with mobile phones enjoy a competitive advantage over traders without mobile communications (Overa 2008). The demand for mobile phones in some rural areas is turning local women into micro-entrepreneurs; for example, a Grameen Bank affiliate’s Village Phone Program in Bangladesh allows women to earn income from renting mobile phones to neighbors (Anderson 2007).

Real-Time Connectivity: Impact on Space and Connectedness Real-time connectivity has the potential to transform our understanding of time and space. Digital communications are a “place out of place,” or interspace, that allows us to be physically in one location but mentally elsewhere. Presence is a term for what takes place when the physical world recedes and the user exists within the context of the communication, whether it is voice, text, or image. When we use mobile devices, our interlocutor experiences our presence, but those around us feel our mental absence (Ijsselsteijn, Freeman, and De Ridder 2001; Lombard and Ditton 1997). Presence is the ability to experience empathy, the “as if” condition, that induces the cognitive and affective responses of “being there,” whether the communication is synchronous or asynchronous (Barak 2007; Nicovitch, Boller, and Cornwell 2005), although the immediacy of synchronicity increases the sense of presence and shared place. The introduction of rich multimedia can amplify the sense of

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co-presence in mobile communication, making the mediated distance feel almost seamless (Arminen 2007). The ubiquity of mobile devices is challenging the meaning of public spaces and social norms for interaction. D. Hemment (2005) proposes that the boundary between the created virtual space and the embodied, social space is experienced as disruptive. A mobile phone conversation in a public place invokes social conventions about the observation of distance, privacy, and anonymity applied because of an invisible “other” (Banjo, Hu, and Sundar 2008). The invisible participant creates an ambiguity about how others should respond to conversational behaviors; no such ambiguity arises when both sides of a conversation can be overheard, increasing the sense of exclusion and annoyance. These feelings in turn create a need to evaluate and redefine new social rules, or m-etiquette (Arminen 2007). Ling (2002) points out that the physical environment often imposes “enforced eavesdropping” (2) on those in proximity to a mobile phone conversation. A mobile phone used in public is interacting simultaneously with two audiences, leaving embarrassed eavesdropping listeners to take such action as moving away physically or engaging with their own device. Mobile communications effects go beyond the information generated by the device; gestures that indicate interaction with a mobile phone can also be used to send symbolic symbols to intercept potential interaction, such as to avoid an encounter.

Location-Based Connectivity and Activities Technological innovations such as GPS, mobile cell phone identification, and network triangulation are giving users access to mobile services and information that are location-based and context-aware. Paradoxically, the freedom of mobility allows locative media to reestablish the role of place and location through linked applications that allow environmental exploration (Hemment 2005). For the user, location-based services can deliver timely, relevant, and engaging content that improves various types of experience, such as socializing, commercial experience, entertainment, or education. For developers and network operators, these services hold the promise of new revenue streams (Rao and Minakakis 2003). Until recently, technology was not seen as a persuasive experience independent of message. Mobile devices, however, have the ability to change attitudes and behavior in a number of ways that rely on context awareness, which can take the form of reminders, practical information, and rich-media experience (Fogg, Cuellar, and Danielson 2007). Researchers found that Chicago Transit Authority bus ridership increased when the system implemented BusTracker,2 which provides real-time

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scheduling information, such as routes and delays, via text message or email alerts (Tang and Piyushimita 2012). Every intentional human–technology interaction embodies explicit and implicit goals on the part of the developer and the user, and these goals are not always congruent. Persuasion can exist subtly in design structures that help people to navigate effectively through a device menu or purposefully in device-supported behavioral reminders. The emotional investment individuals have in mobile devices, however, makes the devices particularly persuasive; the extension of personal identity and anthropomorphic projection onto the device enhances its power of social influence and the need for identity congruence. The results of interactions with devices and applications have a halo effect, positively or negatively influencing psychological and subjective factors about a device and application as they challenge or affirm individual identity (Bandura 2002; Nisbett and Wilson 1977). Growing user control and expanding technological capabilities that allow the delivery of rich content and social connectivity increase the potential for engagement and persuasive experiences. Accordingly, applications that deliver immersive experiences, such as augmented reality, are highly persuasive technologies as they enable the on-demand addition of virtual information to a user’s sensory perceptions and create opportunities for immersion, simulation, and interaction (Cialdini 2007; Escalas 2004). Connected to social networks, mobile applications leverage the impact of social influence. Researchers have shown correlations between behavior change and neural activity in regions involved in monitoring social perceptions and have affirmed the role of social factors in persuasion and engagement (Falk et al. 2010; Falk and Lieberman 2013). It is not surprising that social computing applications that empower users to locate one another and create and share media are becoming increasingly popular (Goh et al. 2011). Services that use location to offer social experiences include Groupme (www.groupme.com) group messaging, Lanyrd (www.lanyrd.com) social conference director, and Sonar (www.sonar.me) and Highlight (www.high lig.ht), which, like the successful Foursquare (www.foursquare.com), identify people who are close by. Motivating individuals to engage in content creation and sharing enhances user experience and commitment by cultivating intrinsic motivation through the sense of ownership and identity (Malone 1981; Ryan and Deci 2000). Foursquare, for example, motivates users to participate through the inclusion of game dynamics, such as rewards, points, leader boards, and other forms of user accomplishment based on participation. In educational settings, location-based devices allow for mobile learning in a way that establishes a metaphor for mobility across contexts (Brown et al. 2010). J. P. Gee (2007) argues that video games teach literacy and cognitive

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flexibility as players continually explore new levels with new rules and attributes. Similarly, as learners are physically on the move, mobile devices demonstrate the rapidity of framework shifts with context-dependent knowledge by engaging variable local stimuli. The ability to see interconnected knowledge and multiple perspectives increases cognitive flexibility (Spiro, Feltovich, and Jacobson 1990) and empathy (McNulty, Davies, and Maddux 2010; Preston and de Waal 2002).

Privacy, Trust, and Exposure With the development of interactive mobile technologies and context- and location-aware data gathering, there is an inherent conflict between sharing and privacy. The meaning of privacy varies substantially among people and situations (Ahern et al. 2007) and individual behaviors often do not align with reported beliefs (Patil and Lai 2005). Issues also surround potential data harvesting and aggregation of personal information from mobile and digital services. Violation of privacy and misrepresentation of actions break an implicit social contract, whether it is between individuals, between customers and companies, or between citizens and governments. Breaching implicit social contracts is not legally actionable but causes serious damage to trust and goodwill. Developers are investigating ways to establish trust levels with mobile users through securing locations and providing certification services that allow content creators to tag their content without exposing their identity to content users (Lenders et al. 2008).

Generation Y and the New Normal Generation Y (also called Gen Y, digital natives, the Millennials, the Net Generation, and the Echo Boomers) is the cohort3 that has grown up in a socially networked, always-connected world. Marc Prensky (2009) famously distinguished between digital natives and digital immigrants by describing the former as a generation born “speaking the language of technology.” Gen Y has distinct psychological differences resulting from the formative social and environmental childhood experiences that shape individual assumptions and core beliefs (e.g., Casson 1983; Erikson 1993; Lavin and Agatstein 1984). Core beliefs establish category patterns and relationships that influence the processing of all new information and provide the heuristics and schema used to make judgments. Gen Y has core assumptions about “normal” as the ability to access and distribute information and reach social connections on demand around the clock. These views have significant ramifications for their expectations about education, employment, collaboration,

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and participation, ideas often viewed with considerable consternation by older generations. N. Howe and W. Strauss (2000) suggest that the core beliefs of Gen Y have made them optimistic and involved. Many others, on the other hand, view Gen Y’s use of social networking and expectations of immediacy as signs of self-entitlement, self-indulgence, and narcissism (Bauerlein 2008; Twenge 2006). Prensky (2001) disagrees. He argues that concerns over the “debilitating effects” of technology, such as GPS systems diminishing Gen Y’s mapreading ability, spell-checking and calculators precluding the need to learn spelling and math, or, as N. Carr (2006) expressed, Google making people stupider, all lose sight of the skills that matter for the 21st century. Digital tools provide the ability to offload lower-value cognitive tasks, such as data storing, and devote the brain’s scarce resources to learning skills such as creativity, analysis, strategy, and problem solving that will reap greater individual and society-wide benefits in increased productivity, economic growth, and social change. Gen Y lives in a world that is information-rich and time-scarce. Gen Y’s core expectations and assumptions are redefining individual access and voice, organizational hierarchy, education, technological integration, privacy, time, and social validation in favor of self-efficacy and individual agency (e.g., Arellano 2007; Bannon, Ford, and Meltzer 2011; Godwin-Jones 2005). Social and mobile technologies have given people unparalleled control over their lives. People act and, because they are linked in real time, see the actions others take and can interact with them, creating collective efficacy (Bandura 2000). In the first 24 hours after the earthquake in Haiti, the Red Cross raised $5 million in donations from text messaging. Text messaging is easy, so critics call this slactivism, or feel-good efforts of volunteerism that take no real sacrifice or engagement. Slactivism or not, the Red Cross raised new money and expanded public awareness because of the assumption that, from protests to flash mobs, small individual acts matter. Mobile technologies change individual expectations about the ability—and the responsibility—to contribute.

Smart Mobs and Collective Action The biggest changes from mobile and emerging technologies are coming from the new relationships, connections, and social practices that new technologyenabled communications structures afford. Technology has enabled collective action in many different ways: online information creation on wikis and aggregators, such as the 4 billion English entries on Wikipedia; collaborative events that move on and offline, including alternate reality games such as Conspiracy for Good; or coordinating offline resources through online access, as in the

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political activism of Tahrir Square in Egypt or the resource management in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake. P. Levy (1997) defines collective intelligence as “universally distributed intelligence that is constantly enhanced, coordinated in real time and resulting in the effective mobilization of skills” (13). Smart mobs, as first identified by Howard Rheingold (2002), are mobile, technologically mediated, selforganizing social groups. But as the prevalence of technology-enabled collective action grows, so do variations among different types of mobs based on duration, focus, implementation, and purpose (Kindberg et al. 2011). Smart mobs behave “intelligently” because an adaptive communication network allows for social coordination on a vast scale (Shirky 2008). Since Rheingold (2002) documented the smart mobs responsible for overthrowing President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines in 2001, we have seen many other examples of the impact of collective behavior, not all positive. In 2011, collective action ran the gamut, from political events, such as in the Middle East and on Wall Street, to arts-based flash mobs promoted by Knight Arts and Random Acts of Culture4 to the flash-mob looting and rioting in London (Downs 2011). This urge to participate is reinforced by people’s dopaminergic reward centers responding to perceptions of social validation and belonging. As group size increases, the social and biological triggers to participate increase (Carlson 1998; Kosslyn 2006; MacLean 1985). Mobile technologies facilitate group collaboration and collective action in situ, in real time, heightening the experience of participation. Key components of smart mob formation and action are the desire for communication and belonging, available and affordable instantaneous communication, and a shared goal or purpose within a designated time frame (Harmon and Metaxas 2010). Digital tools benefit mob behaviors by facilitating motivation and organized action, attracting new supporters, and garnering attention through multiple media channels. Crowd-based collaborative events and projects all share coordinated collective action but not the same level of managed coordination, focus of purpose, or psychological dynamics and sustainability. At the same time that social technologies have eroded the confidence of official institutions, mobile technologies have established a new standard of personalization and control. The combination of the need for social validation and demands for local control have fueled a trend toward crowdsourcing, such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, which brings together unrelated individuals to crowdsource tasks (Kittur, Chi, and Suh 2008). Nearly 50,000 projects have posted proposals for financing on Kickstarter (www.kick starter.com), the world’s largest online funding source, since the site’s inception in 2009 (Wortham 2012). Kiva.org (www.kiva.org) crowdsources microloans by connecting small borrowers with private lenders around the world.

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Mobile technologies built on application program interfaces allow easy development and shared use of data so that users can contribute locationbased data, retrievable photos, information, and experiences to map the environment. Ushahidi (www.ushahidi.org) is an open source platform available to developers to create crowdsourced solutions for crisis information. Initially developed to report postelection violence in Kenya in 2008, it is now used for everything from managing snow removal in New York City to reporting gender violence in Pakistan.

Future Trends and Implications The rapid change in technology capabilities and use presents challenges for everyone with a stake in understanding how and why people use and attribute meaning to technology. Evidence suggests that there are many unintended consequences of design, which makes developing and instituting rules and regulations difficult. Doing so is all the more problematic because institutions regulate through a rearview mirror when they try to solve problems that have already occurred. Technologies change, and behaviors with them, but regulations become cast in cement, exacerbating unintended and unforeseen consequences. The impact of technology is not about the tools; it is about the behaviors that the tools facilitate. Mobile communications create opportunities, but it is human goals and motivations that drive solutions. Successful development and guidelines come from identifying the fundamentals, not the current use of a specific technology. When we look at the impact of mobile devices on our young people, we rarely ask what skills, experiences, and knowledge they will need in order to succeed in their world (not ours). The world is changing quickly. Parents, educators, developers, and officials have to step outside their own hubris and look with ever-changing eyes. The following are identified as fundamental trends in the mobile ecosystem: • The distinction between online and offline is no longer relevant. Mobile technologies and transmedia content will continue to close the gap and blur the boundaries. • In an information-rich environment, the premium will be on facilitating filtering and sorting information without giving up choice and control. In the same way that they are suspicious of advertising, consumers and users will become increasingly suspicious of recommenders and search algorithms that are not transparent. • The trend to mobile emphasizes the importance of personal environments. The internet has given us global awareness, but mobile

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technologies give people the control to be personal. The flood of information reinforces the need to identify what is important, both metaphorically and practically. Gen Y sensibilities lean toward balancing life and work. All these trends argue for increasing emphasis on localization, personalization, and control, with impacts on everything from work to civic engagement. • Global visibility creates empathy. The combination of individual agency and global awareness will be reflected in society-wide pressures for corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship. • Peer-to-peer culture flattens hierarchies and values transparency and authenticity. This trend will put increasing pressure on governments, institutions, organizations, and individuals to behave honestly and with a human face. • Human connection is a primary driver of human behavior. Users are experience-loyal, not device- or brand-loyal. Technologies that recede and that put the focus on human goals will be most successful. Organizations and governments will come under pressures to be more transparent, participatory, authentic, human, and consistent across all channels.

Endnotes 1. Bluejacking refers to sending unsolicited messages to other mobile devices within a transmission range of about 10 meters (or approximately 33 feet), using Bluetooth capabilities. 2. CTA BusTracker, www.ctabustracker.com/bustime/home.jsp. 3. There is little agreement as to the exact dates of Gen Y. Its birthdates fall somewhere between the late 1980s and 2000. The salient point is that it is the generation that has grown up with socially networked connectivity. 4. The Knight Foundation, www.knightarts.org/random-acts-of-culture.

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C h a p t e r

Mobile Theories and Frameworks Yi-Fan Chen

Editors’ Note: This comprehensive and thoroughly referenced chapter provides a survey of academic research into the world of mobile communications, especially its social, cultural, behavioural, and political aspects. Research in the field has focused on information-centric activities as well as usage of mobiles in everyday lives. Users have leveraged mobiles to redefine concepts and constraints of space and time. The technology acceptance model can be used to understand adoption of services such as mobile commerce and banking. The chapter surveys research methods, contributions, and publications from around the world, in areas such as parenting, political activism, health communication, disaster relief, office work, and urban interaction. The chapter ends by identifying location-based services and augmented reality as exciting new areas of mobile media research. The past decade has witnessed a rapid rise in mobile media studies. Mobile media research has two aspects: One has documented how mobile media have helped people to learn, seek, or share information; another is focused on how people adopt, use, and abuse mobile media in their everyday life. This chapter addresses important theories and frameworks on social aspects of mobile media studies, introduces current mobile media research, and discusses emerging mobile media research trends and challenges.

Converging Theories in Mobile: Telecom, Broadcast, Interactive Media, and More When scholars and researchers conduct their empirical research on mobile media adoptions or use, they often employ sociological or psychological 73

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theories as starting points. Everett Rogers’s diffusion of innovation theory (Rogers 2003) and Fred Davis’s technology acceptance model (TAM; Davis 1989; Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw 1989) are two frequently applied theories of mobile media adoption, whereas Elihu Katz’s uses and gratification approach (Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch 1974) and Roger Silverstone and Leslie Haddon’s domestication approach (Haddon 2003; Silverstone and Haddon 1996) are used to explain various mobile media devices and service uses. Rich Ling proposes hyper- and micro-coordination of mobile media use as one approach to explain how people use mobile media to coordinate activities and manage relationships in everyday life (Ling and Yttri 2002). In addition, researchers focus on challenging the concepts of space and time via mobile media (e.g., absent presence: Gergen 2002, 2003; mobile bubble: Bull 2004, 2005). Mobile media blur the concepts of public and private spaces, as well as the ways people manage and use time. Everett Rogers (2003) defines diffusion as “the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system” (35). Rogers’s diffusion of innovation theory has been used to explain how and why mobile media users adopt their mobile phones (Leung and Wei 1999), as well as mobile services, such as mobile banking and payments (Mallat 2007). Louis Leung and Ran Wei (1999) use the diffusion of innovation theory to examine non-adopters of mobile media and find socioeconomic statuses are predictors in mobile media adoption. Older people, females, people with lower monthly income, people with less education, and people who are not engaging in business jobs are less likely to own mobile media. Moreover, they also find that positive attributes of an innovation affected mobile media adoption. When non-adopters find that mobile media become less complex and more compatible, they might be converted to adopt mobile media. Finally, Leung and Wei report that the mobile media adoption decision-making is significantly enhanced by talking with friends about mobile media. On the other hand, socioeconomic status appears to be a negative factor in adoption of the mobile phone in some later mobile media research. Niina Mallat (2007) also utilises the diffusion of innovation theory to research mobile payment adoption and finds that the adoption depends on certain situational factors, including a lack of other payment methods or urgency. The research argues that the result is different from the traditional adoption measures such as costs. Mallat finds the existing adoption model is not fully capturing the mobile payment adoption. Other limitations of mobile payment adoption include premium pricing, perceived ease of use, and perceived risks. TAM is used to predict end-user acceptance of mobile media. Perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness are determinants of attitude toward

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mobile media adoption and use (Davis 1989; Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw 1989). Researchers have applied TAM to WAP-enabled mobile phones (e.g., Teo and Pok 2003), mobile banking (e.g., Luarn and Lin 2005), and mobile commerce services (e.g., Pedersen 2005; Wu and Wang 2005). T. Teo and Siau Pok (2003) find that social networks, perceived usefulness of the device, and perceived risks are factors in the adoption of WAP-enabled mobile phones. Pin Luarn and Hsin-Hui Lin (2005) extend the traditional TAM model by adding a trust-based construct (“perceived credibility”) and two resourcebased constructs (“perceived self-efficacy” and “perceived financial cost”). They find that the TAM model can be used to explain how mobile media users adopt mobile banking services. Per Pedersen (2005) and Jen-Her Wu and ShuChing Wang (2005) have found that the traditional TAM measures are reliable. They report that all TAM variables (e.g., perceived usefulness, behavioural intention to use) except perceived ease of use significantly affect users’ acceptance of mobile commerce. Moreover, Pedersen (2005) suggests extending the TAM with self-efficacy and with behavioural control that includes facilitating conditions representing the resources required to use a specific system. The uses and gratification approach aims “to explain something of the way in which individuals use communication, among other resources in their environment, to satisfy their needs and to achieve their goal, and to do so by simply asking them” (Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch 1974). It is found to be a valid approach to explain people’s attitude toward mobile media. Scott Campbell and Nojin Kwak (2010) apply the approach to explain how mobile phones are used for civic and political involvement. Their study finds that the use of mobile phones for information exchange can positively predict civic participation. The more people use mobile phones for exchanging information, the more they participate in civic and political involvement. Yung Kyun Choi, Juran Kim, and Sally McMillan (2009) study mobile TV use and report on South Korean college students’ motivations to use mobile TV, including fashion, status, and social interaction. Galen Clavio and Ted Kian (2010) find that three factors, an organic fandom, a functional fandom, and interactivity, predict a retired female athlete’s Twitter followers’ motivations to follow the retired female athlete. Douglas Ferguson, Clark Greer, and Michael Reardon (2007) find that motivations of boredom, stimulation, entertainment, relaxation or escape, and loneliness predict college students’ uses of mobile music devices. Silverstone and Haddon’s domestication approach (Haddon 2003; Silverstone and Haddon 1996) explains how people bring their information and communication technologies (ICTs) to their everyday life. It identifies imagination, appropriation, objectification, incorporation, and conversion as stages in the ICT consumption process. In the first two stages, mobile

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media users first hear about mobile media from their family members and friends, as well as from advertisements. Then they try to make sense of the device. The other three stages explain how mobile media users find places for their devices to fit into their everyday life. Hiyam Hijazi-Omari and Rivka Ribak (2008) apply the domestication approach to study the mobile culture of teenage Palestinian girls in Israel. They find that the young girls use their mobile phones to communicate with their illicit boyfriends in their bedrooms and to be independent from their parents. Dafna Lemish and Akiba Cohen (2005) find that the common perception of the mobile phone in Israel has moved from male status symbol to a common mobile device for everyone. However, they also find gender differences in adoption and use of mobile devices. In their study, male participants agree more about the flexibility to manage times and places via mobile devices than did female participants. Ling has proposed the concepts of micro-coordination and hypercoordination (Ling 2004; Ling and Yttri 2002) to explain how people use mobile media. Ling finds that mobile media users use their devices not only to micro-coordinate their daily activities but also for emotional and social communication and in-group discussion and agreement related to group identity, which is referred to as hyper-coordination. Kumiko Aoki and Edward Downes’s (2003) focus on group interviews shows that young participants use their mobile phones to micro-coordinate their time strategies and use their time efficiently because mobile phones allow people to utilise time otherwise wasted. Rebecca Grinter and Margery Eldridge (2001) find that teenagers text their family members mainly for micro-coordination but text their friends for hyper-coordination.

Units of Analysis of Mobile Usage and Impacts: Personal, Family, and Social Mobile media research has grown rapidly over the past decade. Studies around the world report how people use mobile media for individual identity development, interpersonal relationships, and family communication. Mobile media are also used for social change. Timo Kopomaa published one of the earliest reports on the social and cultural impacts of mobile media use in everyday life (Kopomaa 2000), pointing out how mobile media users communicate and coordinate their everyday activities on the move and how the concepts of time, space, and human relationships are redefined by mobile media users. Mobile media users use their devices to alter their time-management strategies, change public spaces to private use, and maintain their social networks.

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In 2002, Barry Brown, Nicola Green, and Richard Harper (2002) edited the book Wireless World: Social and Interactional Aspects of the Mobile Age, and James E. Katz and Mark Aakhus (2002) edited the book Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance. Both books have reports on how people use mobile media to interact and cooperate with each other. One of the important findings is that mobile media users mainly use the devices to contact their family members and friends. Mobile media provide users with freedom of choice about whom to communicate with, when to communicate, and where to communicate. Most mobile media users report that they are willing to communicate with their family members and friends anytime and anyplace, but not with people from the workplace or strangers. They develop strategies to control their availability via their mobile devices (Licoppe and Heurtin 2001). Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe, and Misa Matsuda (2005) have focused on mobile media research in Japan. Cohen, Lemish, and Amit Schejter (2008) conduct research focused on Israel. Ling reports on the way teens use mobile media to build their personal and their group identity and to emancipate from their families, as well as the way mobile media users manage and maintain relationships through the device (Ling 2004, 2008; Ling and Campbell 2008). One of the interesting research trends is how teens use mobile media to emancipate themselves from their families. Kopomaa (2000) and Ling (2004) note that many parents buy their children mobile media for safety and security reasons. Ling (2004), Leysia Palen and Amanda Hughes (2007), and Lana Rakow and Vija Navarro (1993) report that parents, especially mothers, rely on mobile media to keep track of their family’s activities and arrange their housework from remote distances. Other studies (e.g., Kopomaa 2000; Ling 2004, 2008; Oksman and Turtiainen 2004; Rakow and Navarro 1993) have found that parents use their mobile devices to monitor and regulate their children. On the other hand, children have developed “resistance” skills in their move toward independence and control of their own affairs via mobile media (Green 2001; Ito 2005; Ling 2004, 2008; Taylor and Harper 2003). Green (2001) and Ling (2004) report that children tend to avoid parents’ monitoring by not answering their mobile phone (claiming that they do not hear it ring or that the battery is dead) or by not telling the truth to their parents. On the other hand, when parents do not use a mobile device to control their college children, then their children perceive their parents as their “friends.” In this case, mobile media no longer lead to isolation and independence of young people from their families. Mobile media appear to have had the opposite effect. In other words, college students seem to increase involvement and socialisation with their families via their mobile media (Chen and Katz 2009).

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Other lines of mobile media research into human interaction include short message service (SMS), multimedia message service (MMS), and mobile music devices. Harper (2010) and his colleagues (Taylor and Harper 2003; Harper, Palen, and Taylor 2005) and Eija-Liisa Kasesniemi (2003) focus on how SMS influences human relationships; Naomi Baron (2008) and David Crystal (2008) look into how people read, write, and communicate via text messages. Most of these studies argue that mobile media users develop their SMS culture and their special text languages to communicate within their group. Teens also use special text languages to build their group identities and group culture. By giving friends their mobile phone numbers and exchanging SMS with their friends, teens form their in-group identity (Taylor and Harper 2003). Ilpo Koskinen (2007) looks into human interaction via camera phone images (i.e., MMS). Moreover, Michael Bull (2000, 2007) examines how mobile music users use mobile music devices to block unwanted human interactions and city noises while the users are on the move. These users also use mobile music devices to help kill travel time and to change moods in the city. Mobile media are also used for social change. Mobile media researchers have documented how people used mobile media for political movements even before the Arab Spring in 2011. Vincente Rafael (2003) reports that mobile media users in the Philippines texted their family members and friends to overthrow Philippine president Joseph Estrada in 2001. In Spain, people used SMS to promote voting in the Spanish general election of 2004. The voters used mobile media to seek and exchange information among their family members and friends. The election results show the opposition party won the election (Suarez 2006). Howard Rheingold (2002) and Manuel Castells and his colleagues (Castells, Fernandez-Ardevol, Qiu, and Sey 2006) have reported on the ways ordinary people use mobile media in civic engagements. Mobile media provide tools for people who have less power to engage in civic activities, although they have less formal organisational structure. Besides political engagement, mobile media are used to build digital communities for civic engagement. In the U.S., the mobile phone was used to organise protests during the meeting of the World Trade Organization in the streets of Seattle, Washington, in 1999 (Rheingold 2008). In 2005 in Australia, about 5,000 people, mostly youth, gathered together at Cronulla Beach, a southern coastal suburb of Sydney, to protest against visitors who had a “Middle Eastern” appearance. For several days, violent riots took place at the beaches and nearby areas. Those protests were organised via SMS (Goggin 2008). Moreover, mobile media are used to share information in both everyday life and crisis situations. Research has found that athletes use mobile media to keep in touch with their fans (e.g., Kassing and Sanderson 2010; Pegoraro 2010). Sometimes, people also use mobile media to manage crises and to

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grieve with their family members and close friends, as well as with complete strangers. Using a popular Michael Jackson Twitter feed and the largest Michael Jackson Facebook fan group, Jimmy Sanderson and Pauline Cheong (2010) analysed posts after Michael Jackson’s death. They found that people posted and tweeted their prayers for Michael Jackson. Similar findings were reported when mobile media users managed crisis and grief after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan (Hjorth and Kim 2011). Janey Gordon (2007) reports how mobile media users share crisis information and challenge conventional and official sources of information via their devices. Gordon examined the Chinese SARS outbreak (2003), the Southeast Asian tsunami (December 2004), and the London bombings (July 2005) and found that mobile media subscribers used SMS, MMS, and calls to share information with their family members and friends. In a case study of what people discussed on Twitter during the University of Texas–Austin shooting, researchers found that shooting-related news and posts swamped the discussions (Li et al. 2011). A research team at the University of Colorado– Boulder reports that Twitter users contributed to situational awareness during the Oklahoma grassfires of April 2009 and the Red River flooding of March and April 2009 (Vieweg et al. 2010), as well as becoming “voluntweeters” after the 2010 Haiti earthquake (Starbird and Palen 2011). The researchers found that mobile media users tweeted relevant information in crisis situations and used Twitter to coordinate and obtain goods and ser-vices of direct benefit to those in Haiti. For developing countries, mobile media are the most important ICTs to date. Mobile media have the potential to bridge the digital divide in developing countries. Research shows that mobile media provide opportunities in areas including business, health, education, and social relationships. Jonathan Donner (2008) reviews mobile media adoption and use in developing countries, while Heather Horst and Daniel Miller (2006) and Nicholas Sullivan (2007) have studied how mobile media help the poor in developing countries.

Methodology and Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Issues There is an increasing amount of research on mobile media use and social impact, including diary studies (e.g., Barkhuus and Polichar 2011; Faulkner and Culwin 2005; Palen, Salzman, and Youngs 2000), interviews (e.g., Barkhuus and Polichar 2011; Oksman and Turtiainen 2004), surveys (e.g., Ling 2000; Rice and Katz 2003), and field observations (e.g., Humphreys 2005). When studying mobile media, researchers often combine diary study with other research methods to seek a convergence of meaning. If data from two

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or more methods seems to converge on a common explanation, the research finding is enhanced (Lindlof and Taylor 2002; Maxwell 2005). From interviews and diary studies, Louise Barkhuus and Valerie Polichar (2011) have found that smartphone users have highly individual manners: They use their smartphones to meet their priorities and blend their smartphone use into their individual everyday life. Xristine Faulkner and Fintan Culwin (2005) used a questionnaire and 24 diary studies to understand young people’s SMS behaviour. Palen, Salzman, and Youngs (2000) used voicemail “diaries” and indepth interviews to analyse mobile phone bills in order to understand new adopters’ mobile phone use and interactions. Other types of research methods include interviews, surveys, and field observations. Interview methodology is found to be the most frequently used methodology when studying mobile media culture. Virpi Oksman and Jussi Turtiainen (2004) used interview methodology to study Finnish mobile teen culture, and Barkhuus and Polichar (2011) used interviews combined with diary study to understand smartphone practices in everyday life. On the other hand, mobile media research also uses surveys to understand mobile media use and adoption trends. For example, Ling (2000) in Norway and Ronald Rice and Katz (2003) in the U.S. have conducted national surveys to understand mobile media use and adoption. Ling (2000) has found that accessibility, safety, and micro-coordination are the main reasons that Norwegian teens adopt mobile media, whereas Rice and Katz (2003) report that mobile media adoption is based on socioeconomic status. Finally, field observation has been used to explore human interaction via mobile media. An example of an observation study is Lee Humphreys’ (2005) use of observation and interview methods to examine how people interact with others when they use their mobile media in public spaces.

Academic Literature on Mobile: Journals, Books, and Reports Social aspects of mobile media research are published in various peerreviewed journals, such Human Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and New Media and Society. These journals are affiliated with the International Communication Association. They are also top-ranked academic, peerreviewed communication journals. Campbell and Kwak (2011) have published research on social capital via mobile media, and Pentti Haddington and Mirka Rauniomaa (2011) look at how people use their mobile phones while they are in cars in Human Communication Research. In the Journal of Communication, Keith Hampton,

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Oren Livio, and Lauren Sessions Goulet (2010) explore American mobile internet use in city space, and Kenichi Ishii (2006) reports how Japanese mobile media users use their mobile voice phone and mobile email in everyday life. Examples of mobile media research in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication include SMS studies (e.g., Ling 2010), mobile beeping (e.g., Donner 2007), and mobile social networking (e.g., Humphreys 2007). Finally, New Media and Society includes various mobile media research. Examples include mobile parenting (e.g., Madianou and Miller 2011), mobile media use for religious purposes (e.g., Campbell and La Pastina 2010), mobile media use for fashion statements (e.g., Katz and Sugiyama 2006), and human interaction in public space via mobile media (e.g., Humphreys 2005). Most recently, Sage announced the launch of Mobile Media and Communication in 2013. Ling, Veronika Karnowski, Thilo von Pape, and Steve Jones are co-editors. It is also a peer-reviewed journal for researchers and scholars to share their research on mobile media and communication. The journal includes various social aspects of mobile media studies (Gamboa 2012). Besides peer-reviewed journals, mobile media scholars and researchers have published their research work in books. Kristóf Nyíri, at the Institute for Philosophical Research at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Hungary (Nyíri 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009), and Katz, at the Rutgers Center for Mobile Communication Studies in the U.S. before 2012 (Fortunati, Katz, and Riccini 2003; Katz 2003, 2006, 2008, 2011; Katz and Aakhus 2002; Katz, LaBar, and Lynch 2011), have published several edited books in the field. Studies in these books include mobile media case studies around the world. Research in these books invites further mobile media studies. Ling, at the IT University of Copenhagen, has published several books on mobile media, especially on human relationships via mobile media (Ling 2004, 2008, 2012; Ling and Campbell 2008; Ling and Donner 2009; Ling and Pedersen 2005). Academic publisher Springer has a series on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, including some early mobile media and human interaction studies (e.g., Andriessen and Vartiainen 2005; Brown, Green, and Harper 2002; Hamill and Lasen 2005; Harper, Palen, and Taylor 2005; Ling and Pedersen 2005). Routledge has published some edited books on mobile media cultures (e.g., Goggin 2006, 2010; Goggin and Hjorth 2008; Hjorth 2009; Hjorth, Burgess, and Richardson 2012). Other academic publishers who have published mobile media studies include Columbia University Press, (e.g., Snickars and Vonderau 2012), MIT Press (e.g., Castells et al. 2006; Harper 2010; Ito, Okabe, and Matsuda 2005; Katz 2008; Ling 2008, 2012), Oxford University Press (e.g., Baron 2008; Crystal 2008), and Transaction Publishers

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(e.g., Glotz, Bertschi, and Locke 2005; Katz 2003, 2006, 2011; Koskinen 2007; Ling and Campbell 2008). Finally, research centers sometimes share their mobile media reports with the public. The Pew Research Center has published several mobile media reports to document U.S. mobile media adoption and the social impact of mobile media. For example, the center conducts a 2009 Parent–Teen Cell Phone Survey in 2009 (Lenhart et al. 2010) to understand American teens’ mobile media behaviour. In 2011, the center reports on a survey of U.S. smartphone ownership (Smith 2011). The results show that smartphones are often used to access the internet or email. In 2012, the center shares with the public several mobile media reports, such as a tablet ownership study (Rainie 2012), a study of mobile phone activities (Duggan and Rainie 2012), and a study on American mobile phone owners’ attitudes and perceptions towards their mobile media (Smith 2011). The center intends to share its findings with professionals such as scholars, technology leaders, and political practitioners. Other mobile media research centers and organisations are listed at the end of this chapter.

Mobile Learning: Opportunities and Issues Mobile media have facilitated the ability of people to learn, seek, or share information as well as knowledge anywhere, anytime. Mobile media are used in both formal and informal learning. An increasing number of educators are using mobile phones, mobile audio devices, and tablets to enhance learning. Case studies of formal mobile learning have focused on higher education (e.g., Evans 2008), as well as middle school education (e.g., Facer et al. 2004). Evans (2008) finds that college students believe that their mobile media are more effective learning tools than their textbooks are and that they can take better notes on their mobile devices. In addition, students say they are more likely to review learning material in a podcast format than in a classroom lecture or in textbooks. Another study gives 11- and 12-year-old children global positioning systems (GPSs) linked to personal digital assistants (PDAs) to report how they learn about the world of the savanna and how to use strategies for surviving as lions in a virtual savanna. The results of this role-playing mobile game show that mobile gaming might support learning among children (Facer et al. 2004). Mobile media often are used to support informal learning outside education settings. In New Zealand, SMS campaigns are used to help young adults quit smoking. Mobile media users receive smoking cessation advice, as well as social support, via their SMS. The results show that mobile media offer potential for assisting young smokers to quit (Rodgers et al. 2005). Similar results have been reported in connection with SMS use for monitoring

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healthful behaviour among children. SMS-enhanced interventions are designed to send automatic SMS feedback to encourage positive healthcare behaviours (Shapiro et al. 2008). In developing nations, mobile media are the most important healthcare education and information devices. They provide public health education and support clinical care in remote villages (Kahn, Yang, and Kahn 2010). Finally, Matt Dunleavy, Chris Dede, and Rebecca Mitchell (2009) and Eric Klopfer and Kurt Squire (2008) argue that a location-based mobile media service, augmented reality (AR), has the potential to shape how people learn. AR interfaces allow mobile media users to see, via their mobile devices, the real world with digital information attached to real locations and objects. AR interfaces bring digital information to enhance real-world learning. Mobile media users would carry the information in their pockets. The diffusion of smartphones and tablets with camera functions could make AR interfaces more plausible for assisting mobile learning.

Emerging Trends and Challenges Earlier mobile media research has focused on human interaction and how mobile media provide opportunities for social change. A recent mobile media research trend is examining the use of mobile media to share location information or to bring location information to their devices. More and more people use their mobile media to find location information from their social networks or from already existing online databases. Location-based mobile media support new ways for users to interact with information and social networks between digital and real worlds. Although people in the U.S. are not used to sharing their locations via social networking sites as yet, a Pew study shows that 28 percent of Americans use their devices to find directions or recommend places for their friends, especially for those who own a smartphone (Zickuhr and Smith 2011). Another Pew study reports the 74 percent of smartphone owners use their mobile device to seek location-based information (Zickuhr 2012). Mobile location-based services (LBSs) have been used for enhancing tourist experiences (e.g., O’Hara et al. 2007), enriching game experiences (e.g., Diamantaki et al. 2011), and supporting informal learning (e.g., Facer et al. 2004). Research on social aspects of LBSs has started to attract scholars’ attention. Privacy is one of the issues identified in LBS studies (Kaasinen 2003; Michael and Michael 2011). On the other hand, other LBS studies find that people share locations based on their social networks. LBS challenges traditional concepts of sociability. Mobile media users use LBS in public spaces to coordinate and communicate with people they can trust. LBS, in

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fact, encourages people to meet others in public spaces (Abbas 2011; Sutko and de Souza e Silva 2011). Several books have been published on how mobile media change locations and the social consequences of location-based mobile media use. Richard Coyne (2010) argues that people use mobile media, including mobile phones, mobile music devices, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, and GPSs, to modulate their environments and their relationships. Jason Farman (2011) argues that mobile media allow users to interact and connect with the internet on the move. Mobile media users have a new sense of self that is embedded between digital information and real locations. In addition, Adriana de Souza e Silva and Jordan Frith (2012) and Rowan Wilken and Gerard Goggin (2012) have new books on location-based mobile media that enhance mobile media theory and research from human interactions to human–information interactions via mobile media. Location-based mobile media have been used to enhance users’ location experiences for some time. A decade ago, Eija Kaasinen (2003) commented that potential LBS “application fields can be found in areas such as travel and tourist information, shopping, entertainment, event information and different mobile professions” (78). Today, LBS is used in everyday life. Mobile media users use LBS to compare prices, navigate unfamiliar places, enhance informal learning, play games, and interact with people. Mobile media users bring digital information to locations so as to make better decisions and to update location information to the digital world in order for others to learn about the location. Mobile media users share their location information with different people in different times and places. By differentiating to whom, where, why, and when to share location information, mobile media users create a sense of self and others. With personal check-in mobile LBSs, such as Foursquare, Facebook Places, Google Latitude, Gowalla, and Twitter, LBS can be used in mobile media users’ everyday communication and information practices. Studies of LBS via mobile media have shown that mobile media are good tools for sharing information and enhancing learning about a location. The next phases of social aspects of mobile media theories and research could look into human interactions and human information seeking and sharing via mobile LBS.

Resources: Mobile Media Research Centers and Organisations International Telecommunication Union (ITU; www.itu.int/en) is the United Nations agency for ICTs. Its publications include ICT information and regulations around the world.

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LIRNEasia (www.lirneasia.net) is an ICT policy and regulation organisation specifically for the Asia Pacific region. Since 2004, its research has focused on how ICT use can improve the lives of people in Asia. MobileActive.org (www.mobileactive.org) is an organisation that connects people, organisations, and resources using mobile devices for social change in developing countries. Its website provides an online space for people to share and interact in connection with mobile research and resources. Pew Internet and American Life Project (www.pewinternet.org) is one of the Pew Research Center projects. It examines U.S. ICT use in everyday life. Some of its reports focus on mobile media use. The Society for the Social Study of Mobile Communication (www.socio mobile.org) is an organisation that intends to facilitate the international advancement of cross-disciplinary mobile communication studies. Members in this organisation are mobile scholars around the world. Their publications are important to the field.

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Smith, Aaron. 2011. “Smartphone Adoption and Usage.” Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Smartphones.aspx. ———. 2011. “The Best (and Worst) of Mobile Connectivity.” Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. www.pewinternet.org/ Reports/2012/Best-Worst-Mobile.aspx. Snickars, Pelle, and Patrick Vonderau, eds. 2012. Moving Data: The iPhone and the Future of Media. New York: Columbia University Press. Starbird, Kate, and Leysia Palen. 2011. “‘Voluntweeters’: Self-Organizing by Digital Volunteers in Times of Crisis.” In Proceedings of the 2011 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI ’11, 1071–80. New York, NY: ACM. doi:10.1145/1978942.1979102. Suarez, Sandra L. 2006. “Mobile Democracy: Text Messages, Voter Turnout and the 2004 Spanish General Election.” Representation 42: 117–28. doi:10.1080/00344890600736358. Sullivan, Nicholas P. 2007. You Can Hear Me Now: How Microloans and Cell Phones Are Connecting the World’s Poor to the Global Economy. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Sutko, Daniel M. and Adriana de Souza e Silva. 2011. “Location-Aware Mobile Media and Urban Sociability.” New Media and Society 13: 807–23. doi:10.1177/1461444810385202. Taylor, Alexander S., and Richard Harper. 2003. “The Gift of the Gab? A Design Oriented Sociology of Young People’s Use of Mobiles.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 12: 267–96. doi:10.1023/A:1025091532662. Teo, Thompson S. H., and Siau Heong Pok. 2003. “Adoption of WAP-Enabled Mobile Phones among Internet Users.” Omega 31: 483–98. doi:10.1016/j.omega.2003.08.005. Vieweg, Sarah, Amanda L. Hughes, Kate Starbird, and Leysia Palen. 2010. “Microblogging during Two Natural Hazards Events: What Twitter May Contribute to Situational Awareness.” In Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI ’10, 1079–88. New York, NY: ACM. doi:10.1145/1753326.1753486. Wilken, Rowan, and Gerard Goggin, eds. 2012. Mobile Technology and Place. New York, NY: Routledge. Wu, Jen-Her, and Shu-Ching Wang. 2005. “What Drives Mobile Commerce? An Empirical Evaluation of the Revised Technology Acceptance Model.” Information and Management 42: 719–29. doi:10.1016/j.im.2004.07.001. Zickuhr, Kathryn. 2012. “Three-Quarters of Smartphone Owners Use Location-Based Service.” Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/ Location-based-services.aspx. Zickuhr, Kathryn, and Aaron Smith. 2011. “28% of American Adults Use Mobile and Social Location-Based Services.” Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Location.aspx.

C h a p t e r

Digital Gemeinschaft, the Control Revolution, and Technologies of Social Mediation Rich Ling1

Editors’ Note: This chapter traces the rise of mobile communications as merely the most recent installment in the continuing development of what Beniger calls the control revolution, which has been under way for centuries. This chapter addresses not just people’s interactions with technology but overall social dynamics. Mobiles have reached such critical mass in society that it is difficult for people to be part of some social and business activities unless they have a mobile phone. Mobiles have a dualistic nature in society—they provide structure as well as freedom. Mobile connectivity improves social connections but also lets work life intrude into personal life. The mediation effects of mobiles in some ways increase the “rationalisation of the world” and turn us away from tradition and kinship, while also providing greater security and exploration in relationships. The chapter concludes by stressing that it is important to understand the duality of the mobile device. Much of the analysis of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in society brings with it a lens focusing on individuals and their relation to the technology. It is also worth looking at the issue from the perspective of the broader society. Sociology has focused on the general drift of society towards what Weber saw as increasing rationalisation and what James Beniger called the control revolution. Today we see evidence of this tendency in, for example, the incessant drive from handwork towards commodification and de-skilling. Mobile communications (as well as other 93

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ICTs) are clearly a link in this transition. Without question, mobile telephony facilitates logistical systems and the rationalisation of marketing. In the midst of all this, however, mobile communications (as well as cars) mediate social interaction within what Ferdinand Tönnies called the gemeinschaft. This chapter will examine the way in which mobile communication not only facilitates these massive social transitions but also how it is being adopted for use in the intimate sphere, in the digital gemeinschaft. In this chapter I will look at what I call social mediation technology from two different positions. On one hand we can see that some technologies are a part of the broader drift towards what Tönnies called gesellschaft in that they facilitate the rationalisation of society and move us away from the traditional and the intimate sphere. However, it is also possible to see that some technologies are used in the maintenance of a residual gemeinschaft. We use them to stay in contact with people who are important to us. I also argue that social mediation technologies such as the car, the mobile phone, and the clock are not simply voluntary technologies. For many people, using the car is a structured part of society, just as is being responsible for being aware of time. The mobile phone is also taking on the same characteristics. That is, we do not have the ability to choose to not have a phone, a clock, or a car, because having them is expected of us by those with whom we interact.

Communal Versus Associative Society Like many early sociologists, Tönnies (1855–1936) contrasted traditional and industrialised society. He called the former gemeinschaft (community or fellowship) and the latter gesellschaft (corporate society). Gemeinschaft is seen as characterising kinship, neighborhood, friendship, intimacy, folkways, and mores, whereas gesellschaft is focused on self-interest, competition, formal interaction, contractual arrangements, and business. Gemeinschaft describes group-oriented interactions, while gesellschaft describes individualistic calculation (Inglis 2009, 818). Tönnies (2002) suggests that gesellschaft is slowly but inevitably asserting itself and that kinship, friendship, and the private sphere are being replaced by individualism and commercialism: Gesellschaft … is to be understood as a multitude of natural and artificial individuals, the wills, and the spheres of whom are in many relations with and to one another, and remain nevertheless independent of one another and devoid of mutual familiar relationships. This gives us the general description of “bourgeois society” or “exchange gesellschaft,” the nature and the movements of which legislative economy attempts to understand; a condition in

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which, according to the expression of Adam Smith “Every man … becomes in some measure a merchant. (76) Tönnies felt that gesellschaft carries with it the potential to organise everincreasing portions of society. In gesellschaft the merchant or financier is freed from social bonds and is free to organise commerce and pursue earnings across the globe (Inglis 2009, 820). The individualism of gesellschaft is at home in the city, where there is a premium on calculation and exchange and where there are resources with which to effect these goals. By contrast, the village and the small town are the milieu of gemeinschaft (Tönnies 2002). Tönnies was hardly the only early sociologist whose thoughts moved in this direction. Emile Durkheim (1997) discussed mechanical and organic solidarity, and Karl Marx ([1903] 1977) used the concepts of feudal and capitalistic production. Max Weber contrasted what he called communal and associative relationships (Weber 1978, 41). All of these thinkers examined the contrast between pastoral and a more industrialised society. According to Weber there was an ever-increasing penetration of means-ends rationality into daily life that was corrosive for traditional forms of social interaction. Bureaucratic organisation in the commercial and governmental sphere subsumed longestablished forms of interaction (Turner 1986, 149). Communal relationships for Weber rested upon “various types of affectual, emotional or traditional bases.” This could take various forms, but it was “most conveniently” represented by the family, where it had “emotional values which transcend its utilitarian significance” (Weber 1978, 41). By contrast, Weber described associative relationships that corresponded to Tönnies’ gesellschaft that were “purely voluntary” free market exchanges based on self-interest.

The Control Revolution and the Drift Towards Gesellschaft As with the earlier sociologists, Beniger was interested in the dichotomy between the rational and the traditional. He was also interested in the effect of technology on the organisation of social and specifically commercial interactions. He compared commerce in, for example colonial America, where there was a reliance on familial and communal relationships in order to execute business, with the more rationalised forms of commerce that followed from the development of industrialisation. He suggested that as long as there is only slow-paced, individual-level production or distribution, there was no need to for advanced control processes:

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Just as the need to distribute control in the absence of any better control technology caused traditional values to persist in commerce, the rapid disappearance of at least the American general merchant and his family partnership in the early decades of the 19th century seem due less to ideological or religious changes than to the development of alternative and less centralised means of control. (1986, 129) With the rise of the industrial revolution, there is greater speed in production systems and thus a problem in the control of orders, payment, and logistics. Beniger (1986) wrote, “If the lack of sufficient information-processing, communication, and control technology caused retention of traditionalist values in commerce, it seems reasonable to expect the converse: the rationalisation of these values will follow improvements in the same technology” (128). Rather than producing on a small scale using informal sales channels and quasi-formal commercial interactions, industrialisation increased the rate of production and distribution to the degree that it required thoroughly rationalised systems with which to control the logistics of marketing, payment, and distribution. It is this need that results in the development of control systems. Beniger shows that control systems are the foundation for advances in bureaucratic organisation, telecommunication, and transportation (1986, 432). In other words, they are the foundation for what Tönnies would call gesellschaft. This trend can be seen in the coordination of agricultural production scattered through the South and West of the U.S. in the 1850s. As production increased and delivery of products to markets was facilitated by steam trains and steam-powered river boats, it became difficult to use the traditional logistical systems based on personal relations. This new set of circumstances led to the development of commodity traders and a central commodity exchange based on telegraphy. This eliminated many intermediary transactions. In this way, the new transportation modes, communication tools, and trading mechanisms rationalised trading and sidestepped the middle men who had operated more or less trading systems up to that point. Telegraphy meant that crops could be bought and sold while in transit and, with the development of the futures market, even before harvest (Beniger 1986, 249). The move from informal production and marketing to more rationalised production practices with high-speed transportation and the use of telecommunication is the foundation of a much broader control system. Beniger (1986) notes, “What made the Commercial Revolution truly revolutionary was that, for the first time, distributional and control systems including information processing, programming, and telecommunications could be sustained on a global basis” (185).

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In the early 20th century, this development took hold and provided everwider possibilities for large-scale production. Using Eli Whitney’s interchangeable parts, Henry Ford and Charles Sorensen developed the moving assembly line in order to produce Model T Fords. During World War II, bombers were produced at the same Willow Run plant using the same technique (Sorensen 1956). This has since been developed into “just in time” production. In this context, there is a tightly controlled preproduction and production system that integrates the assembly process with numerous feeder producers. This practice reduces the need for inventory backlogs, and it allows for relatively quick changes and the ability to produce variations on the base product (Kumar 1995). However, it demands tight scheduling of work, correlated with fluctuations in demand and extremely sophisticated logistical support. The genius of Beniger’s (1986) work is that he shows how the trajectory of the control revolution has been with us for some time: The Information Society has not resulted from recent changes … but rather from increases in the speed of material processing and flows through the material economy that began more than a century ago. Similarly, micro processing and computing technology, contrary to currently fashionable opinion, do not represent a new force only recently unleashed on an unprepared society but merely the most recent installment in the continuing development of the Control Revolution. This explains why so many of the components of computer control have been anticipated, both by visionaries like Charles Babbage and by practical innovators like Daniel McCallum, since the first signs of a control crisis in the early nineteenth century. (435) This story line suggests that there is the drift towards gesellschaft. While he generally examines commercial interactions, Beniger (1986) also suggests that this drift has implications for the individual, namely, that there is an increasing need to standardise the dealings: Perhaps most pervasive of all rationalisation is the increasing tendency to regulate interpersonal relationships in terms of a formal set of impersonal, quantifiable, and objective criteria, changes that greatly facilitate control by both government and business. The complex social systems that arose with the growth of capitalism and improved transportation and communication would have overwhelmed any information-processing system that operated

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on a case-by-case basis or by the particularistic considerations of family and kin that characterised preindustrial societies. (435) The drive towards sameness is seen in the constitution of jobs, education, shopping, and other formal dimensions of life. There is the need to treat people as cases and to have standardised responses to a complex variety of needs. I assert, however, that there is a legacy of gemeinschaft. As noted, there is little discussion of the intimate sphere in Beniger. Rather than focusing on the private sphere, he places his gaze on commercial interactions. In this he gives us valuable insight into the broad sweep of industrial life for several centuries. We are still prompted to ask, however, how the various coordination and control technologies are being appropriated for private use.

Digital Gemeinschaft: Personal Technologies as Control Revolution Spillovers The question one might ask is whether there is hope for the gemeinschaft or is there only the inevitable drift towards Tönnies’ gesellschaftliche dystopia? Tönnies suggests that there is a general and inevitable drift towards the more rationalised gesellschaft. I am interested in positing, however, that there is a tension between the two. It is true that there are undeniable efficiencies to be realised by the machining of the production process. In addition, industrialisation has provided society with unquestionable benefit in terms of better food, better health, longer lives, and easier working conditions for the majority of people. However, is this to the exclusion of a warm, welcoming interpersonal life? Gesellschaft pushes us towards increasing isolation. There is, as Tönnies suggests, flow towards individualism and calculated formal interaction. The car, the suburban expanse, the isolation of mediated interaction, and the fractured nature of daily life lead to increased isolation. The rationalisation of the computer and digitalisation, conceived and developed in the name of rational ends, seemingly pushes us that way and seems to suggest that gesellschaft will trump gemeinschaft. That said, the nomos, or gemeinschaft, has staying power. In the words of Keith Hampton and Barry Wellman (2003), “Private and parochial life continues to be important, with kin providing a stable core of broadly supportive relations and neighbors providing immediate access to tangible goods and services” (278). Like Hampton and Wellman, I suggest that there remains the will towards non-rationalised social interaction. There is the will to preserve close social groups in spite of the trend towards rationalisation and commercialisation. This can be seen, for example, in research on the city and

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the suburbs. Early on, the prognosis was that they would lead to anomie. In spite of that, H. J. Gans (1967) found that the suburbs allowed for the cultivation of family ties (234), and C. Fischer (1976, 1982, 2011) has noted that “birds of a feather” find one another in suburbia as well as in cities. Indeed, Fischer notes that in these settings there is a critical mass of people interested in specialised hobbies and topics, which allows for the development of both weak and strong ties. People can form an old car club, a geocaching group, or a group celebrating one or another nationality. There can be a scene for lesbians, religious sects, or jazz lovers. This trend echoes C. Calhoun’s (1998) notion of communities without propinquity. It seems that Tönnies’ gemeinschaft has persevered. It relies on local ties (Wellman 2002; Wellman and Wortley 1989), as well as those who are further afield in the urban-suburban landscape (Fischer 1976). Family, friends, and neighbors are important in this broader mix for care giving and providing succour (Hampton and Wellman 2003). In addition, there are ties that may be spread across the city (and may be far away and available only via Facebook or the mobile phone). They say that, “The typical network community in North America consists of a small number of densely-knit immediate kin and a larger number of sparsely-knit friends, neighbors, workmates, and extended kin. … Neighborly relationships remain important, but as a minority of ties within the overall network community” (1998, 230; see also Gordon and Silva 2011, 110). Gemeinschaft is being mutated. It is finding new channels through which it is practiced, but it is still vital. In the continued existence of the gemeinschaft, it is clear that mediated interaction has a role. We are still committed to using the phone, as well as electronically mediated writing, in order to maintain our social ties (Odlyzko 2001). Indeed, there is a type of jujitsu in all of this. Those very technologies that result in the rationalisation of society and serve the purposes of capitalism are being reconceptualized to meet the needs of our social lives. The mobile phone, the telephone, and the internet were developed and first used in the name of gesellschaft. They arose out of the extreme rationalising impulse of commercial (and military) interests. They were intended as tools of industry and commerce. To even a greater degree, the telegraph was framed on this pattern. Thus, it is not surprising that the first applications of the mobile phone were in the service of business (Johannesen 1981). The mobile phone was first popularised as an instrument of commerce (Ling 2012). After a period of being a play thing of the rich (Agar 2003), it was adopted by salespeople in order to better coordinate their travels. This phase was soon met by another tendency whereby the technology was adopted for private use. In the case of the mobile phone, the price of handsets and subscriptions fell. As subscriptions were better suited to the needs of families and individuals, the mobile phone became a feature of daily

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life. By the early 1990s in many countries, “nontraditional” users were becoming common. Teens calling their friends and adults calling partners and friends for social interaction became common. This suggested the endurance of a somewhat dislocated but lasting gemeinschaft. The same pattern can be seen in the use of Web 2.0 applications. Many people use the mobile phone to micro-coordinate daily life in the context of both their social and their work lives (Ling and Yttri 2002). We also use the mobile phone for frequent contact with our closest sphere of friends and family (Ling, Bertel, and Sundsøy 2012). Research on use in Norway shows that half of all calls and texts go to fewer than five different people. As one would expect, younger people have somewhat larger social networks and elderly people have smaller circles.2 Nonetheless, most of us have only a handful of people among our most frequent contacts. The analysis of the people with whom we talk shows that they are usually physically nearby, that is, within 10 to 15 kilometers (Ling, Bertel, and Sundsøy 2012). The analysis of 26 million calls made in Norway shows that a quarter of the calls and texts were to people with their phone registered in the same postal zone as the caller’s.3 While there is the idea that ICT opens up access to the broad world, when thinking of the mobile phone, we actually use it to stay in touch with a small group of people who are physically near at hand. The analysis (Ling et al. 2011) also showed that most calls and texts go to a limited number of people who live within a “city-sized” area. This suggests that we use the mobile phone to cultivate the gemeinschaft. To the degree that the mobile phone is a proxy for our social circle (Ling et al. forthcoming), these considerations describe the durability of gemeinschaft. The mobile phone is an important link to our nearest circle of friends and family. The mobile phone and other forms of direct interpersonal contact help us to create and maintain cohesion. In the words of a teen from a focus group in the U.S., “The best thing [about the mobile phone] is easily being connected with people” (Lenhart et al. 2010). Other researchers have also noted this. Kenichi Ishii (2006) reports that mobile technology helps us to maintain bonds in the intimate sphere, and Christian Licoppe (2004) has described its use in providing for “connected presence.” These results underscore how the mobile phone gives us a digitally supported version of gemeinschaft that is increasingly integral to our lives. To be sure, the mobile phone is used for both expressive and instrumental ends. We coordinate our daily routines and make them more efficient; in addition, we use it to call a friend for a quick chat when we need to hear a familiar voice or when we have some exciting news. As M. Ito and D. Okabe (2005) noted, the mobile phone lets us reach out and give one another a digital clap on the back. It allows us to let one another know that we are there. All of this ties us more tightly together, it gives us social cohesion, and it is these ties that give the social group resilience.

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To say that the mobile telephone is a part of the digital gemeinschaft does not necessarily mean that it is only a benign and cozy addition to daily life. Indeed, the gemeinschaft is not only supportive; it is also regulating. The mobile phone can be used to check on and support family and friends, but it can also be used to pester them and to remind them of their responsibilities vis-à-vis the intimate sphere. Just as rational bureaucracies can push us unwillingly in one direction or another, so can the demands of local traditional power centers, be they the disapproving glance of the priest or the disapprobation of the local wag. Parents can call their teenage children at ill-timed moments, just at the teens can call their parents when they would rather be doing something other than driving to get them. The mobile phone can be used for intimidation, and power relations can be worked out (in more and perhaps less elegant ways). The web of mutual expectations associated with life in the gemeinschaft is not necessarily a utopia since it can be populated by local tin-horned kingpins to whom we need to kowtow. In either the inviting or the intimidating phases of the gemeinschaft, we must play the game. We have to be available to one another, and we have to perform the acts associated with being a family member, a friend, an acquaintance, or a neighbor. We have to play by the rules. We have to be available to others as needed, and we have to be there to fulfill our role in the firmament of gemeinschaft. It is naive to think that either gemeinschaft or gesellschaft is only a utopia; both have power structures that will exercise their initiative vis-à-vis the individual.

Technologies of Social Mediation Up to this point I have been generally talking of the mobile phone as a device of the individual. There is the common notion that it is a gadget in our own personal service. It is something from which we, individually, gain utility. I now want to make the transition into talking of the mobile phone, as well as other technologies, as something that provides utility to the group. Considering the mobile phone, it is becoming increasingly taken for granted. We are no longer surprised that another person has a mobile phone. We may be envious that they have the newest model or a particularly stylish brand, but we are not surprised. The mobile phone is also taken for granted in a more social sense. That is, we expect others to be available via their mobile phones. This expectation describes the social dimension of ownership and use because the functionality of the device is a benefit not only to the individual who owns a particular handset; indeed a handset without the network and contact with other users has very little value. The value is in the ability to contact one another (in addition to the access to information). It is

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in this way that the mobile phone has become what I call a technology of social mediation (Ling 2012). In my book Taken for Grantedness, I have defined social mediation technologies as “legitimated artifacts and systems governed by group-based reciprocal expectations that enable but also set conditions for the maintenance of our social sphere” (Ling 2012). This plays off Durkheim’s (1938) notion of social facts in that the use of social mediation technologies is not a matter of personal choice but is rather an assumed part of social interaction. Indeed, we experience a structural imperative to use them. We ignore them at the peril of stepping outside social norms. The same can be said of time and time keeping, the use of the car for transportation in many suburbs, and the use of different types of social networking sites.4 Durkheim (1938) says that social facts “are imbued with a compelling and coercive power by virtue of which, whether he wishes it or not, they impose themselves upon him. … It asserts itself as soon as I try to resist” (51). Further, he writes, “They come to each one of us from outside and can sweep us along in spite of ourselves. If perhaps I abandon myself to them I may not be conscious of the pressure that they are exerting upon me, but that pressure makes its presence felt immediately [when] I attempt to struggle against them” (53). It is in the ability to demand others’ use that we see the difference between technologies of social mediation and stand-alone technologies. While there are gray areas, I see social mediation technologies literally as technologies that mediate social interaction. This use of mediation is broader than that used when speaking of, for example, electronic media (Livingstone 2008). The narrower definition is often seen as the encoding of information that allows for its transfer. A scene is, for example, taken up by a video camera, digitized, and sent via the TV or the internet to others. In the sense used here, a medium is a device or a system that intervenes between actors and which they use to carry out their social commerce. In this broader sense, it can be a device we use to coordinate ourselves with others (a clock or a mobile phone). It can be a system used for expressive communication (a mobile phone or a social network site), or it can be a system used for transportation (the car). In many ways, the key to understanding fully formed social mediation technologies is that we expect them of each other. As is often the case, they are sometimes easiest to see in their absence. James Katz has said that “you become a problem for me if you do not use” a social mediation technology (Ling 2012). If I decide to invite a friend from across town to dinner but his or her mobile phone does not have a battery, or if his or her car is on the blink, then the event becomes stranded. In order to make the dinner happen, I would have to make some extraordinary effort to get in touch if it is their mobile phone on the blink (and my friend is not near a PC, for example). It is even worse if for some reason they do not have access to a clock since then

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they might show up at my house expecting dinner at some random point in time. If our group uses Facebook to coordinate our social interaction and one member does not have access, that member becomes a problem to the degree that we want to include him or her. Social mediation technologies have four characteristics. First, we need to have the perception that there is a critical mass of users in our group or in our society. If we are, for example, the only person with a fax machine or a mobile telephone or the only one who uses the office calendar system, then there is little point. However, as more people get the device, the utility of the device increases. At some point, there is a transition. Rather than being surprised if another person has one, we come to expect it. Finally, at some point we begin to rely on it; it becomes a structural part of the social interaction. Following the Katz principle, it is awkward with someone who does not have one, because we have structured our lives around the functionality of everyone having one. The important point in this element is that there is the perception of a critical mass. It is not a specific percentage of users who define this social critical mass; it is rather the product of the sense that we can expect others to be users of the device. As social mediation technology moves into society and gains the mantle of criticality, it structures interaction. M. Weber’s (2002) metaphor of the iron cage is evocative here. He suggests that social constructions often are originally to “only lie on the shoulders of the ‘saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment’” (181). However, as they work their way into society, they become an iron cage that we cannot ignore. Second, we often develop legitimation structures (Berger and Luckmann 1967) to help with the adoption and use of social mediation technologies. P. Berger and T. Luckmann suggest that our mutual agreement regarding a technology “requires legitimation, that is, ways by which it can be ‘explained’ and justified” (1967, 79). These are constructed by both the individuals who use the technology and by the commercial interests that push for its adoption. To be sure, there can also be counter-legitimations that sing the praises of the previous incumbent (horse-based versus car-based transportation, for example). Third, social mediation technologies change the broader social ecology in which they function. The metaphor of a niche as developed by K. Boulding (1978) is useful in conceptualising this dynamic. A niche is a position in the ecology that is generally occupied by a species. The boundary is determined by the different constraints. All things being equal, a species eventually establishes an equilibrium population. This is a common term in biology, but it has also been applied to the “population” of various human artifacts (Boulding 1955). It is also useful to think of how different populations invade the niches of other species. Using this approach, we can also think that there are open niches such as cats in Indonesia, rabbits in Australia, starlings and tamarix in North America, and numerous other examples that illustrate the

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often unfortunate impact of introducing new species into a biome (Money and Hobbs 2000). These invasive species show that when a new “species” starts to occupy an open niche, or one that is occupied by a weaker competitor, it can also change the boundaries of the niche and reform the broader social environment. Turning to the technical world, the clock out-competed the sun dial, the car out-competed the horse, and the mobile phone is outcompeting the landline phone and the telephone booth. As a result of this phenomenon, society has directed monies away from sundial production, buggy whips, and telephone poles. It is clock towers, parking lots, and mobile phone exchanges that get the resources. This shows the transition in the social ecology of these devices. Finally, as has been noted, we have reciprocal expectations of use when it comes to technologies of social mediation. When we have the perception that there is a critical mass of use and the technology is embedded in society through the appropriate legitimation processes, society becomes structured around the use of the technology. Normal interaction assumes our use of the technology. Mechanical timekeeping occupies such a position when seen by these lights. We could, for example, agree to have a business meeting when the sun is at its highest point (and check this by looking at the shadows) or agree to meet clients at about halfway through the morning. Clearly these approaches are far too loose. In addition, they would not fit into a society that is structurally aligned to the system of clock-based time keeping. Thus, the technology enables our activities, but it also constrains use. Technologies of social mediation allow us to fulfill our responsibilities to society. They can and are indeed used in the name of gesellschaft, but they are also used in order to maintain gemeinschaft. They gain a central structural position in our daily lives, and we are often quite unable to operate as social individuals without them. There is constraint and cohesion in this, but there is also access to the intimate sphere.

Conclusion Mobile communication is both a control technology that characterised the gesellschaft and a technology that facilitates the gemeinschaft. Mobile communication is being thoroughly embedded in society and it is increasingly a structured part of daily life. On the one hand the mobile phone gives us a freedom, and it also gives us a system for coordination as well as a safety and security device. It is a system with which we can participate in the flux of daily life. It gives us access to our intimate sphere, but it also ties us to the increasingly rationalised society. The boss can call; we receive orders on where the important meeting will be held, and so on. In this way, it is a part of the

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broader turn towards the black digitisation of the world (referring to the unholy wizardry of IT in the finance world that pursues profits in the nanosecond). This is the rationalisation of the world and the turn away from tradition and kinship, neighborhood, friendship, intimacy, folkways, and mores. It may also be the rationalisation of friendship. It may well be that we are fooling ourselves with the idea that our Twitter friends understand the ebb and flow of our lives. There is also a more positive take on the use of the mobile phone. There is the hope, and indeed there is real evidence, that we still have a reserve of gemeinschaft in the mobile phone and that we can use the device in order to have genuine interaction. We can appropriate the technologies, at least partially, to be a better parent or partner or friend. This may be a pipe dream. I may have too much of a gadget fixation that is otherwise being used for the black arts of hedge funds and derivatives. I may be desperately grasping at the digital straws that are represented by Facebook, Twitter, and texting. However, I choose to think that we can use technologies of social mediation in the name of gemeinschaft. What does all this mean in daily life? At a practical level, it means that we have to understand that the same device is being used as a tool in the rationalisation of, for example, commerce, just as it allows for cultivation of the intimate sphere. Given this dual character, it probably means that we will have to adjust our expectations as well as the expectations of those with whom we interact in order to take this into account. At a practical level, how should parents and their children negotiate the role of the mobile phone? How should the device be located in the interactions between employers and employees? What is the impact of the mobile internet on privacy? Looking at the first of these questions, it may be unfortunate if use within the intimate sphere takes on characteristics of the gesellschaft. While parents can use smartphones to track their children, it might be better to develop such a relationship with them that this type of mobile-based initiative is not necessary. It may also be necessary to avoid the blending of work and private life that the mobile phone affords. We need to strive to give the private sphere its place that is free from the impulses of the commercial world. It may also be difficult to use the techniques and the formulations of the gemeinschaft when the intention is gesellschaftliche. There needs to be recognition by work colleagues that the mobile phone reaches individuals even when they are not at the office or the work place. This means that a call might disturb their private life. There needs to be sensitivity about transgressing this boundary. In each case there is a tension between relatively powerful and powerless persons. There is the interaction of conflicting interests. There is the push towards greater control versus what Durkheim might call a more organic type of interaction. In all these interactions, it is important to take the potential of

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the technology into account and to use it in the name of a more tolerant society. It is also important to understand the duality of the device.

Endnotes 1. This paper is an edited version of the paper presented at the conference on Local and Mobile: Linking Mobilities, Mobile Communication and Locative Media in Raleigh, North Carolina, March 16–18, 2012. 2. Data also shows that, in broad strokes, the same can be said of people in Malaysia, Thailand, and Bangladesh (Ling et al. forthcoming). 3. Presumably, many of these are to someone living in the same home, though the data does not allow this granularity of analysis. 4. This latter example is within the context of some groups. The idea of social mediation technologies is scalable. Time is almost a universal while the use of, for example, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest is a more limited technology.

References Agar, J. 2003. Constant Touch: A Global History of the Mobile Phone. Cambridge, UK: Icon Books. Beniger, J. R. 1986. The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard. Berger, P., and T. Luckmann. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York, NY: Anchor. Boulding, K. 1955. “An Application of Population Analysis to the Automobile Population of the United States.” Kyklos 8 (2): 109–22. ———. 1978. Ecodynamics: A New Theory of Social Evolution. London, UK: Sage. Calhoun, C. 1998. “Community without Propinquity Revisited: Communications Technology and the Transformation of the Urban Public Sphere.” Sociological Inquiry 68 (3): 373–97. doi:10.1111/j.1475-682X.1998.tb00474.x. Durkheim, E. 1938. The Rules of the Sociological Method. New York, NY: Free Press. ———. 1997. The Division of Labor in Society. New York, NY: Free Press. Fischer, C. 1976. The Urban Experience. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ———. 1982. To Dwell among Friends: Personal Networks in Town and City. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ———. 2011. Made in America: A Social History of American Culture and Character. Reprint. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Gans, H. J. 1967. The Leavittowners:Ways of Life and Politics in a New Suburban Community. New York, NY: Vintage. Gordon, E., and A. de Souza e Silva. 2011. Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Hampton, K., and B. Wellman. 2003. “Neighboring in Netville: How Internet Supports Community and Social Capital in a Wired Suburb.” City & Community 2 (4): 277–311. Inglis, D. 2009. “Cosmopolitan Sociology and the Classical Canon: Ferdinand Tönnies and the Emergence of Global Geselleschaft.” British Journal of Sociology 60 (4): 813–32. Ishii, K. 2006. “Implications of Mobility: the Uses of Personal Communication Media in Everyday Life.” Journal of Communication 56: 346–65.

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Ito, M., and D. Okabe. 2005. “Intimate Connections: Contextualizing Japanese Youth and Mobile Messaging.” In The Inside Text: Social, Cultural and Design Perspectives on SMS, edited by R. Harper, L. Palen, and A. Taylor, 127–45. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer. Johannesen, S. 1981. Sammendrag av Markedsundersøkelser Gjennomført for Televerket I Tiden 1966–1981. Kjeller, Norway: Televerkets Forskninginstitutt. Kumar, K. 1995. From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society: New Theories of the Contemporary World. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Lenhart, A., R. Ling, S. Campbell, and K. Purcell. 2010. Teens and Mobile Phones. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Licoppe, C. 2004. “Connected Presence: The Emergence of a New Repertoire for Managing Social Relationships in a Changing Communications Technoscape.” Environment and Planning: Society and Space 22: 135–56. Ling, R. 2012. Taken for Grantedness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ling, R., T. Bertel, and P. Sundsøy. 2012. “The Socio-Demographics of Texting: An Analysis of Traffic Data.” New Media & Society 14 (2): 280–97. Ling, Rich, J. Bjelland, P. R. Sundsøy, and S. Campbell. 2011. “Small Circles: Mobile Telephony and the Cultivation of the Private Sphere.” Boston, MA: ICA. Ling, R., J. Bjelland, G. Canright, K. Engø-Monsen, and P. R. Sundsøy. Forthcoming. “Small and Even Smaller Circles: The Size of Mobile Phone Based Core Social Networks in Scandinavia and South Asia.” Journal of Intercultural Research. Ling, R., and B. Yttri. 2002. “Hyper-Coordination via Mobile Phones in Norway.” In Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, edited by J. E. Katz and M. Aakhus, 139–69. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Livingstone, S. 2008. “On the Mediation of Everything: ICA Presidential Address 2008.” Journal of Communication 59 (1): 1–18. Marx, K. (1903) 1977. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Moscow, Russia: Progress Publishers. Money, H. A., and R. J. Hobbs. 2000. Invasive Species in a Changing World. Washington, DC: Island Press. Odlyzko, A. 2001. “Content Is Not King.” First Monday 6 (2). www.firstmonday.org/htbin/cgi wrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/833/742. Sorensen, C. E. 1956. My Forty Years with Ford. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Tönnies, F. 2002. Community and Society. Newton Abbot, Devon, U.K.: Courier Dover Publications. Turner, J. H. 1986. The Structure of Social Theory. Chicago, IL: Dorsey. Weber, M. 1978. Economy and Society. Edited by G. Roth and C. Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weber, M. 2002. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London, U.K.: Routledge. Wellman, B. 2002. “Little Boxes, Glocalization, and Networked Individualism.” In Digital Cities II: Computational and Sociological Approaches, edited by M.Tanabe, P. van den Besselaar, and T. Ishida, 10–25. Berlin, Germany: Springer. Wellman, B., and S. Wortley. 1989. “Brothers’ Keepers: Situating Kinship Relations in Broader Networks of Social Support.” Sociological Perspectives 32 (3): 273–306.

C h a p t e r

Competition and the Evolution of Mobile Markets Chetan Sharma

Editors’ Note: This chapter outlines the basic rules of competitive markets and highlights the challenges with respect to regulatory environments of mobile operators. Contrasts are drawn between the different regulatory models and market patterns in countries such as the U.S., U.K., India, Japan, and China. As with some other industries, the top three mobile operators dominate their markets in many countries. The chapter ends by advising regulators and the political leadership of a country to be well aware of technology and market trends, and to think of long-term interests rather than shortterm gains. In an ideal situation, mobile operators and consumers should both gain, although mobile operators will face hard choices in technology forecasting and service design. Since time immemorial, competition has been the lifeblood of industries and markets. In the early Roman era, legislators controlled price fluctuations and unfair trade practices. In Julius Caesar’s time, around 50 BC, these principles were codified in Lex Julia de Annona to protect the corn trade, and heavy fines were imposed on anyone directly, deliberately, and insidiously stopping supply ships.1 Through the Middle Ages and into the modern global economy, industries and nations have been governed by written and unwritten rules of competition. Competition is the central tenet of economics and, in turn, fairness to everyday consumers. Competition also drives innovation, accelerates the advent of new and nimble players to disrupt the waters, and moves the ecosystem forward. In theory, there are two extremes of a competitive environment: perfect competition, in which several players compete and have 109

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similar market shares, and monopolistic environment, wherein a single player dictates the terms of the market. In a perfectly competitive environment, price is equal to the marginal cost, and the average cost and profits of the companies involved tend towards zero. Perfect competition delivers both productive efficiency and allocative efficiency.2 In a perfectly competitive environment, economic profits for efficient firms tend towards zero, so inefficient firms must lose money and gradually exit the market. On the other hand, in a perfectly monopolistic environment, the monopolist will sell less than would be sold under perfect competition, and the price will be higher. This means that the pricing and output decisions of a monopolist fail to maximise consumer value and social welfare and thus allow scope for a regulator to improve matters. In reality, the markets lie somewhere in between and the degree of competitiveness varies from industry to industry and from nation to nation. Competition in the mobile markets can be quite intense, as in India, the U.S., or the U.K., and market forces have an impact on price–demand curves for services. In the U.S., during the past 18 years, voice revenue per minute dropped as usage grew. Similarly, as data usage grew to more than 350 MB per month in 2010, revenue per megabyte has gone down.3 Competition is a central idea in economics; its idealisation as perfect competition underlies much of the traditional analysis.4 In an ideal world, perfect competition will have enough participants in the ecosystem so that no player is large enough to exert its market power to set the price of a homogeneous product. However, in reality, markets are imperfect, and there are hardly any perfectly competitive industries or marketplaces. However, regulators and market forces seek a perfect equilibrium that lets buyers and sellers engage in fruitful transactions. Sometimes regulators forget that the most important job they have is to ensure that the markets they regulate are competitive. Competition protects consumers, works towards the general welfare of the mass markets, keeps the “big boys” from behaving badly, and, in general, maintains equilibrium for innovation and progress of the industry. In some instances, regulators have not done a good job and have let markets drift away. Adding competition at a later date generally does not change the industry structure by very much. As the mobile device has transitioned from luxury item to everyday necessity, the supply–demand curves of mobile voice and data usage have also undergone significant transition in markets around the world. The curves continue to be shaped by consumer behaviour, which continues to change with the introduction of new devices, networks, and services.

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The Rule of Three In his 1976 paper, Bruce Henderson, the founder of Boston Consulting Group, surmised, “A stable competitive market never has more than three significant competitors, the largest of which has no more than four times the market share of the smallest.”5 Picking up on that theme, Jagdish Sheth and Rajendra Sisodia, in their influential book The Rule of Three: Surviving and Thriving in Competitive Markets,6 further observed that in most industries, the top three players control 70 to 90 percent of the market. While many markets start from zero or a single dominating player, any mature market generally trends towards three top players eventually controlling the market. The remaining players generally focus on niches and can create a healthy margin business, but the top three serve the majority of the market. Take any industry, and we see the Rule of Three at work. We studied the competitive landscape in 40 top markets around the globe; the results are discussed in this chapter.

The Rule of Three in Mobile In the case of mobile operators in a given country, the Rule of Three is followed with remarkable consistency. Of the 40 major markets studied, the top three mobile operators in any given country controlled on average 93 percent of their respective markets. In fact, in 36 of the 40 markets the top three players control 85 percent or more of the market. Other hyper-competitive markets are the U.K. and the U.S., which had more than four to five large players and are moving towards the consolidation phase wherein the top three control more than 80 percent of the market. Of all the large major markets, only India proves to be an exception because of the hyper-growth phase of the market and because of the somewhat unique nature of the market. Figure 5.1 shows the market share of the top three operators in the 12 major mobile markets in the world. Except for India, the top three operators have generally controlled more than approximately 80 percent of the market during the past 11 years. The U.S. market has also gradually consolidated during the past 18 years with the top four players (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile) controlling approximately 90 percent of the market. The Rule of Three phenomenon is evident in other parts of the mobile ecosystem, as in mobile devices, where the top three control 53 percent of the unit share; mobile operating systems, where they control 90 percent of the market share; smartphones, where their share is 55 percent; and areas such as mobile search, where it is almost 100 percent.7

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Figure 5.1

Market share of the top three operators in leading global markets. Source: Chetan Sharma Consulting, 2011

This chapter focuses primarily on the mobile operators in various markets. It should be noted that the Rule of Three is applicable to mature and open markets where competitive forces are at play. In upcoming, fast-paced, or controlled markets, the structure might look different. However, in emerging markets that are open, the market structure tends to settle towards the top three players. The perfect examples are China and India. Both markets are currently in hyper-growth mode. While India is more open, the competitive concentration is limited (relative to other mature markets), but by 2014, we can expect the Rule of Three to take effect. China, on the contrary, has not been deregulated enough to be shaped by market forces, and the three mobile operators are a by-product of the regulatory design.

The Herfindahl–Hirschman Index The Herfindahl–Hirschman index (HHI) is a tool commonly used by economists and regulators to gauge the competitiveness and concentration of any given industry.8 It is calculated by squaring the market share of each firm competing in the market and then summing the resulting numbers. Mathematically, the scale goes from 0 to 10,000. The higher the number, the less competitive the markets are. Normalising to 1, on a scale of 0 to 1, 1 represents

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a perfect monopoly and 0 a perfectly fragmented oligopolistic market. The U.S. Department of Justice considers a value of .18 to be a balanced market, and it studies how the HHI will change if any major merger or acquisition is to be approved.9 As illustrated in the preceding section, mobile networks follow the Rule of Three with remarkable consistency. We combined the two concepts to study the competitiveness and the market share of the top three mobile operators in the major mobile markets. HHI3 represents the HHI for the top three operators in a given country and can be calculated as follows:10 HHI3 = Σ(Mobile Operator Market Share)i2 where I = 1..3 To study market concentration, we look at both subscription concentration and revenue concentration. Generally, market share and revenue share are strongly correlated, but in some segments of the mobile markets, there are some exceptions. For example, in 2010, in the device market, Apple and Nokia had widely varying market share and revenue share figures. While Apple controls a relatively small percentage of the units shipped, its share of the industry profits is disproportionately higher. On the other hand, Nokia’s unit market share, although it has been eroding for the past few years, is still quite high, but its profit share is disproportionately lower because of much lower margins. However, the mobile services business is less dependent on innovation and intellectual property, and more on market share. Hence, the more customers you have, the more likely you are to have a higher revenue share. In some of the markets, the dominant operators have a higher proportion of the profits because of their market dominance. Generally, higher revenue share also translates into higher margins, but not always. In saturated markets, the additional cost of securing a new customer is high, which impacts the margins. Higher competition also has a diluting impact on the average revenue per user (ARPU) and the margins. This may not be good for the player and its shareholders, but it is good for consumers and the ecosystem. The degree of concentration in different industries (Figure 5.2) can vary significantly, depending on a number of factors, such as the industry’s evolution cycle and barriers to entry. For example, in the case of commercial jets, only Boeing and Airbus control the global market, whereas the airline industry is more competitive because of regional, national, and international players (although the industry has gone through several consolidation phases in the past three decades). In the mobile space, except for some of the emerging areas, the established segments generally settle down, with the top three taking the lion’s share of both the revenues and the profits.

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Figure 5.2

HHI3 competitive index of various industries and segments in the U.S. Sources: Chetan Sharma Consulting, StatCounter, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. Business Reporter

Analysing Global Telecom Markets To understand the competitive landscape in the mobile markets around the world, we looked at the top 40 markets by size and importance. Figure 5.3 shows the HHI3 by revenue share and subscription market share. One of the facts that stands out is that the hyper-growth markets of China and India are at opposite ends of the competitive index spectrum. How can that be? A closer observation of the market shows that while China Mobile controlled 68 percent of the Chinese mobile market in 2010, the top five operators in India controlled less than 50 percent of the market. While market power is highly concentrated in China, it is very evenly distributed in India, putting these two countries at opposite ends of the competitive index scale. The regulatory history of the two markets shows us how global mobile markets generally tend to evolve. In some markets, notably European, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, regulators take an active role in shaping the market by granting the wireless spectrum in India to a limited number of players. Regulators generally start by giving one or two top wireline operators licenses to operate, and gradually the third and fourth operators get into the market. However, depending on the timing, it might take years before the additional players make any difference to the competitive index of a given

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market, because of the high concentration of market share in the top one or two players. Figure 5.3 shows the HHI3 distribution and the groupings of similar nations by HHI3 value. As markets evolve, the competitive landscape tends to settle the market in the middle, as represented by the inclined oval in the figure. At one extreme is India, with an HHI3 value of 0.10 and hyper-competition, and at the other extreme are China and Mexico, with an HHI3 value greater than 0.50. The average HHI3 value of the sample group is 0.33. China Mobile had 75 percent of China’s market in 2005. China Unicom played second fiddle to China Mobile for a long time, and in 2008, the government empowered China Telecom to become the third player. But as of 2010, the overall market structure had not changed much. In the early days, the regulators focused on price regulation rather than competition in order to keep the prices down but price regulation was not very effective.11 In India, the market structure has been more open. While the mobile market started late, the regulators granted licenses to too many operators at the same time. Also, the licenses were granted regionally (known as circles) and nationally. This practice resulted in intense competition. ARPU has dropped from $45 to merely $5 in a matter of 5 years. Operators compete more on the

Figure 5.3

Competitive index of global wireless markets (subscriber and revenue concentration). Source: Chetan Sharma Consulting, 2011

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ability to lower cost than on their ability to generate sufficient revenues to maintain the healthy margins that can keep them in the game. The U.K. provides a perfect case study of the changing competitive landscape. The market there has been hyper-competitive from the start. High competition drove down prices for consumers and margins for the No. 3 and No. 4 players, which, as expected, merged to become the top player in the market. The HHI3 inched up from 0.19 to 0.20, and the market share of the top 3 climbed from 70 percent to 80 percent. The U.S. is another interesting competitive market. In the HHI3 groupings in Figure 5.3, the U.S. falls into an unlikely cluster with the emerging markets of Pakistan, Russia, and Brazil. The primary reason is that the top two operators (Verizon Wireless and AT&T) control 60 percent, and the top three about 78 percent of the market; together, they are approaching 80 to 100 percent.

The National Competitiveness Dimension Telecommunications has become the core infrastructure of a nation’s competitive and security apparatus. As such, regulators have been eager to play a role in shepherding its future for their country. In free and open markets, the power of regulators is generally limited to spectrum allocation. Typically, in such markets the regulators are not able to act until a “true” monopoly or a duopoly is formed. At other times, regulators are just behind the curve, and by the time they catch up, it is too late and the game has changed. In more controlled markets, such as Japan or China, regulators work closely with the specific industries for their national advantage. That the Japanese regulatory model worked so well for its mobile industry is no accident. The Japanese government has a more competitive attitude and is eager to protect the interests of its players, as well as maximise the benefits for its citizens. After years of economic stagnation, the South Korean government adopted the Japanese model of industry collaboration and actively protected and enhanced the competitiveness of Korean players. The Chinese regulatory bodies have taken the same approach a step further, and one can see battles of national competitiveness being fought at geopolitical levels. In a global economy, nations are looking to preserve the industry profits and strength of their leading players for their local markets, while attacking global markets. Ubiquitous mobile broadband has become the stated goal of governments worldwide. Research has shown the positive impact of broadband availability on productivity and growth.12 Some nations will achieve this through the direct collaboration of regulators and industry players, while others will leave it to the industry players to find their way and meet the stated national regulatory goals. In some cases, the political system will work hand in hand with

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the industry to keep the nation competitive, while in others the political class will have a hard time grasping the basics of competitive mobile markets. The current decade will see the emergence of new players and new powerhouses. Regulatory policies and actions will go a long way in determining the market structures and competitive landscape of global mobile markets and ecosystems.

The Next 25 Years It is pretty clear that mobile will become the platform of everything. Anything that can be connected will be connected, and all that available information can make us smarter and more efficient, improve daily lives, enhance social engagement, and help cultivate new interests and relationships. This decade will create new players that will come to dominate many incumbents that fail to adapt or seize initiatives. Overall, the future is extremely bright and full of opportunities to make things better, whether for the enterprise or for the consumer. But how will the competitive landscape shape up during the next 25 years? The past 25 years in mobile were about connectivity and subscriber growth. Revenue was something that resulted from the two. In almost every market, the wireless industry grew out of the traditional wireline industry. The first mobile operators were wireline players who expanded in the then-niche mobile markets. Now that mobile has completely changed the communications paradigm, it is time to rethink its evolution during the next 25 years. There is tremendous pressure at the seams. Players and regulators not only have to deal with domestic market dynamics but also must rethink market structures in light of national competitiveness and globalisation. There are forces at work to decouple access from services and have the ecosystem’s stack reconfigured every few quarters. Will the regulators and the incumbents be able to shape the markets for the next 25 years, or are disruptive forces going to disassemble and reassemble pieces of the value chain? Who is able to extract the most value? Are there going to be alternate ecosystems that threaten the existing landscape, or will emerging companies play in the niches? It is clear that in open, mature, and competitive markets, market forces have a way of finding a sustainable equilibrium point. It is the journey that can be messy and unstructured. There will be billions of dollars at stake, with each segment vying for a good seat at the table. Regulators (and the political class) will need to be nimble and up to speed on emerging trends. They will need to think of long-term horizons rather than short-term skirmishes. The regulatory bodies in various countries have rightly placed their countries’ innovation and job growth prospects at the foot of mobile broadband.13 However, they will need to think longer term, be

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proactive rather than reactionary towards industry events, and have a collaborative approach with the industry. Their role in managing spectrum resources and the competitive landscape will become more important than ever in how the mobile industry, and as a result the larger economy, thrives in a given nation. Consumer preferences and behaviour will also evolve with new technology, and this evolution will have direct impact on how consumers spend their money. If we take a look at the spending habits of U.S. consumers on access and communication services, which include telephone, cable, internet, and mobiles, total “access” spending over the course of the past decade has been consistently around 4 percent of total personal income per capita. However, the share of each of the services has been changing steadily. Telephone, which used to represent 65 percent of access and communication spending, dipped below 30 percent by the end of 2010. Other services have been climbing at the expense of telephone revenues, especially mobile, which since 2007 has commanded the highest share. So overall spending has stayed constant while there has been a significant reallocation of spending. Similarly, within cell phone services, data has gone from being less than 1 percent of overall revenue to more than 35 percent in 2010, and it is going to be more than 50 percent of the overall revenue mix by early 2013.14 Mobile operators need to figure out how to manage these reallocation undercurrents and maintain the overall lifetime value of the customer. The solution will come from a restructuring of business and technology practices, as well as the introduction of new services. It should be noted that during the past 10 years, there has been a gradual move from on-deck traffic (referring to the content properties managed and distributed by the mobile operator) to off-deck traffic (referring to the content that is available independent of the mobile operator), with on-deck accounting for very little traffic in most developed markets. So operators will have to rethink business models that are based only on selling bandwidth. They need to migrate to models that are based more on value to the end customer and the ecosystem. In fact, it will be wise to figure out the business models prior to the technology investments. The competitiveness of mobile markets is a complex subject that needs to be studied across multiple dimensions in order to gain an understanding of how mobile markets evolve and what factors drive competitiveness such that consumer value is maximised. Mobile will continue to be a fascinating industry over the course of this decade as the vision of ubiquitous computing comes to fruition. The factors that drive competition in a given market will continue to evolve, and it is in the interest of the participants—operators, suppliers, regulators—to understand the factors that drive supply–demand curves in a given country or a region.

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Mobile operators will face some hard choices in developing and protecting the role they want to play in a region and the ecosystem at large. The strategy they choose will have a direct impact on the expected earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) margins, the investment required over the long haul, the way investors view them, and the competitive landscape of the country. Given the fast pace of globalisation, new rules and trends might emerge during the course of this decade that further re-define communications and computing as we know them.

Endnotes 1. “History of Competition Law,” Wikipedia, last updated June 15, 2012, accessed August 20, 2012, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_competition_law. 2. “Competition Law Toolkit,” Asian Development Bank, accessed January 18, 2013, www2.adb.org/documents/others/ OGC-Toolkits/Competition-Law/complaw100000.asp. 3. Chetan Sharma Consulting, Managing Growth and Profits in the Yottabyte Era, 2nd ed. (Chetan Sharma Consulting, 2010–11), chetansharma.com/yottabyteera2.htm; Chetan Sharma Consulting, U.S. Wireless Data Market Update 2010 (Chetan Sharma Consulting, 2011), www.chetansharma.com/usmarketupdateq32010.htm. 4. Louis Makowski and Joseph Ostroy, “Perfect Competition and the Creativity of the Market,” Journal of Economic Literature 39, No. 8 ( June 2011), accessed August 20, 2012, www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jel.39.2.479. 5. Bruce Henderson, “The Rule of Three or Four,” 1976 (blog), accessed January 23, 2013, www.bcgperspectives.com/content/Classics/strategy_the_rule_of_three_and_four. 6. Jagdish Sheth and Rajendra Sisodia, The Rule of Three: Surviving and Thriving In Competitive Markets (New York: Free Press, 2002). 7. As of Q4 2010. Chetan Sharma Consulting, U.S. Wireless Data Market Update 2010 (Chetan Sharma Consulting, 2011), www.chetansharma.com/usmarketupdate2010.htm. 8. The Federal Communications Commission’s Commercial Mobile Radio Services Competition Reports provide a good discussion of HHI trends in the U.S. market at wireless. fcc.gov/index.htm?job=cmrs_reports. 9. “Herfindahl–Hirschman Index,” The United States Department of Justice, www.justice.gov/ atr/public/guidelines/hhi.html. 10. For most nations, the ratio of HHI3/HHI will be close to 1 as the top three control the bulk of the market. In markets such as India, however, the ratio will be much lower because of the fragmentation in market share. 11. Yu Sun, Shasha Zhang, “Telecom Price Regulation in China,” School of Information and Communication Technology, Kista, Sweden (April 2007). www.isk.kth.se/~yusu/reports/ Telecom%20price%20regulation%20in%20China.pdf. 12. Vern Fotheringham and Chetan Sharma, Wireless Broadband, Conflict and Convergence (Piscataway, NJ: IEEE/John Wiley, 2009). 13. Julius Genachowski, “America’s Mobile Broadband Future” (remarks at the International CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment conference, San Diego, CA, October 7, 2009), hraunfoss. fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-293891A1.pdf. 14. Chetan Sharma, “The Next 10 Years: 15 Trends That Matter,” Mobile Future Forward, accessed January 23, 2013, mobilefutureforward.com/docs/Mobile%20Future%20Forward %20-%20Trends%20for%20discussion.pdf.

C h a p t e r

The Business of Mobile in Japan Lawrence ‘Lars’ Cosh-Ishii, Mobikyo

Editors’ Note: The innovation and success of mobile in a country depends in large part on the smooth functioning of the entire mobile ecosystem, perhaps best exemplified by Japan. This chapter explains the huge popularity and stunning revenues generated by Japan’s mobile internet ecosystem, and innovations such as i-mode, 3G, QR codes, cameraphones, and near field communication (NFC). Success factors include the regulatory policy and collaborative business culture, and not just consumer appetite for new technology. The chapter describes Japan’s practices of spectrum allocation, operator–handset cooperation, data pricing plans, and revenue sharing with content providers. These practices have led to remarkable successes in mobile advertising, mobile music, mobileenabled email messaging, payments, and mobile television. After Japan’s March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, mobiles have become a part of national disaster communication systems. The chapter concludes by affirming that Japan will continue to play a pioneering role in the world of 4G. The huge popularity and stunning revenues generated by Japan’s mobile internet ecosystem have been widely reported by media worldwide since the start of the mobile internet in this country in 1999. However, few of the specialist pundits and almost none of the general press have clearly explained why this unique-in-the-world success occurred in Japan first. Further, as mobile web systems elsewhere in the world initially floundered with tepid popularity and no real profits, it has become increasingly vital to identify and, insofar as possible, copy the technology and business decisions that were made in Japan in the hopes of rescuing the massive amounts of money that carriers in Europe and North America paid for their 3G licenses. 121

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It may be uncomfortable for those outside Japan to accept, but the reasons for Japan’s continuing mobile internet success lie much more in the areas of regulatory policy and business model approach than in the realm of end-user culture. In the same way that Japan’s auto industry of the 1970s created offerings far superior to those produced elsewhere, Japanese mobile carriers have designed a far superior product bundle. And the government has helped. In Japan, spectrum licenses were granted at no cost, as the regulatory authorities recognised that the billions of dollars the licenses would fetch would be better left in the pockets of the telcos for network infrastructure and handset development. A carefully managed, prequalified request for proposal bidding process maintained a tight field of potential contenders. In return, as mobile platforms—the famous i-mode being merely one of several—were expanded, regulators imposed strict guidelines, particularly on the still part nationally owned Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) DOCOMO, such that official services and content had to meet minimum standards (e.g., no adult content) and provide nationwide coverage. Wisely, spectrum auctions were seen as a (not so) blind tax, along with added risk of lost control of a key public resource that could blow back on politicians. In effect, the regulators enabled a quick, low-cost path to market for the mutual cost/benefit of all parties.

Technology and Service Rollouts On the technology side, carriers applied the same kaizen (continuous improvement) philosophy that the car makers used two decades earlier, and they made certain that all features worked simply and reliably prior to hitting the market. The direct business-to-business (B2B) relationship between carriers and handset makers is perhaps one of the most significant reasons for this success. By controlling the device roadmap, indeed taking the profit-loss risk on the sales side, Japanese telcos positioned themselves to manage and direct the growth of services like no other market globally. All handsets sold through to end users in Japan are designed and delivered with tightly specified requirements, out of the box, to enable the rich content and service feature sets. The i-mode and the other mobile portals adapted PC-web-standard HTML language mobile content, and phones were made compatible with crossplatform email, which could contain clickable links and images. Thus, email and web browsing via phone were truly just smaller versions of the web and email accessed via PC and were fully compatible—given formatting, memory, and display restrictions. Full interoperability for messaging between mobile and PC was also an initial key component for success.

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After the first i-mode phones, ringtones and color displays were introduced, followed successively by a string of other launches: Java for downloadable games and useful applications; Flash; enhanced ringtones; 3G networks enabling more content via faster pipes; ringtones that evolved into “realtones” and then into full-track music with video and high quality audio; greatly expanded memory with enhanced onboard software (in 2002, you could edit video clips on Toshiba phones, a feature that Nokia released only in 2006); and, finally, terrestrial digital TV and embedded integrated circuit (IC) chips for cash, credit card, and many other functions deployed in 2004–2006. Consumers were routinely given compelling reasons to upgrade to new phones as next-generation technologies were introduced to the market via built-to-order handsets, each providing an incremental improvement in services and features. While the intense research and development (R&D) cooperation and, indeed, specification control imposed by Japan’s carriers on the terminal makers may be unique to Japan and may have deep roots in the business model, there are at best few regulatory reasons why a similarly effective cooperation could not have been developed between carriers and terminal makers elsewhere, other than limitations self-imposed by short-range profit motives and lack of flexible imagination. This leads to a consideration of the business decisions that Japan’s carriers—and all members of the mobile ecosystem—have made in creating and launching mobile web services. There was no “technology marketing”; brand names were devised for every new feature and service (this practice has relaxed a bit as the market has matured), and carriers spent lavishly to ensure that features were clearly explained, easy to use, and provided a clear benefit. The huge cost of earlier 2G i-mode phones and later 3G handsets was heavily subsidised by the carriers, so the latest technology was largely accessible by all segments of the market. The up-front cost was earned back by incremental data and voice usage fees and by strong disincentives to churn: All carriers offer long-term discounts, group discounts, family discounts, and so on. The concept of the 2-year “burn-and-churn” contract period popular in the U.S. and Europe was eschewed in favour of treating customers from Day 1 as though they would stay with a carrier for the long term. Some researchers have recognised this very strong spirit of anshinkan (customer orientation), a theme that permeates all aspects of Japan’s consumer-facing business approach. The discussion to this point has only briefly touched on a few of the success factors underpinning Japan’s mobile internet, but we can already see that success has had little to do with how Japanese people are different and much more to do with how the entire mobile industry thought differently.

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Structure and Scale To be fair, some analysts have identified flaws in the Japanese model, pointing out that innovation, while strong, is slow to evolve; that voice and data fees have remained high; that the carrier-led nature of the ecosystem has enabled too many profitless, “walking dead” handset makers to struggle on; and that the Japanese themselves have failed at exporting their know-how, evidenced by NTT DOCOMO’s lack of success with i-mode in Europe and the first wave retreat of Japan’s content providers and handset makers from the European market. But these flaws pale in light of the strong commercial and social success that mobile platforms have won in Japan proper. This is not to say that, after the fact, might makes right, but rather to reply to critics directly: If the Japanese model was flawed from a global audience perspective, then why are Apple and Google doing so well now with the near identical platform approach with iPhone and Android? At a press conference held at the Foreign Correspondents Club Japan (FCCJ) in Tokyo just as the first iPhone was hitting the street, one of the memorable Q&A exchanges started with “Why wasn’t the iPhone created in Japan?” to which a senior executive from SoftBank Mobile (discussed later in this chapter) replied simply, “Because there is no Steve Jobs in Japan.” To be fair, aside from the point that the business model is clearly based on the made-in-Japan i-mode, it would have taken perhaps a Sony-sized player to make such a move on that scale. Also generally not noted, many of the internal parts, notably the display produced by Sharp, for the iPhone are indeed Japanese. At the same time, many have missed the subtle moves behind who was responsible for building the Android. Take a look at the founding member company list of the Open Handset Alliance. (Hint: OHA means Good Morning in Japanese, and why they ultimately produced that platform [NFC as one example] is most revealing.) Many suggest that the Japanese spend an inordinate amount of time on commuter trains, that they have a natural gadget orientation, or that Japanese thumbs are somehow different and that these things account for why the mobile web in Japan is so much better than offerings anywhere else. These arguments are simplistic and ill-informed: Japanese spend no more time commuting, as a percentage of their overall workday, than do workers in many Western nations; teens and youth in Germany or Canada love their MP3 players, iPods, and game consoles just as much as Japanese love their phones; and a thumb is a thumb, regardless. People are people—in London, New York, and Tokyo—and when offered a comparable value proposition, they will generally

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respond in similar fashion. This is now finally becoming clear, again (remember cameraphones?), in the iPhone era. And it is no longer simply a question of measuring success by profits alone. As the internet becomes increasingly crucial to the top G8 (or G25) economies, as the web evolves into Web 3.0, as B2B interchanges move increasingly online, and as more cross-border industries look to the internet as the strongest consumer-facing channel, the strength of any country’s mobile internet sector is becoming strategically vital. Clearly, initiatives—such as those taken by Japan in 1999 at the start of i-mode and in 2001 at the start of 3G—include a wide range of innovative, trend-setting accomplishments, and that legacy will continue with 4G (long-term evolution [LTE], also built on DOCOMO spec.) and advanced offerings based on this solid foundation. The global industry uses the key metric of average revenue per user (ARPU) to benchmark market success. In 2010, the total revenues of three main telcos in Japan were on par with the big three from the U.S. despite having about 50 percent of the subscriber base and near zero charge for mobile messaging! Japan is arguably the world’s most advanced mobile market. Forty percent of mobile data revenues worldwide are being generated here, 90 percent of the population uses the mobile web, and 3G+ is ubiquitous: As of July 2012, all 126M mobile accounts were at least 3G. More than $15 billion in revenues was generated from mobile content and mobile commerce in 2011 alone, in addition to data access and mobile advertising. The huge popularity and stunning revenues generated by Japan’s mobile internet ecosystem have been widely reported, but the reasons behind the success and the ways these lessons apply to other markets are little understood outside Japan. Explaining the regulatory, technology, and business decisions that made and make the mobile internet in Japan work requires getting deep into carrier strategy, service case studies, user behaviour, and the technologies enabling it all—worthy subject matter for several books. Many lessons from Japan can be applied to create success in global markets; many are not unique to this country and already have—or certainly will—transfer elsewhere. The discussion that follows provides a top-level overview of the key areas, results, and lessons learned. The main players defining this space are the telecom operators, the hardware makers, and the content application and service providers. Each works in narrow and complementary focus areas to create the best-of-breed final offering for end users, who ultimately pay handsomely for the total package offering.

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Telecom Operators While Martin Cooper famously made the very public first mobile call from Times Square, the original 1G commercial service was actually deployed by NTT DOCOMO in 1979. The incumbent (to this day) carrier is credited with a series of global industry rollouts, most significantly 3G in 2001. The name DOCOMO itself is an abbreviation of the phrase do communications over the mobile network. DOCOMO was spun off from NTT to take over mobile cellular operations. The majority of DOCOMO’s shares are owned by NTT, which is 31 percent government-owned. NTT DOCOMO is the creator of Wideband CodeDivision Multiple Access (WCDMA) technology, the de facto global industry standard, as well as the groundbreaking mobile i-mode service. As of March 2012, the company had 60 million customers in Japan, with 51 million subscribers for i-mode access. As the dominant operator, with about 50 percent of market share, DOCOMO continues to innovate with well-established R&D activities and deployed a so-called 3.9G network in December 2010. It made a strong push into m-commerce, buying 33 percent of Sumitomo Mitsubishi Banking Corp., and is key investor of FeliCa Networks, in an effort to offset declining ARPU in traditional voice and data services. The global strategy has faced several setbacks, from early losses on AT&T to o2 and Telstra, which announced they would abandon their domestic i-mode efforts; these developments have challenged growth outside Japan. As the first carrier globally to launch 3G services, the company retains critical patents in relation to WCDMA, which provides recurring income for licensing to global network operators. The demonstrated experience with advanced mobile technologies also provides DOCOMO certain advantages with partners in emerging markets (Tata in India is an obvious example). The second-position operator by subscriber base is KDDI, which established a nationwide 3G network in 2003. The company is Japan’s only end-toend Qualcomm carrier and boasts just over 35 million subscribers. The Qualcomm platform has also enabled KDDI to quickly deploy a 3G network, to which the company successfully migrated its customer base, with valueadded services such as GPS. While KDDI has a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) effort in the U.S., the reliance on Qualcomm technology has effectively challenged global roaming, particularly in Europe, for KDDI’s customers. As economies of scale have allowed the company to offer the first fullsong downloads and flat-rate data plans, the first to do so in Japan, KDDI has managed to build a strong brand, especially with the youth market. J-Phone was formed in 1999 by the merger of Digital Phone Group and Digital TU-KA Group. The network, which has now become SoftBank Mobile,

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was founded in 1991 as the mobile phone division of Japan Telecom under the name Digital Phone. SoftBank Mobile’s market entry, via acquisition of Vodafone K.K. in 2006, provides an interesting contrast to the other operators. Coming from the fixed-line content and services offering background, running the still dominant Yahoo! Platform, with products such as auctions and search, SoftBank has already proven itself to be a disruptive force. As a result of the popular flat-rate voice plan, SoftBank has won the monthly customer net additions war, with few exceptions, consistently during the past 4 years. The company also inked several MVNO deals, notably with Disney. With the addition of Apple iPhone and iPad products, combined with a popular, low-priced White Plan for data services, the company has doubled its subscriber base to 30 million users since taking control of the struggling Vodafone. While Figure 6.1 illustrates DOCOMO’s i-mode model, all three carriers effectively operate in the same way. Cellcos in Japan control the entire operation of the mobile data value chain, starting with the handset makers; unlike other markets overseas, the carrier is the customer. The resulting offer is unified from a single source roadmap; this is one of the most important reasons for the success and continued growth in mobile data. All phones have one-key shortcuts to the official menu, and the carriers also provide billing transaction settlement for official menu content providers, with a generous 90-10 revenue share. When combined with early flat-rate data packages, the range, quality, and customer usage have resulted in the highest data revenues anywhere. Japan’s mobile content marketplace in 2006 was reportedly worth $8 billion, posting an increase of 129 percent year on year. Clearly, continued increases in 3G network subscribers, combined with desirable content and services, indicates continued growth potential in the Japan market. The carriers have firm procedures for the operation, and detailed guidelines for new applications, of all official sites. These range from maximum price and per-event or monthly subscription to acceptable content or service; no adult content or peer-to-peer allowed. It should also be noted that the operators generally did not compete with partners by offering their own licensed content. Also, as all handsets have full HTTP compatibility and Adobe Flash pre-installed since 2004, the nonofficial site segment has seen significant growth for the past several years.

Handsets The Japanese mobile market is unique in many ways and perhaps most noticeably in the handset vendor segment. Unlike other markets, the value

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Figure 6.1

DOCOMO’s i-mode model

chain for sales and distribution is completely controlled by the operators. The original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) work directly with the carrier on handset specifications, and it is the carrier who makes the direct bulk order— and purchase—of all handsets. This dynamic created an extremely competitive and therefore much more innovative ecosystem than found in markets elsewhere. Hence, the world’s first introduction of a cameraphone. It has always been the operator who controls the device roadmap, which has proven to be a key strength for wide user adoption when new applications and services are introduced. All handsets are sold SIM-locked, with long-term contracts through the carrier’s own retail shops or via third-party partners, typically major electronic outlets. Several obvious success stories prove the value of this strategy and are worth considering. For example, from Day 1 of i-mode’s introduction, every single consumer device sold by DOCOMO included its famous one-key shortcut to the carrier menu. Ever since, we have seen the operators insist on having handset functions such as cameras, removable memory, and Flash as de facto standard features across the range of devices in their portfolio. The more recent status-quo technologies include FeliCa chips for mobile commerce,

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integrated services digital broadcasting (ISDB) tuners for digital TV, and GPS functionality. There were at one point 11 Japanese device makers: Casio, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Kyocera, Mitsubishi, NEC, Panasonic, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba. A consolidation of these domestic legacy players leaves Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic, Sharp, and Sony, along with five international manufacturers: HTC, LG, Motorola, RIM, and Samsung. The domestic OEMs have had a relatively significant advantage over international makers in that their parent companies are not solely dependent on the cell phone business. Unlike Motorola, Panasonic has more leeway to experiment and innovate. While increasingly we see headquarters becoming more concerned about profitability across all units, they do understand the value of branding and R&D that is generated via their mobile divisions. It was fair to expect increased consolidation between domestic OEMs as they historically faced the cost-per-unit challenge of producing, in effect, short-run boutique handsets that are built to order for the carrier and therefore do not gain relative economies of scale when compared with their overseas competition. It should also be noted that the local tradition of depending on operators for sales and distribution, let alone the direct B2B order method, has served to stunt the ability of domestic OEMs to expand globally. It is becoming rather clear that producing arguably the best hardware anywhere is only part of the equation. Although vendors have followed the build-to-order model with telcos here, they found that approach more difficult overseas, so the tack has long been component market instead. According to market researcher iSuppli’s numbers, about 40 percent of the internal parts in all cell phones sold worldwide are produced by Japanese companies. This dominance became more apparent following the March 2011 disaster as certain significant parts in the supply chain became unavailable for major overseas customers’ tight timelines. One clear shift in Japan is the migration to smartphones, most noticeable in major urban areas, with carriers indicating well over 50 percent of the new units shipped in the past few years to be PDA-style models. According to a July 2011 report by Mobile Content Forum, using data provided by ComScore, the active unit market share for iOS and Android was pegged at 3.8 million and 4.9 million, respectively, as of March 2011; all considered, it could be expected that Android has up to three times the actual user base. The early lead in this area by overseas makers, such as Apple, HTC, and Samsung, shipping off-the-rack global models, has given way to domestic handset makers who have been producing built-to-order devices which include key functions—digital TV, Flash, and NFC—long ubiquitous on feature phones here.

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Ideally, people should also look beyond the form factor of handsets to grasp the bigger picture as the typical “dumbphone” in Japan runs a slick Flash user interface with touch screen, and has to-the-meter GPS, a 12-megapixel camera, embedded NFC, and free-to-air digital broadcast (not streaming) TV services; chances are it’s waterproof as well. Perhaps another interesting note of caution for global markets: In 2007, the Ministry of Communications introduced new legislation to address standard handset subsidies (and soon may also address the SIM–lock business model, in Japan). The Ministry’s concern centered on expensive terminals sold well below actual value, with incremental cost recovered by charging higher premiums on voice and data plans. The subsidy strategy is said to, in effect, punish customers who did not generally trade up to the latest models yet continued to pay among the world’s most expensive rates for voice calls. This change upset existing price structures, proving to be a significant “stickershock” challenge to the standard upgrade cycle.

Mobile Content and Services Figure 6.2 indicates, by well-balanced demographics, the average daily use of content and services by Japanese consumers in 2010. A key point of interest would be the extent of mobile marketing activities, therefore driving user adoption, in Japan compared with other global markets. D2 Communications, the joint venture formed in 2000 by industry heavyweights NTT DOCOMO and Dentsu, has a major hand in the results reported in Figure 6.3, indicating the annual mobile ad spend in Japan at twice that in the U.S. and 10 times the U.K. rate.

Mobile Messaging While the rest of the world’s operators relied on short message service (SMS) as the mobile messaging standard, all Japanese carriers’ mobile internet platforms use SMTP email, one of the most significant factors underpinning the Japanese carriers’ success. Granted, SMS is a big moneymaker for carriers abroad, but it is also a limiting factor for mobile internet usage in many ways, as it does not allow for easy embedding of links and graphics, which are widely used means for promoting mobile services, interacting with mobile systems, or enabling mobile marketing in Japan. Cross-platform email communications with PC email accounts enabled by handset have a unique address (user_name@carrier_name.ne.jp), with messages pushed to and from users’ handsets automatically, just as in the fixed-line world.

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Figure 6.2

Mobile functions used on a daily basis. Source: CIAJ (wireless watch.jp/2010/08/01/ciaj-2010-japan-mobile-users-report)

Figure 6.3

Mobile internet ad expenditure. Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2011–2015

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The presence of embedded multiple links is absolutely vital for the whole mobile ecosystem system to work, and mobile email is hugely more flexible and useful than SMS, offering all the features of standard PC email, such as attachments and graphics. Imagine how different the world would look if PC emails could contain just one link and measure 160 characters. Lastly, but crucially, mobile email in Japan is essentially free. For a normal text email, which can contain several thousand characters, costs will generally be in the region of less than 1 U.S. cent. This means that consumers are not worried at all about emailing as much as they like, sending interesting links to friends, or posting blog entries and pictures via mobile email, and it also means that bulk emails from the service provider are very cheap, enabling marketing campaigns at very low cost. This approach drove widespread adoption and increased revenues on premium service subscriptions. The endgame was always focused on making the mobile phone a critical part of customers’ daily life, with “like” free messaging leading to increased web surfing and ultimately adoption of flat-rate data plans: in effect, a wireless ISP model with comfortable recurring revenues and plenty of additional opportunities.

Mobile Music Japan, with the debut of Sony’s Walkman, is the home of mobile music. The Recording Industry Association of Japan’s official numbers for 2010 indicate the value of mobile full-song downloads at roughly $900 million (Figure 6.4). The figure represents just over 40 percent of all content, from all app stores, worldwide, in the same period. Significantly, that is only music, just in Japan, and overwhelmingly only to so-called feature phones.

Mobile Payments The ubiquitous domestic NFC technology is developed by Sony and called FeliCa, a contactless IC system. With a single card or handset with an embedded chip, multiple data sets for different purposes can be managed. The operating system embedded in FeliCa has a file system that securely separates data by application. A company can use Sony’s software development kit to create its own FeliCa applications. The main applications include emoney (prepaid and postpaid), prepaid cards for mass public transit systems, employee ID cards, student ID cards, and card-keys. Japanese consumers have been exposed to IC chip–embedded plastic payment cards since 2001. Seven different “currencies” or “brands” of prepaid digital cash can be used with the FeliCa system; the most popular whitelabeled platforms are Suica, Edy, and Nanaco.

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Figure 6.4

Mobile music sales, 2006–2010

DOCOMO introduced handsets with embedded FeliCa chips for mobile payments, called Osaifu-Keitai, meaning “wallet mobile phone,” in 2004, with KDDI au following suit in August 2005 (“EZ FeliCa”) and SoftBank in November 2005 (“S!FeliCa”). According to Sony, a reported 70 percent of all handsets on the street in Japan have NFC function preinstalled, and an estimated 20 percent are considered active daily. The three main telcos also offer a small monthly post-paid balance, typically up to $100, to be settled via the standard monthly bill, for customer convenience. Ironically, many voices from overseas insist—either not understood or, worse, not respected—that the Sony FeliCa platform is somehow not “real” NFC. Without getting too deep into Type A and Type B technical ISO matters, it is clearly an official standard as noted by the accredited specs listed via the global NFC Forum. While payment transactions generally get the most attention, other areas—such as Tap and Follow on Twitter, Friend or Like on Facebook, and of course “talking posters”—are value additions for the user which represent exciting new opportunities for developers to explore. A recent announcement by FeliCa Networks and Samsung would seem to indicate the global potential

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of this platform with regard to certain critical IPs and the long-demonstrated secure nature of this particular system. A survey conducted by Rakuten indicates that the most likely location for NFC payments to be made was the convenience store (80 percent), followed by vending machine (50 percent) and transportation (bus, train, or taxi, 40 percent). Like cameraphones, 3G, and the mobile web in general, this segment should serve as a barometer of usage and adoption to come in markets overseas.

Mobile Television The Japanese standard for mobile terrestrial digital audio–video and data broadcasts is called 1seg. As opposed to markets that use either DMB or DVB, the digital broadcast standard in Japan is ISDB. ISDB-T, the terrestrial variant transmitting on 6-MHz bandwidth, has 13 segments, 12 of which are used by one high-definition TV channel (or three standard-definition TV channels) and one that is used for broadcasting to mobile devices. Thus, mobile digital TV was dubbed 1seg. After limited trials in 2005, 1seg was launched officially in 2006. Reception of TV programming on handsets is free and is the same content as that delivered to home TV sets, via the same long-existing broadcast infrastructure. Carriers were basing the business model on the hope that consumers would access mobile sites via the also embedded data, thus increasing related sales traffic. The screen for 1seg broadcasts is divided into two sections: the upper half for TV broadcasting, and the lower half for data feeds related to the program and—this is the crucial part—a back channel to the internet, allowing “viewers” to directly react to and interact with the programming and with one another. Just a few of the other possibilities that 1seg offers include displaying statistics and other data during live sports events, allowing users to operate other communications functions while watching a program to interact with it (e.g., through quizzes or voting), distributing evacuation information immediately in case of earthquakes, and providing directions to points of interest being featured on programs. Anything viewers will do while watching or responding to TV programs on their phone will be instantly available as analytic data to the broadcaster and the carrier, in real time. From a marketer’s perspective, the whole concept can summed up in one word: paradise. Although numbers vary for the enabled handset base, its demand could be estimated from the relative standard preinstall of all devices (as with NFC above) at 70 percent, and easily twice the daily active users, as noted by the 2010 CIAJ chart as 34 percent.

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Major Disaster Events Japan’s March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami event is full of dramatic lessons for the global telco industry. From the perspective of critical infrastructure or surge in demand, the importance of this sector in times of major disaster moved to center stage here in literally minutes. While the entire nation was without voice and messaging in the early hours, mobile broadband data services continued to function, and web services such as Twitter became a default communication channel for many concerned users. The 1seg terrestrial digital TV broadcast platform continued to operate without interruption and was likely one of the most valuable sources of real-time information for many in a mobile environment on March 11. The significance of this area became clear with the GSMA Chairman’s Award at Mobile World Congress 2012 going to DOCOMO, KDDI, and SoftBank for their combined efforts in this regard. A new Disaster Response Program was also announced to “identify how mobile operators can support each other, improve resilience among disaster-affected networks and outline how the mobile industry can best help on the ground following a disaster” (wirelesswatch.jp/2012/02/27/japan-telcos-win-gsma-chairmans-award). Clearly Japan has much to share with the world in this respect. As a citizen based in Japan during the earthquake, I can safely say that the value and need of a mobile phone in an emergency situation is far more significant than simple words can even begin to express.

Next-Generation Networks In 2009, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications approved business plans for 3.9G services submitted by four Japanese telecom operators, DOCOMO, KDDI, SoftBank Mobile, and eMobile, with service rollouts slated to begin in 2010 and run through 2012. The combined investments to build base stations, service equipment, and related facilities for these new networks were forecast to top $10 billion by 2014. Among the four, 3.9G services are forecast to attract around 36 million subscribers, with DOCOMO projecting 17.74 million 3.9G customers. DOCOMO, KDDI, and Softbank Mobile expect roughly 30 percent of their existing customers to switch to 3.9G services. The road toward true 4G offers a fascinating peek into the deemed importance of, and efforts required to, securing a key piece of that future pie. Both DOCOMO and KDDI are investing heavily in R&D for next-generation networks (NGNs), and there has been significant Japanese activity in domestic as well as international standardisation bodies.

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With regard to R&D for 4G cellular access technology in Japan, NTT DOCOMO is the driving force. In 2005, DOCOMO achieved a maximum speed of 2.5 Gbps in trials. In 2007, the company announced it had achieved a maximum packet transmission rate of about 5 Gbps in the downlink using 100 MHz frequency bandwidth to a mobile station moving at 10 km/h. This success was achieved by increasing the number of multipleinput–multiple-output (MIMO) antennas (which multiplex different data streams with multiple antennas for both transmission and reception on the same frequency) from 6 to 12 and by leveraging proprietary received signal processing technology. As a bridge step on the way towards 4G, DOCOMO invested in R&D efforts for what it called the 3.9G or Super 3G network, which uses certain 4G technologies on the existing 3G infrastructure to enable higher transmission speeds. The unique feature of Super 3G is that its frequency band can expand from 1.25 to 20 MHz, depending on traffic and other radio-related factors. This increased wireless efficiency to about nine times that of WCDMA (3G) and three times that of HSDPA (3.5G), reaching speeds of around 100 mbps. DOCOMO planned migration to an all-IP core network by the time of 3.9G deployment, which launched in late 2010. As far as 3.9G access technologies go, DOCOMO also experimented with the integration of non-cellular access technologies such as Wi-Fi and WiMAX. The basic specifications for Super 3G were settled in 2006 at a meeting of the Third Generation Partnership Project, leading to an announcement by DOCOMO that it would begin developing Super 3G technologies and make preparations for commercialisation. KDDI has been investing in R&D in pursuit of its goal to be the first carrier worldwide with a fully IP-based core network. Through its R&D efforts, KDDI built a fast core network as a base for what it calls Ultra 3G between 2008 and 2010, so by the time true 4G technology standards arrive, KDDI will already have several years of experience in operating fixed-mobile services on a fully packet-switched core network. Within the International Telecommunication Union, the World Telecommunication Standardisation Assembly operates as a global telecommunications standardisation body. Under the leadership of Japan, a dedicated study group focusing on NGNs was established at the Assembly’s conference in Florianópolis, Brazil, in 2004. The study group was vice-chaired by NTT delegate Naotaka Morioka. Japan has agreed to share results of its 4G and NGN-related projects in NGN standardisation activities; promote collaboration among China, Japan, and Korea; and lead the standardisation activities on NGN at the International Telecommunication Union. The establishment of this group and Japan’s heavy involvement are a clear sign that both the Japanese government and NTT DOCOMO want to exert as

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much influence as possible over the development and standardisation of 4G technologies.

Closing Thoughts Overseas observers sometimes raise questions related to the lack of Japanese branded phones overseas: “If they are so good, then why don’t we have them here?” They are unaware that many phones overseas are based in key parts on Japanese know-how. DOCOMO and their system integration partners Panasonic, NEC, and Fujitsu pooled all their critical patents, at extremely reasonable royalty rates, so that today nearly every single handset in the world connects to a 3G network as a result of that pioneering work. However, users do not see these Japanese logos stamped on the phones. In sum, Japan has contributed a string of innovations to the mobile world: the i-mode platform model, cameraphones, the first commercial 3G and mobile internet networks, QR codes (the common open source platform with iconic call-to-action), NFC, and 1seg (digital TV). Other exciting mobile services in Japan range from ebooks to social gaming. Many of these are covered in books such as The Six Immutable Laws of Mobile Business, by Philip Sugai, Marco Koeder, and Ludovico Ciferri (Wiley, 2010). Japan’s experience has a number of lessons for mobile players and policymakers in the rest of the world. Think customer first. Offer true flat-rate data plans; too much demand should be a good problem. Scale up and charge at mass volume accordingly, and punish only the 1 percent pushing extreme data levels. Offer recurring subscriptions for content and service providers rather than one-time download payments. The world used to criticize these so-called walled gardens in Japan; however, since the same path to managed portal play has been adopted and successfully deployed by both Apple and Google, it makes perfect sense. The evolution of that path, as demonstrated here many years ago, will be towards an open web. I’m fond of saying “If you like the App Store – you’re gonna Love the Internet! ®” The fun is just beginning, with the networks, devices, content offerings, and user adoption now well-established. This industry has quickly become a critical part of daily life, globally. Going forward, based on obvious merit, over the next decade, expect Japan to continue to play an important role in the mobile ecosystem.

C h a p t e r

Mobile Web Design Strategies Janine Warner

Editors’ Note: This chapter provides useful insights into the evolution of web design and apps for the mobile interface. It highlights the challenges of designing for the small screen in a fragmented ecosystem, with multiple formats and a wide range of user behaviors and environments. It makes the distinction between mobile web apps and native apps, with effective design principles for each. The author advocates a responsive design approach to adapt to different screen sizes and provides a useful checklist of optimal mobile web design and navigation principles. The chapter ends with a discussion of the potential usefulness of the HTML5 standard and the importance of designing accessible digital content for users who are differently abled. The biggest challenge of web design today is that webpages are as likely to be projected on a wall or viewed on a widescreen television as seen on a cell phone screen. As a result, creating websites that look good to all visitors is a lot more complex than it used to be, standards have become even more important, and being flexible and adaptable has taken on a completely new meaning on the web. Indeed, just as the web seemed to finally be coming of age with support for fancy fonts, gradients, and advanced interactivity, the rapid growth of cell phones and other mobile devices introduced the toughest design limitations ever seen on the web. Although there are at least three distinct approaches to mobile web design (covered in the pages that follow), the one that is emerging as the most popular is called responsive web design. The premise of responsive design is that one HTML document is created, or one template or master page, and then multiple sets of CSS rules are used to rearrange and resize the images, div 139

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tags, and other elements on that one page to fit different screen sizes. Responsive design is explained later in this chapter, but Figure 7.1 illustrates the basic concept. Most of this chapter is dedicated to design strategies and approaches for mobile websites and web apps, but the first section explores when a native app may be preferable to a website or web app and why mobile websites are often the best choice, despite all the hype about the iTunes App Store. The rest of the chapter focuses on mobile web design approaches, as well as tips for designing for small screens and mobile audiences.

Mobile Web Apps Versus Native Apps In a study of 1,200 consumers, Adobe Software found that the majority of mobile users prefer the mobile web for shopping, media, and entertainment

Figure 7.1

Responsive design

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but prefer native apps for social media, music, games, and maps. This section provides a little clarification of the difference between native apps and web apps, and why some companies create both. Native app is the term used for applications that must be downloaded from the iTunes Store, the Android Market, the Amazon Appstore, or a similar service. Native apps play locally on an iPhone, iPad, or other mobile device, which means they “execute” on the local operating system and not on a remote web server the way websites do. In general, native apps provide the most options for rich media and interactivity, so native apps are generally the best choice for games and highly interactive programs, such as drawing tools and image editing programs. Web app is the term used to describe highly interactive web-based programs, such as the online reservation system at American Airlines (www.aa.com). Web apps provide app-like experiences by combining advanced programming with HTML and CSS and running all of it on a web server. Web apps require a web browser, such as Apple’s Safari browser on the iPhone and iPad, and are accessed over Wi-Fi, 3G, or another network.

To App or Not to App Apple’s popular advertising campaign promises that no matter what you need, “There’s an app for that.” But with more than 700,000 apps now crowding the iTunes App Store, there has been a backlash against apps. Increasingly, advertising agencies and other marketers have learned the hard way that most native apps don’t provide a good return on investment because they are expensive to create and are easily lost in the app stores. As the novelty factor has worn off, many companies have realized that they are paying a premium to build what is essentially a web-based experience that works only on one kind of phone. Similar to software programs that can work only on a Mac or PC, separate apps must be designed for each kind of phone. Thus, to reach a broad audience with a native app, separate versions have to be created for the iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, and so on. In most cases, it is far more cost-effective to create one website, or even different versions of a website, for each device, than to create native apps. The bottom line is this: Apps are still the best choice for highly interactive games and other complex programs, such as Photoshop for the iPhone or AngryBirds, but for just about anything else, it is possible to get a better return on investment by creating a mobile version of the website.

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When It Is Best to Create a Native App Native apps are still best if you need to use the accelerometer or provide location detection and other advanced features that require greater access to the operating system than is possible through a web browser. Native apps also offer the advantage that, after they are downloaded, they can be played just about anywhere, anytime, although many apps are designed to download additional information that may require an internet connection. For example, many apps use GPS and must be able to connect to determine the user location. Similarly, many magazine and newspaper apps require a connection for the latest-breaking news updates.

When It Is Best to Create a Web App Web apps work best when the aim is to reach the broadest audience with the least effort. Using the latest in responsive web design (discussed later), a welldesigned mobile app can adapt to each device using CSS media queries. If you use device detection and content adaptation, a small, simple version can be sent to low-end mobile phones, while a rich-media, highly interactive version can be sent to smartphones and tablets. Web apps generally require that users have an internet connection, although some can be used offline after an initial download. When designed well and optimized for mobile devices, the best web apps do not require a fast connection and can be updated in real time, even over very slow mobile connections.

Why Combine a Web App With Native App? Increasingly, the hybrid approach, which combines a native app with access to a web app, is becoming popular. A side-by-side comparison of the native app and the web app of the American Airlines website demonstrates that although the initial pages and some of the design elements are different, the “search flights” function requires an internet connection with both the native and mobile apps, and it is clear that the same online database is being searched through both (see Figures 7.2 and 7.3). The bottom line is that not everyone needs a native app, but every website on the internet should be mobile friendly and designed to look good to the growing audience of people surfing the web via mobile devices. Big companies such as Amazon and American Airlines can afford to have the best of both worlds with a native app and a web app. But companies with limited resources, and those that are not designing a game or other highly interactive

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Figure 7.2

Native (left) and mobile web reservation apps for American Airlines for the iPhone

Figure 7.3

Native (left) and mobile web flight search apps for American Airlines for the iPhone

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app that requires the full use of a mobile device, are almost always better off creating a mobile website.

Comparing Mobile Design Approaches At the high end of the mobile web design spectrum, companies such as American Airlines have implemented complex mobile design strategies that require tremendous resources. These complex systems combine server-side device detection with dynamic site creation to deliver optimized versions of the American Airlines website, tailored to each device that visits the site (Figure 7.4).

Figure 7.4

AA.com on various device simulators

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At the low end of mobile web design, many small businesses create one simplified alternate version of their desktop website, stripped down and streamlined to meet the basic needs of mobile devices. Somewhere along the way, perhaps out of complete desperation (combining the innovations made possible by HTML5 and CSS3, both discussed later), web designers started to realize there had to be a better way. Today, the increasingly preferred option when it comes to designing websites is to create responsive designs, which use HTML5, CSS3, and media queries to adapt themselves to different screen sizes.

How Responsive Design Works Today’s webpages are as likely to be viewed on a tiny smartphone screen as they are to be displayed on a 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt Display. Although multiple versions of a website can be created, each optimized to fit a different screen size, it is a complicated and highly inefficient solution to a problem that is only going get worse as people connect to the internet with everything from wristwatches to refrigerators. Responsive design (sometimes called adaptive design) offers a far more elegant solution by enabling the creation of one page that adapts to different screen sizes. Essentially, one HTML document is created, and then multiple sets of CSS rules are used to rearrange and resize the images, div tags, and other elements on that page to fit different screen sizes. This works by using media queries programmed to trigger a corresponding set of style rules, based on the width of the browser window. The @media rule for media queries is not new; web designers have long used it to associate an alternate set of styles for other uses, such as when a webpage is sent to a printer. What’s different today is the ability to target media queries based on browser size and increasing support for CSS on smartphones and tablets. Most responsive designs include at least three sets of style rules: 1. A small design optimized for mobile phones (and people with “fat fingers”) 2. A large design that fills even the largest computer monitors and takes advantage of all that screen real estate 3. A midsized design optimized for iPads and other tablets Each design is targeted with a media query based on the width of each device.

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The Growing Popularity of Responsive Design on the Web Evidence of the growing popularity of responsive web design can be found just by searching on Google for the phrase responsive web design examples; numerous collections of design examples appear, such as the site Food Sense (www.foodsense.is; Figure 7.5). One can also find responsive designs showing up on websites, such as ThemeForest.com and others that feature templates for WordPress and other sites. From simple blogs to sophisticated media sites such as the one designed by the Boston Globe (which claims to be the first newspaper to implement responsive design), there is growing evidence that responsive design is the best approach to web design today.

Optimizing Mobile Website Designs When you are thinking about how best to design the mobile version(s) of a website, it is also important to consider the unique challenges of the mobile web. Keep these key considerations in mind: • Limited real estate: Mobile designs need to fit on small screens. • Low bandwidth: Limit images and text so pages load quickly, even at slow connection speeds. • Interface limitations: Create links and other navigation options that are easy to click with a (fat) finger, stylus, or other limited input options. • Limited processing power and memory: Large files and scripts that require fast processors will not display well on most mobile devices. • Distracted users: Navigating road or foot traffic is just one of many distractions that may compete for users’ attention. • Urgent need for information: Many people resort to the mobile web because they have to, because they are lost or late, or because they really need to know who won the Super Bowl in 1987 to win a bar bet. • Time and place: Do not forget that users’ actions are likely to be affected by where they are, what time of day it is, and even whether it is raining. Make sure to include location-specific information, such as maps, and consider adding geolocation features, such as those included in the new HTML5 specification.

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Figure 7.5

Example of responsive web design at www.foodsense.is

Optimize for Low Bandwidth The smaller screen size is not the only thing that limits how well you can display images and multimedia on a cell phone; bandwidth also imposes limits. Although a growing number of mobile users take advantage of the faster 3G and 4G networks, most are still restricted by very slow connections. The same challenges of limited bandwidth that throttled the early web slow the mobile internet, which lags far behind the high-speed DSL and cable

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modem connections, which are common ways to access the internet from computers. When you design the mobile version of a site, the following tips can help you reach visitors with a low bandwidth: • Get ruthless with images and multimedia files, limiting the mobile site to a precious few images that help tell the story and add visual interest. • As the site is being streamlined, replace banners and button images with text links, which work on any device. • Give careful consideration to how to include multimedia. For example, do not put video or audio files on the front page of the mobile site. Instead, link to multimedia files so they are optional for mobile browsers and include warnings about how big a file is and how well it will display on different devices.

Navigating on Mobile Devices Those who have yelled at their computer in frustration knowing that it could not understand them anyway will probably be delighted when they can start talking to it rationally instead, especially when it can fully understand them. However people interact with their mobile device, one hopes that they will be nicer to it; they are certainly more likely to think of the phone as a friend than the computer. Mobile devices are just that personal. But most people still do not interact with their phones by talking to them. Mobile visitors to a site are most likely touching the screen, tapping the screen with a stylus, or entering information through a wheel, buttons, or a keypad. That means it is important to do the following: • Make links easy to see and easy to click. If multiple versions of the site are designed, it is necessary to optimize each version for the input options on its intended device. If visitors use a stylus, they can click links placed relatively close together, but if they use a touch screen, the links need to be separated with enough space between them to make them easy to tap with a fat fingertip. • Limit the total number of links, especially on the low-end version of your site. Help people move through the site by leading them from one short list of links to the next until they reach the content that best serves them. • Organize the levels of links. Do not include too many levels of links, and consider adding breadcrumbs to help users find their way back

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through different levels of your site. Breadcrumbs are a list of links, usually appearing at the top of the current page, that can help site visitors identify where they are in the structure of the site by listing the section and subsection for each page. • Provide a navigation menu instead of a navigation bar. Although most desktop websites include, at the top of every page, a navigation bar that links to all the main sections of a site, such a bar is generally not the best use of the real estate on a small screen. Instead, consider including one link at the top of every page with a name such as Menu, and then link to a navigation bar from that one link. (Including a list of links to all the main pages of the site on every page may not be worth the download time, but creating a small site map and including a link to that page from every other page on the site can provide a similar option. This strategy can also be used to include a list of links at the bottom of each page, with a Menu link at the top that “jumps” visitors down to the links at the bottom.) • Consider Back and Forward buttons. Back and Forward buttons can help users move through many pages of content or images. • Link from one site version to another. It is always good practice to include, on the front page of the mobile site, a link to the desktop version, and vice versa. Visitors to the mobile site may already be familiar with the desktop version and prefer to visit that full site, especially if they are using an iPhone or Android device.

Design for Distracted Surfers It is generally a good idea not to surf the web while driving, and everyone on the roads would be a lot safer if no one else did, either. Unfortunately, the very fact that this has to be mentioned is an indication of one of the biggest challenges in mobile web design: distracted surfers. When people visit a mobile site, they are often doing something else at the same time, and they are often under pressure to find information quickly. Here are a few quick tips to make mobile sites easier for distracted visitors to use: • Make key information, such as address and phone number, easy to find right away. • Make all links big and easy to click.

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• Use text and background colors with good contrast so that text is easy to read, even in low light.

Surf the Web on Many Mobile Devices To appreciate the challenges of the mobile web, surf to your website on a mobile phone. But do not stop at one or two phones, even though iPhone and Android may get all the headlines (and a majority of the traffic on the mobile web). They are not the only phones likely to visit the site; they are just the ones most likely to make the site look good, even if it is not optimized for the mobile web. Those same sites viewed on a BlackBerry or, worse, a Razr may be completely unreadable. Although mobile sites can be tested using online emulators, such as the high-end testing site at www.keynotedeviceanywhere.com, the best way is to actually hold the device to see how it feels and looks. Visit a mobile phone store and be really nice to the salespeople while testing sites on their phones. Better yet, compare notes with friends and family. Ask people to visit your website on different phones and watch what they do, how they find their way around (or where they get lost), and how hard it is for them to get to the information they need.

Set Up Mobile Web Addresses So that everyone with a mobile phone can easily get to the URL of the mobile site (by typing as little as possible), set up multiple mobile addresses and direct them all to the mobile version of the site. Until a clear winner appears in the mobile URL game, use all the most common addresses to increase the odds that visitors find the site on their first try. The following are among the mobile addresses in common use on the mobile web: • m.yourdomain.com: Recommended for ease of typing. • wap.yourdomain.com: Common address for sites created using wireless markup language (WML). • yourdomain.com/mobile: Common alternative because of the easy server setup. • yourdomain.com/i: For versions specifically created for the iPhone. • yourdomain.mobi: Requires registering the .mobi version of the domain.

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In the early days of the mobile web, many people thought .mobi would be an important domain, but most developers have found it simpler to create a variation of their main domain, and thus far the .mobi domains have not proven very popular. In any case, drop the www. No one should ever have to type those three letters and that dot again on the modern web, especially if they are entering a URL on a mobile phone.

Location, Location, Location Most people who surf the desktop web are in an office, school, library, or cybercafe. Mobile web surfers can be anywhere, including in front of a restaurant, office, or store, right now; or worse, lost on the road, trying to find you. While considering how to design a mobile version of your website, consider not just how to make things smaller but also how to best present the information most likely to be useful to someone using a mobile device, wherever the person is. One of the most common uses of mobile phones is still the most obvious: making phone calls. So make sure the phone number is easy to find on the first screen of the mobile site, and include the street address and links to maps for those who may get lost on their way. Another important tip: Including a link to a Google map is a great way to make it easy to find you, but for best results, make sure the link is to the mobile version of Google Maps. On their mobile sites, both Yahoo! and Google let users prioritize searches for local matches. Take the time to optimize your mobile site, and make sure to include location-specific keywords, such as the names of the cities, states, and even neighborhoods served.

Do Not Make Anyone Type or Click Much Even on the best mobile devices, typing and clicking links can be a real challenge. Therefore, make links big and easy to click for mobile visitors, and do not overload any page with too many options. The best approach is to lead users through a series of simple choices, limiting the options to no more than five to seven big links at any stage, and to direct visitors to increasingly specific sets of links until they find the information they need. Avoid drop-down lists or anything else that uses Ajax or JavaScript around links, because many mobile devices do not support these advanced web technologies, making these links impossible to use. Some information, such as contact information, should never be more than one click away, and in many

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cases, including the phone number on the main page of the mobile site is good practice. After all, the visitor has a phone handy.

Multimedia in Mobile Websites Just two decades ago, the predominant way that pictures and phones interacted was when an unruly 4-year-old used a crayon to draw on the handset; as for video, the involvement was pretty much limited to chucking the device at the TV, hoping to hit the Off button when your legs fell asleep on the couch. How times have changed. According to the “Three Screen Report,” by the Nielson Company (available at www.nielson.com), nearly 50 percent of mobile phone users have watched video on their handsets, with teenagers leading the way at about 7 hours a month spent staring at tiny screens with headphones crammed in their ears, immersed in what researchers dub cocooning media. Meanwhile, the widespread inclusion of increasingly higher-resolution cameras in mobile devices has resulted in forests of hands upraised at just about any noteworthy public event as the crowds of people use their mobile phones to take pictures or record video. People use their mobile devices to record, play, and share the significant experiences in their lives, the way an earlier generation used Polaroid pictures or scrapbooks to capture moments in time. The challenge for designers is that in the past decade, everyone has taken it for granted that all manner of media can be put onto websites, as increasing broadband penetration, disk storage, and display resolution have made the browsing experience almost as quick and rewarding as changing channels on a high-definition television. It is almost commonplace for movies and TV shows to use audio, video, and wild animated “splash” pages that load in Flash before the rest of their site is displayed. For those old enough to remember the early days of the internet, just seeing a photo-realistic image appear on a full-color monitor was a thrill. That is not to say that the mobile web has to go back to those days (even though many experts say that a good way to think of designing for mobile is to pretend it is 1996, the era of 56K dialup modems). Although the multimedia that spice up websites can be problematic on the mobile platform, don’t assume that multimedia should not be used at all. It is still possible to make mobile websites dazzle, despite the constraints. Designers who want to add video to their sites have two basic choices: • Rely on an online video-hosting site, such as Vimeo or YouTube, that has carefully built up transcoders and detection scripts that allow it to serve up the appropriate format of video to the users’ devices.

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• Customize the video into formats appropriate for the most popular devices that will access the site, and use sophisticated detection scripts to route users to the appropriate version of the video for their devices.

The Future of Tablet Devices Television producers and their top advertisers are not the only ones who want content on all of the following Three Screens: 1. The television screen, the oldest screen in most households, which is starting to undergo some radical changes, with Google TV, Apple TV, and various other players attempting to fuse web surfing with our favorite programs 2. The computer screen, which is seen by many as the most powerfully interactive platform, since most computers now empower their users to write stories, enhance photos, edit video, and compose songs 3. The mobile phone screen, the newest competitor for attention (and money), and the one people take with them everywhere

One Screen to Rule Them All One of the reasons the iPad is generating so much excitement is that it offers designers and content creators the best of all the previous three screens. In order, the iPad matches up well for the following reasons: 1. Multimedia presentation is a must—video, audio, and more on a screen that is large and sufficiently high-resolution to make watching a full-length movie an enjoyable experience. 2. There is an app for everything. There is enough processing power, memory, and functionality to allow users to compose music, cut together video sequences, and so many other things. 3. An iPad can be detached from wall outlets and cables and taken just about anywhere. Wi-Fi makes it easier to connect with the internet with high-speed bandwidth, and full-length movies can be delivered to an iPad. Admittedly, the iPad, compared one-on-one, is not necessarily better than any of the three other classes of screens. Although slim as a magazine, the iPad is a powerful computer device, but an octo-core workstation is still better for editing video. An iPad fits in the lap, but it cannot compete with a

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90-inch high-def plasma TV for watching movies (unless you’re trying to carry it on an airplane). Many users will put up with less functionality on a device that is convenient, especially for things such as reading and watching breaking news. Tiny enough to fit into a pocket, the iPhone is very handy to have around; it is the Swiss army knife of content platforms. What this means for designers is that there is a lot more screen real estate on tablets than on mobile phones and there is the opportunity to build in hot new functions such as location-aware content, fun accelerometer interactions, and intuitive touchscreen functionality. Many of the early reviews of the iPad dismissed it as “a device in search of a purpose,” but those reviews missed the point. The iPad is a jack-of-all-trades, a platform that will grow more and more indispensable in our lives, providing users with an enjoyable web-surfing experience, a way to create complex content, and a cool companion while curling up on the couch to read a good book (or laugh at the latest quirky viral video hit). Much of the success of the user experience will depend on being able to understand and employ the latest web technologies: HTML5 and CSS3. At least four out of five mobile design “experts” agree that HTML5 is the future of web design (OK, that was made up, but things do seem to be heading in that direction). Although many web designers are not using HTML5 yet, it is clearly the next step in markup languages for the web, and all because of mobile devices. As of December 2012, HTML5 is still under development and not yet approved by the W3C, but the makers of web browsers, including Firefox and Safari, are forging ahead with it anyway. That means some browsers already support HTML5 and CSS3, but they do not all follow the same standards—in part because the standards are not clearly defined yet. So creating websites with HTML5 today is a lot like the early days of the web, when special code had to be created to manage browser differences. It is not always pretty or efficient, but with any luck, the web will evolve and become a more beautiful place in the next couple of years. In the meantime, designers who want to push the limits with HTML5 today run the risk that their designs will not work in all browsers or that they will have to redesign the pages later, when the standards are finalized (and possibly change again). That is why many people say HTML5 is not ready for prime time yet. Some designers are creating cool new sites with HTML5—but if not done carefully, the cool new sites will work in only a limited number of web browsers. What can be done right away with HTML5 or CSS3? Fonts! One can use almost any font on webpages now. That is huge for designers, and long overdue. The cool thing about the new font features in CSS3 is that if a browser does not support them, the text simply displays in whatever fonts are available, so there is not much to lose.

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It is a good idea to test designs with more-common fonts, such as Times, Helvetica, and Arial, to make sure everything is still readable and looks OK, but with just a few lines of additional code (a link to the font online and inclusion of the font in the style definitions), it is possible to make designs look much cooler in most of the latest web browsers. Similarly, the rounded corner and drop-shadow features in CSS3 are relatively easy to use and do not do any damage if they are not supported. The coolest, hippest visitors who use the latest web browsers will get to see the fabulous designs, and anyone using a browser that does not support these new features, such as an older version of Internet Explorer, will never know the difference.

Make Mobile Websites Accessible Creating an accessible website means more than just making the content on the pages display well on a mobile device; it also means making sure everyone who visits the site can understand and appreciate the contents. After the mobile website design, it is important to step back and take a fresh look at the pages. Study the design and interface, the colors and images, and then imagine what it would be like if they could not be seen. Internet users who are blind or have limited vision use a variety of aids to access webpages. Some use browsers called speech synthesizers and screen readers to “read” the content of websites aloud. Others use refreshable Braille displays that translate web content. If a site has not been designed to be accessible by these special programs, users may not be able to understand the words or appreciate the images on the webpages. Designing a site that is accessible requires a little more attention to detail, but mostly it is about following good interface and design rules. The benefits of accessible web design go far beyond reaching people with disabilities. Accessible web design also makes sites work better in language translation programs and can help ensure the content displays well in the most limited mobile devices, which display only text. Accessible web design techniques can also make the site easier to use by the fast-growing demographic of internet users older than 60. Many countries require government organizations, universities, and nonprofit organizations to comply with accessibility guidelines. Since 1998, when the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was amended, the U.S. government has required that all federal agencies “give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others” (www.section508.gov). Today, more and more commercial web designers have learned the importance of accessibility. In 2006, the U.S.

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National Federation of the Blind filed suit against the Target chain of department stores “alleging that its website was not accessible to people with disabilities using screen access technology” (www.dralegal.org/cases/ private_business/nfb_v_target.php). “You wouldn’t build a storefront with a door that prevented one out of 10 of your potential customers from coming in,” said Tom McCain, an Indianapolis web designer who has made accessible design a specialty, in an interview with the author. “You don’t want to stop anyone at the front door of your website by ignoring accessibility guidelines. You can do accessible design and still have visually appealing sites. All you have to do is make sure the information is available through multiple means,” he added. Try this simple test to see how well the content and links on your site are organized. Imagine that you are reading your website to someone over the phone. Start at the top of the page and read all the content, from left to right. Does it make sense? How long would it take the person on the other end of the phone to find the information he or she wanted if an automated voice reading to them was the only way they could navigate the information on your site? Follow these suggestions for creating accessible websites: 1. Use alternative text for images and multimedia. Also known as alt text, alternative text is an option in HTML that provides a text description if an image or multimedia file cannot be displayed. Alternative text is especially important when a designer is using images as links, because screen readers cannot decipher text in an image. 2. Create links that have clear descriptions about where they go, group related information together, and be consistent about where navigation links are located so that they are easy to find on all your pages. Similarly, make sure the text of a link clearly indicates the nature of the link. If you use the words click here or read more in your link tags, you are missing an opportunity to make your pages more accessible and more search engine friendly. Instead, use text that describes what users will find when they click on a link. 3. People with disabilities face navigation challenges similar to those of people who use very limited mobile phones. If the navigation links require the use of a mouse, it may be difficult for people with disabilities to move around the site, in much the same way as a website can be difficult to navigate with an alphanumeric keypad. To improve accessibility, organize links so that it is easy to use the Tab key for navigation. Most modern web browsers support the ability to progress from one link to another using the Tab key. Hitting the Tab

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key advances the user to the next link on a webpage. Pressing the Enter key activates a link. Holding down the Shift key and pressing the Tab key helps cycle backward through the links. This feature is built into most web browsers, but it works best when the links on a webpage are organized in groups of related links. 4. Choose colors carefully. If the site sections are distinguished with color coding, the colors will, unfortunately, mean nothing to someone who cannot see them. There should be enough contrast between text and background colors so that people who have limited vision can decipher the words. For example, light-colored text on a light background is much harder to read than dark text on a light background. 5. If multimedia is used, provide transcripts of audio files and text descriptions of video and animation files. Including transcriptions not only makes the site more accessible but can dramatically improve search-engine ranking. 6. Test the site for accessibility. Resources to help evaluate the accessibility of websites can be found online at www.w3.org/WAI/ eval/Overview.html. 7. In sum, to learn more about accessible design, study the official Web Accessibility Guidelines at www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10.

C h a p t e r

Mobile Spectrum: Overcoming Challenges of Scarcity Lynne Gallagher

Editors’ Note: This chapter addresses the fundamental and finite natural resource driving mobile communications: spectrum. It is imperative that responsible and progressive policy decisions regarding spectrum be made that meet the needs of multiple stakeholders: industry, government, and citizens. This chapter addresses the opportunities surrounding licensed and unlicensed spectrum in a range of frequencies—such as white space between TV frequencies. Special approaches need to be adopted regarding spectrum allocation and device power in rural areas and regarding the government as regulator and consumer of information and communication technology services in local communities. Regulators in the U.S. and the U.K. tend to be global thought leaders and practice innovators in the domain of spectrum policy. The diffusion and benefits of wireless and mobile communications have exploded beyond the expectations we had 25 years ago or even 15 years ago. This is particularly true in the case of the emerging economies of the world. The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) has remade the landscape of telecommunications in developing countries, providing voice and later short message service (SMS) to urban and rural citizens at all income levels. GMS has also brought competition to the sector, and now the mobile operators are often the dominant operator in the country. The internet became a reality in developing countries in the 1990s, bringing email and web browsing to government, universities, and businesses and spurring a wave of internet cafes and telecentres. At major gatherings such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecom in Geneva, one 159

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saw early demos of video and photos on cell phones and heard talk about cell phones becoming the main device for accessing the internet in developing countries. It was only in 1999 that the term information and communication technology (ICT) came into use and we stopped referring separately to telecommunications and IT. Indeed, ICT for development, known as ICT4D, became a major thrust in the development community, focusing attention on use of ICT for social and economic development. Convergence and applications of ICTs created a lot of buzz in this field. The year 2012 witnessed widespread use of smartphones and tablets in the industrialised countries and slower diffusion in developing countries. Availability of apps on wireless devices grew rapidly, and app developer communities mushroomed across the emerging economies of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Pressure for affordability of devices and services has dramatically driven down prices for cell phones, and pay-as-you-go scratch cards emerged to provide access for cell phone users. Now affordable access to the internet via affordable devices is becoming an important driver for national productivity and development for many policymakers. In order for citizens to have broadband mobile access to government, education, health, employment, and income-generating services, solutions have to be found, among them finding efficient ways of utilising the finite resource of spectrum. Low-cost featurephones offer voice but also some data services, such as SMS, that will provide citizens with basic services; smartphones are spreading from business users to the general population, and prices are expected to drop. Tablets have emerged as another important platform category and are potentially a major tool for accessing the internet in developing countries. Ideal target prices for smartphones and tablets discussed in the development community are $50 or less, and many of them will be Wi-Fi-enabled.

Spectrum Is a Natural Resource Connectivity for these devices is the next issue in search of a solution. Governments control the powerful natural resource of spectrum. All countries own this precious natural resource, and it can be exploited for overall development in the 21st-century knowledge economy. Whereas some countries have oil, gold, water, or fertile soil as resources to exploit for development, all countries have spectrum and the option to use it wisely. Each country can make responsible and progressive policy decisions that will promote the deployment of ICT infrastructure and provide connectivity to the services that are rapidly being developed by industry or entrepreneurs.

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Policies on management of the spectrum and allocation of frequencies should balance several interests: the public interest in having affordable access to ICT; public safety needs that require frequencies for emergency management; traditional mass-media radio and TV; and the licensing of spectrum to cellular operators, wireless ISPs (WISP), and others to build a robust ICT sector. The opportunity for smart use of unlicensed and licensed spectrum to provide access to the internet should be one outcome of connectivity policy. Just as cell phones brought voice communications to billions of persons who were not reached by fixed-line networks, mobiles and other portable devices will be used by billions to access the internet and online services for business, education, healthcare, and government. Both licensed spectrum and unlicensed spectrum are needed to build this infrastructure. Developing countries should make licensed spectrum available and encourage deployment of technologies like 3G and long-term evolution (LTE) in licensed spectrum. They should also make unlicensed spectrum available and encourage deployment of technologies such as Wi-Fi in unlicensed spectrum. LTE and 4G cannot be deployed as fast as Wi-Fi. Hotspots are fast but only in select locations. Wi-Fi is excellent for hotspots, but it has limited range and does not have the kind of mobility support that cellular has. Cellular is everywhere. Users should be able to get connected to the internet by going to government buildings, schools and universities, internet cafes, or other kinds of “hotspots.” Outside the range of Wi-Fi, citizens can revert to their cell phones for voice, SMS, texting, and other applications. Another option for developing countries is WiMAX, which has been deployed in many emerging markets and can be deployed while a country is waiting for LTE to be licensed and built. Unlicensed spectrum may cover different bands in different countries, but the critical issue is that it be available where needed for low-cost, massproduced equipment. Users will then figure out very quickly how to take advantage of it. That was true with Wi-Fi, and it can be true of new technologies being developed to seize the opportunities available by using white spaces in the spectrum used by TV broadcasters (discussed more later in this chapter). Policymakers and regulators need to manage these important niches of spectrum. Unlicensed spectrum is a band of spectrum in which devices are allowed to operate without any need for a license from the regulator. Since no permission is required, it is easy for anyone to set up equipment, but there is no limit on the number of devices that may be deployed, and thus no way to guarantee performance. As a general rule, it is best to use licensed spectrum where possible and for areas of heavy usage. Doing so gives providers the flexibility to offer business services, subject to light regulation. Light regulation means that someone could offer services simply by registering an access

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point. There would be no technology constraints and no common carrier obligations. If there is interference, the government knows what is there and who operates it because it is registered. In rural areas, power requirements can be relaxed so that higher power can be used and greater distances reached. Wi-Fi can also be used for point-topoint connection. The challenge in rural areas is getting the backhaul from the access site or hot-spot to the internet point of presence. If there is only a monopoly provider, the cost can be very high. The regulator may need to encourage or provide incentives to achieve affordable backhaul in order for there to be affordable access for rural users, for example, via universal service obligations (USO).

Spectrum and Access Technologies There are several technologies that can be used in unlicensed spectrum. For example, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) bundle of standards known as 802.11 describes a type of technology that in most countries operates in unlicensed spectrum. Equipment based on this technology has been widely deployed for Wi-Fi hotspots. In addition to Wi-Fi, technologies such as HIPERLAN, Bluetooth, DASH7, ZigBee, and 6LoWPAN are relevant. Bluetooth devices typically operate in unlicensed spectrum. Ultrawideband (UWB) is another useful wireless technology, but in the U.S., UWB devices are not confined to unlicensed bands. UWB devices in the U.S. do not require licenses, but they share spectrum with systems that do require licenses, so it does not entirely represent unlicensed spectrum. Other emerging technologies are those that can be used for white spaces, the portions of the spectrum used by analog TV broadcasters to maintain separation from other channels. As countries transition from analog to digital television (DTV) broadcasting, the spectrum used as white spaces becomes available to deploy for wireless access to the internet. This is a valuable spectrum resource for which technologists are developing equipment, and it has the potential to reach rural areas for affordable internet access. It should be available anyplace that can pick up a broadcast TV signal, including in the very remote areas that cannot get access by Wi-Fi. It is also faster than Wi-Fi and can carry more data. The potential for delivering education, health services and medicine, and a range of egovernment services at very low cost makes development and adoption of this unlicensed spectrum a key strategy. Technologists are working on standards, devices, and systems to manage the use of this spectrum without causing interference. For instance, researchers at Microsoft, Google, Dell, Spectrum Bridge, and other companies

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have developed methods to let data devices such as PCs use those blank frequencies. They are developing TV band devices (TVBDs) and databases to keep track of TVBDs and to assign them safe frequencies in order to ensure there will be no interference. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved the use of such devices under these conditions in the U.S., and technology experts in many other countries are exploring the potential opportunities. The promise of a mass market of standardised, lowcost equipment that can access the internet nearly anywhere offers developing countries the opportunity to make affordable ICT infrastructure a reality. “This new era in global technology leadership will only happen if there is adequate spectrum available to support the forthcoming myriad of wireless devices, networks, and applications that can drive the new economy,” according to the U.S. Presidential Directive on Spectrum (“Presidential Memorandum: Unleashing the Wireless Broadband Revolution” 2010). The presidential memo directed the U.S. government to make 500 MHz of federal and non-federal spectrum available during the next 10 years. It called for creating adequate funding, incentives, and assistance for affected entities to accomplish this goal. It further directed the agencies to create and implement a plan to facilitate exploration, development, testing, and experimentation by researchers. It is important for policymakers and industry leaders to remember that this is not a choice between regulation and the market. Rather, it calls for two approaches: clearing bands to use for new purposes, and sharing bands in new ways. Clearing bands requires a complex mix of regulation and marketbased mechanisms, such as incentive auctions and compensation for license holders. Sharing bands calls for a mix of regulation and market-based mechanisms, as well as for innovative technology. Some of these models are based on cooperation, others on coexistence. There are multiple objectives to this approach. First, giving spectrum users flexibility allows them to adopt the best approach and to adapt it over time. Second, using common standards reduces costs, as seen in Wi-Fi and as expected in the equipment being built for use in the white space spectrum. Third, if regulators, together with operators, make deployment and usage information available to others in the sector, it will increase opportunities for efficient sharing of spectrum. Finally, there is significant value to “light” regulation, whereby spectrum users provide information to the regulator but need not ask permission to use the spectrum. They simply register their access devices, informing the regulator that they are there, in case of interference. In developing countries, the technologies using white space can use highpower devices. Communities can put a tower in the centre of town and reach the entire population. Similarly, in rural areas of developing countries, Wi-Fi

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systems can use higher power and reach much greater distances. Wi-Fi can be used, as previously indicated, for connecting communities with point-topoint transmissions. As was true of Wi-Fi equipment, if the new equipment using white spaces is manufactured in the U.S. or other industrialised countries, followed by others such as China, the mass market prices will be driven low enough to be affordable in developing countries.

Spectrum and Policy Creative use of spectrum requires progressive and long-term policymaking approaches. For instance, the U.S. national broadband policy and program has made a number of recent notable advances. Innovative work has been done on the analog-to-digital transition for broadcasting, mesh networks, and municipal broadband networks (Wi-Fi microcellular networks that blanket entire cities, or more likely the downtown section and an adjacent neighbourhood of a city). The paper “Bringing Broadband to Unserved Communities,” published by the Brookings Institution as part of its Hamilton Project (Peha 2008), lays out an approach for regulators to follow that will enable broadband access. Its principles and proposals are equally valid for adoption by developing countries. It includes three complementary policy changes that could facilitate the leap into broadband connectivity for unserved or underserved communities, each of which can be advanced in parallel. To encourage the expansion of broadband into currently unserved communities, policymakers can adopt a complementary suite of interrelated policies that will reduce the cost of deploying infrastructure, reduce uncertainty over future revenues, and, to the extent funding is available, provide highly targeted subsidies that leverage existing market forces. First, policymakers should make more spectrum available, and they should make the regulatory and technical requirements associated with this spectrum appropriate for broadband systems that serve sparsely populated areas. This measure could make the deployment of an entirely new broadband system cost-effective in regions where it is currently too costly. Examples include making some part of the white spaces in the TV band available in a form that is appropriate for low-cost broadband and taking concrete steps toward making government spectrum available to commercial users, where those commercial users pay the transition costs. Second, policymakers should allow these new wireless providers, along with established telephone and cable companies and others, to bid in a competitive auction that would obligate the winner to make broadband services available in return for a onetime subsidy. Unlike other policy proposals, this

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obligation is designed to be highly flexible and fully tradable, allowing each provider to build a portfolio of obligations through market mechanisms that can be achieved in a highly cost-effective manner consistent with the provider’s technology and evolving business plan. Finally, local governments should play a greater role in universal service policy. Current laws that artificially limit a municipality’s role in broadband deployment should be eliminated, so that decisions can be made by elected officials who are directly accountable to local voters. Beyond this, before the auctions described above take place, local governments could commit to becoming customers of the resulting systems and to making valuable resources available to auction winners. If one were to build an entirely new network in a rural area rather than add new capabilities to an existing infrastructure, wireless technology would clearly be the way to go. Today, the closest wireless competitors to current DSL and cable services typically provide data rates of 1 to 10 Mbps (megabits per second) to stationary wireless devices. Examples include citywide networks based on Wi-Fi technology (www.muniwireless.com), the newer WiMAX standard (www.wimaxforum.org), and various proprietary solutions. Fixed wireless can be an attractive option for unserved communities because the cost per subscriber of building new infrastructure is far less than that of building a wired system. There is no need to dig ditches and lay long cables out to remote households. The cost of equipment that sits at the customer’s premises is roughly the same for rural and urban areas. The cost, per household, of the towers may still be greater in sparsely populated areas because there are fewer customers per tower, but fixed wireless is still much cheaper than deploying new wireline connections. Thus, bringing broadband to an unserved community often means choosing between building an entirely new system based on fixed wireless technology and upgrading an existing telephone or cable system. In addition, cellular providers are introducing data services using a different set of wireless technologies. These services typically have much lower data rates (e.g., hundreds of kilobits per second) than do fixed wireless, DSL, or cable as well as much higher monthly prices, but they offer substantially better mobility. Thus, they typically meet somewhat different needs and often serve the same customer base as cable or DSL. We can expect continued growth in these mobile services, especially after the DTV transition, when more spectrum becomes available to cellular carriers. In the process, some services may become available in communities that do not have broadband today, although it is more likely that growth will be focused in larger cities. As mentioned earlier, spectrum can be made available by allowing the use of the white spaces of the TV band. A benefit of the DTV transition is that DTV is more immune to interference than is today’s analog TV and facilitates

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spectrum sharing. These white spaces are there for good reason: as buffer zones to protect broadcasters in different cities from interfering with each other’s signals. However, advances in technology make it possible to use parts of the white space while affecting a relatively small fraction of TV viewers. The FCC approved the use of white space after the DTV transition in 2009. There have been prominent efforts by high-tech companies to create relatively low-power devices that operate in this band. Such devices would use cognitive or adaptive radio to find a channel in which no nearby TV broadcaster is active. These devices can even be mobile or portable, because they will dynamically adjust when they find themselves to be too close to a TV transmitter. Low-power devices could serve many useful purposes. If the objective were to connect households to a rural ISP, however, it would be far more important to operate at high power and less important to support mobility. Thus, the FCC would establish very different regulatory constraints for use of the white space. If there were companies with a serious interest in using this spectrum to bring broadband to unserved areas, it would be in the public interest to allow these high-power devices into at least some of the TV channels. Naturally, the FCC should make spectrum available for those applications with significant demand. So far, there are companies that have expressed strong interest in developing low-power unlicensed devices that operate in the TV white space, but not the same level of interest from organisations pledging to deploy high-power transmitters for fixed internet service in the white space. Perhaps that will change in the future and if there is the possibility of subsidies and tradable obligations for rural providers. Such a policy change in this band might substantially improve the business case for providing rural areas with broadband service.

Spectrum Policy: Community Benefits Many municipalities have considered investing their own funds in the deployment of a wireless metropolitan-area network (WiMAN), in large part because they can significantly reduce the costs of providing services to citizens. Moreover, citizens in a previously unserved region are not the only ones to benefit when broadband infrastructure is expanded. As more people join any communications network, those who already belong to the network gain because they can communicate with more people. This phenomenon is known as network effects. For example, network effects are the basis of the oftcited Metcalfe’s Law and its cousins. Metcalfe’s Law states that the benefit of a network with n users is proportional to n2, because that is roughly how many pairs of people can communicate over the network.

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For example, as new users join the network, ecommerce merchants can attract more customers. Online universities can attract more students. Social networks can attract more members. Blogs can gain more readers of content and more generators of content. Users of email, voice over internet protocol (VoIP), and videoconferencing can communicate with more friends and business associates. Despite these advantages, none of these beneficiaries pays to incrementally add new users. Thus, making broadband available in unserved areas benefits all those internet users who might want to communicate with members of that community. This creates another positive externality and another reason society should wisely invest in expansion of the infrastructure.

Local Government Roles In many cases a broadband network can allow city government to cut costs, improve services, or both. Rather than build their own communications infrastructure, cities might become an anchor tenant for a network that also serves the public, thereby improving that network’s chances of becoming financially sustainable. Municipalities might also encourage large institutions in the region to do the same, effectively aggregating and guaranteeing demand. Moreover, local governments with particular needs and preferences for a new broadband infrastructure can define their own obligations, with milestones tailored for their needs. For example, they may want to ensure that schools and fire stations are served. These milestones may be combined with others in the same reverse auction or distributed separately. This can be done through traditional contracting, of course, before or after the reverse auction. Alternatively, a city government may craft a new milestone and commitment that will be part of the package that is auctioned or add weight to existing milestones of particular importance, and contribute funds toward that auction for this privilege. In this way, the city attracts more bidders, and ensures that its objectives will be considered from the beginning. Even if local government agencies will not become major users of a broadband network, local government can play a critical role by eliminating obstacles to build-out (e.g., approving right-of-way requests) and by making essential resources easily available to all providers. Perhaps the most important such resource is sites suitable for wireless transmitters. These sites must be reasonably safe from theft and vandalism, have electric power available, and be within communications reach of many households. Local government often controls access to many useful antenna sites, such as light poles and the rooftops of government buildings. Payments for

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antenna sites can be a significant part of a wireless broadband network’s annual operating expenses. Wherever possible, current and potential broadband providers should be assured even before the reverse auction takes place that these sites will be available to any provider at little cost on a non-exclusive non-discriminatory basis. Some cities also have other resources that, if made available to broadband providers at reasonable prices, would greatly decrease deployment costs. Examples include power sources and communications networks that are suitable for backhaul but which may have been deployed for some other purpose. In effect, the city would be making an inkind contribution for the reverse auction. Making resources of this kind available on a non-exclusive basis is costeffective for two reasons. First, it allows city government and the broadband provider to share a valuable resource without duplicating the cost. For example, if both the broadband provider and the city need a power generator in a remote area, there is no need to build two such generators. Second, it increases the chances that competition might emerge if competing providers are allowed to avoid duplicating the cost of such resources when sharing is possible.

Technologies and Apps for Developing Countries This chapter has made the case that spectrum is a valuable resource for countries to provide widespread access to the internet for citizens. Policymakers can encourage communities to deploy this new “utility” by using this part of the spectrum to deploy Wi-Fi to users within a 1-km (.6-mile) range as well as in public access centres or hot spots. These communities may be government offices, universities, housing complexes, markets, or towns and villages. It will not be “anytime, anywhere,” but it should be accessible in urban and semiurban communities, as well as increasingly in the rural areas. Communities along the national backbone can be served by Wi-Fi and WiMAX. Cellular operators can be encouraged to provide access to their towers either for their own business subscribers or for wireless ISPs to deploy equipment on the base station sites by leasing space. Mobile phones and, increasingly, tablets are likely to be the devices that expand access to the new services and applications. Developing countries have led the world in deploying mobile banking, m-banking, and efinancial services by cell phone. Smartphones using 3G and 4G are becoming the devices to access the web as well. Phones were thought to be the most common device for users in developing countries to access the internet. Then came tablets and ereaders, which open up powerful new tools for learning,

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business, and governing; for instance, tablets can download entire courses of study, including books, instructions, and training programs. The Kahn Academy is localising its math courses to various languages and configuring them for low bandwidth access in Uganda. The m-banking range of services in Africa and Asia is having an equally profound effect on economic development and income generation. Similarly, apps for health and medical services provide access to critical support for families. The app communities in emerging markets will make connected devices the real enabling technologies of development. Another approach is being developed at the MIT Center for Civic Media to reach users and communities without easy access to the internet or their own computers. VoIP Drupal is a versatile open source communication toolkit that adds the power of voice and internet telephony to websites. It can be used to build hybrid applications that combine regular touchtone phones, the web, SMS, Twitter, and other channels in a variety of interesting ways, facilitating community outreach and providing an online presence even to those who are technically challenged or who do not have regular access to computers. This technology was used in the slums of Sao Paulo for high school youth, who developed systems to meet educational and community needs. This toolkit joins a growing list of social media technologies and mobile devices being used to build communities and organise “events” such as those that took place during the Arab Spring.

Policy Innovation, Independence, and Cooperation Innovation may not be the most important quality of regulators, but they still need independence, transparency, expertise, and the ability to keep up with developments in both policy and technology around the world and to reach out to foreign experts as needed. The U.S. and the U.K. tend to be the leaders of their respective blocks in terms of spectrum policies and have traded off being the world leader in terms of thought leadership and industry practice. Demands on spectrum are high and growing. We need innovative technologies supporting innovative usage models to meet that demand. The most important innovative and practical ideas often have been addressed first by either the FCC in the U.S. or Ofcom in the U.K., and then others tend to follow. A good recent example is TV white space, which the U.S. approved in 2008, with others following. The U.S. pioneered UWB and is now pioneering “incentive auctions,” a new kind of auction which has the potential to be a more efficient way to clear some TV channels for other purposes.

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Ofcom is a good example of an independent regulator (i.e., independent from both industry and the rest of the executive branch of government) and one in which the voices of knowledgeable professionals (in technology, economics, and law) are not easily drowned out by politics. No democracy is ever totally free of politics (now would that be a good thing!), but many experts think Ofcom performs better than the FCC and other regulators do. An area in which cooperation is particularly important is the creation and adoption of standards or mandatory technical regulations. Some things work better with a single standard or technical regulation. When we shift from analog TV to DTV, what should the DTV standard be? What should the technical rules be to operate in the industrial, scientific, and medical band? Commercial companies are often not good at picking a single winner, because they have competing interests. Governments are often not good at creating standards or technical requirements that lead to good technologies and products. Cooperative bodies or processes are needed to deal with such things. University experts and consumer advocacy groups also may have useful things to contribute, and steps should be taken to get them to the table (even though they often do not have the same resources), travel to meetings, hire people, and lobby in national and global forums. There are many models for this type of cooperative body, depending on the nature of the problem. Some should be kept fairly far from governments (e.g., ICANN, the Internet Committee for Assigned Names and Numbers), some are little more than private-sector advisory groups to government decision makers, and some are in between.

References and Resources Federal Communications Commission. 2010. “Spectrum.” National Broadband Plan. www.broad band.gov/plan. Marcus, Michael, Jim Burtle, Bruce Franca, Ahmed Lahjouji, and Neal McNeil. 2002. Federal Communications Commission Spectrum Policy Task Force: Report of the Unlicensed Devices and Experimental Licenses Working Group. ET Docket 02-135. transition.fcc.gov/sptf/files/ E&UWGFinalReport.pdf. Ofcom. 2004. Spectrum Framework Review: A Consultation on Ofcom’s Views as to How Radio Spectrum Should Be Managed. London, U.K.: Riverside House. stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/ binaries/consultations/sfr/summary/sfr.pdf. Peha, Jon M. 1998. “Spectrum Management Policy Options.” IEEE Communications Surveys, Fourth Quarter 1998. ———. 2007. “Emerging Technology and Spectrum Policy Reform.” In Proceedings of United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Workshop on Market Mechanisms for Spectrum Management, Geneva, Switzerland, January 2007. www.itu.int/osg/spu/stn/ spectrum/workshop_proceedings/Background_Papers_Final/Jon%20Peha%20ITU%20 spectrum%20workshop.pdf.

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———. 2008. “Bringing Broadband to Unserved Communities.” The Hamilton Project, July 2008. The Brookings Institution. www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2008/7/ broadband%20peha/07_broadband_peha.pdf. ———. 2009. “Sharing Spectrum through Spectrum Policy Reform and Cognitive Radio.” In Proceedings of the IEEE 97:4 (April 2009), 708–19. research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/ redmond/events/cognetsummit/papers/Peha_Proc_of_IEEE.pdf. “Presidential Memorandum: Unleashing the Wireless Broadband Revolution.” The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, June 28, 2010. www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidentialmemorandum-unleashing-wireless-broadband-revolution.

P a r t T w o

Mobile Impacts

C h a p t e r

Mobile Health Patricia Mechael, Ada Kwan, and Dayle Kern

Editors’ Note: This chapter focuses on mobile usage in health information and services, in the context of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and the need for health system strengthening. mHealth can generate efficiencies and cost savings and is seen as a solution for major health system challenges in developing nations. Examples provided include disease surveillance, supply chain coordination, verification of the genuineness of purchased drugs, mobile telemedicine, health surveys, and heightened awareness of healthier behaviors. Constraints to mHealth initiatives include high costs, poor signal coverage, slow demand generation, inadequate human resources, existing social inequities, and privacy issues. To list factors contributing to success, the authors recommend greater awareness of local contexts, effective planning, local participation, sustainable business models, social marketing, stakeholder partnerships, and global knowledge sharing across regions.

Historical Evolution of mHealth Entering the world stage only several decades ago, mobile phones have unexpectedly become ubiquitous. At the end of 2011, there were nearly 6 billion mobile phone subscriptions for a population of 7 billion (International Communications Union 2011), and remarkably, more than 90 percent of the world’s population is now covered by a wireless network signal. Even a decade ago, it was unfathomable that people in countries with little fixed-line telephone infrastructure could be reached so quickly. Now, in Africa, mobile 175

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phone coverage is more accessible than electricity (Blaschke et al. 2009), and in India, more people have mobile phones than have toilets (Nolen 2012). Made possible through record growth, rapid expansion, increasing affordability, and appeal, mobile devices are changing what is possible. For the first time, there is a form of technology that is owned by both the rich and the poor. Because of their ubiquity, mobile phones have the potential to reach segments of the population who were previously unable to access the healthcare they need. Mobile phones are increasingly being used to improve access to health information and services. This concept is known as mobile health, or mHealth. With the proliferation of mobile technology, more and more mHealth strategies are being implemented globally, and by 2017, analysts estimate the global mHealth market will be worth US$23 billion (GSM Association 2012). In addition to filling information and communication gaps in health, mobile phones can be linked to software applications and information systems, making data collection and medical record updates possible in real time. Although mobile technologies are currently enhancing the state of global health, the field of mHealth is notorious for its many pilot projects and few examples of nationally deployed, sustainable platforms. This chapter is about mHealth and how efforts must be aimed at morestrategic and more-effective design, monitoring, financing, governmental support, private sector engagement, and policy in order for it to reach its full potential. In this chapter, we begin by defining mHealth and related terms. Then, current global health conditions are described within the contexts of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the need for health systems strengthening. We use these contexts as a backdrop for examples of mHealth interventions, as well as to describe barriers inhibiting scale and sustainability. In the last part of the chapter, we take a step back from the individual projects to offer some guiding principles and recommendations for future mHealth advancements, with a focus on establishing an enabling environment within which mHealth can thrive.

What Is mHealth? mHealth has been defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices such as mobile phones, tablets, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants, and other wireless devices (WHO 2011a). mHealth is a subset of eHealth, which has been defined as the delivery of health-related services via information and communication technologies (ICTs; Vital Wave Consulting 2008). Another frequently mentioned type of eHealth is telemedicine, which refers to health-related services delivered remotely with clinical participation

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via electronic communications. Also associated with the term telehealth, telemedicine overlaps with mHealth when mobile communication technologies are employed (Vital Wave Consulting 2008).

Increased Demand for Health Services Globally and Health-Related MDGs Although technology growth can be rapid, the health issues that eHealth and mHealth are implemented to improve are complicated. As the world population grows, so will the demand for health services. Together, this and the shortage of health workers create a complex picture of needs and competing priorities in the global health sector. To provide a roadmap of the current state of global health, a closer look at the MDGs is warranted. The MDGs, developed in 2001 by the United Nations, reflect eight goals designed to improve social and economic conditions worldwide by the year 2015. Three of these specifically emphasize the need for improvements in health, as shown in the next section. Only a few of the indicators are on track—or none at all in some countries—although recent reports show progress on the health MDGs (United Nations 2011; WHO 2011b): MDG 4: To reduce child mortality rates • In all, 115 million children under 5 years of age are underweight (26 percent in Africa; 62 percent in Asia). • A total of 178 million are too short for their age group, indicating chronic malnutrition and related to education lags. • Of all child deaths, 40 percent (2009) occur during the neonatal period, the first 28 days of life; child mortality rates in the WHO African region (127 per 1,000 live births) and among low-income countries (117 per 1,000 live births) are higher than the 1990 global level (89 per 1,000 live births). • Effective intervention coverage has grown from 73 percent (1990) to 82 percent (2009) for pneumonia and diarrheal diseases, the largest contributors to child mortality rates. MDG 5: To improve maternal health • The number of women dying from complications during pregnancy and childbirth decreased by 34 percent between 1990 and 2008. • Maternal mortality rates are not on track to meeting the goal of reducing them by three-quarters by 2015.

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MDG 6: To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases • The HIV epidemic has stabilized, with 33.3 million people living with HIV (2009). • Malaria admissions and deaths decreased from 1 million to 781,000 between 2000 and 2009. • Tuberculosis-related mortality has decreased, but tuberculosis incidence is rising, with 9.4 million new cases among a total of 12 million to 16 million cases in 2009. • Neglected tropical diseases affect more than 1 billion individuals. • Dengue is on the increase and continuing to spread. In the current economic climate, more efforts will be needed to accelerate the rate of improvement through innovative and efficiency-driven strategies. The achievement of the MDGs will depend on how health delivery mechanisms can be integrated and how funding can be efficiently allocated to yield the most improvement in health outcomes. mHealth is currently being explored in earnest for its potential to provide people with health information and services and to generate efficiencies and cost savings within programs aiming to achieve the MDGs by 2015. It is also beneficial to examine health system challenges, independent of the MDGs, to gain a broader perspective of current conditions in which mHealth is taking shape.

mHealth as a Solution for Major Health System Challenges in the Developing World Although important, the MDGs alone are not sufficient to fully understand how mHealth can improve global health. In this sense, thinking of mHealth in the context of health agendas should include not only the MDGs but also ways to strengthen health systems. Following are descriptions of health system challenges and how mHealth solutions are attempting to tackle them in the developing world. Many of the challenges focus on the lack of timely and actionable disease surveillance, human resource shortage, inefficient health delivery systems and delays, coordination of supply chain management for drugs and stocks, and counterfeit drugs (Chetly 2006). The lack of timely and actionable disease surveillance prevents appropriate disease prevention and control actions from being taken at global, national, and local levels. In this regard, mobile phones, which can transfer and store data at low cost, are capturing disease surveillance data (e.g., case counts, outbreak monitoring) in both the most populated and the remote regions of the world. By replacing in-person delivery of paper reports with text messaging, one pilot project in Malawi aimed to reduce the amount of time community

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health workers (CHWs) spent traveling between villages and a reporting hospital, sometimes more than 100 miles (160.9 km; Mahmud, Rodriguez, and Nesbit 2010). More than 2,000 hours and US$2750 in fuel costs were saved, and the hospital doubled the capacity of its tuberculosis treatment program. Another challenge encountered in health system development is the human resource shortage, which is at critical levels in many countries. More motivation, better working conditions, and expansion of the workforce through auxiliaries can improve this crisis and reduce the phenomenon of brain drain. As an mHealth response to the nursing shortage, telenurses have been trained specifically to deliver care through telemedicine in 36 countries (Schlachta-Fairchild 2008). Compared with nurses in regular positions, telenurses reported greater satisfaction in autonomy and interaction. Additionally, it was easier to care for more patients in less time. Better hours, less physical demand, and gratification from feeling more challenged were also reported. Mobile phones have also been alleviating issues surrounding inefficient health delivery systems and delays related to inefficiencies. As a response to a burdened health system, a mobile phone–based, provider–client interaction platform was created in Argentina to manage appointments for peripheral health units (Escobar 2009). A telemedicine home-care system monitoring hypertension, pregnancy, diabetes, and obesity was added. The newer system made scheduling appointments more convenient while improving patient supervision. Mobile phones have also been cited as improving the coordination of supply chain management for drugs and stocks, as well as providing access to price information that can inform purchasing decisions. Strengthening supply chains with monitoring has many benefits for facilities that struggle with maintaining adequate stock levels of drugs and supplies. In an effort designed to create a force against the epidemic of counterfeit drugs in the world, one social enterprise called mPedigree allows individuals in Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya to send numeric codes, via free text messages, to a system that verifies the genuineness of purchased drugs (Lemaire 2011).

Scope of Evolving mHealth Initiatives Globally In 2009, WHO’s Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe) conducted a global survey that for the first time contained a section devoted to mHealth (WHO 2011a). This section provides an overview of global trends related to the following categories of mHealth interventions: • Health call centers • Emergency toll-free telephone services

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• Emergency and disaster management • Mobile telemedicine • Appointment reminders • Community mobilization and health promotion • Treatment compliance • Mobile patient records • Information access • Patient monitoring • Health surveys and data collection • Surveillance • Health awareness raising • Decision support systems The GOe survey indicates that more mHealth activity occurs in highincome countries than in low-income countries, with the WHO European Region being the most active and the WHO African Region the least active. The results showed that 83 percent of the member states had at least one mHealth initiative, with many of these countries reporting four to six programs. In general, health call centers or healthcare telephone helplines, emergency toll-free telephone services, and mobile telemedicine were the most common mHealth initiatives (WHO 2011a). Approximately 60 percent of member states in all WHO regions reported having health call centers; in the Africa region, just over 40 percent. Emergency toll-free telephone services were reported in 42 percent to 75 percent of the member states in all WHO regions except the Africa region, which had 28 percent. Less frequent mHealth initiatives were health surveys (26 percent), surveillance (26 percent), awareness raising (23 percent), and decision support systems (19 percent). It appears that the most common mHealth activities reported to the GOe were those where mHealth can be integrated quickly into larger processes. Less commonly reported activities require larger amounts of effort for implementation, in addition to more-complex infrastructures. At the national level for the member states, mHealth adoption was hindered most by competing health system priorities, which explains why the field is characterized by a “proliferation of unsustainable pilot projects” whose longevities are contingent on funding cycles (WHO 2011a).

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mHealth in Developing Countries Potential of Mobile Phones to Improve Health in the Developing World This broad overview of the current state of global health and quick description of mHealth make it easy to see how mobile technologies have been leveraged to improve complicated aspects of health delivery and public health. Now we go a little bit deeper in describing mHealth activities in the developing world, and Figure 9.1 depicts several mHealth projects found throughout the world. Following are functions and use cases in mHealth that aim to improve the quality of health in various settings. Based on the underlying assumption that providing accurate information to individuals can improve awareness of a health topic and then contribute to modifying routines in order to accommodate healthier attitudes and behaviors, education and awareness campaigns—important components in comprehensive health programs—are one of the centerpieces of public health. Providing accurate health information via mobile phone is a new and direct channel for public health campaigns. Remote data collection is being used in place of traditional paper-based reports delivered by hand. Newer methods exploiting mobile device features include equipping CHWs or data collectors with mobile devices containing data collection software and applications that can transmit data synchronously or asynchronously to servers for easy and near real-time analysis, saving time and transportation costs while improving data availability and accuracy. This is an attractive option in many areas where data do not exist or the quality is so poor that information about mortality, malnutrition, disease outbreaks, and other public health issues is scarce. The possibilities of remote data collection just described also have implications for remote monitoring. Mobile phones enable patients to be registered from the field and health reports that monitor events and treatment gaps to be sent across wireless networks to servers linked to the health system. Additionally, as seen for diabetes patients, mobile phones linked to wireless monitoring devices can transmit vitally important health measurements to health professionals. mHealth strategies also provide communication and training for health workers, assisting them with their responsibilities and professional development. Examples range from those that facilitate general communication interactions and networking to more complicated strategies in the form of decision-making support and m-learning applications. In mHealth activities for diagnostic and treatment support, both health workers and patients are being targeted as end users. For health workers,

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Figure 9.1

Various mHealth programs by location and application. Source: Mark Graham, PhD

materials accessible on or downloadable to mobile phones can be used during care either at health facilities or during home visits and other outreach services. For patients, mHealth behavior change programs are being implemented to determine the most effective way to improve adherence and compliance rates, such as for HIV/AIDS treatment. Increasingly, mobile technologies are being used for community case management of health conditions in order to enable early detection, referral, and follow-up for conditions such as pregnancy, malnutrition, and malaria. For tracking outbreaks of disease and epidemics, mobile phone software and applications are providing a wireless way to send relevant data on disease incidence, outbreaks, and the geographic spread of public health emergencies. Because of global positioning systems, this mobile phone data can be localized and mapped for visualization.

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In many parts of the world, medication “stockouts” can have fatal effects, so supply chain management and verification is critical. With the use of mobile phones to report and track stock levels, delivery systems can be improved and stockouts avoided. In addition, in areas where counterfeit medications are a problem, mobile phones can be used to verify the authenticity of a drug in order to ensure safety. The collection and transmission of information from communities to data centers at key points across health systems are beginning to rely less on paper-based methods and more on mobile devices and wireless connectivity. Health administrative systems provide a platform for prioritization of health objectives.

Specific Health Outcome–Based Studies of mHealth The previous section summarized the various aspects of health in which mobile technology is being applied. This section shifts the focus to mobile phone solutions to population health issues, namely, maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) as well as non-communicable diseases and communicable diseases. mHealth and MNCH In mHealth and MNCH, proper guidelines and knowledge of effective interventions exist; however, what are needed are strategies that can assure these recommendations are properly implemented to reduce maternal and child mortality rates, as well as improve the conditions in which care is received. In this sense, mobile phones are appealing for communication (Krasovec 2004). Following are descriptions of how mHealth is playing a role in the MNCH continuum of care, from antenatal pregnancy checkups through labor, delivery, and postnatal care to neonatal and child health: • Monitoring during pregnancy: The first example is in Rwanda, where priority has been given to improving conditions surrounding MNCH. The health system is currently introducing a RapidSMS mHealth platform, developed by the UN Children’s Fund, to reinforce communication links among outreach workers and health facilities. Rwandan authorities are requiring that all women who become pregnant be put into this system for appropriate monitoring during pregnancy. A hospital director in Rwanda has stated that this system has lowered the barrier of distance by offering pregnant women the opportunity to alert CHWs when contractions or complications occur (Holmes 2010). The system has also doubled as a population-tracking system, counting births and deaths across the country.

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• Labor and delivery: Funneling effective interventions, such as deliveries by skilled attendants and access to emergency obstetric care, toward labor and delivery has strong potential to reduce maternal mortality figures. In Malawi, a radio communications network linked district health offices with ambulances so that timely referrals to the hospital could be made for emergency obstetric complications (Lungu and Ratsma 2007). However, even though some referrals took place within the hour after initial arrival, some patients had to wait for transportation for as long as 13 hours—a length of time that can be fatal for someone needing attention for postpartum hemorrhage. This reinforces the idea that mobile interventions can help, but they are not the solution on their own. • Neonatal and child health: The majority of mHealth interventions focus on maternal health rather than neonatal health; however, several interventions are directed to child health. For example, the ChildCount+ system allows community health extension workers covering the Millennium Village Project sites in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ghana to register patients and send health reports by text message to a centrally located health team (Lemaire 2011). The system extends existing capacities for child health. During the pilot, nearly 10,000 children under 5 years of age were monitored for acute malnutrition, and home-based malaria tests and immediate treatment for diarrhea were provided if necessary. Notably, the approach taken by the implementers focused on building local capacity, aligning ChildCount+ with existing information management systems, and developing strong partnerships with mobile phone companies and network providers. mHealth and Non-Communicable Diseases In contrast to MNCH, mHealth applications for non-communicable disease (NCD) outcomes leverage opportunities in wireless disease monitoring, health promotion, and self-management, and the information being transferred across mobile devices is increasingly more personal and tailored to end users (Blake 2008). For NCDs (e.g., cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, certain cancers, and chronic respiratory diseases), an estimated 36 million deaths worldwide occurred in 2008, largely caused by unhealthy diets and excessive energy intake, physical inactivity, overweight and obesity, tobacco use, and harmful use of alcohol. Improving health outcomes related to these behaviors can have large implications for individuals, especially because NCD side effects can become risk factors for other diseases. Before describing mHealth interventions focused on NCDs, it is important to note that the majority of lessons learned from mHealth NCD projects are from developed countries,

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and very few from developing countries. However, because of the growing NCD burdens in developing countries, the near future will be an important time to exchange learned lessons across mHealth NCD interventions in different contexts. Following is a brief description of a few ways mHealth is being used to improve conditions related to NCDs. Projects that focus on diabetes usually use mobile phones, but some also offer patients the option of participating via wireless internet, email, or PDAs. Other mHealth interventions for monitoring are designed to collect data on blood glucose, physical activity levels, and eating patterns of people with diabetes. This data is then usually transmitted from patients to medical professionals or automated systems that often reply to the patients with diet, exercise, and other recommendations (Blake 2008). Innovative smoking cessation programs are needed, and several programs have been effective at motivating individuals to quit smoking (Brendryen and Kråft 2008; Rodgers et al. 2005; Vidrine et al. 2006). Individuals are generally more likely to quit if they receive personalized and motivating text messages rather than email, webpages, or interactive voice response (Brendryen and Kråft 2008). A topic seldom addressed by mHealth interventions is that of alcohol use, consumption, treatment, or recovery. For the most part, mobile strategies are not used for alcohol abuse prevention or treatment, but a potential role for mHealth exists in providing alcohol consumption feedback, access to Alcoholics Anonymous services, or other alcohol-related interventions. The potential of ICTs has also been discussed in supporting the prevention of alcohol-dependent relapses while drawing from behavior change models (Gustafson et al. 2011). For asthma, mobile devices have been reported for two-way communication between patients and providers, as well as a medium through which to promote asthma education. One type of program involved patients’ sending symptoms and peak-flow meter readings to health professionals. In return, patients would receive feedback and tips to support asthma selfmanagement in a fashion similar to that of diabetes mHealth interventions (Pinnock et al. 2007). In response to the inability to continue monitoring cancer patients after they have left the doctor’s office, a wireless monitoring system was developed in Italy so that patients could transmit symptoms and quality-of-life information to their doctors (Blake 2008). When piloted on 97 cancer patients, those who responded had very low levels of missing information in their reports; however, just under half of the individuals did not opt to take part, which suggests that adoption issues hindered uptake of the system (Blake 2008). This is a reminder that mobile technology may not be familiar for everyone and that it may discourage some individuals.

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For cardiovascular diseases, constant monitoring of pulse rates, blood pressure, and other vitals is critical to the detection of medical issues. One study describes a wearable sphygmomanometer and pulsimeter; the former reminds an individual to measure his or her blood pressure and the latter to measure his or her pulse. Both have wireless transmission abilities, which allow the information to be transmitted to servers accessible to doctors (Wang 2010). In the mental health arena, the internet has been an attractive medium for providing individual and self-help therapy across distance; however, mobile phones have begun to be used for recording health information, encouraging treatment compliance, building provider–patient relationships, and promoting better mental health through tips or words of encouragement. mHealth and Communicable Diseases For communicable diseases, most mHealth interventions are aimed at improving the conditions surrounding the treatment and service delivery for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. For HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, mHealth interventions have been introduced in education and awareness as well as prevention, testing, monitoring, and treatment, not to mention health worker support and data collection and monitoring, encouraging healthier behaviors, and filling communication and monitoring gaps. Many mHealth strategies leveraged in MNCH and NCD interventions are applied here as well, since more reliable and sustained disease management are needed as new treatment options help transform HIV/AIDS into a chronic one. In addition to focusing on education and awareness, a large proportion of HIV/AIDS mHealth projects focus on improving patient adherence to treatment (Lester et al. 2010). As a solution, text message reminders with varying content (e.g., simple, supportive) are being sent to patients at varying frequencies (e.g., daily, weekly) to remind and encourage adherence (Lester et al. 2010; Pop-Eleches 2011). In some instances, health workers who can play a motivating role in improving treatment adherence also receive the messages (Bakshi 2012). For malaria, according to control and prevention guidelines, several effective interventions exist, including mosquito control, indoor residual spray, insecticide-treated nets, prompt treatment, and intermittent preventive prophylaxis. To ensure proper case management, strategies have been developed for timely detection and treatment, and more recently, what mHealth can provide to these strategies has been realized. In Kenya, mobile devices have been improving the provision of treatment and the dispensing and counseling management of cases based on national guidelines (Zurovac 2011).

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mHealth Barriers to Implementation and Gaps in Knowledge Within the Developing World After reviewing the current landscape of mHealth, it is apparent that the field is fragmented, with efforts developed at the grassroots level. Governmental stakeholders are now beginning to take notice of the potential of mHealth. It is because of this that investments made in mHealth are still more reflective of donors’ short funding cycles and less characteristic of governmentally run and supported programs, which can drive organic growth. Following are brief descriptions of mHealth barriers to implementation encountered at initial stages of a project and to further scaling up and commercialization. For a more thorough analysis of mHealth barriers and gaps in the developing world, one can refer to a white paper published in 2010 (Mechael 2010). mHealth Barriers to Implementation at Initial Stages of a Project Not all mHealth interventions are successful, and many projects are shortlived. The lesson here is that quick integration followed by abandoned hardware and ideas occurs frequently when intended beneficiaries do not see the value of a project. It is important to note that mobile technologies should not be considered a fix-all, but instead a tool that has the ability to catalyze solutions for pressing issues. Assessments of the context should be undertaken so that enabling elements can be identified for uptake and appropriate actions can be implemented to reduce the mHealth barriers normally encountered at initial stages. At the implementation level, constraints mentioned include costs, poor signal coverage (particularly in rural areas), and resulting increases in demand for services, which cannot be met because of the strain it places on human resources. Those constraints in the developing world context include the following: • Cost–benefit issues of the program, including issues that affect program sustainability (Chetly 2006), such as insufficient financing and investment and below-scale economies at the initial stages. • Architecture, standardization, and platform issues, whereby multiple systems and applications are deployed that do not use the same data technologies and/or do not allow data to flow easily from one system to another to support the continuum of care or aggregation of death at higher levels of the health system. • Language and literacy barriers, which may deprive individuals of the benefits of a text message–based mHealth program. • Equity issues, such as gender and income inequalities and disparities in mobile ownership or mobile technology distribution. In terms of

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gender inequalities, women and other marginalized groups may also have lower rates of literacy (Chetly 2006), and an mHealth program’s benefits may not transfer equally in terms of access. Also, women who have been taught how to use the internet and other ICTs have demonstrated increases in self-esteem, and other spillover effects have improved their economic conditions (Chetly 2006). mHealth Barriers to Further Scaling Up and Commercialization In the current state of mHealth development, the following barriers to further scale-up and commercialization have been identified. One barrier is a lack of effective business models for sustainable demand generation. Together, effective business models coupled with monitoring and evaluation and supportive policy and regulation will enable meaningful scale-up and commercialization of mHealth, but the current lack of these elements in the landscape hinders mHealth growth. Another barrier is research gaps in identifying effective solutions and guidance. Although there is growing proof that mHealth programs and applications are being implemented in various contexts across the world, the evidence base of mHealth program and application effectiveness, although on the increase, does not confirm what actually works (or doesn’t) and why. In addition, the 2009 GOe survey indicated only 12 percent of member states reported having evaluated mHealth programs (WHO 2011a). Confidentiality, privacy, and security issues are also barriers. Confidentiality, privacy, and security are all serious concerns surrounding individual health information, yet 56 percent of European member states and 50 percent of member states in the Americas regions reported that a lack of legal guidelines for privacy and confidentiality is the top barrier to mHealth implementation (WHO 2011a). Without regulations or set boundaries, health information being sent on mobile phones across wireless networks can result in serious violations of patients’ rights. Once these regulations are established, health professionals should be properly trained to inform every patient about his or her rights in deciding who can access patient information. Regarding interventions that use mobile phones as a communication gateway with patients, confidentiality and privacy concerns surface for individuals who share their mobile phones with friends or family members. This concern has been expressed frequently in connection with mHealth interventions that focus on diseases that carry stigma and discrimination. The need for stronger government commitments in policy and regulation can also be a barrier. One of the often-cited reasons for mHealth successes is strong commitment and support from governments that can create enabling and strategic environments for leveraging the utility of mobile phones for health, as well as for factors related to economic development. Examples of

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governments that have invested in mHealth or eHealth are the Bangladeshi Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which has supported the development of text messaging services for health and an eHealth plan, and the Government of Rwanda, which has developed its own eHealth plan, in addition to a nationwide interoperable electronic health information system, an electronic medical record system, a mobile phone–based system for CHW communication, and a new eHealth Center of Excellence, together with the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (WHO 2011a).

Guiding Principles and Recommendations for Future mHealth Advancements Toward Scale and Sustainability In this section, guiding principles and recommendations are provided in order to facilitate future mHealth advancements toward scale and sustainability. These must be prioritized on the agenda in order for mHealth to reach its full potential.

mHealth Recommendations for Reducing Barriers to Implementation at Initial Stages This section provides recommendations for reducing barriers to mHealth implementation at initial stages of a project. Following are general recommendations, supplemented with recommendations regarding infrastructure, platforms, integration, and community engagement. Understanding the local context in which the program will be implemented is perhaps the most appropriate first step in any mHealth project and consistently a factor determining success and program sustainability. Although there is no comprehensive checklist of items that should be understood about the context of a potential mHealth program, local health priorities, existing policies and practices, any similar initiatives, potential stakeholders, interests of the end users, and language and literacy barriers are all highly relevant. For example, even if only a small number of end users are illiterate, depriving these individuals of the benefits of a text-messaging mHealth program would only exacerbate inequalities that may already exist. Involving end users in every stage of the design and implementation of an mHealth program will assure that content transmitted over mobile phones is understood, interpreted properly, and believed and that end users do not feel discouraged or offended (else they may come to distrust the program). Implementers must also be aware if the program gives rise to any perceived risks to its beneficiaries, as well as any resistance to adoption from its end

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users. An easy and inexpensive way to get an understanding of the context in which mHealth implementation is planned is to conduct formative research (Mechael 2009). Building on past experiences and learned lessons is also important. Because eHealth and telemedicine have been around longer than mobile phones have, many lessons learned from the problems and successes of past and existing mHealth projects have been documented. In addition, an understanding of what does and doesn’t work, and why, for the government, the non-governmental organizations, the health facilities, the health professionals, and the individuals receiving health services can all help inform the development of an mHealth intervention at initial stages. The following lessons for mHealth have been learned: • Understand the local context and confirm that the integration of mHealth is valid, wanted, and beneficial for the end users (Lemaire 2011). • Plan carefully, particularly since few governments support mHealth on the national scale, and thus timelines of existing projects reflect donors’ funding cycles, which often last between 1 and 5 years (WHO 2011a). • Consider local and national health priorities and align mHealth interventions with these objectives (Lemaire 2011). • Select platforms, standards, and architecture that coincide with the formal health information system and other systems that may exist locally. • Collaborate with local representatives in the health sector and actors in the mobile phone and network markets, secure trusting relationships with the government and communities, and support capacity building through educating and engaging those who will benefit from the program (Lemaire 2011). • Conduct monitoring and evaluation, using appropriate and relevant indicators. • Conduct social marketing so that intended end users are aware and the expected “uptake” can occur (Lemaire 2011). • Ensure that the program is flexible so that it can be adapted to changing needs and priorities or when certain aspects don’t work. Other elements, such as respecting a participant’s privacy and confidentiality, have also been shown to be important since mobile devices are not

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only private but also can offer opportunities to reveal matters considered or intended to be kept secret. For example, formative research assessing the use of mobile phones in HIV disease management has found that individuals, although keen on receiving HIV-related information or text message reminders for antiretroviral treatment, were concerned that others may accidentally discover their HIV status. To keep up with infrastructure (expanding nationwide health information systems and advancing health initiatives), an attractive option is to leverage the also expanding wireless network coverage. However, many types of infrastructure are available in varying complexities, and the type of infrastructure that could be considered most appropriate for an mHealth project at one time may not be the next day, especially since available infrastructure is rapidly changing as new technologies are being developed. Additionally, the costs of infrastructure can be prohibitive for certain contexts (Yang et al. 2009). For these reasons, infrastructure issues can be challenging for mHealth growth and adoption. In addition to network infrastructure, reliable and consistent electricity is needed to power mHealth systems and related computer equipment, including servers and so forth. In regard to platforms, both open source and proprietary software and approaches are employed in the mHealth field, as well as the broader eHealth field (Mechael et al. 2010). By generating a particular environment in which local capacity can be encouraged, open source applications afford the opportunity for anyone to see, use, modify, and develop software source codes (Mechael et al. 2010). This particular environment is characteristic of strong public–private partnerships that can enable cross-communication to occur while encouraging innovation to customize and evolve the technology. In contrast to open source software and architecture, proprietary software and architecture are often a more costly, inflexible, and problematic alternative that inhibits innovation and collaboration, which are two qualities that can fuel mHealth growth and success. Although it may not appear to be a pressing issue at initial stages, mHealth and any technology-related pilot projects must keep in mind integration issues such as standardization and interoperability in concert with the architecture used by the health system. These challenges exist because the wireless communication sector lacks operational standards. Even if these issues may not appear applicable at the beginning of a project, success may call for integration into one or more other systems, which would require interoperability. What would dislodge the barriers related to integration for mHealth interventions are agreed-upon basic standards put in place at the national level; however, lack of rigorous and convincing evidence of mHealth effectiveness for decision makers is a barrier to the process of getting these standards set at the national level (Mechael et al. 2010). Setting these standards must be given

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high priority before inaction allows the uncoordinated introduction of noninteroperable systems to continue, jeopardizing the chances that future interoperable systems will be able to communicate with each other in a manner that benefits national health priorities. Another vital, but commonly overlooked, element at initial stages of mHealth interventions is facilitating community engagement and how these projects often provide a sense of empowerment to the end users. This was an unexpected finding of an mHealth program for peer health workers. After an intervention was implemented, one worker said, “Having a mobile phone has motivated us to visit the patients and do our work truthfully” (Chang et al. 2011, 1781). A commonly echoed theme in the mHealth literature, this sense of empowerment has been cited as building self-sufficiency for both health providers using mobile devices for their work and patients in the management of their own diseases (Chetly 2006). Women’s empowerment through mobile technology should also be emphasized as empowerment through mobile phone ownership can have extended benefits outside the main objectives of mHealth programs, such as stronger sense of safety, increased economic opportunities, and improved decision making through better access to information (Lemaire 2011). In addition, women should be more effectively engaged in the design and implementation of mHealth technologies, particularly those aimed at addressing maternal and child health issues.

mHealth Recommendations for Expansion and Commercialization To end this chapter, we provide some recommendations to help mHealth to realize its potential. First of all, the mHealth field must prepare for the expansion and commercialization currently hovering on the horizon. Creating pragmatic and ambitious road maps to guide efforts; measuring progress in processes, impacts, and outcomes; and growing through strategic publicprivate partnerships will be a necessity, not an option. In addition to global strategy recommendations that involve establishing a strong network of key stakeholders and a global database of mHealth applications, tools, recommendations, evaluations, and best practices, as described by Lemaire (2011), the four following recommendations are relevant: • Monitoring and evaluation: At the international level, a global framework with easy-to-measure process, impact, and outcome indicators would create an umbrella under which added accountability can support global strides toward more-effective mHealth programs (WHO 2011a). An international database of these indicators across countries would encourage better monitoring of results, a factor which would serve to eliminate the barrier of “lack of information,” which

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prevents policymakers and decisionmakers from being properly informed. Not only should efforts be made at national levels to evaluate and monitor mHealth programs, but these efforts should also be guided by in-country contexts, as well as by the international landscape. At the programmatic level, monitoring and evaluation experts should be included at early stages of mHealth intervention development in order to advise program design in such a way that processes and impact measurements can be made with rigorous methods. • Driving market demand and business models: mHealth can take lessons learned from the mobile phone industry, which experienced growth less because of GDP-related factors and more because of private sector collaboration, stable regulatory environments, and the liberalization of the mobile phone market. In this sense, proactive efforts must be made to design effective business models appropriate for sustainable demand generation, to inject competition, and to work toward providing quality health services. • Promoting strategic public and private partnership: In the current field of mHealth, the majority of projects are in pilot phases, using mobile phones to earmark single issues within health. However, for the projects reaching larger scales of implementation, a critical factor in success has been fruitful public–private partnerships (WHO 2011a). For mHealth to move from pilot successes to purposeful scale-up, collaboration is key, and the importance of establishing and nurturing relationships with citizens, professionals, hospitals and academia, health-related businesses, governments, and international agencies is often justifiably emphasized, especially in designing an effective business model (Chetly 2006). End users, as well as mobile network operators and donors, should also be included in these discussions. • Enabling policy and an operational environment: Finally, strong government involvement is necessary to create an environment that encourages the growth and sustainability of mHealth projects. Policy frameworks can help guide the introduction and use of ICTs in a collaborative atmosphere and overcome many barriers to scale and sustainability. The global health community is only just starting to address the potential of mobile technologies to improve health outcomes throughout the world, but the barriers to scaling up these initiatives must first be dealt with before this potential will be realized.

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References Bakshi, Aishwarya, Junhua Li, Pradeep Ray, Padmanesan Narasimhan, and Kasturi Bakshi. 2012. “Delivery of Multilingual mHealth Service for Control of TB/HIV in Developing Countries.” In Proceedings of the 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, edited by Ralph H. Sprague, Jr., 925–31. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society. www.computer.org/portal/ web/csdl/abs/proceedings/hicss/2012/4525/00/4525z054toc.htm. Blake, Holly. 2008. “Mobile Phone Technology in Chronic Disease Management.” Nursing Standard 23 (12): 43–6. Blaschke, Sean, Kirsten Bokenkamp, Roxana Cosmaciuc, Mari Denby, Beza Hailu, and Raymond Short. 2009. Using Mobile Phones to Improve Child Nutrition Surveillance in Malawi. UNICEF Malawi, UNICEF Innovations. www.sipa.columbia.edu/academics/concentrations/epd/ documents/UNICEFFinalReport_2009.pdf. Brendryen, Håvar, and Pal Kråft. 2008. “Happy Ending: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Digital Multi-Media Smoking Cessation Intervention.” Addiction 103: 478–84. Chang, Larry W., Joseph Kagaayi, Hannah Arem, Gertrude Nakigozi, Victor Ssempijja, David Serwadda, Thomas C. Quinn, Ronald H. Gray, Robert C. Bollinger, and Steven J. Reynolds. 2011. “Impact of a mHealth Intervention for Peer Health Workers on AIDS Care in Rural Uganda: A Mixed Methods Evaluation of a Cluster-Randomized Trial.” AIDS Behaviour 15 (8): 1776–84. Chetly, Andrew. 2006. Improving Health, Connecting People: The Role of ICTs in the Health Sector of Developing Countries: Working Paper No. 7. Washington, DC: infoDev; World Bank. www.infodev.org/en/Publication.84.html. Escobar, Pedro. 2009. “Mobile Solutions for Healthcare Delivery in Argentina.” Presentation at Med-e-Tel 2009, Luxembourg. www.medetel.eu/download/2009/parallel_sessions/ presentation/day2/mobile_solutions_for_healthcare_delivery.pdf. GSM Association. 2012. Touching Lives Through Mobile Health: Assessment of the Global Market Opportunity. PricewaterhouseCoopers Private Limited. www.pwc.se/sv_SE/se/bioteknik/ assets/touching-lives-through-mobile-health.pdf. Gustafson, David H., Bret R. Shaw, Andres Isham, Timothy Baker, Michael G. Boyle, and Michael Levy. 2011. “Explicating an Evidence-Based, Theoretically Informed, Mobile TechnologyBased System to Improve Outcomes for People in Recovery for Alcohol Dependence.” Substance Use and Misuse 46: 96–111. Holmes, David. 2010. “Rwanda: An Injection of Hope.” Lancet 376 (9745): 945–6. International Communications Union. 2011. The World in 2011: ICT Facts and Figures. Geneva, Switzerland: ITU. www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/facts/2011/index.html. Krasovec, K. 2004. “Auxiliary Technologies Related to Transport and Communication for Obstetric Emergencies.” International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 85 (1): S14–23. Lemaire, Jeannine. 2011. Scaling Up Mobile Health: Elements Necessary for the Successful Scale Up of Mhealth in Developing Countries. Geneva, Switzerland: Advanced Development for Africa. www.adaorganization.org/documents/ADA_mHealth%20White%20Paper.pdf. Lester, Richard T., Paul Ritvo, Edward J. Mills, Antony Kariri, Sarah Karanja, Michael H. Chung, William Jack, James Habyarimana, Mohsen Sadatsafavi, Mehdi Najafzadeh, Carlo A. Marra, Benson Estambale, Elizabeth Ngugi, T. Blake Ball, Lehana Thabane, Lawrence J. Gelmon, Joshua Kimani, Marta Ackers, and Francis A. Plummer. 2010. “Effects of a Mobile Phone Short

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Message Service on Antiretroviral Treatment Adherence in Kenya (WelTelKenya1): A Randomised Trial.” Lancet 376 (9755): 1838–45. Lungu, K., and Y. E. C. Ratsma. 2007. “Does the Upgrading of the Radio Communications Network in Health Facilities Reduce the Delay in the Referral of Obstetric Emergencies in Southern Malawi?” Malawi Medical Journal 19 (1): 1–8. Mahmud, N., J. Rodriguez, and J. Nesbit. 2010. “A Text Message-Based Intervention to Bridge the Healthcare Communication Gap in the Rural Developing World.” Technology and Health Care 18 (2): 137–44. Mechael, Patricia. 2009. MoTeCH: mHealth Ethnography Report. The Grameen Foundation. Mechael, Patricia, Hima Batavia, Nadi Kaonga, Sarah Searle, Ada Kwan, Adina Goldberger, Lin Fu, and James Ossman. 2010. Barriers and Gaps Affecting mHealth in Low and Middle Income Countries: Policy White Paper. Center for Global Health and Economic Development, Earth Institute, Columbia University. www.globalproblems-globalsolutions-files.org/pdfs/mHealth_ Barriers_White_Paper.pdf. Nolen, Stephanie. 2012. “Despite Cellphone Boom in India, Toilet Access Still Lags.” Globe and Mail, March 14. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/worldview/despite-cellphoneboom-in-india-toilet-access-still-lags/article535871. Pinnock, Hilary, Roger Slack, Claudia Pagliari, David Price, and Aziz Sheikh. 2007. “Understanding the Potential Role of Mobile Phone-Based Monitoring on Asthma SelfManagement: Qualitative Study.” Clinical and Experimental Allergy 37: 794–802. Pop-Eleches, Cristian, Harsha Thirumurthy, James P. Habyarimana, Joshua G. Zivin, M. P. Goldstein, Damien de Walque, Leslie MacKeen, Jessica Haberer, S. Kimaiyo, John Sidle, Duncan Ngare, and David R. Bangsberg. 2011. “Mobile Phone Technologies Improve Adherence to Antiretroviral Treatment in a Resource-Limited Setting: a Randomized Controlled Trial of Text Message Reminders.” AIDS 25 (6): 825–34. Rodgers, A., T. Corbett, D. Bramley, T. Riddell, M. Wills, R. B. Lin, and M. Jones. 2005. “Do u smoke after txt? Results of a Randomised Trial of Smoking Cessation Using Mobile Phone Text Messaging.” Tobacco Control 14: 255–61. Schlachta-Fairchild, Loretta. 2008. Telenursing: The Emerging Role and the Nursing Shortage. iTelehealth. www.medetel.lu/download/2008/parallel_sessions/presentation/day1/international_ telenursing.pdf. United Nations. 2011. The Millennium Development Goals Report 2011. New York: United Nations. www.undp.org.rw/MDG_Report_2011_EN.pdf. Vidrine, Damon J., Roberto C. Arduino, Amy B. Lazev, and Ellen R. Gritz. 2006. “A Randomized Trial of a Proactive Cellular Telephone Intervention for Smokers Living With HIV/AIDS.” AIDS 20 (2): 253–60. Vital Wave Consulting. 2008. mHealth in the Global South: Landscape Analysis. United Nations Foundation, Vodafone Group Foundation. www.mobileactive.org/files/file_uploads/ mHealth%20in%20the%20Global%20South%20-%20Landscape%20Analysis.pdf. Wang, Ching-Sung. 2010. “Mobile and Wireless Technologies Applying on Sphygmomanometer and Pulsometer for Patients With Pacemaker Implementation and Other Cardiovascular Complications.” Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering 3: 47–51. WHO (World Health Organization). 2011a. mHealth: New Horizons for Health Through Mobile Technologies. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization. whqlibdoc.who.int/ publications/2011/9789241564250_eng.pdf.

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———. 2011b. World Health Statistics: 2011. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization. www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/EN_WHS2011_Full.pdf. Yang, Changhong, Jun Yang, Xiangshu Luo, and Peng Gong. 2009. “Use of Mobile Phones in an Emergency Reporting System for Infectious Disease Surveillance After the Sichuan Earthquake in China.” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87: 619–23. Zurovac, Dejan, Raymond K. Sudoi, Willis S. Akhwale, Moses Ndiritu, Davidson H. Hamer, Alexander K. Rowe, and Robert W. Snow. 2011. “The Effect of Mobile Phone Text-Message Reminders on Kenyan Health Workers’ Adherence to Malaria Treatment Guidelines: A Cluster Randomised Trial.” Lancet 378: 795–803.

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Mobile Education Jon Mason

Editors’ Note: This chapter explores the potential of mobile education within the context of elearning. Portable devices can help bring into education elements of physical mobility that do not exist as much in classroom settings, thus reconnecting with a more natural state of being.Wireless sensors, cloud computing, digital publishing, and educational interactivity offer new pedagogic models of m-learning via online reference tools, curriculum material, external research, and strategic learning. Interesting trends to watch include the eschoolbag, whereby digital textbooks replace all print-based content (as mandated for elementary schools in the Republic of Korea by 2014). Challenges also arise in schools of rural inclusion, protection against cheating and cyberbullying, and enforcement of appropriate behaviour. A lot has been said in recent decades about the various modes of learning, education, and training enabled by digital technologies. Prominent among these modes is mobile learning, or m-learning, the experience of learning that is facilitated by a diverse and expanding array of mobile (usually handheld) digital devices, networked channels, and a ubiquity of information sources and services. For most of us, experiencing the ongoing revolutions that digital technologies are causing can be both enabling and frustrating. The convergence of mobile phone and computer technologies has therefore been described by many commentators as essentially a disruptive technology, a technology that unleashes major behavioural and social change (Herrington et al. 2009; Johnson, Adams, and Cummins 2011a). But it is also true that getting an education while on the move is what has been happening to human beings for millennia. Our ancestors who lived after dinosaurs roamed the planet were actively learning how to survive while 197

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hunting and gathering. The ones who survived certainly learned something about evading predatory animals and hostile tribes. In fact, according to research from developmental molecular biology, the most important principle for developing and maintaining cognitive agility is physical exercise (Medina 2011, 10). In other words, sitting in classrooms and cultivating a sedentary lifestyle are not exactly the optimum conditions for mental development or learning. So, is it possible that m-learning represents more than a disruptive trend in the delivery of education and training? Perhaps m-learning is really all about reconnecting with a more natural state of being? What will be the impact on the delivery of formal education and training? Accurate answers to these questions and related issues will only emerge in time. Whether it takes just another decade or longer does not really matter because human societies, technologies, and cultures will continue to evolve. Ultimately, with change as the only constant, everything moves. So why is mobile education (m-education) increasingly relevant? The following discussion identifies trends, opportunities, and issues associated with m-education and attempts to explain why m-learning is gaining more and more attention and why, after struggling to survive a decade ago, it has now become a reality (McLean 2003). In the words of Advanced Distributed Learning, a 15-year-old project sponsored by the U.S. government and focused on sustainable, next-generation internet infrastructure that supports learning, “The future capabilities for education and training with ubiquitous access to connected devices cannot be overestimated” (Advanced Distributed Learning 2012).

Historical Context With Deep Roots Digital technologies can be regarded as recent innovations derived from information and communications technology (ICT). Digital, in this sense, refers to the binary logic that underpins all computer technology. ICT is much older and has been enabling m-learning at least since the invention of the printing press more than 500 years ago. Books are certainly portable, and reading them aboard transportation has probably been happening for a few hundred years, too. If talking drums are considered an early form of ICT, then they represent yet another and older example of communicating (and, hence, learning) on the move (Gleick 2011, 13–15). Like stone tablets (apart from gravestones), talking drums have pretty much disappeared from contemporary use. However, some ICT developments are very durable and persist despite the development of newer media. Radio provides an excellent example and

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represents one of the most revolutionary ICT inventions of the 20th century: It has been enabling not only mass communications and entertainment but also learning on the move and from a distance. For many decades of the 20th century, it was the technology that made Australia famous for distance education (through the School of the Air). It continues to do so. Just think how easy it is to listen to a radio program about a topic of interest while driving a car—an everyday event that enables learning while being mobile. So what is all the fuss about m-learning enabled by ICT now? Pen and paper are as mobile as a smartphone. What is it about the core tools of education that is being transformed? What new value is being created with these developments? In a word, it is all to do with connectedness. Seamless connectedness everywhere is enabling immediate access to rich content and smart tools on demand. What is really happening is that the tools of choice of popular culture—smartphones and tablet computers, together with an increasingly “smart” environment—are rapidly becoming the default platform for access to education, performance support while on the job, or impromptu learning.

Going Mobile The cliché anytime anywhere has never been more accurate in describing the benefits of elearning. The proliferation of mobile devices connected to the internet and GPS services, together with the convenience and connectedness of cloud computing, is stimulating a shift from classroom-directed or instructor-led learning to self-regulated learning. That shift does not mean the end of classroom schooling—far from it. There will always be a need for structured learning environments, and ones that also perform a civics socialisation function. Mobile technologies just enable a complementary channel, although it is one that is enormously powerful—just as TV does not replace radio and the internet does not replace TV. There is an ecosystem of channels through which anyone can now access quality learning. But educators and public policymakers are advised to take note: These changes deliver even more choice to individuals and communities, meaning that they will expect the learning opportunities and education services of tomorrow to be increasingly flexible and customised to their needs. In short, tomorrow’s educational opportunities and services will be demand-driven. The digital education revolution has, in many ways, only just begun. “Going mobile” while being able to communicate with others and to interact with content and services is enabled by numerous technologies and involves much more than an ever-expanding choice of consumer devices connected to the internet. Following in the wake of the social media revolution of

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Web 2.0 are the dual trends of cloud computing and the modularisation of computer software (as stand-alone apps), which are also driving the changes. So are the advances in electronic publishing and the latest generation of ebook readers. It is important to note that the mobility involved is free from the tether of a desktop—although in no way does this development render the desktop redundant. As Clark Quinn (2011, 4) suggests, there is a “convergence of capability,” in that most of the new devices have multiple capabilities, integrating internet connectivity, one-click connectivity to the interactivity of social media, cameras, onscreen keyboards, touchscreen sensitivity, GPS, rich media players, and much more—all available on a whim without the need for cables. Quinn sums these capabilities up as the “4 Cs”: content, compute, capture, and communicate (Quinn 2011, 6).

Vignettes on Being Mobile While Learning The following examples from diverse contexts around the world, involving both formal and informal learning, education, and training, demonstrate real-life situations.

Preschool Tiffany is about to turn 5 years old. Because her parents live in Indonesia, she has been speaking three languages since she was 2 years old. She has also been using an iPad since she was 3 years old and sits with it for long periods in all kinds of places, concentrating on learning the rules of the game she is playing or learning the words of a new song or how to use the digital drawing tools provided. She knows how to find YouTube and to access content that is of immediate interest, and she knows how to ask for new apps to be downloaded when she has mastered what she has. She would like to take her iPad to Show and Tell but is not allowed to—not yet, anyway. Because she likes Dora the Explorer, she is also picking up a bit of Spanish along the way. To her parents and those who know her, she is smart, but in reality, she is just like many other kids growing up in households with multiple digital devices. Being connected to rich digital content is as natural as playing with her soft toys. The digital environment she interacts with is mobile and global, empowering and multicultural.

Elementary School In many parts of the world, government-sponsored eschoolbag projects have been under way for a number of years, with the dual aim of equipping students with the latest technology and encouraging them to learn collaboratively and independently of the classroom. The following examples are representative:

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• In Qatar in 2006, the Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology, ictQATAR, introduced an eschoolbag project that used tablet computers with a suite of digital tools and content that could function within a protected, virtual classroom that provided teachers with real-time feedback (AMEinfo 2006). Compared with what is on offer today, this project may seem limited, but the significance of this development is the recognition by authorities of the role of both digital technologies and mobility in learning. • Recognising the importance of tablet PCs and ereaders, the Republic of Korea mandated in 2011 that digital textbooks replace all print-based elementary school content by 2014. This multibillion-dollar program will leverage technologies already in the marketplace, as well as digitise existing print-based content (Mims 2011). • Within the People’s Republic of China, the current 5-year plan (2011–2015) for the publishing and press industries is promoting the adoption of an eschoolbag as a means of replacing an estimated 36 billion printed textbooks, reducing costs of teaching materials and the excessive weight of textbooks within children’s schoolbags (World Book Capital 2011).

High School In many ways the situation in the Republic of Korea highlights a broad response to innovation in the market. There are now numerous activities using mobile technologies to facilitate learning in every educational field. The Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) has instigated many projects for K–12 students that are aimed at harnessing the full educational potential of ICT. For example, the Ubiquitous Learning Model School Project is enabling students to learn with tablets and PDAs in class as well as at home (Kim et al. 2007). With numerous pilot projects and programs now conducted that use mobile devices in learning contexts, sufficient data has been produced to enable focused research. Mueller et al. (2011) have identified the four main uses of mobile devices for learning: • Reference tool (e.g., a calculator, dictionary term) • Curriculum resource (whereby specific apps are downloaded that contain structured content and/or activities pertinent to the curriculum) • Research resource (for searching for relevant content, retrieving resources, or engaging in inquiry) • Strategic learning tool

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Mueller et al. (2011) explain “strategic learning tool” with the following description: Students also reported using the mobile technology for a multitude of purposes beyond curriculum and research. The technology was used to create and produce as well as to assess and assist in learning. Students used the devices to take pictures, record voice memos, listen to music, search for images, plan their day, generally help them learn, draw, write stories, type, back-channel, tell time, chat, make a poster, and several other uses. The strategic use of the mobile technology as a learning tool was more apparent and available in classes that had ongoing, individual access either at school or at school and home. (417) This breadth of usage underscores the fact that technological innovation begets innovative practice—when the technology is engaging as well as enabling. From an educational perspective, important implications emerge: • Usage of mobile devices within the classroom was shown to promote inquiry-based learning and collaborative inquiry. • The assistive features such as voice memos, note taking apps, and integrated calculators and dictionaries “served as scaffolds for students with learning challenges and supports for independent learners” (Mueller et al. 2011, 419).

College and University Again, activities in the Republic of Korea highlight the extent of a broad and integrated policy response by a government. In the higher education sector, the “E-Campus Vision” was launched by MEST in 2007 to further stimulate elearning activities within universities (Hwang, Yang, and Kim 2010). More than 30 universities have now been equipped with a service known as ubiquitous campus, through which students can get access to academic information and learning materials anytime and anyplace. It is important to note that the emergence of smartphones has also extended these programs so that services are all mobile-friendly and mobile-ready. While universities have focused on transforming traditional channels of content production to now provide ejournals, ebooks, and elearning services, the corporate sector—such as the mobile telecom companies—now provides various m-learning services such as foreign language learning, economics, and guidelines about how to do almost anything. Innovation using mobile devices does not have to require that students are likewise mobile (Shih, Chuang, and Hwang 2010). In the case of the Stanford

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Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE), the primary innovation is to harness the independence of student mobile phones within a classroom setting. The principal idea of the SMILE project is to stimulate inquiry-based learning, in which students get to construct their own questions and to upload them to a shared server. The questions are then peerreviewed and ranked according to usefulness and how readily the other students can answer them (Seol, Sharp, and Kim 2011). This project also demonstrates that the process can achieve a rich, interactive learning environment that promotes critical thinking, inquiry, and problem-solving skills. In a way, the SMILE project underscores the importance of mobile technology in non-mobile contexts.

Workplace Mobile technologies in the workplace have been enabling improved communications, collaboration practices, and performance support ever since they were invented. Smartphones and tablets, enormously successful in the marketplace, now provide fingertip flexibility and choice of communication channel, whether by voice, text, email, or social media. Added to this is an ever-expanding choice of integrated digital tools, including cameras and audio recorders, calendars, notes, niche industry-specific apps, and locationbased information. Ultimately, these new enablers are providing stronger links and pathways to workplace learning. And it is not hard to mount the case for an enterprise to buy into supporting these new tools, given that they also enable more productivity. The workplace has led the way with the development of bring your own device (BYOD) policies as it is typically the case that employees overwhelmingly own their own mobile phone. While it is appealing for employees to be using the devices and/or platforms they are most comfortable with, the consequences of BYOD policies unleash a host of issues regarding expectation management, governance, privacy, legal liability, security, and access to proprietary enterprise information. For tech support within the enterprise, there are also the issues of systems interoperability and troubleshooting support. Nonetheless, it would seem that the consequences of BYOD, whatever the policy, lean toward benefits for both the employer and the employee. For the employee, choice of platform can be very important, but it also brings into sharper focus the associated responsibilities regarding security and maintenance—and the realities of 24/7 access and support. For the employer, managing the proliferation of devices and operating systems means that keeping up with the digital revolution is non-negotiable, but keeping employees happy may deliver benefits such as 24/7 access to them. In other words, for both employer and employee, there is a total cost of ownership consideration

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that accompanies the benefits. The opportunity for both in partnership is all about optimising morale.

The Big Picture Since 2010, the World Summit Awards (WSA 2010) have included a category for m-education. Among the recipients of the awards are the following: • British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Janala is an initiative of the BBC World Service Trust and leverages the television broadcasting expertise of the BBC while integrating m-learning using mobile phones, the web, and social media. It is a 10-year program established in 2008 and targets up to 25 million people in Bangladesh seeking to develop their English language skills. • In India, Drona has been developed as a “mobile engagement platform” that functions as a learning management system specifically for mobile phones that do not depend on broadband connectivity. The Drona environment is also designed to assist users in creating their own mobile applications and is aimed at employers, trainers, and teachers who might want to track and analyse the data associated with users of the environment. It is much more than SMS-based activity and enables users to author content that includes rich media. It has also been developed as a means of motivational support for learning. • The Grace App for Apple iPhone and iPad has been developed to assist autistic children in communicating more effectively. Many children who are afflicted with autism or speech delay make use of pictures attached to portable boards to help them communicate. They typically possess multiple boards stored in a book that is carried around with them. Children who use these boards from early speech development quickly rely on a growing picture vocabulary. Grace App takes advantage of the new technology supporting smartphones and tablets and stores a basic picture vocabulary for items such as foods, “Things I Like,” places, colours, sizes, and shapes, together with functions for creating a sentence and finding and taking photographs the user may need (where the “user” may also be a teacher, parent, or caregiver). These vignettes together highlight a number of key points: • The devices that many students have in their pockets or schoolbags are often more connected and more powerful than the tools provided in the dedicated labs in school classrooms. • M-education and learning are not solely dependent on portable digital devices; many of the technologies that enable mobile access to content

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and services are just sensors and actuators in the physical environment, enabling pervasive computing capabilities. This infrastructure is now being referred to as ambient intelligence, or AmI (Cook, Augusto, and Jakkula 2009). • Innovation in the development of small and affordable apps is driving the change, in tandem with the slick new mobile devices. However, with every story of new technology enablers comes a challenge— at least for some communities. In the Northern Territory of Australia, mobility has characterised indigenous communities for millennia. Yet today, many of these communities are also regarded as “remote,” in the sense that they are geographically remote from the main urban cities and towns. While these communities have managed to safeguard cultural knowledge through nomadic lifestyles for long periods of time, there is now a new challenge for governments in Australia: to ensure that the communication and learning tools that are freely available in most of the country are likewise available to these communities. In 2008, the Council of Australian Governments (2008) issued a number of key goals that specifically target such communities. This initiative can also be seen as aligned with the goals of the Australian government’s rollout of the National Broadband Network, which began in 2010. However, technology alone does not solve all the problems associated with remote communities. As a consequence, a number of independent educational organisations, as well as government-sponsored agencies, are involved in “mobile” education programs in the Northern Territory, but in this context, it is all about the mobile facility visiting the community (Boyle et al. 2004). This is, of course, not a new idea, but harnessing ICT as part of the offering is. Challenges take many forms, and dichotomies often accompany sociotechnical revolutions—an enabler for one can be a disruptive or disenfranchising experience for another. This is certainly the case with the social media revolution: Despite its transformational impact and the sourcing of the socalled wisdom of crowds through enormously successful websites such as Wikipedia, the aggregate wisdom does not always translate into wise choices (Lorenz et al. 2011; Surowiecki 2005). This can be seen where the group wields too much influence over the independence of individual choice and action. It is overwhelmingly evident in the fickle movements of international financial markets that are driven by the two dominant emotions of fear and greed.

—Virtual and Physical A New Convergence— In a mobile environment—or an environment conducive to mobility—we free ourselves from being tethered to the desktop. While the convergence of

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mobile telephony with digital computing has been the primary enabler of this freedom, it is also important to recognise that there is another convergence taking place: the physical with the virtual. Wireless access in coffee shops and airport lounges in social settings is really just an early outcome of going mobile—making information or content more readily “at the fingertips” of learners. Mobility in and out of virtual worlds is extending such contexts further—providing new opportunities for learning through role-playing in simulated environments. Innovations within the field of game technology also present many opportunities for educational innovation. The Nintendo Wii platform provides an excellent example of a kinaesthetic innovation aimed at physical coordination and training but presented to the target market as a fun game. In Australia, a project initiated by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework (2011) within the vocational training sector is designed to leverage the Wii in designing programs aimed at developing and practising skills in using spray guns to apply surface coatings to furniture. The advantage of this approach is that the safety concerns about novices using chemical stains and sealers do not exist in the simulated environment. Much of the commentary on the impact of Web 2.0 has highlighted the social dimension of the internet as it is now used in the mainstream. Again, it is important to think about the bigger picture that is evolving here. Web 2.0 innovation has unleashed social interaction at a scale and frequency never previously possible. The convergence of mobile and computing technologies has been instrumental. But because many devices are now interconnected with each other as the Internet of Things, devices and sensors of all kinds, “smart” and “dumb,” are becoming increasingly networked. Some environments are becoming context aware, just as burglar alarms are activated through infrared detection systems. These developments will also impact the way we will negotiate meaning from these worlds and therefore learn—not just because of ease of access but also through novel learning designs. All these developments present both challenges and opportunities for innovative design of educational programs—whether they are delivered by traditional educational institutions or otherwise.

From MOBIlearn to MobiMOOC When taking stock of existing trends in anticipating what is yet to come, it is also very instructive to embrace some historical perspective. The first major international research and development project focused on m-learning was funded under the European 6th Framework in 2002 and was known as MOBIlearn (2002). Back then, considerable excitement was building around

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learning facilitated by personal digital assistants (PDAs), as they were then called, as well as what seemed to be the emergence of ubiquitous or pervasive computing environments. These days the term PDA has nearly disappeared, giving way to terminology such as smartphone or tablet. It is interesting to look back just a few years to the devices that were causing such a stir. In hindsight, devices such as the Newton and Palm can be seen as prototypes for the overwhelmingly successful iPhone and iPad. The vision as it was then articulated seemed bold at the time: A new m-learning architecture will support creation, brokerage, delivery and tracking of learning and information contents, using ambient intelligence, location-dependence, personalisation, multi-media, instant messaging (text, video) and distributed databases. (MOBIlearn 2002) In many ways, this has now come to pass. But what is significantly different about this vision and reality today is the legacy of the Web 2.0 social media revolution. With MobiMOOC (MOOC stands for “massive open online course”), this legacy is an essential dimension that typically makes use of a diversity of social media and an abundance of resources (more than any person can deal with) and is typically open to anyone who cares to join. MobiMOOC was first launched in 2011 and is positioned to continue as a key online forum bringing together m-learning resources and interested parties. For some, participating in such an environment may be daunting and seem somewhat anarchic (deWaard et al. 2011). In some senses it is, but it is intensely rich with options for accessing resources and interacting with others. As a platform for learning, it is conducive to inquiry-based learning because asking questions is what drives interactions (MobiMOOC 2011): In the reality of the 21st century’s second decennium, education is molded by a variety of new factors. The use of social media, new mobile technologies, and pedagogical formats has a major impact on the learning and teaching processes of today. (MobiMOOC 2011)

Educators Innovating and Playing Catch-Up Historically, ICT has always brought with it both strong advocacies as well as cautionary responses from educators. While it is true that in most cases the technology arrives and the educators learn how to harness new capabilities,

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it is also true that educators tinkering at the frontiers have produced innovations that shape the evolution of the technology. This interdependency has been instrumental in the emergence of the World Wide Web itself out of earlier internet and hypermedia technologies. It is also a likely driver of mainstream education into the future (Haymon-Collins and Traxler 2008). One of the challenges presented to educators is to chart and navigate pedagogical pathways through all this technological capability (GSMA 2011). Projects such as SMILE at Stanford University are an exemplar in that the frontier of the core design and challenge is pedagogical: stimulating inquirybased learning and the development of “21st-century skills” (AT21CS 2012).

Issues for School Leaders New technologies typically provide both challenges and opportunities for the education community. For school leaders, teachers, and administrators, the challenges span shifts in effective pedagogical approaches, student safety and well-being, management of classrooms impacted by the proliferation of mobile devices, and the development of appropriate policies that keep pace with such changes. For example, mobile devices are very attractive items for thieves and easier to access in educational institutions than are tethered desktop machines. And as researchers in Canada have noted, “cell phone technology—with all its attendant variability—has introduced significant discipline problems into schools, from mere disturbance of peace and quiet in the classroom to enhanced opportunities to cheat” (Kiedrowski, Smale, and Gounko 2009, 41). Cyberbullying has also become a serious problem in some settings. Ultimately, advocates for harnessing ICT for its educational utility must address these kinds of issues. Most educational authorities, from preschools to universities, have now either developed, or are in the process of developing, policy positions on the use of mobile devices while on campus (Caldwell 2012; Northern Territory Government Department of Education 2012). Such policies are all about the “rules of engagement,” which vary from prohibition to encouragement. The following list of issues outlines the key challenges that need to be addressed as a consequence of educators and students making use of mobile digital devices while engaged in formal education: • Proactive versus reactive policy development • The disruptive potential of electronic devices in classrooms • Pedagogical consequences and expeditious investigation of what is possible

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• The imperative of digital literacy and the need to acquire “21st-century skills” • Cyberbullying, on and off campus • Appropriate use: purpose, time, and place • Use in extracurricular settings • Safeguarding personal information through passwords • Plagiarism and cheating • Disciplinary consequences for breaches • Network capacity and quality of service • Ensuring websites are mobile-friendly across a diversity of platforms • Locally negotiated arrangements involving students, parents or caregivers, and schools • Risk and liability

Reflection The term m-learning has stuck around long enough for there to be numerous websites and articles written about it and numerous international conferences convened, but it will likely not be as sticky as the term elearning. In some ways it is an awkward term because it carries an underlying ambiguity concerning the mobility of the person or the technology. In the case of elearning, the semantics are clear—learning that is facilitated by electronic means. At a deep philosophical level, all learning is mobile anyway. From moment to moment, micro-moment to micro-moment, we are moving, the planet is moving, the universe is moving. While the broader term m-education is less awkward, it has high utility for describing the transformation of our educational institutions as a consequence of developments in the mobilisation of ICT for the purposes of learning, education, and training. Whether educational institutions meet these challenges and survive the transformation or not, it is certainly the case that lifelong learners who participate in non-formal education benefit from advances in mobile technology through developing skills as “self-regulated learners” relying less on instructor-led programs and more on the social support and connectedness made possible by the technology.

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References and Resources Advanced Distributed Learning. 2012. “Mobile Learning.” Advanced Distributed Learning: The Power of Global Collaboration. www.adlnet.gov/capabilities/mobile-learning. ———. n.d. mLearning Guide. Advanced Distributed Learning. mlearn.adlnet.gov. AMEinfo. 2006. “Qatar e-Schoolbag project.” HEULAB. heulab.com/achievements_case_studies_ qatar.asp. AT21CS. 2012. “What Are 21st-Century Skills?” Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills. www.atc21s.org/index.php/about/what-are-21st-century-skills. Australian Flexible Learning Framework. 2011. Empowering Learners—Kangan Batman TAFE Wii Project, Australian Flexible Learning Project. innovations.flexiblelearning.net.au/project profile22009.php?pid=2254. Boyle, Alicia, Jan Richardson, Steve McBurnie, and Helen Parer. (2004). MALUs: A Case Study of the Use of Mobile Adult Learning Units. A Research Partnership with Desert Knowledge— Cooperative Research Centre (CRC). Australian Flexible Learning Framework. pre2005.flexible learning.net.au/projects/resources/mobile_adult_learning_unit_v2.pdf. Caldwell, Tracey. 2012. “BYOD Policy Gives London University Users Network Access Flexibility.” ComputerWeekly.com, February 2012. www.computerweekly.com/feature/BYOD-policygives-London-university-users-network-access-flexibility. Cook, Diane, Juan Augusto, and Vikramaditya R. Jakkula. 2009. “Ambient Intelligence: Technologies, Applications, and Opportunities.” Pervasive and Mobile Computing 5: 277–98. Council of Australian Governments. 2008. Council of Australian Governments Communique, Perth 2008. www.coag.gov.au/sites/default/files/2008-02-10.pdf. deWaard, Inge, Sean Abajian, Michael Sean Gallagher, Rebecca Hogue, Nilgün Keskin, Apostolos Koutropoulos, and Osvaldo C. Rodriguez. 2011. “Using mLearning and MOOCs to Understand Chaos, Emergence, and Complexity in Education.” International Review of Research on Open and Distance Learning 12 (7). www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/ view/1046/2026. Gleick, James. 2011. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. New York: Pantheon. GSMA. 2011. “Mobile education landscape report.” Global System for Mobile Association. www.gsma.com/connectedliving/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/landscape110811 interactive.pdf. Haymon-Collins, Robert, and John Traxler. 2008. “Podcast: Mobile Education Is the Way of the Future.” Joint Information Systems Council, United Kingdom. www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/ 2008/01/podcast25johntraxler.aspx. Herrington, Jan, Anthony Herrington, Jessica Mantei, Ian Olney, and Brian Ferry, eds. 2009. “New Technologies, New Pedagogies: Mobile Learning in Higher Education.” Technology and Learning Research Lab, University of Wollongong, Australian Learning and Teaching Council. ro.uow.edu.au/newtech. Hwang, Dae Joon, Hye-Kyung Yang, and Hyeonjin Kim. (2010). E-Learning in the Republic of Korea. UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education, Moscow. iite.unesco.org/pics/publications/en/files/3214677.pdf. Johnson, Larry, Samantha Adams, and M. Cummins. 2011a. The NMC Horizon Report: 2012 Higher Education Edition. Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium.

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———. 2011b. Technology Outlook for New Zealand Tertiary Education 2011–2016: An NMC Horizon Report, Regional Analysis. Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium. Kiedrowski, Jonas, William Smale, and Tatiana Gounko. 2009. “Cellular Phones in Canadian Schools: A Legal Framework.” Education Law Journal 19 (1): 41–62. Kim, Dahwun, Eric Grant, Cammy Huang, and Jeong-Hee Seo. (2007). Future Design of Korean Ubiquitous Classrooms. Korea Education Reseach and Information Service. www.keris.or.kr/ upload/board01/112903413.pdf. Lorenz, Jan, Heiko Rauhut, Frank Schweitzer, and Dirk Helbing. 2011. “How Social Influence Can Undermine the Wisdom of Crowd Effect.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108 (20). www.pnas.org/content/108/22/9020.full. McLean, Neil. 2003. The M-Learning Paradigm: An Overview. Sydney, Australia: Macquarie. www.pttmedia.com/newmedia_knowhow/KnowHow_Design/Instructional%20Design/i Mobile/mlearning.rtf.University. Medina, John. 2011. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. Seattle, WA: Pear Press. Mims, Christopher. 2011. “Samsung Windfall: All of South Korea’s Textbooks to Go Digital by 2015.” MIT TechnologyReview. www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/26960/?ref=rss. MOBIlearn. 2002. “The MOBIlearn project.” MOBIlearn: The Wings of Learning. www.mobilearn. org/results/results.htm. MobiMOOC. 2011. “Coping with MOOC abundance.” MobiMOOC. mobimooc.wikispaces.com/ Coping+with+MOOC+abundance. Mueller, Julie, Eileen Wood, Domenica De Pasquale, and Karin Archer. 2011. “Students Learning with Mobile Technologies In and Out of the Classroom.” In Education in a Technological World: Communicating Current and Emerging Research and Technological Efforts, edited by Antonio Méndez-Vilas, 414–20. Spain: Formatex. www.formatex.info/ict/book/414-420.pdf. Northern Territory Government Department of Education. 2012. “Guidelines: Mobile Phones and Electronic Devices in the School Environment.” Northern Territory Government Department of Education. www.det.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/702/Mobile PhonesInSchoolGuidelines.pdf. “Northern Territory Mobile Preschool Project.” walkerlearning.com.au/info/node/393. Quinn, Clark N. 2011. Mobile Learning: Landscape and Trends. Santa Rosa, CA: The e-Learning Guild. Seol, Sunmi, Aaron Sharp, and Paul Kim. 2011. Stanford Mobile Inquiry-Based Learning Environment (SMILE): Using Mobile Phones to Promote Student Inquires in the Elementary Classroom. suseit.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/worldcomp11_SMILE.pdf. Shih, Ju-Lingh, Chien-Wen Chuang, and Gwo-Jen Hwang. 2010. “An Inquiry-Based Mobile Learning Approach to Enhancing Social Science Learning Effectiveness.” Educational Technology and Society 13 (4): 50–62. www.ifets.info/journals/13_4/6.pdf. Surowiecki, James. 2005. The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations. New York: Random House. Traxler, J. 2009. “Learning in a Mobile Age.” International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning 1 (1): 1–12. doi:10.4018/jmbl.2009010101. World Book Capital. 2011. “Educational Publishing in China: Will E-Schoolbag Replace 36 Billion Textbooks?” World Book Capital. www.szreader.org/portal.php?mod=view&aid=489. WSA. 2010. “M-Learning for a Mobile World.” WSA: World Summit Award: Mobile Content. www.wsa-mobile.org/news/m-learning-mobile-world-61620101204.

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Mobile Phones and Journalism Stephen Quinn1

Editors’ Note: This chapter provides firsthand practitioner insights into the field of mobile journalism, or mojo. Smartphones offer simple yet unobtrusive ways to record and edit video and audio, take stills, and deliver easily from the field. They make it possible to film in places where camera crews are banned or to use mobile phones to interview people who might be uncomfortable with a full television crew. More citizens are getting involved because the technology is so easy to use and so common. This chapter traces the growth of mobile journalism and offers guidelines on newsroom structure and staffing to accommodate this emerging practice. The author provides case studies from incidents and stories around the world, highlights technical and organisational challenges, and offers recommendations for tackling issues of training and ethics. The chapter ends with a useful review of mobile journalism resources. The mobile phone is the latest in a series of technologies that journalists have embraced as newsgathering tools. Earlier examples include shorthand, the telegraph, the typewriter, the digital tape recorder, satellite phones, and store-and-forward options on laptops for filing video from the field. But mobile phones are unique and herald a new era in newsgathering. They offer simple yet unobtrusive ways to record and edit video and audio, take stills, and deliver easily from the field, provided the reporter has a Wi-Fi or 3G connection. Journalists can film in places where camera crews are banned, or they can use mobile phones to interview people who might be uncomfortable with a full television crew. Smartphones allow journalists to report the news wherever it happens, without depending on computers or expensive camera equipment. Citizens are getting involved because the technology is so easy to use and so common. 213

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By March 2012, almost 6 billion mobiles were being used globally; in other words, 87 percent of the world’s population had a mobile phone. For the first time in 2011, the number of smartphones sold worldwide was higher than the number of personal computers. At least 85 percent of new handsets can access the web, and by early 2012, at least 1.2 billion people were surfing the web from their mobile. Mobile advertising revenues are predicted to total $20.6 billion by 2015. Given the pace of technological change, with new models available each year, one can expect a range of new mobile phones, apps, and developments in news. This chapter also discusses some of the most relevant apps for journalism. For the purpose of this chapter, the concept of reporting solely with a mobile or cell phone will be called mojo, an abbreviation for mobile journalism. The chapter begins by looking at early developments in the field.

Mojo Pioneers Prior to its merger with Thomson, the Reuters news agency was a mojo pioneer from its European headquarters in London. It equipped a small group of journalists with a mojo toolkit in early 2007. The author sat down with several Reuters employees for interviews in 2007. Mark Jones, editor of Reuters’ breaking news service News Alert, said the company was looking to the future: “We were thinking about new ways to report.” Ilicco Elia, then head of consumer mobile for Reuters Media, said the mojo project was the start of a new way to tell stories: “Mobile phones allow journalists to swap their heavy camera equipment for a smaller device.” The mojo project’s initial aim was to take a mobile phone off the shelf and see if it could be adapted for reporting. Nokia asked to be involved and made some enhancements to one of its devices. Nokia also offered a wireless keyboard and modified a microphone to provide improved sound quality for interviews. Matt Cowan, a media reporter for Reuters in Europe, said the new technology was less intrusive than traditional cameras and microphones: “What’s amazing is that you can sidle up to someone and take pictures and video, which people find surprising. It has real potential to capture people’s thoughts in places where you would not have a full crew. Its portability is what makes it so exciting.” In 2008, Reuters’ then chief scientist, Nic Fulton, predicted mobile phones would have high-definition video capability by 2013. Fulton was prescient: An iPhone 4 was able to create and transmit high-definition video (HD2, or 720 pixels) by late 2010. The iPhone 4S, released in late 2011, had an 8-megapixel camera, and the video camera was capable of recording in full high definition (HD1, or 1080 pixels) at up to 30 frames a second.

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Innovative reporters with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) were also experimenting around the same time. In September 2007, Robert Hall reported breaking news from Chandler’s Ford near London, live to air, using only a Nokia mobile phone. The images were blurry but proved it could be done. Darren Waters was the BBC’s technology editor until mid-2009. From early 2008, Waters experimented with filing mojo reports from various parts of Europe. In February and March that year, he used a Nokia mobile phone to cover the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “The video quality was fine for what we wanted to do on a blog,” he said. But the sound quality from the internal microphone on the Nokia was “just awful,” Waters said during an interview in London at the BBC’s TV headquarters. It was acceptable if the reporter got within a couple of metres of the subject, but any farther away and the sound was a problem. Waters summarised his findings in a report to his colleagues: “During the experiment the picture quality was indifferent, the sound quality was ropey, the content was so-so. It was a triumph.” Waters said during the trial he learned a lot about the technology but also about how using a mobile phone influenced the workflow for reporting. He learned to shoot “discreet blocks” of video and lots of short interviews. “The important thing for us is that without the camera we would not have had any video. So the camera gave us an extra layer of material,” he said in London in June 2008. A major development came with the arrival of software from a Canadian startup, VeriCorder, in 2008. Its software is associated with a dedicated server where the video, audio, and/or slideshow stories are stored before an editor approves and publishes the stories. In February 2010, students from a handful of Canadian and American university journalism courses reported from the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada. They used iPhones with VeriCorder software to create multimedia stories that were submitted wirelessly from the field to the newsroom. The stories incorporated sound and still images into slideshows. Examples of students’ multimedia stories are available at www.vericorder.com/customers/schools. Two months later, journalism students Erica Zucco and Brian Pellot, from the University of Missouri, who had covered the Vancouver Winter Olympics, worked as television reporters at the National Association of Broadcasters’ annual conference in Las Vegas. They covered the show for the Daily Buzz website, using only an iPhone, a small microphone, an Owle Bubo metal case for the iPhone, and a new piece of VeriCorder software called 1st Video, which allows people to make television news packages. The students recorded, edited, and posted video during the show, solely from their iPhones. Their teacher, Karen Mitchell, spoke with the author in Columbia, Missouri, and said the future of journalism was shifting and “becoming more and more

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[focused on] mobile.” This shift would ultimately produce a shift in the way companies thought of journalism equipment, she said. VeriCorder’s founder, Gary Symons, was a reporter with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. before starting the company in 2008. During an interview with the author, he commented that “VeriCorder produces the world’s most advanced smartphone mobile media applications for recording, editing, and sending audio, video, and photo files. Our multi-media convergence tools put a portable audio and video-editing studio in the palm of your hand.” VeriCorder continues to update its software, and its latest app, Voddio, is being adopted around the world. In March 2012, Canada’s Department of Defence chose Voddio for a mojo system to be used at the Defence Public Affairs Learning Centre for both the Canadian military and NATO. Although VeriCorder’s software has been outstanding for doing mojo work, readers should be aware that in the mobile space, developments happen quickly, and people should anticipate new apps and hardware in future years.

Technical Issues With Mobile Phone Reporting The biggest problems mojos encounter are getting stories back to the newsroom from the field and the fact that mojo work gobbles up battery power. Mojos need to know where to find free or cheap Wi-Fi networks for occasions when a 3G or 4G network is not available. Solar chargers or a device that fits around the mobile to provide a reserve battery extend battery life. Seasoned mojos always ensure they have plenty of back-up power because a mobile phone is useless without electricity. Seasoned mojos establish routines to conserve battery power, such as closing as many apps as possible and not using Bluetooth.

Finding the Right Way to Tell Stories Different media platforms are best for telling specific kinds of stories. Each medium has strengths that make up for the weaknesses of the other media. Print is ideal for analysing a company’s annual report or a treasurer’s budget. But print cannot easily convey emotion and action. Similarly, video is ideal for showing movement, emotion, and action. But television news stories contain little detail or deep explanation. Editorial executives need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the various media platforms in order to be able to choose the most appropriate way to tell every story. Journalists in these roles need training to understand those strengths and weaknesses. Constant debate and communication are also vital, as people assess the quality of individual stories against other stories vying for selection.

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Transformation of the Digital Newsroom Mojo changes the nature of newsgathering. Newsroom structures should be designed to support mojo work. Journalists in such newsrooms will consist of news “gatherers” (reporters) in the field and news “associators” (editors) back at the office. Newsrooms also need to embrace the audience, because of the huge number of citizens with cameraphones. Ikujiro Nonaka of Japan is considered one of the pioneers of the discipline of knowledge management, an important intellectual process that modern newsrooms need to embrace. In a lecture in 2001, Nonaka displayed images of the skeletons of a human and a great ape. Nonaka pointed out that the two creatures shared almost identical DNA—the building blocks of life. Their DNA was 99.9 percent the same, but they operated differently in the world because of their skeletal structure. Human beings have achieved much in the past millennia because of our ability to use technology. We are better at constructing tools than any other species, but those tools must be used in the right environment. The newsroom must be built in a way that encourages rather than inhibits the flow of communication and information. Communication and information are the raw material and lifeblood of a knowledge-age newsroom. Many newsrooms around the world are stuck in the quicksand of industrial-age structures. Structures limit or enhance a news organisation’s ability to flourish. Structures are sometimes imposed by the limitations of technology. Printbased publications have found it difficult putting the maximum number of reporters in the field because of the need for staff to produce and edit content back at the headquarters. In a typical large metropolitan newspaper, for example, only half of the editorial staff members work as reporters. The rest need to be in the office organising, checking, and assembling content, and often rejecting what arrives. Rather than reporting, up to half of the editorial staff members of a big daily newspaper spend most of their time processing others’ stories. They are forced to rewrite stories because reporters are insufficiently experienced to write clearly or knowledgeably. They process content from wire services, fact-check reporters’ stories, attend meetings, design pages, and perform a host of jobs only partly related to gathering information and stories. The situation is even more complicated at Englishlanguage newspapers with reporters who are gathering information in their native language (Japanese or Chinese for example) before writing for an English-language audience. Editorial managers need to find ways to increase the number of people who could be reporting in the field relative to the total number of editorial staff. The flow of news gathering and reporting changes if more reporters are based in the field, with some of them working as mojos. In essence, we need

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new newsroom structures relevant for knowledge-age workforces. The key issues are communication and management of the flow of information. Mel Mansell, editor of the Adelaide Advertiser in South Australia, realised his newsroom was like a pyramid, with decisions flowing from the top to the base. “This may have been fine a century ago but was not working now,” he told the Bulletin, the quarterly newspaper of the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers’ Association, in March 2011. The amount of information flowing into the newsroom was doubling each year, and that huge increase was inhibiting the newsroom’s capacity to cope. Mansell decided to enhance communication in the newsroom, and increase individuals’ involvement and responsibility, by introducing a flatter management structure. He also borrowed ideas from broadcast newsrooms, where continuous deadlines had long been a way of life. “They all had a flat management structure,” Mansell said, “and a great deal of responsibility is given to people across the floor. They had a lot of control over their content.” The newspaper adopted many position titles from broadcasting. It replaced the position of chief of staff (known as chief reporter in some countries), the person who allocated stories and controlled the newsroom. Three senior directors took over that role. Reporting to them are a series of producers responsible for specific sections: sports, general news, business, health, police and courts, and education. Other producers ran teams responsible for multimedia content, video journalism, still photography, the online team, and the subediting (copyediting) and design team. A central assignment desk staffed by editors who understand the strengths and weaknesses of each of the media platforms—print, broadcast (radio and television), iPad, online, and mobile—decides how much multimedia treatment an individual story will receive. That treatment will always be decided by the news value of the story and by an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of individual platforms. Mobile journalists could operate from home because they do not need to go to the office. They should be continually in the field, filing remotely. Their editors or producers back at headquarters have a much better overview of what is happening and function like the producers of individual stories in a television newsroom. These multimedia editors, or producers, assess the material that arrives and select the most appropriate still images, text, audio, and video for each news story. If the multimedia editors decide that a particular news story needs fuller multimedia treatment, they can either request more content from the reporter in the field or assign extra reporters. A chief editor or director oversees the work of individual story producers. An effective multimedia newsroom is like a symphony orchestra. An orchestra consists of separate sections such as the strings or brass, and each section has a leader, but the orchestra needs someone to ensure harmony. Think of

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the chief editor or producer as the conductor. The individual multimedia editor or producer for each story is responsible for pulling together all the strands that make up the story and finding the best content and way to tell the story. Sometimes individual multimedia editors or producers will use material from the audience.

The Wisdom or Folly of the Crowd? Many news organizations, such as CNN, the Guardian, and CBS, have set up citizen journalism platforms for receiving news tips, photographs, and video from the audience. Technology makes it easy. This chapter began by noting the almost 6 billion mobile phones used globally. Perhaps two-thirds of those 6 billion mobiles contain a camera. Even if only a tiny fraction of these cameras capture content, they still outnumber all the journalists around the world. It stands to reason that sensible news organisations would encourage contributions from the audience. The key issues are how to handle the flow of information and how to reward contributors. News organisations that fail to reward contributors are out of touch with the times. Rewards do not have to involve money but could instead involve recognition, praise, and prizes. With breaking news—things such as fires or car accidents and the like— audiences care little about quality. They want to see what happened as soon as possible after it happened. For major news events such as the 2011 Japanese tsunami or the August 2011 London riots, many news organisations used stories, photographs, and video taken by amateurs to supplement coverage. News organisations need to have structures and processes in place to solicit, and then accommodate, content from the audience. The BBC’s usergenerated content hub manages thousands of emails and pictures every day. It represents probably the best example of how to embrace audience contributions. Matthew Eltringham runs the user-generated content hub, as assistant editor for interactivity. He set up the hub in early 2005 as a pilot project, just before the terror attacks on London in July that year. It now runs as a 24/7 operation providing content for every part of the BBC’s news operation. The user-generated content hub consists of a team of more than 20 journalists based in the BBC’s multimedia newsroom in London. It works across many platforms—television, iPad, iPhone, radio, and online. Eltringham said, “On an average day we get around 10,000 to 12,000 emails, as well as hundreds of pictures and video clips, sent to us from all over the world. These emails provide a fantastically rich source of content for all the BBC’s news output. Our job is to mine it for the best bits and make the most of them for the BBC’s news output.” The material sent directly to the user-generated content hub represents only a tiny fraction of the conversations and content online at any one

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time. “So we are increasingly moving the focus of our work into the much wider and wilder world of the web itself,” according to Eltringham. The user-generated content hub has focused on connecting social media and social networks across the web. Twitter has become a well established and valuable source of comment and content. “We first discovered the value of the micro-blogging site during the Tibet uprising of March 2008, when we used it to find an eyewitness in Lhasa,” Eltringham said. Since then it’s become de rigueur to use Twitter in any breaking news environment. It first came to mainstream attention during the Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008. Hub staff joined video streaming sites such as Seesmic, Qik, and 12 Seconds, as well as monitoring chat rooms with global communities. They all provided the hub with useful contributions, according to Eltringham. In Norway, the success of the Schibsted Company shows the benefits of embracing social media and being part of the community. The media group has headquarters in Norway and owns media houses in 23 European countries. Editorial executives realised early the power of embracing social media. Editors require journalists to get involved with social media. Verdensgang is Norway’s most successful news website. Editor-in-chief Espen Egil Hansen said communication with audiences should be at least 20 percent of each reporter’s workload. “The strongest news organisation is not the one with resources to rent helicopters and satellite links … but the one that knows a reader with a mobile in her pocket,” Hansen told the author in Oslo in June 2010. On March 6, 2012, the U.K.’s Channel 4 News broadcast video filmed secretly by a Syrian hospital employee with his mobile phone, after severe fighting in Homs. The grainy footage showed wards full of wounded men, blindfolded and shackled to their beds. Some had been beaten, the apparent instruments of torture—a rubber whip and electrical cable—shown on a table in one of the hospital wards. The unidentified employee said he tried several times to stop what he called “the shameful things” happening in the military hospital but was branded a “traitor.” A French photojournalist, known as “Mani,” risked his life to smuggle the covert footage out of Syria. If news organisations can embrace their audiences, and use and acknowledge video taken on mobile phones, they enhance their newsgathering potential. But all news organisations must ensure the content is accurate and fair. Until recently, professional journalistic standards were connected to institutions. Fifteen years ago, these institutions were the curators of the news. Now those standards are often detached from such institutions, which are less in control.

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Ethical and Legal Issues Mojo moves fast. Modern software and hardware mean it is possible to create and send a story to the newsroom in minutes. As anyone who has driven a fast car knows, anything that involves speed involves risk. The speed of mobile phone reporting creates its own issues and dangers. Such dangers suggest a need to establish appropriate ethical frameworks before newsgathering starts in order to prepare storytellers for the fast-paced world of mojo. Other issues to be considered include privacy and defamation and the role and impact of citizen mojo. All journalists face ethical dilemmas. Those dilemmas are intensified because of the speed of mojo. Two related issues are the ease with which it is possible to film people without their knowledge and the speed with which stories get onto the web before journalists have time to consider the implications of those stories. Whenever speed is involved, it is vital to prepare students and professional journalists beforehand with an adequate moral compass. Thus, ethical training becomes more important than ever. Reporting almost “live” accelerates the potential to make mistakes and to commit ethical blunders. Editorial executives should hold critique sessions soon after journalists have completed mojo assignments to allow for feedback about ethical consequences. Journalists who use mobile phones to shoot video need to understand the laws related to privacy, trespass, and defamation. Defamation laws vary from nation to nation, and individuals should know where to access such information. They also need to know when and where they can shoot video. In many countries it is legally acceptable to film in public locations but not in private places. What defines a public place? A city street is obviously a public place. A beach or park are likely to be public, but we cannot be certain. When does a city street end and a private house or block of apartments start? At the door? At the gate? On the verandah or balcony? Many people spend time in shopping malls and car parks. Is a shopping mall a public place? It is so easy to capture video and still photographs on a mobile phone that people forget the complex issues connected with where those images are taken. In August 2011, the Editors’ Weblog, published by the World Editors’ Forum, reported that the BBC, while covering the riots in London that month, used photographs from social media sources without correctly identifying the people who captured the images. The BBC later explained that this approach did not reflect its policy and that it aimed to credit the sources of images and other information gathered via social media. But the BBC also said it was prepared to release an image without correctly attributing the source if the senior editor believed doing so was “in the public interest.” A “publish first, ask questions later” approach was becoming common as news

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organisations struggled with keeping abreast of the constant tide of information from social media, the Editors’ Weblog concluded. It is the start of a fundamental change in traditional media’s relationship with the audience.

Business Models for Mobile News Mobile phones are used for gathering news as well as delivering it, and a number of business models can be explored to sustain mobile phone journalism. At the end of 2009, the consulting firm Accenture surveyed executives from 102 U.S. media firms to ask what online business models these executives believed media companies would embrace over the next 3 years. Two in five of the executives said the predominant model would be advertisingfunded. One in five said it would be a hybrid model of multiple revenue streams. Another one in five suggested a “freemium” model that offered some free content in the hope of encouraging people to pay for “premium” content, perhaps customised material for particular users. The rest believed the likely model would involve subscription-based offerings, or services purchased on demand. In other words, none of these executives had a clue. Online audiences know they can find free information online. A Pew survey late in 2010 asked people in the U.S. how they would react if their favourite news website went behind a “paywall,” and 83 percent said they would go to a free site instead. Online, audiences know they can always find general news for free. This situation is more pronounced in countries with strong public service broadcast systems. The magnificent BBC news website will always be free. People will pay only for content that they cannot get elsewhere. Possible business models for delivery of news via mobile phone are also varied, just like the models for online news delivery. But mobile phones have one major psychological advantage. People are accustomed to paying when they use a mobile. They have always paid for mobile phone services: They pay for calls and for SMS, and they pay when sending data. Even when they find free Wi-Fi, people often pay for that in some way, such as when they buy coffee in a Starbucks. Psychologically, people expect to pay when they use a mobile phone. So it might be feasible to argue that people will pay for news delivered via a mobile phone, if that news cannot be found elsewhere.

Useful Apps for Reporting Journalists and citizens carry their mobile phones with them all the time. Photojournalists and photographers take their mobile phones to places they would not carry their more traditional video cameras. So the mobile phone is

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convenient. That fact, combined with how easy it is to upload video and photographs almost instantly, makes for a powerful concept and tool. This combination of convenience and connectedness is what makes mojo so exciting. The mobile phone is also useful in situations in which journalists’ traditional cameras are confiscated—something that happens a lot in parts of Africa and the Middle East. This author’s broadcast video camera was impounded on arrival at Doha airport in Qatar in the week before the coalition’s invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Sadly, the mobile phone in possession then could not stream video. But with a modern smartphone, reporters can upload video and images immediately after they are recorded or taken. The August 2011 riots in the U.K. provided countless examples of citizens’ using mobile phones to record the violence. One of the sites that received much attention during the riots was Citizenside (www.citizenside.com), a global citizen journalism site founded in 2006. The site says its goal is to create “the largest online community of amateur and independent reporters, where everyone can share their vision of the news by uploading photos and videos for fellow reporters to see.” In November 2007, Agence France-Presse, the world’s third-largest news agency, and the IAM company became shareholders in the Citizenside agency (formerly Scooplive). The service created its own iPhone app, which is available from the iTunes store for free. The app is simple to use. Once it is installed, people can send photographs and video to Citizenside with a single click. As the site says, “Film news events from right inside the app, and send them to Citizenside in a single click.” The U.K.’s first dedicated citizen journalism news portal, The-Latest.com (www.the-latest.com), published numerous photographs and video of the August 2011 U.K. riots, mostly taken with mobile devices. The riots started in the suburb of Tottenham. A search for Tottenham on Flickr.com shows scores of pages of pictures of the destruction in the streets. Some of the most vivid photographs were taken with the iPhone application Instagram (www.instagr.am). Meporter, a location-based iPhone app for reporting local news, works by sharing geo-located text, photos, and videos. Meporter was launched in New York in May 2011, after TechCrunch chose it as one of the 26 companies, out of 1,000 applicants, to be showcased for its annual “disruption” campaign. Since then, Meporter (www.meporter.com) has been established in the U.K., China, Australia, Japan, Spain, Italy, and the U.S., according to CEO and founder Andy Leff, writing on the app’s website. The app lets people write, photograph, and video local news as it occurs. Meporter makes stories available to anyone in the world with a mobile phone or an internet connection. “Readers will see your location, comment on stories and check in as eyewitnesses. If they’re on the spot, too, they can post more about the story as events unfold,” Leff said. Are Meporters paid? Not

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with money. People who post local news on Meporter earn rewards such as badges—similar to Foursquare—that can be redeemed like coupons for prizes such as press passes. “Be a newsie, collect Meporter press passes and gain street cred,” the app’s website says. Click on the How It Works button at the home page to watch an animated presentation. This is one of the more interesting aspects of the app. Michael Guhil of the Philippines used a borrowed iPhone to win first prize in the nonfiction section of the 2012 iPhone Film Festival (www.iphoneff. com). He used what he described as the “mobile studio” in his pocket to show the day-to-day life of people in the village of Dinas: the reality of people wading through thigh-deep mud pits and planting crops by hand. Guhil said he plans to make more short documentary films because “truth is often more compelling than fiction.” Journalists should “take advantage of the revolution that we have now in terms of technology,” he said in an interview on the film festival’s website. A journalist with Agence France-Presse, Prashant Rao, also won a festival award for his depiction of an Iraqi tradition, Mheibes. Iraqi men play this popular game during Ramadan. Rao’s film provides a rare glimpse into Iraqi society because only men are allowed to watch and participate. He has reported from Iraq since 2009 but was accustomed to doing news about violence and politics. This was a chance, he said, to show a lighter side of the city. He described the iPhone as a “tiny little thing” that “makes it easier for journalists to go unnoticed and be less intrusive.” Rao acknowledged his device does not work as a phone in Iraq, but he sees it as a “glorified video camera” that could be used to capture breaking news. “Carry your iPhone everywhere,” he says on the festival website.

Emerging Trends and Issues The most prolific creators of mobile phone video are people under 30 years of age. In most countries in Asia, apart from Japan and South Korea, huge sections of the population are young. In Cambodia, half of the country’s population is younger than 20 years of age. In Indonesia, 27 percent of the population is younger than 14 years; in Malaysia it is 29 percent. In the Middle East, more than 60 percent of the population is younger than 25 years. The penetration of personal computers in the Middle East is low, but millions of people have mobile phones. These numbers suggest opportunities for companies that want to create sites for young mojos. Adoption of mobile phones at media companies for making video is still relatively rare. National Public Radio in the U.S. is using VeriCorder apps for radio reporting. Several journalism programs around the world have adopted

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VeriCorder technology for training students. The mojo concept and VeriCorder apps have been introduced by this author in a university in China, and students established NUTS, the Nottingham University Television Station, along the mojo model. Some U.S. newspapers have adopted the mojo approach. Early in 2012 Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the U.S., supplied 1,200 iPhones to journalists at its more than 80 newspapers, for video reporting and editing. Jennifer Carroll, Gannett’s vice president for digital outreach, said emerging technologies such as the iPhone 4S meant journalists had the tools to enhance their newsgathering. “Our journalists frequently update and provide coverage of breaking news events and more through updates, photos and streaming videos. The phones allow journalists to stay competitive and nimble. We’ve also provided supporting equipment including enhanced microphones, tripods and in-depth training on using the tools effectively,” Carroll said in an email interview with the author in March 2012.

Recommendations for Journalists and Publishers Quality video drives traffic to websites. The adjective quality is the key. It is easy to create video with mobile phones and small hand-held video cameras, but too much of that video is awful. Video put on the web must generally be of high quality. Much research has shown that video of any kind initially attracts audiences to websites, but afterwards audiences decline if viewers perceive the video to be poor quality. It is better to focus on fewer videos of high quality instead of bombarding audiences with poor-quality films. YouTube offers plenty of video, but only a tiny part of it represents anything of quality. As of late 2012, people uploaded more than 72 hours of video to YouTube every single minute. That is a huge amount of content. Audiences will gravitate towards quality video and spread the word to their friends about it via social networks. Print journalists represent the single biggest group of journalists around the world. People with print backgrounds have a text mind-set. Working with moving images is not natural to most of them. To produce quality video, these reporters need to be trained. Newsrooms seeking to transition to the digital world must focus on training. In tough economic times, the training budget tends to be one of the first to be cut. This must not happen. In tough economic times, companies should increase their training budget and compel journalists to attend. The Java Post, Indonesia’s most successful national newspaper, requires all editorial staff to attend a minimum number of training programs every year. Quality content is produced by quality journalists.

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For individual journalists the message is simple: Lifelong learning needs to become a way of life. You are either expanding or contracting, and you can never stay still. So learning is part of life. If your company does not provide training, you must find it yourself. With mojo work, the iPhone is relatively easy to use. So download the mojo software from iTunes or the VeriCorder.com site and play with your iPhone. This is the best and simplest way to learn. The VeriCorder site offers a range of resources and videos, and the company also has a YouTube site with even more training videos.

Endnote 1. Dr. Stephen Quinn updates a Delicious account with articles about mojo. It can be found at www.delicious.com/sraquinn/mojo. As of late 2012, he had written the only book about mojo. A free download (PDF) of MOJO: Mobile Journalism in the Asian Region can be found at www.kas.de/medien-asien/en/publications/29755.

Resources The Reynolds Journalism Institute, part of one of the U.S.’s best journalism schools, the University of Missouri, maintains an excellent site about the latest mojo software and hardware. Its title explains the subject matter: Mobile Journalism Reporting Tools Guide. On its site, you will find reviews of a wide range of mobile phone newsgathering tools (www.rjionline. org/news/mobile-journalism-reporting-tools-guide). Ivo Burum is the best mojo trainer in the world. He trained mobile journalists at five locations in 2011, including my students in Ningbo, China, in June that year. He maintains two excellent blogs. The first is called HowToMojo (howtomojo.wordpress.com) that focuses on the practical aspects of mojo. The second, CitizenMojo (citizenmojo.wordpress.com), aims to empower citizens to be mobile journalists. The Mobile Media Toolkit (www.mobilemediatoolkit.org) is one of the most comprehensive collections of information about doing journalism with a mobile phone. It is a project of the Mobile Active organisation. This site helps citizens use mobile phones to produce media. Learn more about this project at www.mobileactive.org/howtos/mobiles-citizen-media. VeriCorder, in Canada, provides a range of training videos and other tips on its website (www.vericorder.com/training-videos).

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The Mobile Media Experience Xu Xiaoge

Editors’ Note: This chapter makes the compelling case that mobile news is not a gear change but a game change in the world of journalism and mobile experiences. Based on surveys and comparative analysis, this chapter identifies the different kinds of mobile news, ranging from SMS to apps. It provides examples of websites that allow users around the world to post news items via mobile devices and of alternate news movements and mobile activism to counter repressive regimes. Personalisation and participation via mobiles have transformed news from consumption to experience. The chapter also proposes quantitative and qualitative ways of measuring the mobile news experience and argues that mobile journalism should be taught formally to all students, not just journalism students. Our world has become more mobile than ever, with 6 billion mobile subscribers, which is more than 87 percent of the total population. With mobile subscriptions outnumbering fixed lines by a ratio of 5-to-1 and mobile broadband subscriptions exceeding fixed broadband subscriptions by 2-to-1 (ITU 2011), the volume of mobile connections has brought about an explosion of mobile activities, including mobile instant messaging, text messaging, tweeting, blogging, location-based services, booking, banking, reading, gaming, shopping, emailing, social networking, following and seeking news, listening to audios, and watching videos. Mobile activities have been further boosted by growth in mobile web usage and social media. More than 62 percent of 24 online-connected countries used the internet for social networking (Ipsos 2012). In the U.S., four in five active internet users used social media and close to 40 percent of social media users accessed content on their mobile devices (Nielsen 2011). In 227

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China, mobile internet users reached 356 million by June 2012 (CNNIC 2012) while social media users hit 257 million in 2011 (eMarketer 2012). Behind the explosion of mobile activities are the changing motivations of mobile users in this mobile world characterised by speed and ubiquity of information, as well as by instantaneous and simultaneous response and action. These changing motivations include staying informed anytime anywhere, staying current, staying connected socially and engaged with other people, and staying efficient in getting work done. They also include being curious about things and people, being diverted by engaging in some light activity, and being socially unavailable when necessary by burying oneself on a mobile site or in mobile apps (Taylor and Ramey 2009). As a natural consequence of mobile users’ motivations and their mobile activities, mobile experience has not been fully examined in either academia or industry, especially in relation to mobile news. The current chapter begins with an examination of mobile news and how it can be experienced, followed by a definition of mobile experience. At the core of this chapter are two investigations measuring mobile experience: 1) a survey of mobile users about the importance of mobile experience in seeking and following news on mobile devices and 2) a comparative feature analysis of mobile experience in news apps. The chapter ends with ways to enhance mobile experience.

Mobile News Mobile has been changing human lives in significant ways: more access to the mobile web, a simpler and more user-friendly mobile experience, lifesaving opportunities, friction-free mobile purchasing, multitasking, hyperpersonalisation, privacy-and-security consciousness in data sharing, and minimised mobile phobia (Pollard 2012). All the changes reflect the fact that users are increasingly dependent on mobile for content and services, which include, among others, mobile learning, mobile health, mobile money, mobile booking, mobile banking, mobile games, mobile shopping, mobile transactions, mobile business, mobile advertising, mobile public relations, mobile corporate communications, mobile social media, mobile governance, and mobile news. Among the most popular mobile destinations is news. Mobile news can be defined as news that is reported, published, or shared on mobile devices through different channels. Categorised by channels, mobile news falls into five major types: 1) short message service (SMS) news, 2) multimedia message service (MMS) news, 3) mobile site news, 4) mobile app news, and 5) mobile social media news. SMS news refers to news that is reported, published, or shared through an SMS, while MMS news is multimedia in nature, containing texts, videos, pictures, and/or ringtones. Mobile

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site news, provided by mainstream news media, is normally published on a separate mobile site. Mobile app news refers to news carried by apps developed by news providers and downloaded on mobile devices for users to consume, produce, or share. No internet connection is required after the content is downloaded or updated. Mobile social media news refers to news stories that are reported, published, broadcast, or shared on mobile devices via social media such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Foursquare. It is an undeniable fact that mobile news has been on a rapid rise in terms of production, dissemination, and consumption, changing the news media landscape dramatically. In the U.S., as of February 2012, almost half of all American adults (47 percent) got some kind of local news on their mobile devices (Smith 2012). In China, as of June 2012, 62.7 percent of mobile subscribers got news on their mobile phones (CNNIC 2012). In five European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K.), the total number of mobile news users reached 37 percent as of January 2012 (comScore 2012). While traditional media in most countries are struggling for audiences and revenues, mobile has been enjoying exponential popularity among users and increasing viability in most operations. For instance, the mobile industry has become the largest revenue earner among different media industries in China, earning more than $30 billion in 2010, excluding phone call revenues (Cui 2011). Equipped with many different functionalities and apps on their mobile devices, mobile users can write, record, shoot, edit, and publish content anytime and anywhere—changing the way content is written, produced, published, delivered, and shared, and generating an exponential amount of content. In the presence of exploding user-generated content, to stay relevant and to attract audiences, traditional media have to go mobile to engage and empower “viewers, listeners, and readers who can contribute content through mobile and web-based platforms” (Verclas 2008, 3). For example, besides its mobile site and mobile app, CNN also has a separate website, iReport, to host stories sent by citizens from their mobile devices all over the world. Although differing in operations, traditional news media such as BBC, Fox, Al Jazeera, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal are increasing their mobile presence and influence. More passionate about going mobile than mainstream media, however, are citizen media, which are limited in terms of offline resources, reach, and impact. With its service coverage of more than 700 mobile networks around the world, Allvoices (2012) enables mobile users worldwide to report news via mobile phone. Serving as a community-driven platform for citizen journalism, Allvoices has become a global venue for news and idea exchange. Global Voices provides another venue for mobile journalists to publish and share their stories worldwide. With “a community of more than 500 bloggers and

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translators around the world,” Global Voices aggregates and translates reports from blogs and citizen media everywhere, “with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media” (Global Voices, 2012). A global news community of amateur and independent reporters created in 2006, Citizenside offers a platform, online and mobile, for people to “share their vision of the news by uploading photos and videos for fellow reporters to see” (Citizenside, 2012). Going mobile has become highly desired and much appreciated in time of crisis, especially in countries where critical information is blocked or censored. This was evident and well-documented in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain in the Arab Spring of 2011. The 2012 crisis in Syria provided further evidence of the power of mobile in capturing and sharing information locally and globally. “In Syria, activists and citizen journalists fill a media void and strategically inform the global conversation on the uprising by capturing and sharing their own footage” (Verclas 2012). Going mobile is no longer an option for the media industry; it is a must if the industry is to stay relevant to its audiences globally or locally by meeting the changing needs, tastes, and preferences of mobile users. This is especially true when it comes to changing reading habits and patterns among the mobile-savvy population. In China, mobile reading has become so popular that a special term has been coined to describe it: “finger reading.” Finger reading has become a common sight on the go: in cabs, cars, buses, trains, boats, airplanes, or queues—literally everywhere mobile users are present. It is also especially widespread when it comes to mobile users’ preferences for faster and shorter updates in the case of feature phones and for the consumption of rich media content on the go in the case of smartphones. Furthermore, it is mobile users’ insatiable needs and desires for more engagement and empowerment on the go that have become one of the major driving forces for mobile content. Going mobile in the case of traditional news media is a timely response to the changing lifestyle of mobile users, who rely heavily on mobile devices for weather information, news, work, and even daily life and social activities. Mobile news is fast, ubiquitous, and viral. It is much faster than any other medium and even faster than the regular internet news sites. It can be instant or simultaneous. It is ubiquitous because it can be reported, published, broadcast, or shared anywhere, anytime. It is also viral once it is disseminated via mobile devices, especially via mobile social media, resulting in a snowballing process of mobile news communication. And mobile news follows its consumers anytime and anywhere, revolutionising the way news is used. Instead of merely being read, heard, or viewed, mobile news is experienced.

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Experiencing Mobile News Mobile news is not only fast, ubiquitous, and viral, it also features engagement and empowerment. These features enable mobile users to experience mobile news via reporting, writing, recording, commenting, rating, sharing, correcting, and personalising. Mobile users can provide tips for further coverage and customise forms and formats of news presentation. They can also select delivery platforms and modes, as well as tailor many other aspects of experiencing news on mobile devices. Equipped with different functionalities, mobile devices, especially smartphones, enable users to take photos or record audio or video of an event in order to provide first or only news, which is not available on mainstream media. Increasing popular practices of mobile journalism among mobile users can be exemplified in this following observation: The media published may include groundbreaking news, or stories, pictures, and information that is neglected by mainstream media organisations. Individuals with mobile phones and other media tools are able to capture “news” in real or close-to-real time—much more immediately and rapidly than professional journalists. (Verclas 2008, 7) Twitter leads the media and the blogosphere in breaking news. For instance, when U.S. Airways Flight 1549 crashed in New York’s Hudson River on January 16, 2009, eyewitness Jim Hanrahan tweeted about the crash 4 minutes after the plane went down. That was the first recorded tweet, reading: “I just watched a plane crash into the hudson riv in manhattan” (Beaumont 2009). And the first image report of the incident was uploaded to twitpic by Twitter user Janis Krums, who happened to be on the ferry. He took a photo of the plane in the Hudson River and tweeted the photo, together with the words “There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy” (Krums 2009). Similarly, “The use of camera and video phones by passengers provided the only photos of the London Underground bombing in 2005. In 2007, the citizen protests in Burma were largely reported to the world through photos and video captured on mobile phones” (Verclas 2008, 7). Another observer of the convergence of social media and news has described it similarly: As in countless previous disasters, from the China earthquakes to the Mumbai terrorist attacks, social media has been at the forefront of breaking and disseminating news. It provides an invaluable real-time running commentary on events, which, when taken

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together with the factual accuracy, analysis and commentary of the mainstream media, provides a fascinating and rich account of major incidents. (Beaumont, 2009) Although deeply fragmented, both mobile consumption and participation are soaring globally, especially via mobile social media. The most powerful and influential driving force behind such a change is user-friendly customisation: Personalisation is soaring with every user able to control how to receive, filter, and view their preferred choice of media content whenever and wherever. For example, individuals are now able to customise news feeds based on their interests through subscriptionbased services that also help suggest additional news items based on choice patterns. This sort of service that has been available on the internet and through email for many years, is now being shifted to a mobile platform that includes text, audio, and video content. (Verclas 2008, 8) Mobile news has become integrated and interactive by using different multimedia elements in telling news stories in a non-linear fashion via mobile site news, mobile app news, and mobile social media news, whereby mobile users can interact with each other while producing, broadcasting, or consuming mobile news. Designed to engage and empower mobile users in the strong belief that “shar[ing] a story can be the first step in changing lives,” the Allvoices (2012) site “redefines the voice of people through the global community for sharing current news events and issues from multiple points of view, providing an emotional connection to each other’s perspectives.” The core principle of Allvoices is democracy: “giving power to people” and “their voices having the effect that makes a difference” (Allvoices 2012). Launched in 2008, Mobile Voices (VozMob) serves as “a platform for immigrant and/or low-wage workers in Los Angeles to create stories about their lives and communities directly from cell phones.” By leveraging mobile and related “technology to create power” in various grassroots or marginalised communities “and achiev[ing] greater participation in the digital public sphere” (Mobile Voices 2012), Mobile Voices showcased the power of mobile and its users. The News Is Coming is another social platform, leveraging mobile devices to “create a new kind of local newspaper, one using new technology to communicate across social fault lines of language, race, class and age … to produce a more vigorous local dialogue, a community true in conversation with itself” and, ultimately, to create “a more representative, shared and participatory

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‘public space,’ resulting in better, more democratic decision-making in the communities” (News Is Coming 2012). Launched in May 2007, Voices of Africa is designed to provide a platform for mobile citizen journalists to report on different events and news from around Africa (Voices of Africa 2012) and “has hired citizens in five African countries to teach and equip local citizens with the tools necessary to become mobile citizen journalists for their respective countries: Kenya, South Africa, Mozambique, Ghana, Nigeria and Zimbabwe” (Verclas 2008, 17). Another important and popular platform that is rich in mobile experience is Ushahidi, which is designed to engage and empower mobile users and ultimately to enable mobile users to enrich their mobile experience on mobile devices. “Initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008,” Ushahidi has grown “from an ad hoc group of volunteers to a focused organisation,” serving as “a nonprofit tech company that specialises in developing free and open source software for information collection, visualisation and interactive mapping.” With roots “in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis … [t]he original website was used to map incidents of violence and peace efforts throughout the country based on reports submitted via the web and mobile phones” (Ushahidi 2012). Ushahidi’s apps are useful for mobile users, especially in mapping information in a visual and interactive fashion. Besides its apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android, Ushahidi has Crowdmap, which allows its users to collect information from mobile phones, news, and the web, to aggregate that information into a single platform, and to visualise it on a map and timeline on the web, to be shared anytime, anywhere. In brief, mobile news is experienced when it is being reported, produced, designed, and delivered in a multimedia fashion; when it is being read or viewed in a non-linear way; when it is collected, corrected, or changed in a customisable way; or when it is being commented on, rated, and shared in a democratic manner, producing a wealth of mobile experience.

Defining Mobile Experience Conceptually, mobile experience is derived from user experience. Vague and elusive, user experience has been widely and loosely used, largely by the human–computer interaction community, which has resulted in a range of different associations with the term, such as usability, beauty, hedonic, affective, or experiential (Hassenzahl and Tractinsky 2006). Amid different definitions, one defines user experience as a user’s direct or indirect interaction with a product or service, involving his or her awareness,

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adoption, learning, and use (Alben 1996; Norman 1999, 2004). Being “dynamic, context-dependent and subjective” (Law et al. 2009), user experience was defined by John McCarthy and Peter Wright (2007) as a sense-making process involving six steps: 1) anticipating (what users expect to experience), 2) connecting (users’ first experience with the product), 3) interpreting (interpretation of user interaction with the product), 4) reflecting (making judgments about user experiences), 5) appropriating (trying to make the experience the user’s own), and 6) recounting (reliving experiences by recounting them). Broadly categorised according to research methods, earlier studies are either quantitative or qualitative. On the quantitative side, early studies employed a number of metrics to describe and measure user experience (Hassenzahl 2003; Jordan 2000; Norman 2004). On the qualitative side, earlier studies provide richness and details that may be missed in quantitative studies (Forlizzi and Ford 2000). Specifically, some earlier, quantitative studies equated user experience with usability, behavioural or emotional. While behavioral usability refers to “the ability to complete some functional or goal-directed task within a reasonable time,” emotional usability refers to “the degree, to which a product is desirable or serves a need beyond the traditional functional objective” (Logan 1994). Most usability-oriented studies just added new dimensions to the meaning of usability, such as Kirakowski and Corbett’s (1993) “efficiency, affect, control, and learnability, and helpfulness,” Han et al.’s (2001) “performance and image/impression,” Ryu and Smith-Jackson’s (2006) “ease of use, helpfulness, affective aspect, minimal memory load, and efficiency.” Other studies distinguished themselves from usability studies by proposing a pleasure-based design approach based on a hierarchy of user needs: safety, functionality, usability, and a pleasurable experience (Jordan 2000). “Functionality, usability, and experience” were taken into account in evaluating technology (McNamara and Kirakowski 2005). Still other studies are more integrative in nature because they include all the relevant aspects of interaction, including usefulness, ease of use, hedonics, aesthetics, and pleasure/fun, as in Mahlke’s study (2005). Qualitative studies, however, can provide in-depth views and insights that may be missed in quantitative studies. Some studies examined the following major factors that might shape mobile experience: users, products, context of use, and social and cultural factors (Forlizzi and Ford 2000). The rationale behind such an approach was that user experience might be better captured in narratives or storytelling. Instead of isolating elements of experience, qualitative studies focused on a holistic and constructionist approach to mobile experience by listening to users’ stories of experience with technology (McCarthy and Wright 2005).

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In terms of perspectives, earlier studies can also be broadly categorised into culture-oriented studies and design-focused studies. For instance, one comparative study of cultural differences in mobile experience reviewed “major concepts and theories which are useful to interpret cultural variances,” determined “the distinctive cultural inclinations of each country in user experiences related to mobile phones,” and mapped “cultural models to mobile phone user interface design for applying to design practice” (Eune and Lee 2009, 1). Design-focused studies can be exemplified in the six design values of what is called rimino mobile experience: 1) natural input and navigation, 2) human-like communication, 3) a lively device, 4) goal-based user interface, 5) one experience–multiple devices, and 6) right resolution for right interaction (Moradganjeh 2011). As far as technological innovations are concerned, mobile experience has also been affected by two prominent approaches: technology centric and user driven. While the technology-centric approach focuses on the linear impact of technology on users’ adoption of technology, the user-driven approach would emphasize the importance of the user’s personal and situation needs in innovations. In the move from the traditional technology push towards more user-driven innovations, Moor et al. (2010) identified “the challenge of continuously involving the user and the need for tools to facilitate the integration of knowledge into the increasingly interdisciplinary development process” (51). Guided by earlier studies on user experience, mobile user experience studies seemed to focus more on mobile phone users’ ultimate dependence on the interaction with each of the following four components: hardware user interface, software user interface, external interface, and service interface (Ketola and Roykkee 2001; Palen and Salzman 2002). Previous studies have played a very important role in contributing to the body of knowledge on mobile experience. One piece of the puzzle, however, is obviously missing from previous studies, whether quantitative, qualitative, culture oriented, design focused, technology centric, or user driven. And that piece of the puzzle is content. Where does content fit into creating and enhancing the mobile experience? Drawing on earlier studies, I take a content-based approach to mobile experience studies. In this approach, mobile experience is a process of and a response to interacting with content in an integrated, immersive, and mobile context in a non-linear, multimedia, engaging, empowering, and customisable fashion. To determine the different dimensions of mobile experience and to gauge its different levels, a list of indicators has been proposed. It includes navigation, search, content selection, font size selection, layout selection, color selection, background selection, region selection, media selection, edition

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selection, language selection, usage log, tweeting, blogging, archiving, saving, downloading, sharing, feedback, writing, editing, producing, publishing, broadcasting, chatting, emailing, interacting, rating, commenting, and personalising. These indicators can be bundled with mobile news in many different and creative ways to allow mobile users to experience news in a way of their choice.

Measuring Mobile Experience Do mobile users really care about the mobile experience? And if they do, how important to them are the different indicators of the mobile experience? To address these questions, a survey was conducted in December 2011 in China and Singapore. Of the initial 319 participants, 257 (81 percent) completed the survey, which measured the importance of 61 different indicators of mobile experience. The list of indicators consisted of two subsets: the homepage subset and the story-page subset. The homepage subset had 25 different dimensions, ranging from customisation to interactivity. The story-page subset had 36 different aspects, ranging from empowerment to integration. The same set of mobile experience indicators was used in a comparative feature analysis of 20 news apps that measured the extent that mobile experience indicators were actually employed in news apps. The news apps used in this study were selected from news agencies, radio stations, television stations, newspapers, online news aggregators, and online-only news providers. The results of the survey and the app analysis showed that on the homepage, 68 percent of the respondents, on average, attached importance to the 25 indicators of mobile experience, while only 25 percent of news apps actually used those indicators. On the story page, 67 percent of the respondents, on average, attached importance to the 36 indicators of mobile experience, while only 15 percent of news apps used those indicators. As shown by the results, there was a huge gap between mobile users’ perceived importance of mobile experience indicators and their actual usage in the 20 selected news apps. A number of issues underlie this huge gap. The first issue is the way mobile news operations are treated. In most cases, they are viewed as an alternative platform to reach a wider audience, as a promotional tool to promote their online or office version of news, or merely as a publicity showcase for stating that they are not falling behind others in terms of mobile presence. Another issue is the limited resources allocated to mobile news operations. Lack of creative manpower, technical support, and funding has been seriously hindering a full and comprehensive employment of mobile experience to enhance mobile news communication. Still another issue is the persistent

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mass media mind-set of mobile news providers: “They read what I write,” “They listen to what I broadcast,” or “They watch what I broadcast.” Furthermore, the fragmented mobile market in terms of both hardware and software constitutes another major obstacle to the enhancement of the mobile experience. Hardware-wise, this fragmentation includes “different connectivity options (Bluetooth, IR, GPRS); platform diversity (Symbian, Nokia OS, RIM OS, Apple OS X, PalmOS, Mobile Linux, Android); API standards; differences in multimedia support; user-preference diversity (language, accessibility requirement); and environmental diversity in the deployment infrastructure (e.g., branding by carriers, compatibility requirements of the carrier back-end APIs, gateway characteristics, restrictions on access to outside the network etc.)” (Verclas 2008, 4). In terms of software, no single version of any mobile news apps can be run on all mobile devices. And the same is true with all other mobile apps that can be used to report, write, edit, produce, design, publish, deliver, and share. In a broad context, the limited freedom of information is also constraining mobile experience. In some repressive regimes or conservative countries, mobile news production and consumption “may be subject to government censorship, self-censorship, or filtering systems that impede full access to information” (Verclas 2008, 5–6). Measures taken by states or organisations to disrupt or tamper with “communication networks for political purposes, including around elections and public demonstrations,” or what the OpenNet Initiative calls “just-in-time-blocking” (ONI Team 2012), have also posed a great threat to the free information flow on mobile devices. Examples include the following: In 2011, both Egypt and Libya severed all internet access for brief periods of time during the “Arab Spring.” Similar tactics have been employed in Nepal (2005), Burma (2007), and China (2009). … In response to the 2011 U.K. riots the government has put forth proposals to restrict citizens from using social media “when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.” In the summer of 2011 the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) shut down cell phone service to four stations in San Francisco in an effort to disrupt the organisation of planned protests. (ONI Team 2012) Too much state intervention into the mobile industry in some repressive regimes or conservative societies has also resulted in restricted mobile information flow, which has hindered the further overall development of a country socially, economically, culturally, and politically. For instance, a real name registration system has been implemented in some countries, which has seriously affected the free flow of information in these countries.

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Enhancing Mobile Experience In the mobile world, every mobile user can be a producer and at the same a consumer, or prosumer in short, and is also likely to be a mobile journalist. In mobile news communication, it is not about a gear change but a game change. Although mobile news itself is important, what matters more is how it is designed, packaged, and delivered to cater to different needs, tastes, and preferences of mobile users. Instead of excessive attention to or focus on the technological or design dimensions of mobile experience only, we should take a holistic approach by incorporating a content-based dimension in designing and delivering mobile news. The technological or design side of mobile experience should support the content side, not the other way around. Engaging and empowering features should be incorporated, integrated, and embedded within news stories to make mobile experience more content based instead of technology driven or design oriented only. Different features of mobile experience should be adequately employed at the right time, in the right place, and in the right context within a news story for the right topic and the right target audience. Constant monitoring and gauging of changing tastes, desires, and preferences among mobile users should remain one of the key exercises before any decision is made or any adjustment is made in mobile communication. On the other hand, mobile users’ tastes and preferences may also be invited, developed, or nurtured by mobile communicators or mobile content providers via the introduction of new mobile experience features. The mobile experience can be nurtured and enhanced through education. A general education in mobile experience should be offered to mobile users at different levels through different means. It can be offered in schools as part of a mobile journalism course designed for every student, not just students of journalism. It can also be offered in workplaces as part of an in-house training program. Only when mobile users and mobile news providers fully understand the importance and benefits of the mobile experience can the mobile experience be fully enhanced. Only when mobile experience features are fully utilised can mobile users enjoy their fullest benefits.

References Alben, L. 1996. “Quality of Experience: Defining the Criteria for Effective Interaction Design.” Interactions 3 (3): 11–15. Allvoices. 2012. “Report News Via Cell Phone.” Allvoices: Local to Global News. Accessed April 6. www.allvoices.com/report-news-via-your-cellphone.

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Beaumont, C. 2009. “New York Plane Crash: Twitter Breaks the News, Again.” Telegraph. www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/4269765/New-York-plane-crash-Twitter-breaksthe-news-again.html. Citizenside. 2012. “About Us.” Citizenside. www.citizenside.com/en/how-sell-photos-videos/ about-us.html. CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center). 2012. 2012 Zhongguo Wangmin Sousuo Xingwei Yanjiu Baogao (Report on Web Users’ Search Behavior in 2012 in China). www.cnnic. cn/hlwfzyj/hlwxzbg/ssbg/201209/P020120904438285391543.pdf (accessed January 23, 2013). comScore. 2012. “Number of European Smartphone Users Accessing News Surges 74 Percent over Past Year.” comScore. www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2012/3/ Number_of_European_Smartphone_Users_Accessing_News_Surges_74_Percent_Over_Past_ Year?piCId=66038. Cui, B. 2011. Report on Development of China’s Media Industry. Beijing, China: Social Sciences Academy Press. eMarketer. 2012. “Data Cited in China Social Media Users to Reach 414 Million by 2014.” Resonance China. www.resonancechina.com/2012/03/27/china-social-media-users-toreach-414-million-by-2014. Eune, J., and K. P. Lee. 2009. “Analysis on Intercultural Differences through User Experiences of Mobile Phone for Glocalization.” In Proceedings of International Association of Societies. Forlizzi, J., and S. Ford. 2000. “Building Blocks of Experience: An Early Framework for Interaction Designers.” In Proceedings of Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS 2000), 419–23. Brooklyn, NY: Association for Computing Machinery. Global Voices. 2012. “About.” Global Voices Books. books.globalvoicesonline.org/about. Han, S. H., M. H. Yun, J. Kwahk, and S. W. Hong. 2001. “Usability of Consumer Electronic Products.” International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 28: 143–51. Hassenzahl, M. (2003). “The Thing and I: Understanding the Relationship Between User and Product.” In Funology: From Usability to Enjoyment, edited by M. A. Blythe, A. F. Monk, K. Overbeeke, and P. C. Wright, 31–42. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Hassenzahl, M., and N. Tractinsky. 2006. “User Experience—Research Agenda.” Behaviour & Information Technology 25 (2): 91–7. Ipsos. 2012. “Interconnected World: Communication and Social Networking.” Ipsos: News & Polls. www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=5564. ITU (International Telecommunication Union). 2011. “Key Global Telecom Indicators for the World Telecommunication Service Sector.” ICT Data and Statistics. www.itu.int/ITUD/ict/statistics/at_glance/KeyTelecom.html. Jordan, P. W. 2000. Designing Pleasurable Products. New York: Taylor and Francis. Ketola, P., and M. Roykkee. 2001. “Three Facets of Usability in Mobile Handsets.” In Proceedings of CHI 2001. Seattle, WA. Kirakowski, J., and M. Corbett. 1993. “SUMI: The Software Usability Measurement Inventory.” British Journal of Educational Technology 24 (3): 210–2. Krums, J. 2009. “Janis Krums.” Twitpic. twitpic.com/135xa.

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Law, E. L. C., V. Roto, M. Hassenzahl, A. P. O. S. Vermeeren, and J. Kort. 2009. “Understanding, Scoping and Defining User Experience: A Survey Approach.” Paper presented in CHI 2009, April 4–9, 2009, Boston, MA. Lee, Y. S. 2007. “Older Adults’ User Experiences with Mobile Phones: Identification of User Clusters and User Requirements.” PhD diss., Virginia Polytechnic Institute. scholar.lib.vt.edu/ theses/available/etd-09172007-135013/unrestricted/Dissertation_YSL.pdf. Logan, R. J. 1994. “Behavioral and Emotional Usability: Thomson Consumer Electronics.” In Usability in Practice, edited by M. E. Wiklund, 59–82. New York: AP Professional. Mahlke, S. 2005. “Understanding Users’ Experience of Interaction.” In Proceedings of the 2005 Annual Conference on European Association of Cognitive Ergonomics, 251–4. Chania, Greece. McCarthy, J., and P. C. Wright. (2005). “Putting ‘Felt-Life’ at the Centre of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).” Cognition, Technology, and Work 7: 262–71. ———. 2007. Technology as Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. McNamara, N., and J. Kirakowski. 2005. “Defining Usability: Quality of User or Quality of Experience?” Paper presented in 2005 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference, 200–4. Limerick, Ireland. Mobile Voices. 2012. “About Vozmob.” Vozmob: Mobile Voices. vozmob.net/en/about. Moor, K. D., K. Berte, L. D. Marez, W. Joseph, T. Deryckere, and L. Martens. 2010. “User-Driven Innovation? Challenges of User Involvement in Future Technology Analysis.” Science and Public Policy 37 (1): 51–61. Moradganjeh, M. 2011. Rimino: A Human Touch on Mobile Experience. www.rimino.com/article. html. News Is Coming. 2012. “About.” Iindaba Ziyafika: The News Is Coming. thenewsiscoming. ru.ac.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid=154. Nielsen. 2011. State of the Media: The Social Media Report. blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/social. Norman, D. 1999. The Invisible Computer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ———. 2004. Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books. ONI (OpenNet Initiative) Team. 2012. “Global Internet Filtering in 2012 at a Glance.” OpenNet Initiative. opennet.net/blog/2012/04/global-internet-filtering-2012-glance. Palen, L., and M. Salzman. 2002. “Beyond the Handset: Designing for Wireless Communications Usability.” ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 9 (2): 125–51. Pollard, G. 2012. “15 Ways Mobile Will Change Our Lives.” New Media Knowledge. www.nmk. co.uk/article/2012/4/4/15-ways-mobile-will-change-our-lives. Ryu, Y. S., and T. L. Smith-Jackson. 2006. “Usability Questionnaire Items for Mobile Products and Content Validity.” In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 50th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA. Smith, A. 2012. “46 Percent of American Adults Are Smartphone Owners.” Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2012/ Smartphone%20ownership%202012.pdf. Taylor, C. A., and J. A. Ramey. 2009. “A Framework for Understanding Mobile Internet Motivations and Behaviors.” Paper presented in CHI 2009, April 4–9, 2009, Boston, MA. Ushahidi. 2012. “About Us.” Ushahidi. ushahidi.com/about-us. Verclas, K. 2008. “A Mobile Voice: The Use of Mobile Phones in Citizen Media.” MobileActive.Org. www.mobileactive.org/mobile-voice-use-mobile-phones-citizen-media.

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———. 2012. “Activist Media from the Frontlines: Mobile, Strategic, and Much More Than Just at ‘the Right Place at the Right Time.’” MobileActive.Org. www.nten.org/articles/2012/activistmedia-frontlines-not-just-being-right-place-right-time-anymore. Voices of Africa. 2012. “About Voices of Africa.” Voices of Africa. www.voicesofafrica.org.

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Mobile Entertainment: The World Is Overflowing With Screenagers! Ralph Simon

Editors’ Note: This chapter provides a panoramic view of mobile entertainment, ranging from content and business models to user behaviour and legal issues. Mobile entertainment is now focused on a range of screens and sometimes multiple screens simultaneously. Mobile social media, mobile social commerce, mobile social broadcasting, and mobile social music are emerging directions of mobile entertainment, which is taking on global and local flavours. Payment in Western mobile entertainment markets tends to be via credit cards, but alternate methods are opening up in emerging economies. The chapter highlights numerous mobile entertainment startups and identifies emerging “short-form” modes. Industry organisations active in this space include the Mobile Entertainment Forum, CTIA, the Global System for Mobile Communications Association, and the Mobile Marketing Association. If there is a central unifying global theme in the rapidly developing area of mobile entertainment, it is increasingly clear that around the world, users of mobile phones and other mobile devices are all becoming “screenagers.” Is this the province of only the young digital natives? Surprisingly not. Mobile and wireless users across age groups want to have and are increasingly gravitating to the nearest available “screen” for their information, lifestyle preference management, and all forms of mobile entertainment—be it the phone screen, the tablet screen, or, the nearest available TV or interactive screen. It can be a single screen or multiple screens viewed simultaneously. The accelerating transition to new screenage behaviour is the biggest challenge and opportunity for both the content and the entertainment industries 243

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as they adapt and adjust to a series of new paradigms that are shaping the way consumers and producers are shaping the next decade of mobile interaction, entertainment, and applications.

Mobile Transformation Sweeping changes and fast-moving innovation are starting to characterise the mobile entertainment landscape. Several factors are interweaving to present both challenges and opportunities to mobile network operators, entertainment apps developers, and content and media companies. A new generation of mobile platforms and the exponential use of and demand for smartphone devices and products are going to govern and impact the way mobile and wireless subscribers download and purchase mobile entertainment. There appears to be a very clear and accelerated demand for four key foundation elements: mobile social media, mobile social commerce, mobile social broadcasting, and mobile social music. Social media and the unstoppable growth of new users to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Foursquare, Tumblr, Flickr, and other leading-edge sites have also influenced the startup and implementation of locally relevant copycat social media platforms in the pan-African, Middle Eastern, and North African markets. One of the essential factors governing this sweeping transformation is the imperative of having entertainment or social media that are colloquially relevant to the country or territory concerned. Contextual and local relevance is a major pillar of mobile entertainment use and experience. Those who are able to understand this imperative can accelerate their popularity and revenues in this dynamic and exciting area. For example, young mobile subscribers between 15 and 25 years of age use social media as a staple of their daily lives, and while many gravitate towards the well-known global platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and BlackBerry’s BlackBerry Messenger, they also want their social media and mobile entertainment to have a contextually relevant local flavour and form so that their tastes, preferences, and voice can be amplified to their social networks and lifestyles. Young mobile subscribers in Egypt, for example, would prefer to have locally relevant content and entertainment (or LoSoMo, for “locally relevant social mobile media”) that also connects them to the world and ageappropriate tastes and fashion, including the latest music or caller ringback tones from the likes of Lady Gaga. It is from this screenage environment that a raft of new entertainment models is emerging and capturing the attention and revenue of users and content makers alike. This transformation also involves burgeoning demand for effective social commerce platforms that enable and extend screenager

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consumption of mobile purchasing, commerce, personal TV, games, apps, mobile movies, and social lubrication tools and platforms. It has been remarkable to see how these new patterns are radically changing the traditional entertainment landscape. A decade ago, TV viewing would have been dominated by “appointment-to-view” TV, with passive viewing of television programming and cable TV. Modern screenagers demand two-way engagement with their content and lifestyle requirements and see this kind of interaction as necessary. This mobile usage phenomenon has profound implications for all aspects of the entertainment ecosystem and also has fundamental significance for platform vendors, media companies, revenue collection, portal functionality, and, most important, interoperability between devices and screens. There is a new triangulation taking place that sees increasing cohesion among three core constituencies: carriers, handset makers, and content providers. Carriers are focusing on the following elements: developing and maintaining platform infrastructures; controlling the handset road map; assuming the handset distribution risk; and providing the billing mechanics and infrastructure for on-deck and off-deck purchase and delivery of content. Handset makers, on the other hand, are focusing on satisfying carrier standards; carving out enhanced market share through innovation; improving handset speed and colour resolution; and providing device capability to handle complicated content forms, games, apps, and interactivity. The agenda of content providers is running and extending on-deck and off-deck platforms and sites; ensuring constant innovation and creative use of content for screenagers; deploying and basking in multicultural creativity in content; and continuously striving to develop unwalled gardens and virally popular content. There is a growing realisation that there are now two important parallel universes: on-deck content, generally hosted and accessed through telco operators’ platforms and decks, and off-deck platforms where so-called overthe-top platforms can serve and service their content directly to the mobile user and screenager, without necessarily going through the traditional telco portals. Japan has proved to be a consistent leader and innovator in mobile content, and although Japanese content and apps traditionally do not travel beyond Japan, this leading mobile market has found unique ways of bringing screenage innovation and commerce together in a manner that puts it far ahead of many other developed mobile markets. The content industry in Japan is now valued at more than $4 billion annually and growing (per the Global System for Mobile Communications Association [GSMA] mobile content industry overview).

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In 2012, Japan had approximately 16,000 official mobile sites from around 4,300 content providers of all stripes. Remarkably, Japan has more than 150,000 off-deck sites, which reflects a continuous innovation cycle that sees constant innovation as central. Japan also has traditionally been the only territory worldwide that pays its content providers 90 percent of the gross revenues, with operators keeping 10 percent. In the U.S. and European markets, content providers have to be satisfied with receiving 50 percent of gross revenues while operators keep the other half. There is some movement in Europe toward following the example set by Apple and iTunes, whereby the content provider receives 70 percent of the revenues, and the platform or portal retains 30 percent. This information is drawn from discussions with various mobile network operator executives in Europe, including Telefonica and Vodafone. There is another fundamental shift taking place. In the developed markets, more and more interaction and content purchase are being done on mobile devices rather than on PCs. In developing countries and especially in mobilecentric Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (known collectively as BRICS), the vast majority of interaction and content acquisition is being done on mobile devices because of low penetration of PCs and online connectivity or accessibility. While the iTunes model has spurred Apple users to download more than 15 billion songs and music items and more than 5 billion mobile applications drawn from 750,000 iPhone applications to date, the Apple iOS platform is dependent on credit card purchase. Some 450 million credit card holders have purchased Apple apps to their iOS (Apple) device, according to Apple Inc. corporate statements from 2012. But, what about the many billions of mobile users and screenagers who do not have the luxury of credit cards or even bank accounts? How can the nearly 6 billion mobile subscribers who do not have an iPhone get and pay for their content easily? The GSMA is the largest global trade body for the mobile industry. It represents some 800 mobile network operators and also handset makers and infrastructure providers. One of the biggest issues for the content industry and for mobile operators is to be able to tap into the billions of cell phone users around the world who are either “unbanked” or certainly not in possession of credit cards or credit. What can be done to enable the many hundreds of millions of mobile phone users who have a pay-as-you-go rather than a monthly billing relationship with their mobile service providers to purchase or download applications? The GSMA has been promoting a mechanism in which pay-as-you-go cell phone users will be able not only to have content purchases charged directly to their pay-as-you-go balance or card but, most pertinently, to use

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a “one-click-to-purchase” for content. This mechanism is still in a preliminary phase, but the potential for this initiative on a worldwide basis is profound. Imagine if cell phone users in the developing markets and BRICS countries are able to have on their devices the easiest form of access, effortless user interfaces, and, most important, a direct payment mechanism that mirrors the ease with which iTunes purchasers use their Apple credit card accounts. This initiative and the blessing of the vast majority of the world’s mobile network operators will allow for all kinds of content to be accessed and acquired with one touch and then billed directly to the pay-as-you-go user’s balance or card. For content makers and owners, this innovation can mean a worldwide solution to what has been a major issue for mobile users and their service providers. Imagine if the world’s TV networks are able to supply episodic television programs at one touch. Imagine what the major and independent music companies can do to foster sales of mobile content with this one-click approach. Imagine the new sales and future revenue and download potential if general commercial and retail purchases could be charged to one’s pay-as-you-go balance. It is also interesting to note that mobile commerce and payments are growing. Kenyan mobile operator Safaricom is driving the now-famous M-Pesa payment system, which allows mobile phones to be the instrument for making payments for any product or purchase, whether a soft drink or one’s children’s school fees. Such has been the success of M-Pesa that already some 70 percent of Kenyans use this mobile payment system for every aspect of their lifestyle needs. It is resulting in a profound change of behaviours and calls upon the banking industry to assign it a huge priority. Nor is the phenomenon restricted to Africa. Major credit card companies such as Visa and MasterCard have major global programs to accelerate the implementation of mobile commerce and mobile money—all via the mobile device, rather than by credit card only (according to the Visa International statement upon acquiring African payment platform, Fundamo, in June 2012). This shift in mode, ease, and automation of payment has considerable implications for the mobile content industries. Imagine if all mobile applications purchased by mobile users could be obtained in just one click. From the content companies’ point of view, automation will allow for far better auditing of content and data, such that the companies’ data analytics would be able to produce far more accurate reporting of how their content is being sold, downloaded, and paid for, in all mobile markets around the world. This move is sure to herald an increase in content acquisition from the largest to the least sophisticated mobile markets.

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Mobile Disruptions: From Movies to Music and Beyond How profound are the disruptions that seem to be a regular feature of the mobile entertainment spectrum? There is indeed a constant pattern in the way that content is being created and morphed. There is also a move toward flat-rate data plans, whereby consumers and screenagers are able to download their content in an “all-you-can-eat” model rather than a per-item payment model. A good and striking example of this is the U.S. fringe mobile operator Leap Telecom. This San Diego–based telco has deliberately focused on the lowestend economic user. Leap Telecom pioneered a service that allows subscribers to their network to have limitless voice, data, content, and music—all for around $60/month. In the first 5 months of this service, the company introduced a special music service known as Muve, which is woven right into the voice and data platform. Muve has grown to more than 600,000 music users, and despite Leap Telecom’s focus on the poorest segment of the consumer market, the company has avoided one of the greatest pitfalls of the modern mobile operator: It has reduced churn, the term used by the mobile telco industry to describe the process of having a mobile subscriber change their service provider from the incumbent to a new mobile operator. Telcos constantly strive to avoid churn, as this means losing a subscriber that might take a lot of effort and expense to acquire to their network. The company has seen a surprising strength of subscriber loyalty, as well as continuous growth of its subscriber base by virtue of its all-you-can-use principles. Because Leap Telecom tends to focus on the pay-as-you-go end of the consumer market, it has shown that one does not have to have an iTunes-type model, requiring a credit card, according to Leap Telecom’s Chief Executive Officer, S. Douglas Hutcheson, in June 2012. Mobile disruption is also being seen in the area of TV, short-form TV, and movie consumption. As handsets have increased their memory and storage capability, feature phone and low-cost touchscreen smartphone users are capable now of having far greater capability for “short-form” content viewing and retention, meaning that demand increases if a social media component is built into the content, allowing sharing among mobile social media friends and mobile phone social communities. What are the patterns of usage behaviour from teens and “tweens” these days? It is clear that screenagers younger than 24 years, who are natural digital natives and fully accustomed to mobile lifestyle behaviours, spend 3 or more hours per day on their mobile devices. Current research in Japan has spun out some important new data. Ninety percent of Japanese mobile users

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between 16 and 24 years of age use their mobile devices for their daily purchases and commerce. The lives of these digital natives are woven into and around their devices in a manner that is fast becoming the norm around the world. In the developing markets, this trend seems to be replicated as convenience, personalised usage, and access are giving literally billions of mobile device users what Japanese have been taking for granted for nearly a decade. Sixty-one percent of Japanese tweens and teens use their mobile device for more than 75 minutes per day. We should expect to see this pattern growing and being repeated in all mobile markets and countries around the world, according to reports from Japanese mobile publishers in 2012. What are these young mobile users focusing on, and what disruptions are they bringing to content acquisition from all sources? Here is a small selection of the kinds of content, products, and services that are capturing the time, attention, energy, and payment of today’s mobile subscribers, reflecting disruptive but positive lifestyle needs and tastes.

Mobile Shopping and the Use of Mobile Coupons and Discount Apps While companies in the U.S. such as Groupon have pioneered online coupons and discount selling, mobile shopping and mobile coupons are coming of age and will soon become more obtrusive in all markets.

Navigation and Maps Navigation that embodies location-based intelligences is changing and disrupting traditional navigation and map capability. Enhanced navigation is now standard in all new handset architectures.

Search Massive disruption is taking place in the area of search. Google’s leadership and constant innovation in search parameters and contextual and rapid results have accelerated the search industry in ways that were not envisioned other than by the category leaders. This has immense promise for brands and colloquial and local businesses and will also enable quicker and more accurate results for mobile users seeking specialised and personalised content, entertainment platforms, and mobile impulse purchasing.

Books and Magazines on Mobile Much has recently been written about whether we will, in our lifetimes, see the extinction of newspapers and magazines. This might sound far-fetched, but there are indeed some trend lines reflecting that in certain countries, the migration of newspaper and magazine readers from print versions to digital

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versions is growing exponentially. Three major U.S. cities have seen the demise of their long-standing daily newspapers: The Los Angeles Times, once the daily staple of Californians, has been in bankruptcy protection, as has the Philadelphia Inquirer. Readership of digital versions of newspapers and magazines is sharply up on tablets and by tablet users. Of course, tablets are simply the disruptive future for media readers. Amazon’s Wi-Fi–enabled Kindle devices have changed the face of book sales and distribution, and copycat book reading devices, as well as tablets and smartphones, are fundamentally disrupting traditional patterns of book distribution, sales, and consumption.

Short-Form TV Programming and Current Fashion TV The YouTube phenomenon and the TV bundler Hulu have changed and severely disrupted appointment-to-view TV by allowing time-shifted viewing. One of the big success stories of the past couple of years has been the music video–only channel in the U.S. called Vevo. Within its initial 2 years of existence, Vevo had a turnover of some $1 billion and continues to grow, despite being available only in North America. Mobile device access to YouTube, especially in the BRICS markets, is providing Google’s business with new revenues from mobile devices that have been accelerated by the Android platform. Mobiles are also disrupting the traditional retailing of fashion goods. Consumers are tending to comparison shop on their mobile devices or smartphones and buy on mobile or online.

Mobile Radio Traditional radio and radio stations are seeing mobile satellite radio eating into their traditional audiences. With every mobile device capable of providing an FM radio service, and with smartphones able to bring localised radio, irrespective of where the listener might be, there is major change in radio. As an example, there are millions of Americans who live outside the U.S. and who love baseball. Mobile consumers from, say, Chicago can have their own baseball team’s radio station accessible wherever they may be. Traditional radio companies and stations understand that unless they fully embrace place and location shifting, they will continue to see their margins and their very audiences erode and diminish.

Mobile Music Major disruption in mobile music is fully underway. The early success of Spotify, the Stockholm-based music streaming company founded by Swedish data technologist Daniel Ek and his team, seems to be leading a whole new wave of mobile music. With 10 million users in Europe and growth in North America, Ek’s music platform arose from his insight that today’s mobile,

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online, and wireless users love sharing their music playlists as much as they love hearing new music. After only a couple of years, Spotify had a perceived valuation of $3 billion and is bringing comfort to the three major international record labels that have an equity interest in the company, according to the British Phonographic Institute in 2012. Dance music, electronic music, and the dance music culture are also bringing disruptive change to the mobile music industry. Companies such as Turntable.fm focus on consumers’ desire to, themselves, become dance music DJs. In terms of content, caller ringback tones continue to be the dominant mobile content format around the world and especially, the developing world. Many iTunes-like services are sprouting in regions where Apple does not have a presence. There is also a growing need by mobile music consumers to be able to tap into their colloquial music tastes. To this end, major mobile music developments have been occurring in markets for music contextually relevant to local tastes across the Arabic-speaking world. Similar demand for contextually colloquial relevance is being seen in non–English-speaking mobile music markets such as India, China, and leading African mobile markets. The GSMA initiative (the one-click-to-purchase capability referred to earlier) is expected to be a great boon to content makers and distributors.

Mobile Games and Gamification The success of game companies such as Rovio, the Finnish company responsible for creating the stunningly successful Angry Birds platform, has brought innovation in programming to new highs. The success of this effective game platform has had a core influence on game makers and creators worldwide. Angry Birds has had more than 1 billion downloads around the world, and the franchise is being developed as a TV platform, an animated full-length feature movie, and a clothing franchise embodying the Angry Birds graphics and artwork. The success and public listing of U.S. game-maker Zynga (Farmville, Cityville, GaGaville) saw the company obtain a valuation of more than $1 billion, and it is spawning a whole new generation of mobile games for its platform. Current research shows that mobile games tend to be played by women as much as men; in fact, research has shown that women constitute 55 percent of mobile game users. Mobile games more deeply linked into locationbased elements are also becoming more prevalent as the desire and hunger for “contextually colloquial relevance” becomes a guiding factor in developing markets, according to GSMA reports on mobile game usage by its member mobile phone networks.

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Cartoons and Comics Animation, animated cartoons, and the emergence of educational comics and cartoons bring animation technologies and creativity to the small mobile screen as never before. Some developing countries are seeing an interest in educational comics and animation to help health and wellness objectives and social programmes, especially where rural communities increasingly interact with their mobile devices for public health awareness.

Extensive Use of SMS and Texting According to a GSMA global review of text messaging, in 2011, more than 1 trillion text messages were sent, and this number is only going to grow. With better data analytics, mobile providers and improved infrastructure will allow for greater volumes of SMS communications to pass through their networks, enhancing data revenues in an age of reducing amounts of voice-based traffic. Skype and similar disruptors are now accessed on mobile phones without payment being made to operators—a worrying trend for telcos, but a boon to consumers, especially in low-income categories.

Augmented Reality The rapidly developing area of augmented reality (AR) is bringing a new level of disruption to location-based visualisation on mobile devices. U.S. technology giant Qualcomm has pioneered some key technologies embodying AR into chip sets for smartphones. The advanced innovation lab of Japan’s Sony has been working on major enhancements to AR and showing impressive new developments in AR visualisations, with profound implications for brands, advertisers, and retail purchasing apps. Japan is leading in this area, which is expected to grow considerably in the next 18 months. Sony’s smart AR technologies, embodied in the PSVita product, offer a seamless and markerless element that is going to be featured in millions of devices during the next year or two. Dentsu, the world’s largest advertising agency group, created a mobile-based AR app that allows users to “wave” their phone to catch coupon-carrying “butterflies” with their device. Already more than 500 different butterflies (butterfly-shaped coupons that convert to purchasing tools) carrying millions of ads have been deployed.

Camera and Photos for Social Media Use Facebook’s entry into mobile was underlined by its recent $1 billion purchase of Instagram, whose social media photo-capture platform is expected to help Facebook and its nearly 1 billion users take a massively multiplayer approach to photo and video sharing.

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Conclusion All the categories just discussed are being shaped and changed frequently as innovation continues to respond to screenagers’ lifestyle preferences. The following content forms remain staples of content and entertainment for mobile: • Caller ringback tones: A commercial success story for network operators in the developing markets, which have almost completely taken over from the ringtone market • DecoMail: Email and SMS decorated with imagery and graphics • Avatars: Increasing use of virtual personae within entertainment content • Movie derivatives: From Hollywood, Bollywood, and Nollywood, new short form product genres catering to the insatiable consumer interest in movies, movie stars, and movie stories that have a following in mobile markets worldwide Other areas in which mobile content products are being developed to meet the demand of modern screenagers of all ages include boarding passes for air and train travel, student and employee ID cards on mobile devices, eticketing for sporting events and entertainment, loyalty point coupons, and access control to buildings and locations on mobile. Many new entertainment models are starting to present themselves in mobile markets, including the following: • Interactive advertising billboards that allow mobile users to interact with the billboard either via QR codes or auto-recognition of the mobile device when alongside the billboard • Fast and accurate storefront interfacing with mobile devices that helps retail store staff effect quicker purchase transactions • Near field communication “Flash coupons” (According to the advertising agency Dentsu, 20 million McDonald’s customers in Japan use this process for quick and effective purchases in stores) • Mobile social application bookmarking, which allows a mobile user to bookmark a location and be reminded or notified of it when nearby (called WillGoLater by Cayac) All the examples just given reflect just how fundamental the changes, opportunities, and challenges are and have become for entertainment companies. As social media and consumers need to become their own “social

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broadcasters,” entertainment companies of all stripes have been forced to ensure that they have a much faster innovation curve and hire specialist innovation and repertoire executives. Smartphones are also changing the patterns by which screenagers consume and also interact with their content; content companies have to extend their reach way beyond simple sales to comprehensive engagement with users and their social media communities. The Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) pioneered the way in which mobile content realised revenues. Known today as MEF Mobile, the organisation continues to help the mobile content industry construct newly required regulatory issues, find new ways of enhancing and producing revenue for and from content, and adhere to best use industry practices designed to help grow the mobile commerce and payment and content industry. The U.S. body known as CTIA has been pioneering the extensive use of short codes to help mobile users purchase content and to drive content and commercial purchase through mobile devices. The global GSM Association works in a range of vectors and sectors for all in the mobile cosmos. The Mobile Marketing Association focuses on marketing strategies and implementation of marketing across mobile platforms. From premium to “freemium,” the range of business models for mobile content is also undergoing change and innovation. Freemium services—content that is free to the user, but for the provider, is a tool for acquiring information and data used by the user who takes up the free offer—initially started as a problem for content companies but have proved that if manifested effectively, they can help “hook” consumers into subscription purchases and regular content purchasing and can build loyalty to a content form, brand, or artist. Business models vary from country to country and among entertainment products. The key to a successful model lies in two major imperatives: ease of use and quality user-experience. If these two imperatives are met and satisfied, and if the content or product has broad appeal, word will soon spread virally, and an audience will grow, not only in one’s home market, but all over the world, as has been seen in the case of Angry Birds. The biggest problem and legal issue for mobile content and mobile entertainment content remains piracy. It continues to eat producer revenues and margins. Freemium usage has helped ensure legal usage, and ease of access can conduct consumers to legal downloads and content purchases. It is best for content makers and content producers to employ the services of wellknown entertainment intellectual property lawyers. It is now customary for content makers to ensure that they have the input of legal eagles who can assert copyright, correct usage parameters, and offer protection at the earliest stage of content creation.

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Resources The author conducted interviews with Airtel Africa, MTN Africa, Vodafone, Telefonica, and Singtel and used data from Hungama Digital Media India, as well as the following resources, to complete this chapter: CTIA: The Wireless Association (www.ctia.org): This group follows trends in mobile usage. Dentsu (www.dentsu.com): This advertising agency in Japan analyses mobile trends and develops forecasts (e.g., augmented reality). GSMA (www.gsma.com): This group studies general trends in mobile usage and practice in the areas of mobile commerce, mobile health and wellness, mobile money, mobile social media, and mobile content. Informa (www.informa.com): Informa follows telcos and media industry outlooks, as well as inferring trends, data, and usage patterns from worldwide mobile data across major, secondary, and tertiary mobile phone markets. Mobile Entertainment Forum/MEF Mobile: Company members of MEF Mobile in Latin American, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific study trends, usage patterns, and observations by the World Intellectual Property Organisation, as well as data and patent registration statistics. Sabbagh, Karim, David Tusa, and Milind Singh. 2012. “Connecting Africa 2012: The Next 10 Years of Mobile Growth.” Booz & Co. www.booz.com/me/home/press_media/management_ consulting_press_releases/article/50270164. Solis, Brian. 2012. “The Rise of Digital Influence and How to Influence It.” Brian Solis. www.brian solis.com/2012/03/report-the-rise-of-digital-influence.

C h a p t e r

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Mobile Value-Added Services Sanjay Uppal

Editors’ Note: Packed with case studies, this chapter focuses on mobile value-added service (MVAS), the set of services offered by the mobile operator that are beyond basic voice and message service. The advent of smartphones and the rise of internet-platform companies such as Google and social media giants such as Facebook are posing new challenges to the traditional operator model via a democratisation of mobile services. The rise of connected apps is driving the operator community to attract the developer community. Regulators also play a key role in market success of MVAS, for instance by policies on push marketing and data breaches. Emerging trends include the use of contextual information by operators and the rise of smartphones as a “recorder of digital life.” In a small village in the state of Uttar Pradesh, in India, a farm labourer dials a “short code” on his Nokia feature phone, speaks into the microphone, and within a few seconds a stream of popular Bollywood songs plays out on the voice call. This is the only source of music entertainment for the labourer as reliable broadcast radio service is not available here. He pays 5 cents per month for this streamed music radio service offered by Vodafone India. A Millionarios fan in football-crazy Colombia pays 2 cents per day to receive up-to-date news about the positions of the players and the tournament they are playing in, and live alerts on short message service (SMS) when a match is in play. The Futbol Alert service is offered by Movistar Colombia and replicated across the continent. Via a portal on Facebook, up-to-date information is accessed via the web or the mobile internet for an additional fee. In 2008, Turkcell, the leading operator in Turkey, launched the TonlaKazan service, which features in-call advertising. Instead of hearing the familiar “ring-ring” tone, the caller hears an advertisement from a leading brand 257

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before the call gets connected. The service was later replicated by Vodafone in India, where the caller is given a “gratification” for the permission to play an ad in the ring-ring space—an implicit acknowledgement that the called party “owns” this marketing slot when someone calls. In March 2012, Rogers Communications in Canada launched the One Number service, which allows wireless subscribers to make and receive voice and SMS calls from their PCs using the same wireless number. Calls are transferred between the PC and mobile in session, and the service also allows video calls between wireless subscribers. The “sticky”—that is, difficult to switch away from—feature of the service is the common phone book, or contact list, between the mobile phone and the PC: Now the mobile world and the computer-based voice over internet protocol (VoIP) world are integrated, with the contact list as the key integration point. These are all examples of a diverse set of mobile value-added services (MVAS).

MVAS Evolution MVAS defines a set of services offered by the mobile operator that are beyond the basic voice and message service. As voice revenues fell and the operator was reduced to being a “dumb pipe” for data, operators pushed to go beyond the core services and increase average revenue per user by providing content services, using voice and messaging channels, to the retail consumer. That was the genesis of the MVAS industry, and for any given operator, MVAS provided a profitable, visible, brand-enhancing revenue uplift from 2 percent to 10 percent of the core business.1 Before the advent of smartphones, the MVAS industry consisted largely of content-based services that were delivered in voice or messaging channels. Entertainment and infotainment dominated, with services spanning music, sports, lifestyle, and information. User acquisition was based on two mechanisms: The active idle screen of the featurephone included one-click buttons for each of the operator-provided services, or the operator relied on push marketing via outbound phone calls or SMS messages. The latter mechanism became more prominent as the retail channel for phones grew faster than the operator channel in most geographies. MVAS providers would go to the operator to launch their service. As the number and diversity of the services grew, user acquisition and service management and provisioning became significant issues. For example, at Airtel in India in 2010, there were estimated to be more than 400 MVAS providers, all providing “white-labeled” services bearing the Airtel brand.

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The number of MVAS services was substantially higher than the number of core services deployed by the operator, and that imbalance drove the need for a platform for deploying, provisioning, operating, and managing this plethora of new services (Figure 14.1). Operators responded to this growth in white-label services by deploying service delivery platforms (SDPs) provided primarily by the network equipment operators, but this strategy did little for managing service velocity, that is, the number of services deployed per year still remained in the low hundreds. The SDP was supposed to decouple service creation from the infrastructure, make services modular, and allow services to share a platform that would provide common service elements, including charging, monitoring, provisioning, and care.2 While there was commonality and sharing amongst the new services deployed, the interfaces were often arcane and required custom engineering for each SDP. In effect, each operator made the choice of a particular SDP and then each MVAS provider needed to write or port its services to that SDP. Whereas the SDP framework was under strain just with the white-label MVAS model, it broke completely upon the explosion of mobile internet services and the advent of the app store model.

Figure 14.1

Mobile service volume and velocity

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In core services as well, the operator industry is under attack; new entrants such as Free, in France, have caused an upheaval by using common off-theshelf (COTS) components and open source to launch core voice and messaging services at a fraction of the price of the incumbents. France’s 68.2 million subscribers pay an average of €393 annually, one of the highest rates in the world.3 Free launched in January 2012 with two industry-breaking offers: 60 minutes and 60 SMS per month for €2 and unlimited voice, messaging, and data for €20. This upheaval and consequent commoditisation of core services is also pushing operators to differentiate on the basis of value-added services (VASs). Three shifts in the democratisation of mobile services are challenging the current model of white-label MVASs provided by operators: • The emergence of over-the-top (OTT) entrants • The growth of the mobile internet • The transformative nature of smartphones Google and Yahoo! launched the first wave of OTT services by offering a limited version of the PC experience on mobile phones. Compared with the hundreds of MVAS players, they had the brand name and the access to content needed to draw users to their proprietary services. Yahoo! purchased Konfabulator in 20054 and offered mobile widgets, along with the Yahoo! Go Mobile service pack, which included Mail, Calendar, and Chat. On February 27, 2012, Yahoo! discontinued the widgets line and support for Konfabulator, an implicit recognition of the success of the app store model.5 Google too had an equivalent pack of services for the mobile phone, including Search, Mail, and Talk for the mobile phone. The second wave of OTT providers is led indisputably by Facebook, exemplifying the focus on social and local services. The initial growth for Facebook came from desktop and laptop users, but over the last four quarters of 2011, mobile growth has outstripped other access methods. For example, 16 percent of time online is spent on Facebook (Figure 14.2), the highest amongst all services.6 The services provided by these OTT players are largely non-specific to the underlying transport or the service provided by the operator. Typically the operator benefits only from the increased data traffic to these (free) OTT sites. In bandwidth-constrained environments, Facebook even reduced the data charge by working with the operator to offer free and unlimited access to Facebook. In late 2011,7 Facebook also launched a pre-embedded app for featurephones that allowed for free access to the Facebook site. The initial growth in data traffic on mobiles came from wireless access protocol (WAP), which defined an entirely new and mobile-centric approach to accessing special “webpages” that were designed to be read on featurephones and early smartphones. Later, when smartphones added full screens, better

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processors, and faster networks, HTML/HTTP started being used on mobile devices. In 2011, the newest version of HTML, called HTML5, got a big boost when in a scathing memo,8 Steve Jobs tore apart Flash technology from Adobe and said that Apple devices would never support a passé technology. HTML5 has given a boost to cross-platform developer tools9 and applications that unify the developer cycle, while still requiring customisation at the user interface. The gap between native apps and those developed for HTML5 is narrowing, completing the transformation away from the WAP world and its proprietary gateways and markup language and reducing the grip of the operator. The differences between featurephones and smartphones can be boiled down to screen size and resolution, processor and memory performance, network speeds, and connectivity. But this list masks the dramatic difference in the user experience, from the content-centric and voice messaging–channel approach of featurephone-based MVAS to the expansive, rich media experience of smartphones. Where previously the operator could set up, market, and operate a “walled garden” of MVASs, for the featurephone user, the adoption of smartphones drives an open approach where tens of thousands of applications are available in app stores and are largely built with the open mobile internet technology just described. In the third quarter of 2011, according to Strategy Analytics, smartphone shipments varied from nearly 65 percent in the U.S. and more than 50 percent in Europe to 19 percent in Asia Pacific, 17 percent in Latin America, and 18 percent in Africa and the Middle East (Figure 14.3). In the U.S. alone, 109 million smartphones and 63 million featurephones were shipped, while in the volume leader Asia Pacific (including China and India), 145 million smartphones and a whopping 603 million featurephones were shipped.10 This leads to a dichotomy between the advanced and emerging markets that will likely result in a “smartphone lite” taking over in the emerging markets at the price point of existing featurephones. The implication for MVAS is that at the smartphone end, developers can use cross-platform tools or the extensive set of tools available for Android and Apple, while featurephone developers are restricted to channel-specific tools or the low-end Java virtual machine (JVM) platform. These three shifts are eclipsing traditional MVAS, reducing the operator’s role to providing core services including data access, often known as being a dumb pipe.

The Rise of Connected Apps It was the fear of being relegated to being a dumb pipe, as well as the falloff in messaging and voice revenues, that caused operators to look for an alternative

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Figure 14.2

U.S. share of time spent on mobile phones, 2006 to 2011. Source: Silicon Valley Insider and Citi Investment, Research and Analysis (September 2011)

Figure 14.3

Worldwide smartphone penetration. Source: Michael Vakulenko, “The Clash of Ecosystems,” VisionMobile, 2012

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model for the future. In May 2006, an operator-centric consulting initiative titled Telco 2.0 was launched with the situation analyzed as: “The current telecoms business model is approaching its ‘end of life.’ The new edition of the Telco 2.0 Manifesto provides an outline for a vibrant new business model at the heart of the digital economy.”11 The aggregate revenue stream (Figure 14.4) from telco operations is a gigantic $2.5 trillion annually worldwide.12 The new business model that the Telco 2.0 effort refers to is built upon the unique and sustainable value that the operators can add but are not executing on today. “Telcos collectively have assets that can address this situation: real-time user data, secure distribution networks, sophisticated payment processing capabilities, trusted brands, a near universal subscriber base, as well as core voice and messaging products.”13 The Telco 2.0 recommendation is to launch a set of business-to-business (B2B) platforms and derive additional revenues from media, advertisers, government, utilities, and developers who want to use the operator as a channel to get to the downstream users. The additional sales are expected to add up to $125 billion of operator wholesale MVAS revenue in the advanced markets alone. As large as it sounds, the Telco 2.0 analysis ignores the retail business— that is, MVASs for consumers, developed by or for the operator and that make use of the assets the operator possesses.

Figure 14.4

Actual and projected fixed and mobile telco revenues, Western Europe and U.S., 2006–2017 (billions of dollars). Source: “What Is the Telco 2.0 Initiative?” STL Partners, 2012

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This new breed of MVAS, called connected apps, consists of mobile applications for consumers and makes widespread use of operator assets. Technically, the operator opens up access to its back-end systems via a packaged set of APIs and then evangelizes the use of these APIs to the developer community. This is not unlike the intent of the SDP model but differs greatly in its execution. As Figure 14.5 shows, approaches of the operator and the OTT players have been poles apart, and the operator community must make the effort to bridge the gap and attract the developer community to build connected apps. O2’s Litmus, Telefonica’s BlueVia, the Vodafone 360, and the Global System for Mobile Communications Association’s (GSMA’s) OneAPI and Wholesale Applications Consortium are the operators’ efforts to build connected apps with the developer community. Thierry Piganeau, CMO at Orange Spain, had this to say about the tussle between the OTT players and the operators:14 The arrival of OTT services is for us operators, a complete change in the way we market our services. That’s a total change of paradigm. We don’t have exclusivity any longer on communications services, nor on invoicing, even less on “customer ownership.” But

Figure 14.5

Comparison between telecom and software models: Huge gap between telecoms and software worlds. Courtesy Mobile Vision 2011

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those OTT services can hardly live without ours. At the same time they represent for operators a new and open world full of new opportunities to further develop usage and customers’ loyalty. Personal Cloud, which should include all mobile customers’ needs like contacts, apps, messages, is a good example of such an opportunity. No doubt, legacy and OTT services would have to live together. Of the operator efforts in providing an open API layer, none to date have had the same level of success that the OTT players have had in attracting the developer community. The O2 Litmus led to the rebranded BlueVia from Telefonica, which saw some early success. Companies such as Apigee (www.apigee.com) and Mashery (www.mashery. com) now package APIs from enterprises, including operators; add scale, transformation, security, and authentication features; and expose the service via the APIs to the developer and user communities. At this stage, the connected apps space is still in its infancy and epitomises the credo during the internet boom and bust: “Marketshare has never been so cheap.” Fortunately in the mobile boom, there is still an eye on revenues and profit. (However, many argue that the Instagram acquisition for $1 billion with zero revenues is a counter example.) In-app purchases and billing has been an area of spectacular growth for a number of mobile apps, ranging from games to media. In 2010, 28 percent of app revenue was generated by apps with in-app payments, and in 2011 that figure had risen to 72 percent, according to research firm Distimo.15

Types of MVAS MVASs usually fall into one of three categories: content, communications, or commerce, with the underlying infrastructure providing the connectivity (see Figure 14.6). The traditional MVASs revolved around content. For example, in India, the bulk of MVAS can be simply described with the ABCD model: A for astrology, B for Bollywood, C for cricket, and D for devotion. Content-based services in these areas sold on a subscription or event or per-minute basis have had a successful run for a number of years. A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers International report titled Connect With Consumers:Value Added Services: The Next Wave16 noted that of the content-based services, entertainment, including music streaming and watching Bollywood movies, would be adopted by up to 60 percent of the addressable market.

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Figure 14.6

The 3Cs framework for mobile apps

Within content VAS, particularly in the emerging markets such as India, there is a subsegment known as rural VAS. In India in 2012, more than 50 percent of the 700 million users were rural. After much trial and error, rural VAS was determined to revolve around two areas, entertainment and information. The “bottom-of-the-pyramid” user had the same entertainment tastes, largely Bollywood and local content, as any other user. For information access, the key content areas included education and commodity prices. In a multi-language country such as India, where rural literacy is well shy of 100 percent, voice recognition and interactive voice response in local languages is key to increasing the penetration of rural VASs.17 Commerce VAS comprises the use of the mobile wallet to make ticket purchases and to check the stock market and one’s bank accounts. The service with the largest impact is the purchase of goods with the mobile wallet. This wallet is either the user’s prepaid balance or the credit allocated to the user. Airtel launched18 a service called Airtel Money, in which money can be transferred between two mobile wallets that have Airtel Money and between a mobile wallet and a merchant who accepts Airtel Money. Such payment schemes are expected to be popular in the emerging markets, where few users have bank accounts and still fewer have credit cards, M-Pesa from Safaricom being a shining success in this area.19 With the growth in smartphones, mobile shopping is increasing in popularity in two areas: making purchases in a store and comparison shopping on the mobile.20 Leo Burnett reported that “Accenture conducted research that shows that 73 percent of

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mobile shoppers favor using their phone to take care of simple tasks in a store, while only 15 percent favor interacting with an employee.” Finally, advertisements on mobile have been tried frequently on multiple channels. One of the most successful is insertion of ads in missed-call alerts. When the called party gets a missed-call alert, a short text ad is inserted into this alert.21 Ad insertion in the ringback tone (aka Ad-RBT) is the Turkish TonlaKazan service referred to in the beginning of this chapter; however, this service has not received widespread acceptance. Unfortunately, stickiness, or repeat purchases, particularly for content VAS, is not prevalent, resulting in a high degree of churn for such services. It is not uncommon for content VAS to have churn rates of 20 percent and higher, compared with core churn in the low single digits. The lack of stickiness and the unduly high churn created the need and opportunity for the community and context layers in the application infrastructure. Mobile applications built with these layers exhibit higher repeat purchase and lower churn and have a revenue-enhancing capability—the motherhood and apple pie of the mobile world. The context layer uses the history of the interactions of a user to build a model of user behaviour that can be used to recommend the next course of action. For example, a useful contextual add-on to a contact list on a user’s phone is the dynamic re-ordering of the list based on frequency of calling and time of the day—so on the first screen of your contact list app, you see only the most frequently called people and not an alphabetically ordered list. Bobby Rau, co-founder of Hermes Growth Partners, said, “The importance of user information is increasing given that the mobile is a personal device and is always connected. Information can be used to refine the product or service being offered and the way in which it is offered to the user. The impact of this will be profound and we are at the infancy of this evolution.” The community layer comprises the social graph of the user and the rich interactions between the user and other users. For example, contact services are a common platform element of this layer. Contact services are built from storing the address book of each user in the network—called the network address book (NAB). The simplest service that is provided on top of the NAB is the backup or sync of the local contact list on the phone into the network. Using the NAB also allows the easy building of the social graph by importing any change in the contact information of the user within social networks. For example, if the Facebook status of a contact changes, that change can be reflected in the NAB of each user who has that contact in his or her NAB. It is the communications VAS space, which includes user-generated content (UGC), that the operator is using as the main battleground against the OTT players. Indeed, the Telco 2.0 Manifesto argued for a shift away from media content services to communication services in order to build a sustainable

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business for the operator. A network phone book is an example of a communications/UGC service that can build a sustainable advantage for the operator. It is a handset application that presents the contact list to the user and also allows dynamic updates of each of the contacts in the phone book. For example, if a friend who is in my phone book changes his home number, it will be updated in my phone book and in all the phone books where he is listed—given permission, of course. The phone book can also grow to become the single launchpad for all communication services—video, voice, text, conversation, and multi-party. This was the vision of the GSMA when the rich communication suite (RCS)22 of interoperable services was set up. The RCS was envisaged as an enhanced phone book with group messaging and enhanced calling capabilities. However, RCS development and deployment have been slower than the market, and meanwhile non-interoperable services, particularly from the OTT players, including Skype, Tango, and WhatsApp, have gained user acceptance. Now, the operators are deploying non-interoperable phone books with the expectation that the phone books would evolve to an RCS standard when it is ready and available. UGC volumes dwarf media and professional content.23 Cisco predicted that global mobile data traffic would rise from 1.3 exabytes per month in 2012 to 10.3 exabytes per month by 2016. Video is a key reason for this rise, and user-generated images and video are growing much quicker than professional content is. Conversational video on packet is another communications VAS that is in the operator’s forte and expected to grow significantly. In 2010, Accenture estimated that all the music ever made accounts for about 1.5 petabytes and all the movies ever produced account for between 4 and 5 petabytes. One year of TV broadcasts in the U.S. represents 12 to 15 petabytes. Everything that has been written since the beginning of recorded history, in all languages that have ever existed, would amount to just 50 petabytes of data.24 But UGC in the form of photos uploaded in the U.S. was between 40 and 45 petabytes per day.25 With social, local, and video expected to be the main drivers of mobile in this decade, the importance of UGC, and hence of communications/UGC VAS, cannot be overstated. Another communications/UGC service that is gaining popularity and that uses the community layer is the personal cloud. The large OTT players, including Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, and smaller niche players, such as Dropbox, Box, and Sugarsync, have cloud upload and storage offerings. Google launched its Google Drive or GDrive Cloud service as an extension of Google Docs.26 However, operators are launching their own personal cloud services for users with the expectation that as a result of using bundling with core communications services and family offerings, the users will adopt the

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service. AT&T has been testing a beta version of its Digital Locker with a feature set that includes notification and sharing via contact services. Now the entire process of user content generation, upload, access, and share is streamlined, and a mobile device is simply a window into your own personal cloud in the sky. The business model follows a freemium structure, with the first 5 gigabytes (2 gigabytes for Dropbox) of storage free, and a charge thereafter. Most analysts expect that free users will allow their data being mined for business intelligence to allow additional targeted offers from merchants to be presented. Thomas Kohler, vice president of Product Marketing Europe, Technocentre, France Telecom, has a different slant on the cloud: In a world, where customers are increasingly geographically mobile and multi-equipped with a variety of devices, there is a rapidly growing need for a common personal data repository; but if we want to convince a large number of customers that this repository should be located in the cloud, the sustainability, security and sharing capabilities need to be dramatically improved. Too numerous are the examples, where consumer cloud providers have simply discontinued their offer, the access security has been easily breeched or data encryption has been cracked and information about shared personal data has been lost and cannot be reversed. When the community layer stores all the social graph information of its users without acting as a gateway, it begins to mimic the back end of today’s social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and others. How should the operator approach the community layer for MVAS if it wants to avoid becoming a community pipe, akin to a data pipe? An intriguing approach is being developed by Monica Lam, professor of computer science at Stanford University and director of the Stanford Mobile and Social Computing Laboratory. While not operator-centric, or any social network–centric, Musubi is developing an egocentric social platform, where users are in control and in charge of their own social graph and where all social interactions are done with open, transparent protocols. Think of a Facebook user talking to a LinkedIn user or a Pinterest user. Operators, with their communications interaction DNA, are the logical ones to adopt such an architecture for their next generation of MVAS. Lam puts the egocentric social platform in perspective: Once again the computing pendulum that went from mainframe to personal computers then to the cloud, will swing back with the

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rise of the smartphones. Mobile devices are better suited for social functions, being even more readily available than cloud services and providing better privacy for individuals. We envision open standards that enable massive adoption of social in everything that we do, just like how http led to the World Wide Web.

User Acquisition and Retention In traditional MVAS, user acquisition is carried out by use of the active idle screen and by push marketing. However, with the mobile apps numbering in the hundreds of thousands, user acquisition is a daunting issue for the developer of an individual app. Here too the operator can play a key role as distribution channel because it has multiple touch points with the user, including retail stores, customer care, active idle screen, billing inserts, outbound calls, and SMS. The typical business model of revenue share when an app is merchandised via an app store is 70-30 favoring the developer versus the operator; however, when the operator uses its distribution channel, often the revenue share is reversed (i.e., the 30 percent share goes to the developer). Retention is key, for while MVASs may have attracted a million users, if the service is not sticky enough, the users will migrate away after the completion of the “fad” period. By March 2012, Pinterest had garnered a huge following, but in April 2012, monthly active users, a key metric, fell from 11.15 million on April 1 to 8.3 million on April 20, a 25 percent decline in 20 days.27 Operators are now adding developers to their user acquisition targets and computing developer acquisition costs. In this, they are following the software and internet model and not the telecom or SDP one. AT&T28 and Vodafone29 have both recently opened a developer presence in Silicon Valley. AT&T has held more than one developer conference with hackathons and presentations on their open APIs. Vodafone xone connects the data center in Redwood City to the European one with a dedicated backbone so that the applications can be tested for compatibility on the European networks as well. However, compared with Apple and Google, the operators have a way to go in competing directly for developer mindshare. Their best bet is to augment the developer ecosystems of Apple and Google by adding extensions based on opening up their network assets via API packaging. Frank Rosenberger, a mobile expert in Dusseldorf, Germany, said, “The increase in processing power, available bandwidth, and APIs for devices as well as networks are fuelling the current mobile innovation race. However, we have still not solved one of the main problems of the internet: the buyer does not know if the merchant exists and vice versa. Key for solving this problem is

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the user authentication and this will go hand in hand that users will become more and more aware of the value of their data. Mobile operators have a unique opportunity to further accelerate innovation by ubiquitous authentication delivered in trust and privacy.”

Regulatory Environment In traditional MVASs, regulations impacted push marketing primarily. Unsolicited commercial communications have faced a crackdown in many countries, with the lead being taken in the advanced markets. In Indonesia, for example, MVAS revenues in the aggregate fell more than 30 percent after the regulator banned the use of push marketing. For connected apps, however, the risk of a privacy violation or data breach is much higher. Personal cloud apps notify you to upload all your data, including pictures taken, videos, files, and music, to the cloud. Google Drive,30 when it launched, gave little control of the UGC to the user. The terms and conditions of use stated: “When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps).” The privacy agreement raised a hue and cry, and Google had to explain that users owned and made decisions about their data.

The Road Ahead for MVAS Traditional MVAS is evolving rapidly as core services get commoditised and mobile apps take over the mindshare and the wallet of the end user. But MVAS can evolve as well, riding on the network assets of the operator, unlocked via open APIs to attract a legion of developers working on mobile applications. The operators are fighting back with innovative communications and UGC apps, incorporating new features that make use of the operator’s assets via the packaged APIs. Also, the addition of the context and community layers to the operator’s VAS framework has given rise to a number of cool and interesting ideas for the next generation of MVAS, as illustrated in the following three examples:

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• Citizen science: The smartphone has become an environmental sensor. It has evolved to become a powerful multiprocessor networked computer that is distributed and always on. It can serve as distributed environment sensors, collecting data on the weather, air quality, and road smoothness, increasing the well-being of users by allowing them to make more intelligent choices. For example, when the pollen count is high, a phone that reads air quality can warn a user with a respiratory illness to stay indoors. • Personal assistants: With the launch of Siri has come renewed interest in personal assistants. Anticipating the user’s need is one way personal assistants are being differentiated from one another. The operator has contextual information that can usually assist the assistant in suggesting smart choices that the user can act upon. • Ememory and total recall: Smartphones act as a recorder of your digital life. A growing body of research and a few startups are chasing the dream of using wearable smartphones to make a complete record of a user’s life, in effect the realization of the vision painted by Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell in their book titled Total Recall.31

Recommendations for Industry and Policymakers Let me end with a few key recommendations for the VAS sector of the mobile industry: • Traditional MVAS for featurephones is still a lucrative business, but MVAS executives should plan for the shift away from push marketing and toward the growth in lite smartphones. • Regulators need to create an open playing field for MVAS developers who want to make use of the network APIs of the operator. • Operators should move aggressively to market to the developer community and embrace the software model rather than the SDPbased telecom model. • Developers should differentiate themselves by partnering with the operator to gain visibility and stickiness in their apps.

Disclaimer The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not reflect those of OnMobile Global Ltd. or any of its subsidiaries.

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Endnotes 1. Based on author’s own experience across 20 operators across four continents. 2. Antonio Manzalini, Roberto Minerva, and Corrado Moiso, “If the Web Is the Platform, Then What Is the SDP?” in Intelligence in Next Generation Networks: Beyond the Bit Pipes (Bordeaux, France, IEEE, 2009). 3. Carol Matlack and Marie Mawad, “Free’s Low Rates Rattle French Telecom Industry,” Bloomberg Businessweek, April 6, 2012, accessed August 8, 2012, www.businessweek.com/ articles/2012-04-06/frees-low-rates-rattles-french-telecom-industry. 4. Jim Dalrymple, “Yahoo! Acquires Konfabulator,” Macworld, July 25, 2012, accessed August 8, 2012, www.macworld.com/article/1046042/konfabulator.html. 5. “Konfabulator Consumer License Agreement,” Yahoo! Terms Center, February 27, 2012, accessed August 8, 2012, info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/konfabulator/enginenwidgets terms/enginenwidgetsterms-1821.html. 6. Noah Davis and Kamelia Angelova, “Time Spent on Facebook Is Growing at an Astonishing Rate,” Business Insider, September 26, 2011, accessed August 8, 2012, www.business insider.com/chart-of-the-day-time-spent-on-facebook-2011-9. 7. Mark Heynen, “A Better Mobile Experience for More People,” The Facebook Blog, January 19, 2011, accessed August 8, 2012, blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=483824142130. 8. Steve Jobs, “Thoughts on Flash,” Apple.com, April 2010, accessed August 8, 2012, www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash. 9. “Cross-Platform Developer Tools 2012,” VisionMobile, February 2012, accessed August 8, 2012, www.visionmobile.com/crossplatformtools.php. 10. Michael Vakulenko, “The Clash of Ecosystems,” VisionMobile, November 7, 2011, accessed August 8, 2012, www.visionmobile.com/blog/2011/11/new-report-mobile-platforms-theclash-of-ecosystems. 11. “What Is the Telco 2.0 Initiative?” STL Partners, 2012, accessed August 8, 2012, www.stl partners.com/telco2_index.php. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Personal communication with the author. 15. “Distimo Publication Full Year 2011,” accessed January 24, 2013, www.distimo.com/ publications. 16. “Mobile Value Added Services: The Next Wave,” PwC, 2011, accessed August 8, 2012, www.pwc.com/in/en/publications/publications-2011/mobile-value-added-services. jhtml. 17. Nikhil Pahwa, “Nokia Ovi Life Tools to Power Rural VAS for Tata DOCOMO; STK,” MediaNama, July 21, 2010, accessed August 8, 2012, www.medianama.com/2010/07/223nokia-ovi-life-tools-to-power-rural-vas-for-tata-docomo-stk. 18. Sher Singh, “What Is Airtel Money,” Information Ground, March 2012, accessed August 8, 2012, informationground.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-is-airtel-money.html. 19. William Jack and Tavneet Suri, “The Economics of M-PESA,” MIT Sloan, August 2010, accessed August 8, 2012, www.mit.edu/~tavneet/M-PESA.pdf. 20. “Marketing to the Mobile Shopper,” Leo Burnett Worldwide, March 18, 2011, accessed August 8, 2012, www.slideshare.net/LeoBurnettWorldwide/marketing-to-the-mobile-shopper. 21. “MCA—Missed Call Alert,” Mobile Arts, 2012, accessed August 8, 2012, mobilearts.com/ missed-call-alert. 22. Katell Henry, Qunkai Liu, and Severin Pasquereau, “Rich Communication Suite: A Convergent Multimedia Communication Service over IMS,” in Intelligence in Next Generation Networks: Beyond the Bit Pipes (Bordeaux, France, IEEE, 2009).

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23. “Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2011–2016,” Cisco, February 14, 2012, accessed August 8, 2012, www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-520862.html. 24. “Recognizing the Promise of Mobile Broadband,” UMTS Forum, July 2010, accessed August 8, 2012, www.umts-forum.org/component/option,com_docman/task,cat_view/gid,327/ Itemid,214/html. 25. Ibid. 26. David F. Carr, “Google Drive Arrives, at Last,” The Brainyard, April 24, 2012, accessed August 8, 2012, www.informationweek.com/thebrainyard/news/file_sharing/232900879/googledrive-arrives-at-last. 27. Nicholas Carlson, “Pinterest’s Hype Bubble Has Burst, and Now It Is Actually Losing Users,” Business Insider, April 20, 2012, accessed August 8, 2012, www.businessinsider.com/pinterestshype-bubble-has-burst-and-now-it-is-actually-losing-users-2012-4. 28. Michael Gorman, “AT&T Foundry Innovation Center Opens Its Doors in Palo Alto to Help Devs Do What They Do,” Engadget, September 15, 2011, accessed August 8, 2012, www.engadget.com/2011/09/15/atandt-foundry-innovation-center-opens-its-doors-inpalo-alto-to-h. 29. Michael Gorman, “Vodafone Xone R&D Center Opens Its Doors in Silicon Valley, Wants to Help Startups Grow,” Engadget, September 9, 2011, accessed August 8, 2012, www.engadget. com/2011/09/09/vodafone-xone-randd-center-opens-its-doors-in-silicon-valley-want. 30. Dino Londis, “Google Drive: Half-Baked Cloud, with Scary License,” Byte, April 27, 2012, accessed August 8, 2012, www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/storagememory/232901102. 31. Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell, Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything (New York, NY: Dutton, 2009).

C h a p t e r

Mobile Workforce: The Rise of the Mobilocracy iPass, Inc., Kate Blatt, and John Gallagher

Editors’ Note: This chapter addresses the opportunities and challenges created by the rise of the mobile workforce, whose members are now changing information technology (IT) roles and management policies in organisations. The workplace is now being shaped by the demands of the mobile workforce, and top managers and IT departments need to realign their device-provisioning practices and security policies. The chapter addresses how mobility can increase productivity while also raising concerns about intrusion into personal life. The chapter makes many useful recommendations for mobile workers and organisational leaders, such as capacity building to better harness mobile tools and devising more cost-effective pricing options. The chapter ends by identifying the “trivialisation of place” as a major consequence of increasing mobility in work.

Mobile and the Work–Life Balance e

Mobilocracy—mo•bil•oc•ra•cy (moh-buhl’kresI)—n. pl. mobilocracies 1) a powerful class of worker who relies on mobile devices for greater productivity; 2) the common worker, esp. as a mobile workforce—within corporations, as mobile employees’ behaviours and preferences increasingly play a larger role in IT decisions and directions. 275

1 5

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Over the past several years, we have seen the rapid increase in the number of mobile workers, causing a shift in power across the enterprise. We are now witnessing the rise of the mobilocracy, and the workplace is being shaped by the demands of the mobile workforce and not the dictates and controls of the information technology (IT) department. This movement is occurring across multiple industries and in nearly every company—large and small—around the globe. Mobile employees are clearly gaining visibility as a workforce and are now setting the rules and becoming the driving force behind mobile technology innovation. Research firm International Data Corporation (IDC)1 puts the total number of mobile workers at more than 1 billion and predicts that the world’s mobile worker population will grow to nearly 1.3 billion people—more than a third of the world’s workforce—by 2015. The lesson for companies competing today and in the future is that the mobile workforce is a factor to be reckoned with, and that in ignoring its demands, companies risk losing their competitive edge. Trained in the consumer world, today’s workforce is more technologysavvy than just a generation ago, and today’s workers are choosing the devices they find most productive. Bring your own device (BYOD)2 is the mantra of leading companies that have recognised that arming their employees with devices of choice is both cost-effective and productive, as employees expect to play an increasing role in technology decisions within their companies. This expectation is evident in the cloud computing market, where most buying decisions today are happening at the department level—shifting IT’s role toward service and away from being a command control center. As summed up by Gartner fellow Ken McGee, “Technology is no longer the preserve of the [chief information officer]. … It has become everyone’s property and everyone’s issue.”3 The typical mobile worker uses technology to blend work and life. They are multitaskers, doing meaningful work across borders, time zones, and locations. For this group, work is not conducted just at a desk, and the workday is no longer 9-to-5 in the office, as work–life boundaries are permeable. This work shifting—the ability to work when and where we want to—is forever changing the way we work, when we work, and where we work. Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said in an April 2012 interview with Makers, “There’s work, there’s life and there’s no balance!”4 Highly useful mobile devices in the form of smartphones and tablets that can connect to the cloud are convenient productivity tools that most mobile employees use for both work and personal business. A significant portion of the growth of smartphones and tablets is among mobile workers. It makes sense as they have the need and the discretionary income to buy this technology that supports their willingness to work anytime and anywhere.

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In fact, we found in our research at the Wi-Fi services firm iPass that the majority of mobile workers had a blended approach to mobile technology— they moved easily between work and personal activities on a single device.5 These convenient tools with 24-hour access to applications in the cloud have become a tether that helps create an on-demand, hyper-connected workforce—always at the ready to handle work or personal business. Mobile workers today work shifts around the clock. Virtually every employee with a smartphone checks it during downtime.6 When mobile workers wake up in the morning, 35 percent check email before anything else. Not only do we check email in the morning, 38 percent of us are working before our commute, 25 percent work during our commute, and 37 percent are working through lunch, each and every day. And we do not stop when we get home, either. For many mobile employees, work is a neverending cycle, with 37 percent working each evening.7

Profile of the Mobile Worker Highly Productive An on-demand workforce delivers huge benefits to the enterprise: increased workforce productivity, improved customer service, timelier crisis management, and improved day-to-day operations. It also enables employees to stay continually connected with their personal and professional communities to keep their skills and knowledge base up to date. But what is the impact on the employee? The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated the average U.S. employee workday at 8.8 hours in 2009,8 yet the average workday for mobile workers was 1 hour longer, closer to 10 hours a day.9 In fact, because of a flexible work schedule, more than half of mobile workers report that they work 10 or more additional hours a week, and 12 percent report that they work 20 or more additional hours a week. On average this adds 240 more hours per year, or 6 more productive weeks for each mobile employee every year. These hours are racked up daily, with 2 to 3 more hours of work at home each night, as well as additional hours on their commute. Those hours represent a tremendous change from just a few years ago. In addition to working more hours, these mobile workers feel more productive when their schedules are flexible, and their efficiency improves.10

Hyper-Connected Some mobile workers can be defined as hyper-connected (on call 24 hours a day, ready to check email or collaborate with a colleague in any time zone), and many are experiencing the downside of an always-on, alwaysconnected lifestyle. Surprisingly, nearly half of all mobile workers sleep with

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their smartphones within arm’s reach, and many exhibit the behaviours of the hyper-connected worker. Those who kept their smartphone close at hand at night were 60 percent more likely than the average mobile worker to wake up during the night to check their messages.

Married to the Smartphone Working more hours, waking in the middle of the night to check email, and obsessively checking smartphones—does all this impact our mental and physical health? Have mobile workers become addicted to their smartphones, and what are the health implications of being hyper-connected? More than half of mobile employees surveyed gave an emotional response when asked how they would feel if they went without their smartphones for a week, and the majority said they would have a negative emotional response. Moreover, 40 percent would feel disoriented, 34 percent would feel distraught, and 10 percent would feel lonely without their smartphone. Although most mobile workers described their health as good or excellent, 9 percent described their health as fair, poor, or unknown. However, most mobile employees saw their mobile work environment as contributing to their overall health. Nearly half saw a mobile work environment as positive to their overall health because of the flexibility of working when and where they chose. Conversely, 13 percent said this work style impacted their health negatively, because they were working all the time. Interestingly, when we looked at some of the pillars of good health—sleep and exercise—even mobile employees who described themselves as healthy were not getting enough of either. Studies show the average adult needs 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night, and many mobile workers average nearly 7 hours.11 However, one in four mobile workers did not sleep enough (less than 6 hours a night). Researchers from the University of Warwick, England, and the Federico II University medical school in Naples, Italy, analysed 16 studies12 that covered 1.3 million people. The studies found that people who got fewer than 6 hours of shut-eye per night were 12 percent more likely to die before the age of 65 years than people who got 6 to 8 hours of sleep a night. And one in three mobile workers claimed to get less sleep because of work. The Mayo Clinic recommends 75 to 150 minutes of exercise a week. Yet many mobile employees are not exercising at all. More than half of mobile workers exercised erratically or not at all. The majority cited work as the No. 1 reason they did not get as much exercise as they should. For those who never exercised, the No. 1 reason was that they did not have the time.

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The Work–Life Teeter-Totter We are clearly moving toward an increasingly hyper-connected workforce, but hyper-connected is not always a negative. The always-on, always-connected lifestyle can benefit the work–life balance. Because of work shifting, 64 percent of mobile employees felt they were better able to manage their workload and their personal commitments, and not surprisingly, more than half felt more relaxed as a result of this improved balance. Some people liked the flexibility of being able to work when and where they wanted to, and some people could not handle it. This is not a value judgment, but those that are waking five times a night to check their smartphone might need a little help! Just like the workaholics of old, there is a small group of mobile workers who are taking their mobility too far and finding that it negatively impacts their work–life balance. Late in 2011, iPass commissioned Carolyn Axtell, a leading academic at the Institute of Work Psychology, to investigate the well-being of the mobile workforce.13 In response to the question, “What can individuals and organisations do to overcome some of these ‘dark side’ challenges and maximise the ‘bright side’?” she offered a series of recommendations: Individuals: • Detach from work: Not thinking about work during off-job time is important as it helps to maintain employee well-being and work engagement. Engaging in hobbies or activities that require one’s full attention (e.g., playing a tennis match, learning to play a musical instrument, volunteer work) during off-job time can help people to detach and stop thinking about work and also help them develop a sense of achievement. Though thinking about the positive aspects of work during off-job time can be good for employee well-being, there is a need to block negative work-related thoughts. • Develop a strong work–home boundary: Creating a strong boundary between home and work can help to enhance detachment. It can also help to enhance an individual’s sense of control over off-job time, which can help to promote well-being. Tactics can be used such as blocking off family time and letting colleagues know your expectations for work-related communications outside work. Given that communications technologies (especially mobile ones) make it more difficult to mentally distance oneself from work, it would be beneficial to create a technological barrier between home and work by using tactics such as call filtering, separate email accounts for work and personal use, or not switching the computer on in the evening.

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• Relax: Take the time to relax and wind down before bed (e.g., through meditation, listening to music, muscle relaxation). When workers don’t relax after work, activation levels remain high, which makes it difficult for them to fall asleep. So introducing strategies to ensure relaxation and detachment from work can help to improve sleep quality and reduce levels of stress. Organisations: • Enhance employee control: Give employees more control over their work and allow them to have greater control over their off-job time. Providing a flexible work arrangement can in itself increase employees’ sense of control over when, where, and how they work, which in turn is likely to enhance their well-being. • Provide support to employees: Ensure that employees have the right resources to do their job and have the necessary support to overcome obstacles within their work, as this can help to protect them from the negative effects of work demands. Support might be instrumental (e.g., the right training and information to do their job) or emotional in nature (e.g., opportunities for catching up with colleagues and letting off steam). Allowing employees to receive both of these elements of support is important for employee well-being and performance. • Reduce expectations for long hours: People are less likely to detach from work if their colleagues and managers are working long hours and are expecting others to do the same. If an employee is trying to enjoy some family time, then receiving a phone call from the boss during such occasions is likely to reduce the employee’s feeling of control and lead to greater work–home conflict. Organisations should encourage employees to maintain a boundary between home and work and not work excessive hours.

Mobile in Organisations: Security and Risk Management Whom Do You Provision With Mobile Devices? All companies must grapple with the fact that not every employee gets a smartphone. It is not cost-effective, and corporate-liable devices are expensive. On average, companies are spending more than $120 per month for each mobile employee, yet the majority of mobile employees are unaware of how much their mobile connectivity is costing their employers. Our studies show that 43 percent of mobile enterprise workers have received a data roaming

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charge they felt was too high in the course of a year, experiencing bill shock of $1,089 on average.14 Most companies cannot provision all their employees with smartphones, so there is always going to be a population of technology have-nots. Today, 58 percent of companies provide smartphones to their employees, down from nearly two-thirds a year ago. Forty-two percent of employees have individually liable smartphones (i.e., they purchase and pay for their own devices). When a company does not provide a smartphone for an employee, the way the mobile worker uses a device is impacted directly. Employees who are not provided with a smartphone by their workplace are not likely to use their personal smartphone for work. Some companies allow personally owned devices to tap into the corporate network, and some do not. The real challenges arise when companies have an ambiguous smartphone policy. They lose productivity when their unprovisioned employees assume they cannot use their personal smartphone for work, and the companies risk security when the unprovisioned employees assume they can use their personal smartphone for work.

Obey the Rules and Take a Productivity Hit When companies forbid the use of personally owned smartphones for work, they lose out on hours of potential productivity—to the tune of 6 more weeks of work each year for each employee. An on-demand workforce offers huge advantages, even within the lowest levels of the organisation. To see the real impact of an immobile workforce, you need to look only as far as inclement weather or, worse, a disaster. The January 1996 blizzard in the U.S. produced the most weather-related absences ever recorded by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “with 10.1 percent of workers (or about 12.5 million) affected.”15 Considering that mobile workers work more hours than other workers on average, denying access to basic mobility services can have a direct impact on the company’s bottom line.

Employees Do Not Always Obey the Rules Nearly 90 percent of mobile employees who were not provisioned a smartphone by their companies used their private smartphones for work. When employees use personal devices for work, they often unknowingly open their companies’ confidential business data to certain risks. Considering that an estimated 70 percent of corporate data now lies on mobile devices (which the IT department may not be aware of), enterprises are exposed to a significant amount of risk. At companies with a stricter smartphone policy (i.e., those that had standardised on only one smartphone operating system), one in five mobile

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employees used a smartphone for work outside the corporate policy—even though those companies were much more likely to pay for their employees’ smartphones.

Incidents of a Security Issue For companies with no stated smartphone policy, the use of private smartphones for work could become a major problem. Consider that 21 percent of mobile employees we recently surveyed had already experienced a relevant security issue, and younger workers were nearly three times more likely than mobile workers 55 to 64 years old to have had a smartphone with business data on it lost or stolen. Security experts point to lost or stolen smartphones as the enterprise’s biggest security risk, especially if employees do not report the loss to their companies so that corporate data can be remotely wiped. Because employees 22 to 34 years old are more likely than others to use a non-company smartphone, its loss or theft is a significant security problem for many companies.

Bring Your Own Device The BYOD practice carries less risk in companies that have created policies regarding smartphone use (for example, remote wipe if a pass code is entered incorrectly five times). IDC predicts that by 2013, more than 56 percent of corporate mobile devices will be individual-liable devices.16 When creating a mobility strategy, you may need to consider balancing risk and reward, friction and productivity, security, and costs. When a company like IBM, with 440,000 employees, declares that the rollout of a BYOD initiative is one of its most pressing priorities, a precedent is set that BYOD can bring more benefits to a company than headaches for its IT department. IBM chief information officer Jeanette Horan said in a 2012 interview, “If we didn’t support [employees], we figured they would figure out how to support [the devices] themselves. … They will find the most appropriate tool to get their job done. I want to make sure I can enable them to do that, but in a way that safeguards the integrity of our business.”17

Liability in the Mobile Workspace Today’s enterprises have already learned how to deal with the complexities of their mobile employees and the information carried in their laptop computers. After all, the information in those laptops is confidential and owned by the corporation. Those same complexities—and many more—now arise from the employees’ use of smartphones. Often, the data in a smartphone is just as sensitive and critical to the company as the data in its computers. Issues of

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security, compliance, legality, trust, and of course cost all need to be addressed within the enterprise mobility strategy. All of these issues give rise to the biggest question of all—who should own the enterprise smartphone—the employee or the corporation? Smartphone use among U.S.-based information workers is expected to triple by 2013, according to Forrester Research.18 It seems that the decisions and strategies surrounding the control and ownership of these devices should be made sooner rather than later. The cost of ownership is perhaps the easiest aspect to calculate. It might seem that just reimbursing employees a flat percentage of the bill from their own phone would be a quick and easy way to go. But there are hidden costs to consider, including the support costs of accounting, billing, and asset management and of controlling things such as overseas data roaming charges. Many of us have heard the data roaming horror stories of bills that soar into the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars, euros, or pounds. It happens more often than companies like to admit. Using Wi-Fi as an alternative or complement to cellular networks can help corporations bring down the cost of network access, which will be a significant expense as more employees go globally mobile.19 Today, half the smartphones in use in U.S. and Canadian businesses are not company-issued equipment.20 Most companies are still grappling with the question of who should be liable for devices. There are still many unanswered questions and hidden trapdoors, including, What is meant by liability? What are the legal aspects that must be considered? How can I start to build a strategy that is meaningful and balances the needs of both the company and the employee?

What Is Meant by Liability? Many types of liability are associated with owning and using a smartphone, including financial, regulatory, compliance, privacy, and legal liability. Financial liability is perhaps the easiest to understand. It would seem obvious that paying for individual-liable carrier plans would be the responsibility of the employee. But what if the employee racks up a $5,000 data roaming bill on a business trip abroad? And what if that employee uses a corporate-liable phone to conduct an illegal activity with large financial consequences? Financial services and medical companies have very stringent regulations that must be followed to protect private data because its misuse could have severe financial and legal ramifications. Many of these companies require all corporate data to go through company-issued computers (and not smartphones) that have elaborate encryption and data protection mechanisms.

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But privacy can have another definition. How about protection of employeeowned information that resides on a corporate-liable smartphone? Does the employer have the right to look at all the data on the phone they own?

Legal Aspects of Data Ownership and Control When it comes to smartphones, legal clarity about what a company can and cannot control is distinctly lacking. With case law lagging behind technology, how do companies factor legal issues into the equation when they consider who should own the smartphone? Some generally accepted practices are starting to emerge. Corporate email messages and company data are owned by the company, regardless of where these files reside. The company has unrestricted access to the information and can set usage policies that must be adhered to by the employee. The problem is multiplied, however, if your company is an international firm, because in some places, such as Japan, Canada, and the members of the European Union, all email is regarded as private to employees if it was authored by them.

Start With a Well-Thought-Out Strategy There are too many variables in the equation to go about randomly managing your policy for smartphones. At the core, you need to define your strategy up front. What are the business goals you want to accomplish? How do you balance the needs of both the employee and the company? Because every function and level of a company—not just your sales and marketing road warriors—is affected by this plan, the strategy must be well thought out. Segmentation of user types is generally the first step of the strategy. Dividing information workers into several groups based on how their mobile enablement benefits the company is a useful first step in formulating a strategy: • Those who use the most sensitive data get company-paid, companymanaged smartphones. • Those who work extensively away from their desks receive subsidies for most or all of their personal smartphone charges. • Those who work away from their desks occasionally receive a partial subsidy for their personal smartphone use. • Those who rarely work away from their desks receive no subsidy, and you may consider locking their smartphones out of your systems altogether.

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According to Forrester, companies should stop treating smartphone management as an IT policing issue and instead treat it as a business riskmanagement question.21 More and more companies are already starting to make this shift in their thinking. A balance needs to be found between issuing smartphones as a management tool controlled by the IT department and letting a certain subset of employees own the responsibility for their own devices. That balance point will vary for every company. By 2015, more workers will have smartphones than cell phones. Terms such as mobile worker, telecommuter, work–life balance, cloud, software as a service, and social media will seem antiquated. That is because virtually all employees will be mobile workers, working anytime, anywhere. Their work–life ratio will be more an issue of integration than of balance. The majority of applications will be available in the cloud (both public and private), SaaS (software as a service) will be common, and social media will become an integral part of the fabric of our being. At iPass, we believe the mobile stack is the new unit of computing: the trinity of smartphone, tablet, and laptop. Corporate and personal data will be stored in both private and public clouds. This is now a very challenging area that needs to evolve, along with management of authentication and authorisation. This new framework of computing is being established as the standard by virtue of the increasing availability of affordably priced devices. A majority of IT professionals today feel they are losing control of the mobile landscape. Our survey found that 41 percent of IT managers believed they had less control over their employees’ choice of devices than a year ago, and 37 percent felt their degree of control was about the same. Just one in five (21 percent) stated that they had increased control over their employees’ mobile choices.22 But IT departments are becoming more responsive to mobile employee demands, with 47 percent of enterprises recently changing corporate guidelines regarding non–IT-managed devices. This trend has helped accommodate the introduction of the iPad, Android tablets, and smartphones. By company size, 42 percent of small to medium-sized enterprises and 51 percent of large enterprises had changed their policies regarding non–IT-managed devices. Overall, 73 percent of enterprises were allowing non–IT-managed devices to access corporate resources, while 26 percent did not allow non–IT-managed devices. Based on company size, 82 percent of small to medium-sized enterprises and 66 percent of large enterprises allowed non–IT-managed devices to access corporate resources.23 IT departments are working to gain control over mobility spending but losing control over device choices. They recognise the importance of updated policies and strategies, yet many do not have the resources or priorities in place to address them. Security and device support (including for executives)

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are the hot buttons for IT departments. Rising costs and the requirement to manage multiple carriers and many device choices keep getting in the way. Can the IT people ever just take a breath and get their arms around it all?

Recommendations for Mobile Organisations The following recommendations are offered to help mobile organisations move forward in key areas: The Mobile Stack: • The mobile stack (smartphone, tablet, and laptop) is the new unit of computing. Provide every laptop with a monitor, wireless mouse, and keyboard so that the laptop can be easily used as a desktop computer when the worker is in the office. • Tablet usage will continue to expand to the point that nearly every mobile worker will ask for one. If your company does not support or provide tablets, you need to spend time understanding how they are used and how they are evolving to meet the needs of your employees. • For IT departments, there is a big difference between “supporting a device” and “provisioning a device.” Devices that are rapidly losing market share (including the BlackBerry) should be expeditiously moved from “provision” to “support already existing.” The mobile device market is reasonably efficient. When sales of a device are falling, there is quite likely a newer device that is more useful and less costly. • Recognising that tablet and smartphone use will always include some personal use is good. Keeping employees in touch with their families with a quick email from the tablet is healthy and will encourage those employees to always carry the device, making them available for quick responses to corporate needs as well. Social media and informal networking are becoming valuable business tools that give employees easy access to more sources of information and resources. Education: • For large-volume, heavily supported devices, consider sending IT employees to “school” at the device manufacturers’ training sessions. Knowledge and relationships with service personnel at the manufacturer will reap continuing rewards. The training can also be replicated internally as IT departments increasingly enter the education business.

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• Educate employees about mobile security vulnerabilities, while expeditiously moving to correct issues. A good eye-opener for the careless will minimise recurring problems. This education function not only gives the IT department more visibility within a company but also helps it become the champion! Policies: • When you have the right security and management policies in place, it becomes OK to give employees choices in mobility devices. • Proactively show sales and field personnel, who have all the hassles of business travel, how to save time (e.g., new forms, tools, automatic downloads, integrated applications), and they will be your friends forever. These employees may have the reputation of being “difficult,” but a responsive IT team can change the relationship. • Producing troubleshooting FAQs, fact sheets, manuals, and other tools for typical mobility problems will make employees even more self-reliant, simultaneously avoiding the typical trapdoors that pull the IT department in on easily solvable problems. • Update mobility manuals and policies routinely. Assigning the IT employees to the update project as a good way to get them quickly up to date on company issues and policies. Also get users on the committee to update the manual as a way of promoting inclusion. • Even in organisations that support corporate-liable and employeeliable devices, there should be consistency in the policies. Employees should easily understand the expectations for data security, regardless of the device type and who owns it. It is perfectly acceptable to allow less access on an employee-liable device than on a corporate-liable one; just be aware of the productivity loss if access from employeeliable devices is limited or eliminated altogether. Costs: • Consider allowing “employee-pay” and “company-reimburse” policies for employees who can obtain large discounts for their combinationcarrier plans. These savings can be passed along to the company. However, IT departments should be warned if the cost savings are passed solely to the employee. If the cost of mobility increases, there is a chance that employees will use the device less for work, limiting productivity gains. For that reason alone, consider a stipend or reimbursement policy for employee-liable devices.

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• Reduce the number of carriers if possible. You have a better chance of cutting a good deal if you tout “consolidation for cost reduction.” Consolidating cuts costs, reduces overhead and the number of bills to manage, and makes employee education easier. Look for carriers that have Wi-Fi offload capabilities and providers with Wi-Fi data roaming solutions.

The Road Ahead: Trends and Scenarios Faster Networks Will Be Provided as Premium Services Today’s news outlets and blogs are filled with stories about the new iPad, iPhone, and Android devices inundating the workplace, brought in initially as personal devices by employees and executives. Although these new mobile devices may be getting the majority of attention from the press these days, they are relatively inexpensive. It is the networks that are expensive and show no signs of becoming cheaper. The 3G all-you-can-eat buffet is clearly over. As telecom carriers move to à la carte plans, employees and their companies will become much more cognizant of which type of network they connect their device to and how much it costs, regardless of where liability rests.

BYOD Will Become Standard With the prevalence of network connectivity in the home and the abundance of highly useful mobile devices and mobile applications, the liability debate will reach some resolution for most companies. In the next several years, there will be a shift in mobile device liability. Companies will endorse a BYOD policy because of the huge pool of untapped and cheap technology, willing employees, and the huge productivity gains to be had.

Security Will Get a Makeover With a trend toward BYOD, enterprise security will get a significant makeover. For the IT department, the old security model of building a moat around the data center has broken down. The IT department can no longer enforce a safe perimeter around the company’s employees and digital assets. A shift from securing each individual system to securing the data—much of it already residing in public and private clouds—will take place very quickly. One of the industry’s little secrets is that these new smartphone and tablet devices are much more secure than the laptops of yesterday. Many mobile devices are better at security by design. Some already come with a “kill and wipe” function right out of the box. But all mobile devices—including the iPhone and BlackBerry—will become more secure as they evolve. We are

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going to have to rethink security, and the old model of having to put hundreds of dollars or euros of software on a PC will not work in the mobilocracy. Considering that an estimated 70 percent of corporate data now sits on mobile devices,24 IT will need to adopt mobile strategies that bring the unprovisioned—regardless of generation—into the fold. IT staff will find that employees are less of a security risk but more likely to use their own smartphones to get their jobs done—a win-win for everyone.

The Trivialisation of Place Another key trend in mobility is referred to as the trivialisation of place. Where someone works is becoming unimportant. What matters now is that these workers are connected and get their work done, no matter where they are physically located. Work is something people do, not somewhere they go. We believe that where people work will matter less and less as time goes on. For numerous reasons—from improved productivity to decreased carbon footprint and reduced office expenditure—a workforce that works anywhere and anytime is a boon to business. With multiple devices and networks available, physical place is no longer important, but “location” is. You see people working out of communal locations that combine the best elements of a coffee shop (social, energetic, creative) and a collaborative workspace (productive, functional) to give workers their own affordable space. And there certainly are enough chain store coffee shops around the world to serve as a viable work destination for the rest of us!

Social Boundaries Are Being Redefined Today’s mobile users are redefining the traditional social boundaries. When do you disconnect … or do you? This is very evident in our personal lives. For example, one mobile employee we know switched from a Kindle as a book reader to an iPad because the iPad has a backlit screen. Now he can read it at night in bed while his wife is sleeping. The downside is that his email comes in while he is reading, and he checks it more frequently. So he is now available for work anytime, even when he is trying to escape into a good book or magazine. That can happen with all of our devices. We have seen the headlines “Attached to Technology and Paying a Price” and “Always-On Technology: Are We Adapting or Losing?” The death of technology-free time is indeed the case. The majority of mobile employees never completely disconnect from technology, even during vacation. Mobile employees will need to develop coping strategies to deal with hyperconnectivity and the increasing demands for their attention. Most will find a way to redefine their own social boundaries between work and personal time. For some, this lesson will not be without personal costs to families, health, and

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sanity. But mobile workers will adapt on their own—or perhaps with the help of a professional program. Now that we have peered into the future, we need a modus operandi to navigate the present. First and foremost, you should foster a culture of mobility within your company. This culture can help you drive competitive advantage for your business, engage with your customers in unprecedented new ways, and make your company a more attractive place. The leading-edge faction of the workforce is about to become the rule. As we see powerful new devices and mobile apps proliferate and connectivity improve, the design criteria for enterprises and service providers will need to evolve. This requires that you engage your mobile employees in the decisionmaking process and instill well thought-out policies that meet your business requirements as well as your employees’ needs.

Conclusion: Three New Rules for Creating a Culture of Mobility Rule 1: Use mobility to drive competitive advantage. At every company, there is a population of workers with a personal smartphone that the employee pays for. Whether these workers use it for work or solely for personal reasons is up to their employer. The policies that you have in place will make the difference. While you cannot provide every employee with a smartphone, you can take advantage of the technology that is already deployed across your workforce. Look for ways to educate your employees about how to use their personal devices with company systems in ways that align with best practices for security and privacy. Help your employees be more productive by providing applications and other resources, encouraging use that meets your policies. Rule 2: Engage your customers in novel ways. With mobility comes the concept of on demand. Most mobile workers routinely check their email before they do anything else in the morning. The external customer orientation that comes from being always available to your customers is extremely powerful. The more tools that are accessible in the cloud, making your workforce more mobile, the better your workforce can serve customers quickly and on the go. If customers feel that they are listened to and responded to in a timely manner, they will become more patient and often stronger promoters of your brand. Rule 3: Make your company an attractive place for the mobilocracy to work. A huge enterprise advantage is created by an interested and technology-savvy workforce. The rise of the mobilocracy means that mobile employees will expect to be involved with company mobility decisions that affect their lives, and device selection will become highly personal. They will also provide ideas

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and insights into better applications for the enterprise and will appreciate a company that gives them that opportunity. In a more open environment, mobile workers will be more open to policies, information, and training that help make their devices and their mobility more secure and cost effective, and thus the mobile workforce becomes an even greater company asset. The mobile worker is now in charge. These individuals will define the next wave of mobile and cloud innovation and recast the work environment to better meet their needs. If you serve the mobilocracy well, mobile workers will redefine your business productivity and processes; work when, where, and how they want; and use the best tools to get the job done.

Endnotes 1. “Mobile Worker Population to Reach 1.3 Billion by 2015, According to IDC,” IDC, January 5, 2012, accessed August 9, 2012, www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23251912. 2. “Bring Your Own Device,” Wikipedia, August 9, 2012, accessed August 9, 2012, en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Bring_your_own_device. 3. “Gartner Identifies Seven Major Projects CIOs Should Consider During the Next Three Years,” Gartner, November 9, 2010, accessed August 9, 2012, www.gartner.com/it/page. jsp?id=1465614. 4. Sheryl Sandberg, “Leaving Work at 5:30 PM,” video, Makers, 2012, accessed August 9, 2012, www.makers.com/sheryl-sandberg/moments/leaving-work-530pm. 5. “iPass Global Mobile Workforce Report: Understanding Mobility Trends and Mobile Usage Among Users,” iPass, 2012 (Q2), accessed August 9, 2012, mobile-workforceproject.ipass.com. 6. As of 2011, 91 percent of mobile workers checked their smartphone during downtime. “iPass Global Mobile Workforce Report: Understanding Enterprise Mobility Trends and Mobile Usage,” iPass, 2011 (Q2), accessed August 9, 2012, www3.ipass.com/wpcontent/uploads/2011/05/iPass_MWR_Q2_2011.pdf. 7. “iPass Global Mobile Workforce Report: Q3 2012: Understanding Enterprise Mobility Trends and Mobile Usage,” iPass, 2011 (Q2), accessed January 16, 2013, www.ipass.com/wp-content/ uploads/2011/05/iPass_MWR_Q2_2011.pdf. 8. “American Time Use Survey,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 22, 2010, accessed August 9, 2012, www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm. 9. “iPass Global Mobile Workforce Report: Understanding Enterprise Mobility Trends and Mobile Usage,” iPass, 2011 (Q4), accessed August 9, 2012, mobile-workforce-project.ipass. com/reports/q4-report-2011. 10. “iPass Global Mobile Workforce Report: Q3 2012: Understanding Enterprise Mobility Trends and Mobile Usage,” iPass, 2010 (Q2), accessed January 16, 2013, www.ipass.com/wp-content/ uploads/2010/05/Mobile-Workforce-Report-052010.pdf. 11. “How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?,” National Sleep Foundation, accessed December 13, 2012, www.sleepfoundation.org/article/how-sleep-works/how-much-sleep-do-we-reallyneed. 12. Francesco P. Cappuccio, Lanfranco D’Elia, Pasquale Strazzullo, and Michelle A. Miller, “Sleep Duration and All-Cause Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies,” Sleep 33, no. 5 (May 2010). 13. Carolyn Axtell, “The Well-Being of the Mobile Workforce,” iPass, December 8, 2011, accessed August 9, 2012, mobile-workforce-project.ipass.com/reports/well-being-report.

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14. “iPass Global Mobile Workforce Report: Q3 2012: Understanding Global Mobility Trends and Mobile Device Usage Among Business Users,” iPass, 2012 (Q3), accessed January 16, 2013, mobile-workforce-project.ipass.com/reports/q3-report-2012. 15. “Issues in Labor Statistics,” U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Summary 12-1/February 2012, http://www.bls.gov/opub/ils/pdf/opbils90.pdf. 16. IDC, “Worldwide Business Use Converged Mobile Device 2009–2013 Forecast and Analysis,” June 2009, accessed January 16, 2013, www.reportbuyer.com/telecoms/mobile_markets/ worldwide_business_use_converged_mobile_device_2009n2013_forecast_analysis. html. 17. Chris Kanaracus, “IBM CIO Discusses Big Blue’s BYOD Strategy,” March 27, 2012, accessed January 16, 2013, www.networksasia.net. 18. Galen Gruman, “Who Should Own Your Smartphones?,” March 24, 2010, accessed January 16, 2013, www.cio.com.au/article/340739/who_should_own_your_smartphones. 19. Kevin J. O’Brien, “Proposal for EU Roaming Fees Includes Global Cap,” NYTimes.com, February 12, 2012, accessed August 9, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/technology/ proposal-for-eu-roaming-fees-includes-global-cap.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all. 20. Cody Barbierri, “Smartphone Usage Continues to Grow in U.S., According to Forrester Research,” VentureBeat, January 15, 2010, accessed August 9, 2012, venturebeat.com/2010/ 01/05/smartphone-usage-continues-to-grows-in-us-according-to-forrester-research. 21. Ibid. 22. “iPass Global Mobile Workforce Report: Q3 2012: Understanding Enterprise Mobility Trends and Mobile Usage,” iPass, 2011 (Q4), accessed January 16, 2013, mobile-workforce-project. ipass.com/cpwp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/iPass_Mobile_Enterprise_Report_2011.pdf. 23. “iPass Global Mobile Workforce Report: Q3 2012: Understanding Enterprise Mobility Trends and Mobile Usage,” iPass, 2011 (Q4), accessed January 16, 2013, mobile-workforce-project. ipass.com/cpwp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/iPass_Mobile_Enterprise_Report_2011.pdf. 24. Sean Ryan, “Worldwide Mobile Security 2009–2013 Forecast and Analysis,” IDC, April 2009, accessed January 16, 2013, books.boatdesign.net/bookstore/books.cgi?Operation=Item Lookup&ItemId=B002N8B4RK&locale=us.

C h a p t e r

1 6

The Role of Mobile Social Media in Enterprises Tobias Brockmann and Stefan Stieglitz

Editors’ Note: This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the convergence between social media and mobile media, particularly in the enterprise context. Business-to-consumer (B2C) and businessto-employee (B2E) uses are highlighted, for activities ranging from customer communication to employee collaboration. A range of innovative enterprise apps and mobile services is emerging, and technologies such as long-term evolution (LTE) and near field communication (NFC) will offer more powerful features to smartphones. But the risks to the corporate chief information officer (CIO) also increase (e.g., via theft of corporate data on stolen devices, malware on mobiles). The chapter concludes with concrete recommendations for CIOs with respect to organisational guidelines for social media, as well as security practices for mobile devices. The increasing diffusion of smartphones and mobile social media (MSM) affects not just citizens and consumers but also organisations such as enterprises. Companies may adopt MSM to communicate with customers (business to customer, or B2C), such as by using location-based services for advertisement management. Furthermore, companies may provide MSM to their own employees (business to employee, or B2E) to improve knowledge management and to accelerate workflow processes. This chapter examines the potential impacts of MSM and the future of its capabilities with regard to business value for enterprises. Based on this assessment, the prevailing and future usage of MSM in enterprises is described, as well as legal and privacy issues of MSM use. The chapter ends with recommendations for enterprise managers and policymakers. 293

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In recent years, social media networks have attracted millions of users. Based on their approach of enabling participants to create user-generated content, huge amounts of data have been created on social media platforms. Typical classes of social media are wikis, blogs, and discussion forums, but there are also newer platforms, such as social network sites (e.g., Facebook and Google+), microblogging (e.g., Twitter), and content-sharing communities (e.g., YouTube and Flickr; Ceyp and Scupin 2011). Additionally, social business platforms can be created to integrate several of these functionalities and can be set up as internal collaboration instruments in enterprises (e.g., Yammer, Lotus Connections, Jive). Social media have been heavily used by individuals and communities, but enterprises have only recently started to explore the potential of social media to increase business value. Several problems arise when companies attempt to adopt social media. For enterprises, it is challenging to identify promising use cases and to manage the processes of adoption, operation, and monitoring social media (Lugano 2007). As an additional important development, mobile technologies achieved a high degree of maturity within the last years. Mobile internet access is available ubiquitously and at low costs. Smartphones are equipped with multiple communication interfaces, which provide a potential interconnectedness for various applications (e.g., access to web-based social networks such as Facebook or Twitter or mobile community services) (Stieglitz and Brockmann 2012). In most cases, the underlying networks depend on centralised infrastructures that are bound to stationary devices, such as access points and cellular mobile radios. In recent years, mobile phone applications (services that can be downloaded from app markets such as the iTunes or Android market) have accelerated the diffusion of mobile networks and related concepts. According to a ComScore study conducted in 2010, access to Facebook via mobile browser grew by 112 percent in the preceding year, while Twitter experienced an increase of 347 percent (“Facebook and Twitter Access via Mobile” 2010). This means that about 25.1 million mobile users accessed Facebook and 4.7 million users accessed Twitter via their mobile browser. More than 30 percent of smartphone owners access social networking sites via mobile browser. By comparison, only 6.8 percent of featurephone users accessed social networking sites from their mobile phones. These figures do not include access of the social networking services by nearly 6 million mobile phone owners who do so exclusively through mobile applications (“Facebook and Twitter Access via Mobile” 2010). In a social media study by Burson-Marsteller within Fortune 100 enterprises, it was found that 88 percent of those companies actively use at least one type of social medium. Companies not only aim at customer communication (external perspective) but also internal communication among their

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employees. Considering the accelerating diffusion of smartphones, it can be assumed that this development will be emphasised in the near future. According to a study by Ovum, nine out of 10 companies plan to equip their employees with smartphones in the coming years. According to the 2012 Gartner chief information officer (CIO) report, organisational aspects of mobile work have become a focal point of interest (McDonald and Aron 2012). The report points out that CIOs plan to spend most of their budget on mobile technologies in the near future. Furthermore, Forrester Research drew similar conclusions in its report titled “Mobile Is the New Face of Engagement,” in which it predicts a billion smartphones by 2016, of which approximately 350 million will be owned by employees, and 200 million of employees will bring their own device into the company (Schadler and McCarthy 2012).

Social Media Become Mobile Background The term Web 2.0 was coined by Tim O’Reilly in 2003. The so-called participatory internet enables users to connect to each other and to create and share content (O’Reilley 2005). Based on this, the internet changed significantly and now does not only provide static content but also dynamic usergenerated content powered by social media. One reason for social media usage lies in the concept of self-presentation and self-disclosure (Goffman 1959; Schau and Gilly 2003), which states that people are willing to reveal information about themselves if the information is consistent with the way they would like to be seen by others. A second reason can be found in the concept of ambient awareness; that is, awareness created through regular and constant reception, and/or exchange of information fragments through social media (Kaplan 2012). The term social media is defined by Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein (2010) as follows: Social Media is a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content. (61) Traditional social media applications are accessible via web browsers. Along with the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, the concept of mobile applications (apps) was introduced and massively extended the potential of mobile devices. The number of downloaded apps has been increasing

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steadily (e.g., 25 billion downloads worldwide in Apple’s App Store in February 2012). There are millions of apps, which support a wide and heterogeneous spectrum of functionalities. In fact, among the most frequently used types of mobile apps are those that allow users to access social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare). In fact, 350 million people (44 percent of all Facebook users) access Facebook through their mobile devices, and they generate one-third of the total traffic (“Facebook Is Looking” 2011). Ajit Jaokar (2006) defines MSM as follows: Mobile Social Media extends the principle of “Harnessing Collective Intelligence” to restricted devices. A more detailed definition is provided by Giuseppe Lugano (2008): A class of mobile applications whose scope is to support social interaction among interconnected individuals … exploiting the media convergence process and the increasing power of mobile devices to offer a variety of services. Generally, MSM are especially amplified by the use of mobile apps, which provide social media functionalities to mobile devices such as tablets or smartphones. Smartphones have smaller screens, and they are less convenient to use than are web-based desktop applications. Thus the question is, What is the reason for the triumphal procession of MSM? To answer this question, it is helpful to consider the genuine advantages of mobile devices (Rügge 2007): • Mobile devices can be used while in motion. • Mobile devices allow hands-free use (e.g., voice activation features). • Mobile devices feature motion sensors, distance sensors, or other sensors for the detection of the physical environment. • Mobile devices are able to push information without the interaction of the user. • Mobile devices are always on. Smartphones usually offer permanent access to the internet via the global system for mobile communications, the universal mobile telecommunications system, and increasingly, long-term evolution (LTE) networks. They are equipped with additional features, such as cameras, a GPS, or a compass. These features, as well as the genuine advantages of mobile devices, deliver additional benefits for the design of MSM applications (Rheingold 2002). For

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instance, a picture could be taken with a smartphone, the location identified by the GPS, and both immediately uploaded to a social network (Juhlin 2011). Because of this, information can be processed quickly and independent of location (Picoto, Palma-Dos-Reis, and Belanger 2010). The ubiquitous access to social media abets the usage of social media because user-generated content can be created faster, more comfortably, and in high and detailed quality, which raises the frequency of use of MSM (Koch 2011). Therefore, it can be stated that mobile devices are a key factor for the success of social media. On one hand, the genuine advantages of MSM (hands free, usage in motion, and always on) enable time-sensitive use. Concerning the motives of general social media use (self-presentation, self-disclosure, awareness confirmation), a major aspect is to share or react to information as soon as possible (Kaplan 2012). On the other hand, the location-independent availability of mobile internet and the GPS-sensor provides ubiquitous use as well as the disposal of location data, increases the diffusion speed of information, and enriches the information with context-sensitive data.

MSM User Types According to Kaplan (2012), MSM users can be differentiated with the concepts of time sensitivity and location sensitivity (Table 16.1): 1. Quick timers use MSM to transfer traditional social media to mobile devices in order to increase immediacy (e.g., posting Twitter messages or Facebook status updates). 2. Space timers use MSM to share messages about their specific location at a specific point of time (e.g., via Facebook Places, Foursquare, or Gowalla). 3. Slow timers use social media that are not time- and location-sensitive, described as the transfer of traditional social media applications to mobile devices (e.g., YouTube or Wikipedia). 4. Space locators share location-based messages that are tagged to a certain place and may later be read by others. (e.g., Yelp or Qype). Considering this, MSM seem to have the potential to open new ways of customer communications and process execution for enterprises. For example, marketing messages may be distributed that are relevant only for specific locations and/or time periods.

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Table 16.1

Classification of Mobile Social Media Users

Types of MSM MSM describe a large and heterogeneous group of services. Accordingly, they may provide various opportunities for enterprises. These services can be differentiated on the basis of their conceptual design as well as their technical architecture (Stieglitz and Fuchß 2011). Here, we will present different types of MSM. Later in this chapter, we refer to these types of MSM and discuss their possibilities for enterprises.

Conceptual Design In recent years, the mobile web evolved from proprietary mobile technologies and networks to full mobile access to the internet. Based on this development, two general types of mobile social networks can be differentiated: 1) web-based social networks extended for mobile access through mobile browsers and smartphone apps and 2) native mobile social networks that require mobile devices and technology and have a dedicated focus on mobile use; examples include mobile communication, location-based services, and augmented reality (AR). However, mobile and web-based social networking systems often are linked to spread content, increase accessibility, and connect users wherever they are. Mobile Access to Web-Based Social Networks Popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, or Yammer allow users to access their accounts via mobile devices. They often provide mobile apps for several operational systems, as well as access via mobile web browser, enabling users to share ad hoc information as well as location-based information. Studies show that mobile access is a driver for these social networks because users tend to share more information and log in several times a day (e.g., while waiting). From the point of view of enterprises, these services may

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be useful in providing employees with continuous access to enterprise resources (e.g., an internal implementation of Yammer). Mobile Social Networks When we think of social networks, we usually think of popular platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. With the rise in use of mobile devices, some social networks have been designed only for mobile users and have little (or no) web-based component. However, many of these mobile social networks are available only for certain types of mobile operating systems (e.g., Android or iOS). Despite these limitations, some mobile social networks gained great popularity and large numbers of users (Tasch and Bakel 2004): • Aka Aki automatically notifies users when any other subscribers are nearby. Furthermore, users are able to link with friends and to publish personal profiles. • Instagram is one of the most popular social networks (with more than 14 million users already). It offers filters, blur effects, and the ability to share images with more traditional social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. Additionally, users can geotag photos and integrate another mobile social network, Foursquare, to add context about the photo when it is shared. • Foursquare is a mobile social network that is available for a variety of mobile platforms (e.g., iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows phone). It allows users to “check in” at a specific place such as a store, park, office, or other location. By checking in, users share their location with Foursquare friends or with friends on Facebook or Twitter.

Technicality From the technical perspective, two architectures of MSM have to be considered: 1) centralised systems, which rely on a stationary infrastructure, and 2) mobile ad hoc networks (MANETS), which are based on a direct connection among mobile devices (e.g., via Bluetooth). Centralised Systems Nowadays, simple mobile phones, as well as smartphones, provide multiple communication interfaces, giving users a wide spectrum of interconnectedness for various applications. However, in most cases, the underlying networks depend on infrastructures that are bound to stationary devices, such as access points, cellular mobile radios, or providers who regulate access to the internet and to the traffic control. Based on increasing amounts of potential data volume transmission, lower prices, and flat-rate price models, centralised systems have become more attractive, within the past few years, than

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MANETs. Currently, most mobile social networks are based on this type of architecture because of its stability and performance, as well as its minimal technical challenges. Mobile Ad Hoc Networks MANETs allow direct data exchange among mobile devices without the need for a centralised service unit. These services are enabled on transmission standards such as Bluetooth and follow store-and-forward principles (Xu, Hong, and Gerla 2003). However, through the increase of mobile phone applications in recent years, it seems that centralised services crowd out decentralised approaches in the market. Research in the field of MANETs suggests that beneficial message communication can be introduced for an ad hoc network and serve many specialised applications. These applications need to be designed to rely on asynchronous message passing, so-called time-shifted message propagation. MANETs allow a fast diffusion of messages in dense networks within a given number of hops, which might be interesting for specific business cases (e.g., using a MANET as a communication infrastructure during conferences or at a university campus; Stieglitz and Fuchß 2011).

Value of MSM for Enterprises MSM generate value for enterprises through different scenarios (Makinen and Luukkainen 2009). On one hand, MSM can be used for internal purposes (B2E). One, for example, is enhancing the communication and information flow among employees, especially for the mobile workforce. On the other hand, enterprises can adopt mobile social services for external use (B2C). Major fields for external use are m-advertising and m-commerce (Kaplan 2012). The external perspective mainly focuses on increasing sales and communication with customers. Aside from the external and internal direction of usage, different scenarios of MSM adoption are relevant to classify values. Table 16.2 provides a classification scheme of MSM values.

Value of the Internal Adoption of MSM (B2E) Information The speed of information diffusion in social media is rather higher than in traditional communication media. The use of MSM may support the information flow. Enterprises that adopt mobile social network or microblogging tools, such as Yammer or Twitter for business cases, benefit from the simplicity of information sharing among all employees, as well as from the concept of ambient awareness. In fact, information can be shared easily with a large group of recipients. Employees are able to react to postings easily, and the

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Table 16.2

Classification of Mobile Social Media Values

generated knowledge is available continuously. The users stay synchronised with feeds (activity streams) and have easy access to older information by using timelines. Further values consist of the use of wikis and blogs in the enterprise context. The knowledge can be accessed easily by mobile software. Communication One of the major challenges of increasing work mobility lies in the integration of mobile workers into the communication structures of enterprises. Mobile social software contributes to achieving this goal. Using mobile social software enables access to enterprise communication systems, which provide voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services and contact-sensitive, presencesensitive, or location-sensitive information (awareness). This awareness enhances communication quality, raises employee satisfaction, and saves time and costs for the employees, as well as for the enterprise. In the end, productivity and turnover may grow. Collaboration Mobile social software supports specific processes and tasks for teamwork. For instance, the mobile application SAP StreamWork helps employees to perform their SAP activities (e.g., create reports, send files, enter data) in a location-independent manner. In this sense, employees may transmit data such as media files or voice notes directly on their mobile devices to the back-end systems of the company. Furthermore, employees may view the profiles of colleagues, send them files, or contact them (e.g., chat, call, video call). Additionally, some mobile collaboration tools support creative techniques (e.g., brainstorming) on mobile devices. Managers can benefit by establishing systems to ubiquitously make decisions with multiple stakeholders collaboratively.

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Value of the External Adoption of MSM (B2C) Advertising According to Kaplan (2012), MSM have great potential to support marketing activities of enterprises and therefore increase revenues and profits. In social media services, usually a lot of personal information is gathered about users. Based on this information, personalised advertisements may be addressed to potential customers. Mobiles are an ideal instrument for directly addressing customers and advertising products and services by providing informative or entertaining content (Bauer et al. 2005). Furthermore, community providers can place target-group–oriented advertising within the mobile community. New possibilities of profile exchange and category-based news exchange, which may be used for sending and receiving employment or “for sale” ads, may be offered to users. Furthermore, context-sensitive information can be used for personalised and ad hoc contacts of members of a specific target group. A new concept is the use of AR, which means that context-sensitive information is blended into the actual environment of the user. Another approach is to provide mobile customers with coupons for certain services or products in their local area. Text message coupons have been somewhat successful. Mobile coupons could have rewards based on purchase events, and they could be shared. By following these approaches, enterprises can increase their sales and improve their marketing by directly contacting customers of a specific target group in a certain area. Commerce Mobile social software is used to support sales on or with the help of mobile phones. For instance, Price Comparison and Search functions for products and services could be supported via smartphones. Apps such as woabi use barcodes to compare prices and product specifications. Customers could rate products and share their ratings via mobile social software. Additionally, location-based information such as the presence of a shop or specific offerings may be shared. An upcoming trend is social shopping. The term summarises group shopping sites, shopping communities, recommendation engines, social shopping marketplaces, and shared shopping. Shared shopping benefits from the use of mobile applications. Customers may come together and form ad hoc collaborative shopping groups to negotiate cheaper prices. One person can have an online shopping experience and act for one or more other people, using real-time communication among the shoppers and with the retailers. Popular mobile social shopping apps include ShopSavvy and myShopanion.

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Customer Relations Globalisation of markets and the emergence of electronic business channels, enabled by the internet, have resulted in marketplaces driven by customers (Unnithan, Smith, and Fraunholz 2007). An important task of companies is thus to strengthen their relations with their customers in order to create competitive advantages in an increasingly aggressive market. Therefore, MSM can be used to strengthen customer loyalty and offer multichannel services (customer care). Another aspect of customer care is to ensure ubiquitous access to customer information (e.g., mobile access to customer relationship management systems). This enables an improvement in process flows and increases the quality of work through better information management. The mobile workforce can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of customer processes, especially with respect to customer proximity and service quality. Networking Today most of the popular social media services are based on social network sites (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn). Although enterprises can be present in these existing large networks in order to contact with customers, enterprises can also consider new concepts of mobile networking based on ad hoc networks. This kind of network may be used to connect with customers or other businesses (e.g., at conferences or fairs). B2C-relationships (as well as B2B and B2E) can be established while attending conferences. Networking can be promoted at conferences, not only by tweets and posts on Facebook but also by checking in and self-displaying participation on Foursquare or Facebook Places. Ad hoc networks offer automated and proactive notifications to devices, depending on location and time.

Privacy and Legal Issues for MSM MSM used in the organisational or enterprise context are particularly affected by several risks concerning privacy. Mobile devices are often not embedded into the enterprise infrastructure. Therefore, safety mechanisms such as virus scanners and firewalls cannot protect mobile devices against attacks. However, the dangers of using MSM are ubiquitous. Generally, the privacy issues can be divided into two categories: technical driven (e.g., phishing attacks) and user driven (e.g., reduced awareness of posting sensitive data in social media). For instance, when a company or its employees use a social network via a mobile device, they should be aware that important information, such as their IP address or their physical location, becomes available to third parties. In particular, automated location-based services pose higher risk. If whereabouts are strictly confidential, it is highly inadvisable to disclose them,

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because on learning someone’s location, others can infer more information about the person’s current occupation. This risk is unacceptable, especially in sensitive areas. To be more precise, imagine a consultant who has indicated on his profile that he specialises in insolvencies. It is important for employees to be careful about what information they share on social media. Identity theft has grave consequences for a company. A criminal who connects with employees (e.g., via a social network) can get hold of confidential information. The colleagues can jeopardise the business, forwarding requested information and failing to suspect the identity theft. Furthermore, an attacker can damage a company’s reputation by publishing fake information from a stolen account. If a business uses MSM to communicate with clients, the threat is even higher. Mobile devices pose a particular risk. In contrast to desktop applications, they can be lost or stolen. Therefore, sensitive data could get into third-party hands. Thus, high access security is recommended at the expense of usability. In addition, an emergency mechanism such as remote wipe or GPS tracking could abate the damage when third parties get control of the device. Generally, more and more mobile devices are connected to enterprise systems, and so the distribution of computer viruses through private messages in social media is another source of danger. Trojan horses are particularly risky. The infected applications often have useful features, harming the user in an unnoticed manner. These kinds of applications are most often used by hackers to spy on user data or to manipulate the system. A study by Micro Trend recently addressed security-relevant criteria, such as firewalls, data protection, corporate managed email, and authentication, for mobile operating systems. The competence of the BlackBerry operating system—providing safety and dependability in professional business—clearly leaves the competition behind, followed by Windows Mobile 7.5 and the iOS 5. Further behind is the comparatively open Android 2.3. The Android marketplace, where apps could be uploaded unchecked, has been highlighted as a source and distributor of malware (Ferguson et al. 2012). Taking a closer look at the legal issues of MSM, one particular point is key to the general use of social media: The enterprise should provide a policy or guideline for employees. The policy determines how and which social media and contents employees are allowed to communicate with in the name of the enterprise. For MSM, it may be particularly important to define times for use, in order to avoid conflicts with regular working times. In summary, MSM need to become more secure. Almost all threats to private users are highly relevant in a business context. An attack on a private user usually damages only the user, an attack on an account that is used in a business context can result in consequences for the entire company.

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Therefore, legal issues should be considered, and employees should be sensitised to the risks of MSM.

The Road Ahead: MSM in Enterprise Contexts MSM penetration is still in its early stages. Society as well as technological trends influence the future of MSM in enterprises. On one hand, the diffusion of smartphones and tablets is steadily increasing, which leads to major changes in society and workplace design. On the other hand, technical improvement leads to more-powerful devices and lowered costs for mobile devices. Emerging technologies such as LTE and near field communication (NFC) will spread into the market in the coming years, creating new scenarios for MSM in enterprises. The following trends are taking shape: 1. In “Mobile Is the New Face of Engagement,” Forrester Research (Schadler and McCarthy 2012) predicts tablet sales will double in the next year. Therefore, the relevance of mobile applications will increase rapidly, which heightens the use and power of mobile social media. Due to this, enterprises should elaborate ways to strengthen their external MSM activities. 2. The ubiquitous availability of information, as well as access to communication and collaboration tools via mobile devices, leads to an increasing independence of employees from their stationary workplace. As a result, the traditional workplace begins to lose its importance, and a growing part of work-related activities takes place outside the office. Furthermore, a study conducted by BITKOM states that 58 percent of the participants wish to organise themselves regarding working time and location (Huth 2011). In this sense, MSM are a driver to enable new workplace environments and to influence the workplace of the future. 3. LTE as a new standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones offers data broadcast rates up to 300 megabits, which is 40 times what current UMTS (HSDPA) standards support. Additionally, LTE permits improved support for mobility, exemplified by support for terminals moving at up to 350 or 500 kph (218 to 311 mph). In 2011, approximately 7 million German households were provided with LTE access. However, in Germany there is a lack of devices that support LTE. The first LTE-capable smartphones (e.g., HTC Velocity 4G) are slowly entering the market. The breakthrough for LTE could have been the release of the iPhone 5, but LTE still didn’t hit big. Nevertheless, LTE offers new possibilities for MSM. Higher data broadcast rates will accelerate the diffusion of HTML5 applications, web apps, and video services (viewing, processing) for mobile devices. Mobile games (e.g., online 3D games), complex apps (e.g., Ikea PAX Packer), and virtual worlds could be more accessible on mobile devices in the near

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future. Furthermore, LTE enables enterprises to provide access to software systems that require high data traffic, such as access to document management systems. 4. NFC describes a set of standards for smartphones and other mobile devices and is based on existing radio-frequency identification. It supports data transfer among mobile phone users when they are close to each other. NFC is currently facing the same problem as LTE—a lack of support by current mobile devices. With NFC, people could share their locations easily in social networks by holding their mobile device close to an NFC sensor when entering a room. The same setting allows simple tracking of work time. Tapping two NFC-enabled devices can help transfer information in a secure manner. The validity of the source can be verified immediately because of its proximity. This feature could be supported in a peer-to-peer network or in a multi-node network. Secure peer-to-peer communication means that sensitive data such as documents and pictures can be shared in encrypted form, and therefore privacy and security can be secured. NFC devices such as clickeys have also gained popularity. This device is described as an “electronic combination of (your) business card and an electronic carrier bag (click, connect, and share)” (Ok et al. 2010). The use of clickeys in the real world leads to information gathering in the long run, which is the lifeline for social media platforms. Elsewhere, in a marriage of digital and real products, game makers embed NFC tags in plush toys linked to games. Tapping these tags help reveal new gaming levels or provide the user with Facebook or any other gaming platform credits delivered to the user’s account. NFC is definitely one of the major drivers of new MSM business models. New services at the point of sale may reap benefits (e.g., payment, advertising, location services). 5. MANETs, an innovative approach to data transfer between mobile devices, are available to providers of virtual communities and can increase the range of services for their customers (the community members). Furthermore, community providers can place target group–oriented advertising within the mobile community. New possibilities of profile exchange and category-based news exchange, which may be used for sending and receiving employment ads as well as buying and selling inquiries, are offered to users. With the technology, online contacts from members of online networks can be transferred to reality. The user can contact persons from his virtual network face-to-face. Further benefits arise because the market for trade and exchange businesses, casual work, and things such as furniture, literature, and the like can be switched from stationary entities (e.g., PCs and bulletin boards) to places that community members meet in real life. The universal character of the bulletin board enables a MANET to offer more add-ons in the course of time. Examples are online dating, learning groups in universities, and appointments for

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events in cities. Applications that are usually restricted to the internet (e.g., community applications) can be used portably.

Recommendations for CIOs Enterprise managers as well as policymakers have to consider many different aspects of the use of MSM. For instance, it is important to define guidelines for the employees, as well as to develop security mechanisms. Furthermore, approaches and technologies such as NFC or MANETs always impact use. Enterprises should carefully consider the following recommendations regarding MSM: • Carefully choose the direction of use and, based on this choice, the MSM tools. For external use (B2C), set the focus on m-commerce and m-advertising. Internal (B2E) benefits could be realised by concentrating on information and collaboration scenarios. B2E applications should be adopted first for the needs of so-called road warriors. • Consider new technologies such as NFC or LTE, which enable new fields of applications, such as time tracking via NFC or access to software systems that require high data traffic. Furthermore, do not underestimate the rapidly increasing diffusion of tablets. • Develop MSM policies to ensure conformation to legal issues (e.g., working times, copyright) and to sensitise employees to the risks of sharing confidential information (e.g., place, customer information, or discrimination towards colleagues). • Establish security guidelines for mobile device use, such as requiring compulsory password protection of mobile devices and embedding mobile devices into the security strategy of the enterprise. In this case, CIOs have to face the bring-your-own-device mind-set of the employees in order to guarantee managed devices and a homogeneous device landscape. Furthermore, employees should be advised not to store confidential enterprise information on the mobile device. Yet another point is to implement technical mechanisms (functions such as wipe or GPS tracking) to prevent damage when mobile devices fall into third-party hands.

Conclusion and Outlook In recent years, MSM have evolved and spread at unprecedented speed. It seems obvious that we are at the beginning of a long-term development that

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will significantly change the behaviour of individuals and organisations. Therefore, enterprises have to be prepared to discover and use the new potential of MSM. In the coming years, MSM will be supported by new technological infrastructures (e.g., LTE) and new concepts (e.g., NFC, ad hoc networks). Additionally, the userbase of people with mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets will proliferate to a significant degree. Accordingly, more and more apps will be created that may support business purposes and blur the lines between the virtual sphere and real life. Nevertheless, the increasing usage of smartphones and tablets leads to risk, such as lost or stolen confidential information. Therefore, policies and security concepts for both mobile devices and MSM are needed. As a consequence, managers and other decision makers have to analyse the kinds of impacts of MSM on their business. In addition to technological problems, enterprises will face challenges in how to manage the process of adopting MSM.

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Social + Location + Mobile: SoLoMo Analytics and the Transformation of Shopping Phil Hendrix

Editors’ Note: This chapter provides a ringside view of the emerging, converging field of SoLoMo, or the convergence of data and services based on social media, location information, and mobile devices— in real time. The author focuses on SoLoMo in the context of shopping and identifies drivers for this convergence, categories of digital signals, potential outcomes of analytics, and the computing challenges and solutions in this space. A new generation of startups and innovators is emerging in this domain, and while some companies have been nimble enough to adapt to these disruptive changes, it is still early days for the rest of the industry. This chapter describes how the confluence of social, location, and mobile—or SoLoMo, as venture capitalist John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers refers to it—is transforming consumers’ experience and creating disruptive new opportunities for businesses and startups. SoLoMo is making available to consumers and businesses data that can improve the process and outcomes for both. For example, smartphones and a new breed of powerful mobile apps, many of which are location aware and tuned into social media, are empowering consumers and transforming the way in which they shop. As consumers engage in SoLoMo—tweeting about their experience, “checking in,” searching for nearby businesses, comparing product information on their mobile phones, and so on—they are also generating digital signals that are critically important to businesses. For instance, a large 311

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percentage of Facebook and Twitter posts contain opinions—both good and bad—about products, brands, retailers, and service providers (Figure 17.1).

Consumers Relying on Digital Signals Much attention has focused on how citizens use social media to stay in touch with friends and family. Increasingly, consumers are also relying on social media for reviews of products and services and other content posted by individuals. Such examples include ratings of hotels and destinations on TripAdvisor; customers’ comments and reviews on Amazon; answers, advice, and instructions from “experts” on Quora, eHow, and MakeUseOf; and data on the spending patterns within peer groups on Bundle. Underscoring the importance of this digital “word-of-mouth,” David Armano (executive vice president with the public relations firm Edelman Digital) coined the term earned media. Compared with paid media (advertising, public relations), digital signals contained in earned media are valued by consumers for relevance, timeliness, and perceived objectivity.

Figure 17.1

SoLoMo: Convergence of data and services. Source: Dr. Phil Hendrix, IMMR

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For instance, restaurants trust Yelp to insure the legitimacy of reviews posted by consumers; Yelp also organises and makes it easy for users to filter reviews by location, recency, and rating and to “drill down” to better understand why a particular individual loved (or hated) the restaurant or product in question. In categories such as home maintenance and remodelling, Angie’s List, Kudzu, and similar services are thriving by collecting, organising, and making it easy for consumers to find reviews of contractors and service providers. Consumers wanting “inside information” can even use services such as Loqly to get information and advice from “locals.” Recognising the value of digital signals to prospective customers, businesses and third parties are encouraging and even incentivizing users to post comments and reviews. With a QR code on a placemat, for example, a restaurant can make it easy for patrons to tweet “Just had a great meal at Joe’s.” With mobile consumers accessing more hyperlocal content and offers, including flash sales, digital intelligence will continue to grow in importance, especially for location-specific and time-sensitive consumer decisions.

SoLoMo Proliferation: Drivers Until recently, consumers shared their views with a small circle of friends, acquaintances, and co-workers. Now, as Andreas Weigend, former chief technology officer of Amazon, observes, “With nothing more than a few clicks, billions of people are digitising and broadcasting their thoughts and emotions to the world in real-time … producing massive amounts of data” (2011). One of the primary forces driving the enormous surge in digital signals is the growing number of avenues and outlets in which individuals can express and, in many cases, exchange their views. The ecosystem includes a staggering and growing number of sites. While internet connectivity and social media have led to an explosion of digital signals, the flood is only beginning. With a variety of sensors—including Wi-Fi, GPSs, cameras, near field communication (NFC)—smartphones have morphed into devices capable of receiving and transmitting a wide range of digital signals. While location and imaging are currently the most common sensors on smartphones, NFC is quickly gaining momentum as a significant new digital channel. Digital signals provide invaluable, real-time insight for businesses, especially for merchants and advertisers targeting consumers on the basis of geography and proximity.

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SoLoMo: Players and Potential Ranging from smartphone apps and social media extraction to hyperlocal preference deduction and QR codes on cars, a number of scenarios and implementations of SoLoMo services emerge (Table 17.1). Some of these are summarised in the vignettes that follow: • Based on customers’ location and other information, Walmart is personalising shoppers’ experience, initially online but now in stores as well. With the recent acquisitions of Kosmix and OneRiot, WalmartLabs is extracting and using insights from Twitter, Facebook, and other social media to tailor search results, offers, messaging, and even inventory by location. • As the first automobile manufacturer to put QR codes on the stickers of all its new vehicles, Nissan is making information available to customers at point of sale, 24/7. For consumers with smartphones, QR codes represent a powerful new interactive channel and an important source of insights for Nissan and other global businesses. • Asthma is a chronic disease that affects 7 million children. Combining data on ambient conditions (such as pollen counts and ozone levels) with data on the patient (e.g., location, daily schedule), Asthma Signals’s “early warning system” predicts and recommends preventive actions that parents and schools should take to prevent asthma attacks in children. By combining information on an individual’s history, location, and condition with contextual and environmental data, mashups can anticipate needs and provide personalised, timely recommendations and alerts to consumers. • In stores, restaurants, and other businesses, consumers spend a significant amount of time waiting. TotalTab plans to eliminate some of this waste by allowing customers in a bar or restaurant to close out and pay their tab without having to wait for a server. In addition to saving customers’ and employees’ time, apps such as TotalTab can provide data for a business’s consumer relationship management (CRM). • Songkick was founded by three friends who “thought it was way too hard to find out when their favorite bands were coming to town.” Dubbed the “social platform for live music,” Songkick auto-detects subscribers’ location, learns their preferences by scanning the music on their mobile device, and creates a personalised list of upcoming concerts in the area where the subscriber’s favorite artists will be appearing. To obtain these types of personalized, hyperlocal content

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and information, a growing number of consumers are willing to disclose their location to third parties, including mobile app developers, publishers such as the Weather Channel, and others. • With smartphone users soon to be the majority, more and more consumers are connecting to the internet via mobile devices and checking in via Foursquare, posting “finds” on Trover, and discovering new restaurants on Eater. Millions of mobile consumers downloaded ShopSavvy, a mobile app that allows users to check availability and compare prices of products in stores. As consumers use smartphones and mobile apps, their digital footprints paint an important mosaic of interests, behaviours, and intentions, especially when sifted by location over time. Table 17.1

SoLoMo Shopping: Emerging Startups

Data Is the New King The volume of social media content and usage is expanding rapidly. For example, consumers have posted more than 50 million reviews on TripAdvisor, making it the first choice for travelers considering one of the 500,000 hotels rated. As of 2012, content accounting for nearly 8 years’ viewing is uploaded to YouTube every day (“Press Statistics” 2013), and nearly one in five Americans visits a social networking site several times a day (Webster 2012). Among social network users, one in four has “friended” or follows a company or brand; 45 percent of Twitter users share opinions about a product or brand more than once a day, while 34 percent share a link about a product or brand more than once a day (Solis 2011). Social media are thus affecting all aspects of consumer behaviour, ranging from research and discovery to ratings and feedback. Social media have become an indispensable tool for consumers as they shop. A recent study by L.E.K Consulting (Lewis and Weber 2011) found that “Active Mobile Consumers” (60 percent of smartphone owners) value customer reviews above all other sources, including friends and family, independent product reviews, store displays, and sales associates, who ranked

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dead last. Yelp, TripAdvisor, and other social media, of course, amplify and make readily available this “digital word-of-mouth.” Social media are even more useful when linked to location and accessed via mobile devices; with geotagging, users can filter social media and access relevant information on a smartphone, “just-in-time,” at the point of need, whether in a store, restaurant, or other location.

Location: More Than Latitude and Longitude Location-based marketing via mobile phones and wireless hotspots has been around for quite some time. As Fred Wilson, leading managing partner of Union Square Ventures, observed: “Knowing where someone is in real time— particularly if you have some context around that—is an incredibly valuable marketing opportunity” (Roush 2010). Recognising that proximity boosts relevance and response, companies such as Placecast, Xtify, and others allow brands and merchants to advertise and extend offers within tightly defined “geo-fenced” areas. Solutions such as ThinkNear are giving merchants greater control over offers, allowing them to be introduced to consumers on the basis of proximity as well as criteria such as time of day and demand. Reflecting the strategic importance of proximity, eBay has acquired two important location-based companies: WHERE, a pioneer in location-based advertising, and Milo, a shopping engine that shows real-time product availability and prices in local stores. Unheard of before startup Foursquare invented and popularised the concept, “checking in” is becoming increasingly prevalent—recent comScore data (“Nearly 1 in 5” 2011) shows that nearly one in five smartphone owners has checked in at some location. While some observers have criticised its merits and dismissed checking in as a passing phenomenon, with the recent deals between Foursquare and partners such as American Express, consumers have even more reasons to check in to more places. Facebook is encouraging members to geotag updates. As Aaron Strout and Mike Schneider (2011) point out, the rich layer of location data allows Facebook as well as Foursquare to personalise recommendations, ads, and even offers. Integrating location with CRM and (potentially) payment systems offers even greater benefits, such as fraud detection and “nearby” offers based on recent purchases. Location is also important for other reasons. As already mentioned, more and more social media is being geotagged, enabling consumers to search for and find information specific to their current location. Google allows individuals to search for results “near me now,” while augmented reality (AR) services such as junaio are making it easier for individuals to scan for and “view”

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information about products, landmarks, and other objects around them. Yelp, TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet, and other providers of location-specific content and recommendations are integrating AR into their platforms. As consumers browse in stores and other venues where information is often needed, cameras and other sensors are transforming mobile devices into powerful shopping tools. Using the camera phone to scan barcodes and QR codes, consumers can access prices, availability, and even recent visitors’ comments on everything from products in stores to menu items, museum exhibits, and a host of other applications. With NFC, consumers will have the ability to “query” any object that is tagged. Narian Technologies has introduced a platform called NFC4All that allows stores and other businesses to place tags that, when “tapped,” can trigger such preprogrammed actions as paging an associate responsible for the product, connecting the consumer to a website, and showing offers and rebates available on the product, among others. Priced at $20 per month and 5 cents per “call,” Narian’s goal is to make it easy and affordable for small and medium-sized businesses to deploy NFC (Balaban 2011). NFC thus has the potential to make any object—products, packages, displays, posters, menus, bottles—“clickable.” The opportunity to empower consumers and reduce friction at the time and point of need is enormous. GPS, NFC, and imaging features on smartphones are transforming locations, places, and even objects into new channels for advertisers and retailers. However, key to widespread adoption is consumer familiarity and usability; in a recent study (“Scanapalooza: QR Codes” 2011), Lab42 found that less than half of consumers were familiar with QR codes and only 13 percent were successful in scanning a QR code when asked to do so. In New Zealand, mobile operators developed an ad campaign to acquaint users with QR codes and their benefits via posters and personnel at the point of sale in order to demonstrate the process, as well as sweepstakes, games, and other incentives to motivate consumers to “try out” QR codes.

Mobile: The Internet in Consumers’ Pockets Commenting on Steve Jobs’s contributions to the industry, futurist Paul Saffo remarked, “Before the iPhone, cyberspace was something you went to your desk to visit; now cyberspace is something you carry in your pocket” (D. Carr 2011). More consumers are carrying smartphones and the internet with them. Much of the interest in smartphones is being fueled by innovative developers and “must have” new mobile apps. There were reportedly more than 100,000 mobile app developers in the U.S. as of 2011, up from 24,000 just 2 years prior. Users are also spending

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more time on smartphones and shifting time away from traditional media. Android users spend almost an hour a day interacting with the web and apps on their phone. Data from Flurry (Khalaf 2012) and comScore shows that consumers are spending more time on mobile apps (127 minutes per day) than on the web (70 minutes per day). Of the time spent on mobile apps, about a fourth is spent on social networking apps. The ubiquity of smartphones, mobile apps, and “the internet in our pockets” is reshaping consumers’ behaviour. The percentage of adults reading newspapers has steadily declined (Pew Research 2011). According to Microsoft, more than half of all local searches are now done on mobile devices (“Infographic: Mobile Statistics, Stats & Facts 2011” 2011). Google, PayPal, the payment processors (Visa, MasterCard, and American Express), financial service institutions, and mobile operators are investing heavily and competing to make mobile payment ubiquitous. The growth in smartphone adoption and use, coupled with the expansive ecosystem of shopping and social media apps, gives consumers access to information and is empowering a new breed of “super shoppers.” The important apps discussed in the next section present both opportunity and challenges for advertisers and retailers.

Challenges and Responses to M-Commerce The m-commerce ecosystem consists of a wide array of companies, including advertisers, retailers, content providers, social media, mobile operators, app developers, and others. They face a range of challenges: • How do m-commerce providers earn consumers’ trust, address their concerns, and motivate them to share their “personal data stores”? • How does transparency regarding prices and availability affect businesses, especially traditional retailers? Will this lead to greater “price harmonisation?” • How can companies avoid consumer fatigue and potential backlash against an ever-expanding array of personalised offers? • Data streams generated by SoLoMo activities are enormous but also highly perishable. How will companies leverage and incorporate this data into their processes to respond accordingly in real time? Many of these challenges can be addressed via comprehensive digital intelligence and appropriate organisational alignments to visualise, respond to, and recalibrate decisions informed via such analytics.

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Digital Intelligence As consumers shop for, purchase, use, and share their views about products and services, an abundance of what may be called digital signals is being generated. These digital traces reflect consumers’ behaviours, interests, and even intentions in the aggregate—and increasingly, with their cooperation and permission, of individuals. Over the past decade, companies invested a great deal in search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM)—with the emergence of social media, leading companies are now focusing attention on social media optimisation (SMO). The digital signals emanating from SoLoMo represent a new and different kind of data—a combination of structured and unstructured data from disparate sources and in volumes that few companies are equipped to process, much less analyse and respond to. To extract insights and act on these signals in a timely fashion, businesses are turning to solutions for real-time processing and analysis of “Big Data.” For example, DataSift, one of a handful of companies providing access to real-time social media data, allows users to extract and analyse relevant subsets from the more than 200 million tweets per day, in a variety of ways: • Track tweets from persons based on various combinations of whom they follow (e.g., Lady Gaga followers who also follow President Obama) • Track 100,000+ geolocations simultaneously • Classify and segment tweets by gender, political affiliation, authority, and interests • Detect tweets in more than 30 languages in real time • Record every tweet into a “very big” datastore for later retrieval and analysis with tools such as MapReduce and Hadoop Other startups are emerging in this space as well. With the average consumer belonging to a dozen or more loyalty programs, Stampt is solving a significant problem for both consumers and merchants: “How do I easily keep track of and redeem my rewards?” As these examples suggest, advertising and offers are rapidly moving toward real-time personalisation. SoLoMo digital signals, especially location, interests, intent, and context, will play an increasingly important role, boosting relevance for consumers and yield for advertisers and merchants. Businesses that fail to tune into and leverage these digital signals will find it increasingly difficult and costly to compete with leading companies.

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SoLoMo: A Wealth of Analytics Digital signals reveal important insights about consumers (Figure 17.2), from what they are thinking and doing to their needs, interests, preferences, views (especially sentiment), plans, and even the holy grail, intentions, expanding and delivering more fully on John Battelle’s “database of intentions” (2010). As they build trust and experience the benefits, consumers are willing to share even more with selected “trusted partners,” creating a virtuous cycle that other businesses will be hard-pressed to copy. While many businesses are “listening in” on social media, few are prepared to process, much less understand and act on the enormous volume and complexity of traces generated by social media, location, and other digital channels. In a recent survey by IBM of more than 1,700 chief marketing officers (CMOs), two-thirds say their organisations are underprepared to deal with

Figure 17.2

Important digital signals generated by SoLoMo

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“the explosion of data, social media and the proliferation of channels and devices” (IBM 2011). Businesses are wrestling with fundamental questions of focus, results, impacts, utility, and responses to the wave of SoLoMo data. Such questions are most relevant to executives in companies responsible for achieving results with customers (e.g., CMOs; product, segment, and brand managers; and principals and managers of small and medium-sized businesses).

Seeding and Harnessing Digital Intelligence In 2009, Nissan Canada was one of the first brands to rely exclusively on social media to launch a major product, its enigmatic Cube, a new vehicle designed for young adults, centred around a contest in which some 100 finalists, chosen from 1,000 “people on the street,” competed to win one of 50 Cubes. U.S. automaker Dodge employed a similar strategy, in this case hiding three of its new Journey crossovers, one per region, and providing clues online and in TV commercials as to the vehicles’ whereabouts. Since the prize in this competition was a brand new Journey, the campaign generated a great deal of interest. In its second week, Dodge’s video was viewed by some 430,000 individuals, making it the 10th-most-popular viral video of the week. These campaigns illustrate two fundamental characteristics of digital signals: Because posts, comments, likes, and other expressions are digital, they can be viewed by and shared with others, allowing them to spread, sometimes rapidly, through social networks. For instance, moved to express and share their feelings following the death of Steve Jobs, tens of thousands of individuals turned to Twitter. As word spread, within half an hour 50,000 tweets per minute mentioned Steve Jobs, and at that point, tweets honouring Jobs accounted for 25 percent of Twitter’s traffic. Ideas spreading through social networks can follow patterns similar to those of epidemics— in fact, social network analysis uses terms such as contagion and tools developed in epidemiology. While digital signals can spread naturally, businesses can use also use techniques such as gamification to “seed” and cultivate interest in their products and brands. For example, companies ranging from Dunkin’ Donuts to Philips Lighting are working with SCVNGR to engage consumers with games that are fun to play and share. In Reach for the Sky, a campaign for Cathay Pacific, individuals are encouraged to take photos of clouds, add captions, and upload the photos for others to view and vote on. The global brand Louis Vuitton has launched Amblers, a mobile app that allows fellow “Amblers” (including celebrities) to share information about their favourite global spots.

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While these efforts and campaigns are designed, of course, to create interest, excitement, and engagement, negative incidents that occur can also spread rapidly. Just as Cathay Pacific was preparing to launch a new ad campaign, news and photos about a scandal involving a flight attendant and pilot—since relieved of their duties—spread widely via social media.

Challenges and Advances in Text Mining and Data Processing The sheer volume of digital signals represents a formidable challenge for even the largest mainframe computers, in addition to being able to mine text to extract and classify the contents. Tweets, Facebook updates, search engine queries, and many other digital signals consist of text. To classify the text, software must be capable of disambiguating entities and interpreting the meaning of phrases and words. Fortunately, significant advances in text mining and computing platforms and software capable of handling Big Data have made digital intelligence accessible to businesses. Complicating the need to deal with the vast quantity of digital data is the fact that much of it is unstructured (e.g., images, free-flowing comments), comes from a variety of sources, and exhibits trends and relationships that are complex and difficult to discern. These massive amounts of data quickly bring conventional databases, data warehouses, and software to a halt. Fortunately, “data scientists” have constructed new solutions, building on powerful approaches originally developed by Google and Yahoo! for their search engines. While the ecosystem is still developing, a handful of vendors, including Cloudera, LexisNexis, the recent Hortonworks spinout from Yahoo!, and other startups have gained considerable experience using such tools as Hadoop and HBase to “tame the fire hose.” Still, as Scott Weiss (partner at Andreessen Horowitz, whose investments include Platfora) pointed out, implementing these solutions requires significant investment, as well as initial and ongoing tuning by data scientists, who are in short supply (Weiss 2011). Vendors such as GeoIQ are offering turnkey solutions in the form of SaaS and PaaS (Software and Platform as a Solution, respectively).

Mix of Structured, Unstructured Data In the normal course of business, much of the data that companies deal with—sales, operations, finance, human resource—is structured data that fits nicely into conventional relational databases. In contrast, digital signals often consist of unstructured data (for example, text in tweets and comments of varying length, with few set conventions, or images with no identifying labels

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or tags). Analysing unstructured data requires that either humans or computers examine the contents and classify it in some consistent fashion (e.g., subject and tone of a social media post). While some vendors rely on humans to examine and code text and images, most solutions now rely on sophisticated text-mining algorithms capable of classifying the contents of unstructured digital signals with a high degree of accuracy. Lexalytics and firms such as Autonomy (recently acquired by HP) have achieved high accuracy rates. These solutions apply not just to rules (“Select tweets that mention the iPhone 4S”) but sophisticated logic as well (“Was the comment positive or negative?”). While researchers continue to refine text and image mining, processing and extracting the “meaning” from unstructured data is no longer the hurdle that it was just a few years ago.

Streaming Data Some digital signals are continuously streaming data. With streaming data, a critical variable is the length of time required to “process” bits of incoming data (i.e., detect, interpret, and act on them). For instance, high-frequency traders process digital signals in milliseconds, while real-time advertising platforms process a user’s location and other information to select and serve the “optimal” ad in less than a second. To a large manufacturer such as GE, monitoring the performance of equipment and devices in the field, latency matters as well, particularly in its imaging and healthcare division. While other applications are not quite as demanding, they may still require near real-time processing of streaming data. For example, research by bitly found that posts and comments on both Twitter and Facebook have a very short “half-life”— after about 3 hours, links on both networks’ posts “head into obscurity” (Mason 2011). Given the potential for rapid, unpredictable transmission via social networks, the ability to process streaming data in near real time is critical.

Missing Metadata In conventional database applications, consistency of data is guaranteed via requirements, procedures, quality checks, and the like, with known source, time stamps, and valid in-range codes. In contrast, the source, date, location, and other important metadata are often missing in digital signals. Fortunately, a number of vendors are appending metadata to digital signals. For instance, based on a small sample of an individual’s tweets and whom the individual follows, Sysomos can predict and append a person’s gender with a high degree of accuracy. Tweets can contain geographic metadata, ranging from the general area (based on ISP) to near-exact location (e.g., based on GPS, if sent from a mobile device). So, while incomplete, metadata

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is available for a growing proportion of digital signals. Moreover, given the volume of digital signals, the number of data points with metadata can be sufficient to draw conclusions and compare results over time.

The Challenge of Organisational Analytics Organisational departments that could benefit the most from digital signals span a wide range: customer service, public relations, marketing, and operations. But rarely do executives have a “unified view” of the digital signals relevant to and impacting their companies. Of even greater concern, companies’ efforts to manage and influence digital signals are often ad hoc and uncoordinated, making it difficult to track results by time or geography, much less attribute results and determine the effectiveness of campaigns and initiatives. Since sharing of data by consumers amplifies the impact of their activities, detecting, tracking, and managing digital signals in real time are critically important tasks for businesses. Tracking the spread of such activity by geographies is also useful, especially to manage and determine the effects of location-based campaigns. While such information flow and organisational management issues can be difficult to remedy, companies such as PepsiCo are developing dashboards that give their executives the unified view necessary to measure and manage digital signals. Still, for most organisations, this remains a very significant challenge.

Emerging Players: Innovators and Startups The necessity of generating, integrating, interpreting, visualising, and responding to this surfeit of data has spawned a new generation of startups and spin-offs. Some of the notable categories of digital intelligence and corresponding vendors are described here, along with services that can be applied in direct shopping activities and processes.

Data Sources This category includes social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.), ecommerce sites such as Amazon, and hundreds of other sites. Also included are mobile device operating systems (Android, Apple iOS), which can provide the location and other digital signals for mobile users. For a particular company, data sources would also include their websites’ clickstream as well as information from QR codes, NFC, and the like.

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Social Media Aggregators Gnip, DataSift, and others aggregate data from many social media sites.

Text Mining Vendors Vendors such as Boston-based Lexalytics, Collective Intellect, SocialNuggets, Argus Insights, and others extract entities (companies, brands, products), meaning, and sentiments expressed in text.

Geo-Data and Contextual Data A number of companies have compiled extensive geo-data (e.g., Esri) and contextual data (e.g., Factual and PlaceIQ). Companies such as GeoIQ can append this data in real time to any geo-referenced digital signals (e.g., a location given by an address).

Demographic and Other Metadata Well known in direct-marketing circles, Experian offers a wealth of demographic, financial, purchasing, and behavioural profiles of consumers. Companies such as Klout and Sysomos can append information to social media on the influence and gender of contributors.

Big Data Solutions Companies in this category provide computing platforms and solutions designed to process the terabyte- and petabyte-sized data sets generated by digital signals in near real time. Included are vendors that support implementations of Hadoop, such as Cloudera, Datameer, Karmasphere, and Hortonworks; data warehouse solution providers such as Aster Data, Greenplum (now part of EMC), and Netezza (acquired in 2011 by IBM); and HPCC Systems (subsidiary of LexisNexis).

Visualisation Given the massive quantities of streaming data generated by digital signals, dynamic visualisations are proving increasingly important to display and summarise results and trends, especially compared with conventional charts and graphs. Providers of visualisation tools include Tableau Software and GeoIQ.

Advanced Analytics The Big Data solutions just given perform many of the calculations that most applications require. For more-advanced analyses, such as data mining and predictive modelling, statisticians and data scientists are turning to tools

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from SAS and Revolution Analytics (founded in 2007 by Norman Nie, who coinvented SPSS).

Conclusion Despite the challenges identified in this chapter, advertisers and retailers are leveraging SoLoMo to devise and implement strategies that are consumer-centric. An entire infrastructure is emerging to support their efforts, led by companies such as DataSift, Collective Intellect, SocialNuggets, LocalResponse, GeoIQ, and a host of others. SoLoMo can be used to personalise, enable, engage, and reward consumers effectively. For example, with SoLoMo retailers can recognise customers as they enter the store and offer a personalised guide based on the customer’s interests and even previous purchases, enable shoppers to share feedback with one another (which many online retailers already do), and reward consumers in real time with incentives and reinforcement. In sum, companies are connecting with consumers via mobile channels (apps and the internet), integrating location-based services into their strategies, and “tuning into” social media. By mining the digital signals produced by SoLoMo, companies can develop a 360-degree view that allows them to better understand consumers, monitor their performance, and adjust their own strategies accordingly.

References and Resources Adams, P. 2012. “Why I Left Google. What Happened to My Book. What I Work On at Facebook.” Think Outside In. www.thinkoutsidein.com/blog/2011/07/why-i-left-googlewhat-happened-to-my-book-what-i-work-on-at-facebook. Agrawal, R. 2011. “Why the Foursquare and American Express Deal Is Really Big.” reDesign Mobile. June 23, 2011. redesignmobile.com/2011/06/23/why-the-foursquare-and-americanexpress-deal-is-really-big. Balaban, D. 2011. “Narian Technologies Launches Set of NFC Applications Targeting Retailers.” NFC Times. August 16, 2011. www.nfctimes.com/news/narian-technologies-launches-setnfc-applications-retailers. Battelle, J. 2010. “The Database of Intentions Is Far Larger Than I Thought.” John Battelle’s Search Blog. March 5, 2010. battellemedia.com/archives/2010/03/the_database_of_intentions_is_ far_larger_than_i_thought.php. Carr, A. 2011. “Facebook Places, Foursquare: Social Media’s Tiny 2% Impact on Businesses.” Fast Company. April 13, 2011. www.fastcompany.com/1746838/facebook-places-foursquaresocial-medias-tiny-2-impact-onbusinesses. Carr, D. 2011. “Steve Jobs Reigned in a Kingdom of Altered Landscapes.” NYTimes.com. August 27, 2011. www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/business/media/steve-jobs-reigned-in-a-kingdom-ofaltered-landscapes.html?pagewanted=all. Clark, S. 2011. “Narian Unveils Suite of NFC Apps for Retailers.” NFC World. August 17, 2011. www.nfcworld.com/2011/08/17/39138/narian-unveils-suite-of-nfc-apps-for-retailers.

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Dediu, H. 2011. “Smartphone Tipping Point.” Web.Me.com. web.me.com/hdediu/Smartphone countdown/Welcome.html (no longer available online). Elowitz, B. 2011. “The Web Is Shrinking. Now What?” AllThingsD.com. June 23, 2011. allthingsd. com/20110623/the-web-is-shrinking-now-what. IBM. 2011. “Insights From the IBM Global CMO Study.” IBM.com. www-935.ibm.com/services/ us/cmo/cmostudy2011/cmo-registration.html. “Infographic: Mobile Statistics, Stats & Facts 2011.” 2011. Digital Buzz. April 4, 2011. www.digital buzzblog.com/2011-mobile-statistics-stats-facts-marketing-infographic. Kellogg, D. 2011. “Mobile Apps Beat the Mobile Web Among U.S. Android Smartphone Users.” Nielsen Wire. August 18, 2011. blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/?p=28628. Khalaf, S. 2012. “Mobile Apps: We Interrupt This Broadcast.” Flurry. December 5, 2012. blog.flurry.com/bid/92105/Mobile-Apps-We-Interrupt-This-Broadcast. Lewis, A., and J. Weber. 2011. “The Marketplace of the Mobile Consumer: What to Expect.” LEK Executive Insights XIII: 14. www.lek.com/sites/default/files/L.E.K._Marketplace_of_the_ Mobile_Consumer.pdf. Madden, M., and K. Zickuhr. 2011. “65% of Online Adults Use Social Networking Sites.” Pew Internet & American Life Project. August 26, 2011. pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/SocialNetworking-Sites/Overview.aspx. Mason, H. 2011. “You Just Shared a Link. How Long Will People Pay Attention?” Bitly Blog. September 6, 2011. blog.bitly.com/post/9887686919/you-just-shared-a-link-how-long-willpeople-pay. “Nearly 1 in 5 Smartphone Owners Access Check-In Services Via Their Mobile Device.” 2011. comScore. May 12, 2011. www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/5/Nearly _1_in_5_Smartphone_Owners_Access_Check-In_Services_Via_their_Mobile_Device. Newark-French, C. 2011. “Mobile Apps Put the Web in Their Rear-View.” Flurry Blog. June 20, 2011. blog.flurry.com/bid/63907/Mobile-Apps-Put-the-Web-in-Their-Rear-view-Mirror. Peggs, T. 2011. “Adding Social Targeting to Geo-Located Campaigns on Mobile.” OneRiot Blog. September 9, 2011. oneriot.tumblr.com/post/9995387267/adding-social-targeting-to-geolocated-campaigns-on. Perez, S. 2011. “How Your Social Data Will Power Walmart’s E-Commerce Revolution.” TechCrunch. August 8, 2011. techcrunch.com/2011/08/08/how-your-social-data-will-powerwalmarts-e-commerce-revolution. Pew Research. 2011. “Number of Americans Who Read Print Newspapers Continues Decline.” Pew Research Center. October 11, 2011. www.pewresearch.org/daily-number/number-ofamericans-who-read-print-newspapers-continues-decline. “Press Statistics.” 2013. YouTube. www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics. Rajaraman, A. 2011. “@WalmartLabs + OneRiot; Welcome aboard, Team OneRiot!” Official @WalmartLabs Blog. September 13, 2011. walmartlabs.blogspot.com/2011/09/walmartlabsoneriot-welcome-aboard-team.html. Roush, W. 2010. “Going Geo-Loco: Lessons on the Mad Scramble to Exploit Location Data.” Xconomy. July 22, 2010. www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2010/07/22/going-geo-loco-lessonson-the-mad-scramble-to-exploit-location-data. “Scanapalooza: QR Codes.” 2011. Lab42. August 5, 2011. blog.lab42.com/scanapalooza-qr-codes.

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Scott, J. 2011. “App Store Milestone: 500,000 Applications Approved.”148Apps. May 24, 2011. www.148apps.com/news/app-store-milestone-500000-applications-approved. Slutsky, I. 2011. “Facebook Test Mines Real-Time Conversations for Ad Targeting.” AdAge.com. March 23, 2011. adage.com/article/digital/facebook-test-mines-real-time-conversations-adtargeting/149531. Solis, B. 2010. “Social Media Optimisation: SMO Is the New SEO.” Brian Solis (blog). February 17, 2010. www.briansolis.com/2010/02/social-media-optimization-smo-is-the-new-seo-part-2. ———. 2011. “The End of Social Media 1.0.” Brian Solis (blog). August 29, 2011. www.briansolis. com/2011/08/the-end-of-social-media-1-0. Strout, A. 2011. “Location: The Last Third of the Holy Trinity of Data.” Common Sense (WCG). September 2, 2011. blog.wcgworld.com/2011/09/location-last-third-of-the-holy-trinity-ofdata. Strout, A. and M. Schneider. 2011. Location-Based Marketing for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Webster, T. 2012. “The Social Habit 2012: The Edison Research/Arbitron Internet and Multimedia Study 2012.” Edison Research. June 2012. www.slideshare.net/webby2001/the-social-habit2012-by-edison-research. Weigend, A. 2011. “Test Your Company’s Social Data Intelligence.” People and Data. April 6, 2011. weigend.com/blog/2011/06/social-data-intelligence-test. Weiss, S. 2011. “The Big Data Conundrum.” Scott Weiss (blog). September 8, 2011. scott.a16z. com/2011/09/08/the-big-data-conundrum.

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Mobile and Small Business: Emerging Trends and Scenarios Andrew Pearson

Editors’ Note: This chapter traces the range of mobile device features that can be used for business: high-quality cameras, orientation and proximity sensors, accelerometers, talking personal assistants, GPS functionalities, Wi-Fi connectivity, contactless near field communication (NFC), touchscreen capabilities, short message service, (SMS), multimedia message service (MMS, QR codes, and apps). These features enable a range of business activities: mobile branding, mobile advertising, mobile banking, m-commerce, mobile chat, mobile gaming, and other services built on the mobile web. A mobile device can be both the conduit for a product sale and the payment processor itself. Many of the world’s most successful tech companies are throwing their development and financial muscle behind mobile. Digital business models have moved beyond sticky websites to ubiquitous always-on brands. Mobile allows a consumer’s voice to become part of a highly sophisticated, two-way dialogue exchange with the company. The chapter concludes with a useful taxonomy of mobile impacts in various business sectors; trends to watch include analytics and approaches to dealing with consumer privacy. Over a hundred years ago, Guglielmo Marconi started conducting radio wave experiments in the attic of his villa in Pontecchio, Italy, and it is doubtful he ever envisioned what would become of his invention. His goal was to create radio waves that were transmitted without any connecting wires, and it is probably safe to assume that, even in his wildest dreams, he would never 329

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have predicted the incredible innovations that his discovery set in motion, innovations that have led to today’s mobile technology. By harnessing the power of the mobile platform, mobile users can tap into a variety of services, including mobile apps, mobile banking, m-commerce, mobile chat, mobile gaming, short message service (SMS), and QR codes, as well as most of the features of the internet through a wireless connection or SIM card. Connected via a natural user interface application, mobile devices become talking personal assistants that understand normal speech and connect to a vast world of data that can turn a mobile phone into a business location finder, a weather reporter, an encyclopedia, an appointment maker, an email sender, and much, much more. The mobile platform is so robust and holds so much potential that if a marketing executive were asked to dream up the perfect device to connect, market, and sell his or her company’s products and/or services to existing and potential customers, the executive could hardly come up with anything superior to the mobile platform. Much more than a wireless transmitter optimised for voice input and output, a mobile phone or mobile tablet is an always-on, anytime, anywhere marketing and sales tool that follows a mobile user throughout the digital day. It is also an entertainment, customer relationship management, and social networking tool, which makes it possibly the most powerful device in the history of marketing and customer relations. The mobile phone is, literally, a marketing tool that can be—and usually is— personalised by its owner and is within that owner’s reach almost every hour of every day: once again a marketer’s dream. Push technology even puts the power of communication into the hands of the marketer, allowing businesses to initiate contact with opted-in customers and then send them a wide array of content. Mobile devices can help a business not only find a potential customer but also market to that customer with some of the most compelling marketing tools available. A mobile device can be both the conduit for a product sale as well as the payment processor. It can help a user find a bricks-and-mortar business with simple and natural voice commands. In some cases—such as with mobile apps, mobile games, and digital music—the product can actually be delivered to the mobile device itself. Basically the marketing, product discovery, product testing, purchasing, and actual delivery of the digital product can all be handled on the mobile phone. Above all else, the mobile device has the power to create an ongoing, one-to-one, two-way relationship with a customer. It is also a relationship that can evolve. As the marketer learns more and more about the desires and needs of a customer, the potential of making future sales increases dramatically. On the user end, mobile technology empowers a customer with a voice unheard of in the history of marketing, with a range of services available literally in the palm of a customer’s hand.

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Smartphones: Business Benefits The world has never seen anything quite like mobile technology before, and much of the success of the platform is attributable to the revolutionary advances in hardware, software, and the telecommunication networks they all flow through. Hailed by Time magazine as 2007’s “Invention of the Year,” Apple’s iPhone took around 2.5 years to develop at a cost of US$150 million. Today, few would argue that the iPhone has revolutionised the mobile phone industry (Yoffie and Kim 2010). Time’s article presciently stated that the iPhone was not just a phone, but rather it was a platform, “a genuine handheld, walk-around computer, the first device that really deserves the name” (Grossman 2007). In 2010, Apple released the iPad to great fanfare. The Wall Street Journal even jokingly stated that “The last time there was this much excitement about a tablet, it had some commandments written on it” (Peers 2009). By 2011, the iPad had become the make-or-break device for the tablet market. As is so often the case, Apple took existing technology, packaged and marketed it brilliantly, and then transformed it into a breakthrough product (Furfie 2010). Although not always first with a new piece of technology, Apple usually creates products that not only look better than the competition, but, more important, perform better. The iPhone radically changed the way the world viewed mobile phones, and the iPad quickly followed in the iPhone’s revolutionary footsteps, selling more than 15.4 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011, twice what it sold the previous year (Goldman 2012). The year 2011 was when voice recognition technology really grew up. Apple’s Siri, Android’s Speaktoit, and Microsoft’s Tellme services all help turn mobile devices into personal assistants that “talk” to their mobile users in normal speech. Today’s smartphones contain speech-recognition algorithms and a healthy dose of artificial intelligence that understands natural speech. Siri can quickly connect to apps that link to databases such as Bing, Google, or Yelp and disseminate information within seconds of being queried. Siri can also send messages, get directions, schedule meetings, and place phone calls. Future smartphones may soon include voice cut and paste, a voice-based navigation system, and picture-taking functionality, as well as the ability to create advanced and complex learning models. They may also be able to understand movements and other sensory data, as well as trigger complicated macros. The business potential for such technology is enormous. Not to be overshadowed by Apple’s success, Google’s Android has also become a worldwide phenomenon. According to Andy Rubin, Google’s senior vice president of mobile and digital content, 850,000 Android devices are being activated each and every day. Worldwide, more than 300 million Android devices are in use, a figure that trumps Apple’s number of total mobile subscribers by no less than 50 million (Zeman 2012). In terms of

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Android applications, Rubin estimates that the Android market is home to 450,000 applications and that these applications are being downloaded at a rate of more than 1 billion per month (Zeman 2012). Apple might have the most profitable online app store, but its stores are not alone: Google has the Android Market; Nokia has Ovi; Samsung has Samsung’s Apps; Research In Motion has the BlackBerry App World; and Microsoft has Windows Marketplace. With many of the world’s most successful tech companies throwing their development and financial muscle behind mobile, business owners should recognise that a revolution is going on right before their eyes and ears. We live in a real-time, 24/7 world, a world where 140-character Twitter messages foment political revolutions and where marketers should fear not the power of the pen, but the power of the critical tweet or the destructive force of an inflammatory social media diatribe that can encircle the digital world in seconds, laying waste to a reputation that might have taken years to develop. Conversely, it is also a world where an advertiser’s message can go viral and reach more eyeballs in a single day than a multimillion-dollar television commercial campaign can in a month. In 2009, the total number of global app downloads was approximately 7 billion, projected to increase by 92 percent per year to almost 50 billion downloads per year by the end of 2012 (Sharma 2010). The explosion in mobile apps can be explained by three specific trends: First, devices have become much more powerful than they were a few short years ago; second, by delivering consistently high bandwidths, wireless networks are giving mobile users a consistently better mobile experience; and third, the creativity of developers has blossomed because they now have access to native application program interfaces (APIs), rich platforms, simple development environments, and more-favourable revenue-sharing terms (Sharma 2010). Today, companies are questioning the need to have a mobile app just as they once questioned the importance of building a web presence, but they should not. With mobile and its anytime, anywhere availability, “the business model is no longer about sticky websites, but ubiquitous brands available to constantly connected consumers looking to perform specific tasks,” according to Mashery CEO Oren Michels (2010). “Data-driven and laser-focused apps find the restaurant that serves paella within a 10-block radius, deliver the 3-day weather forecast for your city, find the next flight out and then check you in, or provide baseball scores or the daily crossword puzzle. In short, apps grant wishes by accessing the specific corporate information available through a company’s application programming interface,” he adds. Companies that do not embrace the mobile app platform will probably soon be watching their competitors steal their customers away from them, one mobile user at a time.

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Mobile’s Tools for Business With mobile’s anytime, anywhere availability, consumers are no longer willing to wait for what they want. Instant gratification should be the marketer’s new mantra. In today’s environment, it is not just a requirement; it is a necessity. Luckily for marketers, the smartphones of today contain features such as high-quality cameras, HD video capabilities, orientation and proximity sensors, accelerometers, talking personal assistants, GPS functionalities, Wi-Fi connectivity, contactless near field communication (NFC), and touchscreen capabilities: a whole host of tools and features that foster this immediacy. These features allow for a new range of products and services to be delivered straight onto a mobile device. Specifically, the mobile platform can help businesses with the five steps of customer engagement: attracting a new customer, marketing or advertising to a new or current customer, selling products or services to a customer, delivering content to a customer, and continuously engaging with a customer. It is important for businesses to view mobile applications not as a separate entity that works in a vacuum but rather as a large web of interconnecting solutions and services that complement one another. Mobile marketing campaigns can include one or more of the following technologies: • Common short code (CSC): A CSC is an abbreviated phone number that allows users to send text messages as well as receive automated return text messages. • Location-based advertising: This type of marketing integrates mobile advertising with technology, allowing users to pinpoint a customer’s location and provide mobile users with location-specific advertisements right on their mobile devices. • Location-based service (LBS): LBS is a service in which the location of a person or an object is used to shape or focus the application or service. • Microblogging site: These free sites allow users to send and receive messages of up to 140 characters (e.g., Twitter). • Mobile app: This application is specifically developed and designed for small handheld devices, such as mobile phones, smartphones, and PDAs. Mobile apps are sold and downloaded by users from app stores on the internet. • Mobile coupon: This is an electronic voucher requested and/or delivered by a mobile phone that is exchangeable for a financial discount or a rebate when the mobile user purchases a product or a service.

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• Mobile game: Games playable on mobile devices range from simple puzzles or word games to highly complex multiplayer games developed on robust game engines. Mobile marketers can take advantage of the mobile phone’s downloadable game feature by creating games that interest and entertain their customers. These games do not have to contain eye-popping graphics or be too complicated to catch a mobile user’s attention; cleverness and creativity actually go a long way. In-game advertisements can create ongoing revenue streams. • Mobile search: Users can search company listings through a mobile phone, similar to search functions on the internet. • Multimedia message service (MMS): MMS enables mobile phones to send and receive pictures and sound clips as well as text messages. • QR code: Unlike standard universal product codes, a QR code uses a combination of different colored geometric shapes to create a twodimensional image that displays information that can be read by a barcode scanner. When scanned onto a mobile phone, QR codes can instantly link a mobile user to a mobile website, which can then send data back to the phone. The barcode could simply be shown at a pointof-sale contact to be redeemed as a mobile coupon. • Push service: This is an internet-based communication whereby a request for a given transaction is initiated by a business rather than a client. Push services are usually based on a client’s preferences, which have been chosen in advance. Whenever new content is available, it can be pushed to the client’s mobile device. • Social media: Most of today’s smartphones come with built-in connections to the most popular social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Renren, and many others. Uploading images, photos, videos, text messages, opinions, insights, humor, gossip, and news is simple and almost instantaneous. Social media sites can be powerful customer feedback tools as they can give a business timely feedback on their products and/or services. • SMS: Also known as texting, SMS enables mobile phone users to send and receive text messages. • Videocasting: Video content can be streamed, downloaded, and viewed on a mobile device. Video is one of the most compelling marketing tools available, and downloadable videos can be used as advertisements, how-to tutorials, or downloadable educational content.

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• Viral marketing: This marketing technique leverages social networks to spread a marketing message. On the mobile platform, viral marketing can be considered a word-of-mouth campaign gone digital. These campaigns gain credibility in the eyes of the receiver simply because they are received from friends or known contacts or associates. Successful viral campaigns spread like wildfire across social networks, and they can be some of the most successful marketing around. • Virtual world: This is a computer-based simulated environment in which users can interact and play with one another. Tapping into sites such as Second Life, businesses can create virtual worlds that contain product demos or build virtual lecture halls filled with customer service agents who can interact with live customers in real time. • Voice recognition software: Also known as intelligent personal assistants, this software uses a natural-language user interface to give directions, answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by tapping into web services such as Google, Yelp, and Wolfram|Alpha. These platforms include Apple’s Siri, Android’s Speaktoit, and Microsoft’s Tellme. Over time, these applications are supposed to adapt to the user’s individual preferences. A business is only as strong as its weakest customer relationship, and mobile allows a consumer’s voice to enter into a highly sophisticated, twoway dialogue with the company. This dialogue can help shape both a company’s products and, more important, bolster its bottom line. To keep consumers interested in buying their products, advertisers and marketers must continue to innovate and explore new marketing and messaging avenues, or they risk losing a sale to a more sophisticated competitor. Nowadays, audiences have become so sophisticated that it is hard for advertisers to get their messages through the marketing noise. The knowing self-referentialism prevalent in TV advertisements today proves that the medium is in decline. When advertisers start winking to their audience that they know that the audience knows that they are being marketed to, the industry’s creativity has reached a new low. Possibly, like the Scream film franchise that reinvented the horror/slasher genre by selfreferentially poking fun at itself, television advertising can reinvent itself and flourish in the 21st century, but it will not be easy. When the drivers of a Volkswagen car commercial state that they think they are in a car commercial, or when the CEO of the fast food chain Carl’s, Jr., turns to the camera and gives an empathic No to an underling’s suggestion that they make a commercial to counter the news that McDonalds is now selling a competing Angus burger, the figurative wink-wink to the audience is a telling sign that the

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medium is floundering and needs some new technology to re-energise its advertising-weary customers. The mobile platform’s ability to do one-on-one, anytime, anywhere advertising to any individual with a mobile phone is vastly superior to any other marketing channel currently available. In the future, it is likely that all marketing will become interactive and the consumer will become a willing participant rather than a target audience. Television advertising can still flourish, but only if it becomes part of the message, not solely the message. The mobile platform’s instantaneous two-way dialogue between a company and its consumer is one of the most important aspects of mobile marketing, and such call-to-action features as click-to-call, text-to-join, text-for-info, text-for-rewards, or SMS voting can be used by a myriad of industries in a multitude of ways. SMS is a powerful communication platform that is delivered in seconds and usually read in minutes. In many ways, text messaging has been superseded by mobile text messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Boxcar, or KakaoTalk, which are usually server-based platforms that do not charge for texting.

Finding and Marketing Direct to Customers Besides SMS, LBS, Bluetooth advertising, and location-based advertising offer some unique ways to reach out to new or current customers when they are in “decision mode”—the time when they are most primed to make a purchase. LBS is a service “in which the location of a person or an object is used to shape or focus the application or service,” according to Duri et al. (2001). First used in Japan by DOCOMO, LBSs are information or entertainment services accessed by a mobile handset through a mobile network that exploits a GPS device within the handset. For businesses, LBS applications can help mobile users find a nearby business, get turn-by-turn navigation to any street address, receive notifications of a nearby sale, and get location-based mobile advertising (Steiniger, Neun, and Edwardes 2006). Similar to LBS, proximity marketing, or Bluetooth marketing, is the distribution of advertising content through a local wireless broadcaster to a mobile device such as a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone or some other Wi-Fi device. Rather than the user’s noticing the ad, the ad notices the user, and the relevant content—a text message, GIF, JPG, WAV, RMF, MP3, MP4, ringtone, 3GP, JAR, vCard, or some other digital file—is pushed to the user’s device (Sharma, Herzog, and Melfi 2008). The goal of proximity marketing is to get users to open up their Bluetooth connection to receive content (Sharma, Herzog, and Melfi 2008). Bluetooth technology can offer a low-cost, highly efficient and highly secure form of advertising that can be used in advertising

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and marketing promotions, editorial and advertising surveys, circulation campaigns, and directory updates. Bluetooth hotspots create a back-and-forth messaging environment that allows users and marketers to upload and download any kind of mobilecompatible content. Companies can offer the service for free or charge per download. Privacy is a big issue, but if the privacy concerns are dealt with in a way that is acceptable to mobile users, Bluetooth has enormous potential as a content delivery system. Bluetooth’s advantages include being inexpensive to implement, easy to use, highly compatible with other mobile devices, energy efficient, and probably most important of all, popular. Considered the “killer app” for m-commerce, location-aware advertising (LAA) has enormous commercial viability, according to Lih-Bin Oh and Heng Xu (2003). In LAA, cellular subscribers receive an advertising message based on their location (Oh and Xu 2003), so that shoppers wandering through a mall could set their mobile phone to accept all available mobile offers or just offers from a specific store. With applications such as Siri, Tellme, and Speaktoit included in the mix, a mobile user simply has to ask to see coupons of a particular store or restaurant (even down to food type) and then instantly receives a mobile coupon. For a retail store, restaurant, theater, or casino, mobile coupons could even be a part of a dynamic pricing system that could help move perishable inventory. LAA allows advertisers to deliver highly customised promotions, coupons, and offers to an individual, specifically taking into account the individual’s geographical location, as well as the time of day of the offer (Xu, Teo, and Wang 2003). LAA allows an advertiser to reach customers when they are primed to make a purchase, and studies have shown that click-through rates on LAA are five to 10 times higher than click-through rates on Internet advertising messages (Ververidis and Polyzos 2002). Up until now, LAA has been hampered by the 160-character limitations of SMS, but because of its ability to include both text and graphical content, MMS will provide much more vivid content, which should garner more consumer attention and interest and therefore result in much more successful advertising campaigns (Oh and Xu 2003).

QR Codes: Sending Context Right to a Mobile Device Recognising that scanning a QR code into a mobile phone is a lot simpler than texting a word to a CSC and then receiving a mobile coupon, the members of the Mobile Code Consortium1 have banded together to create a common protocol both for QR codes and for the software that decodes them.

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When read and decoded by the mobile phone, QR codes can initiate a web download, send an SMS or email message, dial a number, or upload data from such things as a business card (Open Mobile Alliance 2008). According to the Open Mobile Alliance, QR code marketing offers the following benefits: • Convenience: Users scanning a QR code do not have to worry about URLs, telephone numbers, or typing SMS messages into their handsets. • Increased response rates: Making the campaigns more automatic and thus lowering the mobile user’s level of participation increases the likelihood that the advertisements will actually be used. • Measurabililty: By tagging a barcode with a unique identifier in the mobile code, a marketer can easily measure which placements are the most effective. • Increased mobile internet growth: Mobile web use will undoubtedly grow because mobile users can easily connect to the internet from a barcode advertisement. • Better behavioural marketing information: Operators may be able to associate user inquiries with the user’s preferences, which should give advertisers better target marketing data. To understand how powerful a QR code advertisement could be, consider the example of a gamer seeing a QR code in a magazine’s video game ad. The consumer takes a picture of the barcode, and then the mobile device’s barcodereading software goes into action, downloading a free preview of the game as well as a mobile coupon to purchase the video game at a local retailer (CTIA Wireless Internet Caucus 2008). Voice recognition software could even give a mobile user verbal directions to the closest store where the game can be purchased. Videos about how to play the game could also be downloaded straight to the mobile device. Other uses for QR codes could include digital content purchases, mobile ticketing, educational downloads, social networking uploads and distribution, newspaper articles, recipes, and much, much more. The most important element for marketers to understand is that with QR codes, consumers can instantly receive the information they want, when and where they want it.

M-Commerce: Purchasing (Almost) Anything, Anywhere Arguably, m-commerce began in 1997 in Helsinki, Finland, when Coca-Cola installed several vending machines set up to receive SMS text messages.

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These messages included payment information for the purchased sodas. With these transactions, m-commerce was born. According to Rajnish Tiwari and Stephan Buse (2007, 33), m-commerce is “any transaction involving the transfer of ownership or rights to use goods and services, which is initiated and/or completed by using mobile access to computer-mediated networks with the help of an electronic device.” Businesses have long recognised that m-commerce’s potential is enormous, not only because of its anytime, anywhere availability, but also because of the popularity of the mobile device. M-commerce refers to a broad spectrum of applications that can be used through wireless access services, and these can include everything from communication and infotainment to consumer transactions and corporate services (Vos and de Klein 2002). According to Durlacher Research Ltd. (2001), m-business can be classified into seven different categories, as illustrated in Table 18.1. Mobile coupons, QR codes, Bluetooth advertising, LBS, voice recognition technology, and that old standby SMS have the potential to revolutionise the retail industry. In addition to these services, consumers, with their mobile devices, have the ability to enroll a “virtual shopping assistant” to help them with their purchases. These virtual shopping assistants can instantly send

Table 18.1

Taxonomy of M-Business Applications. Source: Durlacher Research

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mobile coupons, or they can assist in finding sale offers, share pictures of a retail item with friends, and give style advice and clothing suggestions. In the near future, personalisation will become the optimum mode in this new retailing environment, and even though this personalisation comes at a price—privacy—it is a price most consumers seem more than willing to pay if they receive a recognised value in return. For the retailer, personalisation requires an investment in mobile technology and complex predictive analytics software, but retailers should recognise that this price is well worth it because highly sophisticated consumers will soon need an exceptional shopping experience to keep them from purchasing products online or stepping into a competing retail establishment that does offer such a service.

The Social Media Gateway Engaging in social media used to be one of the most antisocial behaviours one could engage in. Sitting alone in a room, typing away on a computer was once the activity of solitary computer geeks, but social media have become an anytime, anywhere phenomenon, available not just on standalone desktop computers but also on a full range of mobile devices. Being social via mobile now includes being available for real-time marketing, realtime customer service, and real-time user analytics, which can produce a treasure trove of priceless information for businesses trying to understand their customers. More than just connecting with friends on Facebook, uploading videos on YouTube, or tweeting on a microblog, social media are about moving beyond the domain of the individual and into the enterprise world. While the traditional model of blasting messages to customers—and potential customers— is fading because trust in corporations has sunk to an all-time low, a new marketing model is emerging. The same customers who are tuning out the old, formulaic advertisements that they have been listening to for years are tuning in to their own personal world of social media for product and marketing advice. As The Cluetrain Manifesto2 (Levine et al. 1999) warns, “There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.” More often than not, the best delivery method for this commentary is a mobile device. This new reality offers a great opportunity for any company willing to step into that social media world. The Cluetrain Manifesto points out that “markets are conversations” and mobile technology allows consumers to quickly and easily become a part of the conversation, which is, once again, a marketer’s dream. Although giving users instant access to the comments on a company’s products or services can be

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disconcerting, companies should not fear the unfiltered nature of the internet. Giving customers a chance to vent openly and honestly can actually help a business counter negative press in the most direct and economical way.

Privacy Concerns Because of its ubiquity and access to highly personal data, the mobile platform will also be on the forefront of privacy and security concerns. In the era of Big Data, one might fear that we may be heading into a future in which inexpensive technology makes it so cheap and simple to reach a mass audience that our mobile phones and email inboxes will become so full of junk mail that they will be impractical to use. However, in this case, technology is actually coming to our rescue. Every year, IBM peers into the future and puts together a “Next 5 in 5” list (“Science Fiction” 2012), which is a list of innovations that IBM believes “will change our lives in the next five years.” The entrants for 2012 include inventions such as personal energy harvesting, biological passwords, and mind-controlled computers, but the prediction that is most relevant to mobile technology is the idea that analytics technology will, in IBM’s words, become the “next best thing to a personal assistant.” IBM (“Science Fiction” 2012) believes that the future holds a world in which “virtually every text message or email pushed at you is so relevant that this messaging analytic ‘service’ starts feeling like a best friend.” IBM claims that in 5 years, spam filters will be so precise and unsolicited advertisements so relevant that spam as we know it today will cease to exist. IBM also believes that real-time analytics will be able to decipher data from one’s social network, then cross-reference it with one’s online preferences and, ultimately, present and recommend information that is useful and/or relevant only to the individual. This technology will be able to drill down into an enormous haystack of personal data and pull out a single needle of information that not only will interest the individual being screened but will, just as important, have real-time relevance. Since much of this information is needed while people are not in front of their computers, this data must be pushed to where they actually want it—on their mobile devices.

Conclusion From its humble beginnings with a simple text to a soda machine, the mobile platform is truly coming of age. The anytime, anywhere concept that for so long appeared to be more hope than reality is now flourishing and has truly gone global. Instead of buyers’ having to locate a physical store in order to connect with a brand, they can search out, find, and buy an item right on

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their mobile phone. This means that businesses must enhance their online and mobile presence. Any business that wants to foster a two-way dialogue with its customers should use the push content services model (informed by permission marketing) that delivers content through CSC, SMS, MMS, or mobile app channels. As shown in the Figure 18.1, there are many industries that can benefit from a wide array of mobile solutions. At the beginning of this chapter, it was stated that a mobile device is much more than a wireless transmitter optimised for voice input and output. Today, ironically, being able to talk on a mobile phone is almost its least important feature. It is now a marketing, customer relationship management, purchasing, and social networking tool as well. A business that is able to offer highly specific advertisements to customers who might just need a little extra nudge

Figure 18.1

Mobile solutions by industry

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to make a purchase should find the return on investment in location-based technology is very high. Bluetooth marketing does raise privacy issues, but the day will come when mobile users who enter a mall or shopping area will view messages that ask for permission to accept a location-based Bluetooth ad as easily as they currently view television and radio advertising. It is very possible that mobile users will wholeheartedly embrace this form of advertising because of its immediacy and convenience. A person who normally shops at Macy’s or Nordstrom would likely be more than willing to accept advertisements and mobile coupons that can be redeemed at a nearby point-of-sale counter. Conversely, advertisers should be lining up to embrace mobile technology because the price to set up such channels is very low and the metrics to study the success or failure of this type of marketing is very economical. The mobile platform is so powerful because it can build brand awareness, help a company acquire and/or retain customers, market mobile consumables, and also market non-mobile consumables directly in a unmediated, one-on-one connection with a buyer. If companies listen to and embrace mobile’s call to action and couple it with the potential inherent in social media, then there will be no stopping them. The mobile platform is transforming not only how people communicate with each other but also how advertisers and marketers communicate with them. Companies that embrace mobile’s multi-screen, always-on strategy that follows its customers throughout their digital day will be richly rewarded. As the influential Cluetrain Manifesto (Levine et al. 1999) warns, “Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance.”

Endnotes 1. The Mobile Code Consortium is a group of marketing service providers, network operators, and mobile phone manufacturers. 2. The Cluetrain Manifesto is a set of 95 theses organised and put forward as a manifesto, or call to action, for all businesses operating within what is suggested to be a newly connected marketplace. Learn more at www.cluetrain.com, and see Levine et al. 1999.

References CTIA Wireless Internet Caucus Code Scan Action Team. 2008. “Camera-Phone Based Barcode Scanning.” CTIA Wireless Internet Caucus. files.ctia.org/pdf/WhitePaper_CTIA_WIC_Code Scan_9_08.pdf. Duri, S., A. Cole, J. Munson, and J. Christensen. 2001. An Approach to Providing Seamless EndUser Experience for Location-Aware Applications. Yorktown Heights, NY: Thomas J. Watson Research Center, IBM. Durlacher Research Ltd. 2001. “UTMS Report.” 130.203.133.150/viewdoc/summary;jsessionid= 4BE0C67433408BAD4D183179108F68CE?doi=10.1.1.202.2699.

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Furfie, B. 2010. “Is the iPad a Game Changer?” Engineering and Technology Magazine, Volume 5 (4). eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2010/04/ipad.cfm. Goldman, D. 2012. “Apple’s $46 Billion Sales Set New Tech Record.” CNN Money Tech. money.cnn.com/2012/01/24/technology/apple_earnings/index.htm. Grossman, L. 2007. “Invention of the Year: The iPhone.” Time. www.time.com/time/specials/ 2007/article/0,28804,1677329_1678542_1677891,00.html. Levine, R., C. Locke, D. Searls, and D. Weinberger, eds. 1999. The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual. New York: Perseus. www.cluetrain.com. Michels, O. 2010. “Why Businesses Need Mobile Apps.” Forbes. www.forbes.com/2010/09/08/ mobile-apps-internet-technology-mashery.html. Oh, L. B., and H. Xu. 2003. “Effects of Multimedia on Mobile Consumer Behavior: An Empirical Study of Location Aware Advertising.” In Proceedings of 24th Annual International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), 679–91. Open Mobile Alliance. 2008. White Paper on Mobile Codes. www.openmobilealliance.org/Technical/ release_program/mc_v1_0.aspx. Peers, M. 2009. “Apple’s Hard-to-Swallow Tablet.” Wall Street Journal. online.wsj.com/article/ SB10001424052748703510304574626213985068436.html. “Science Fiction Becomes Reality. Worlds Collide. The Future Is Now … or Within Five Years at Least.” 2012. IBM: The Next 5 in 5. www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibm_predictions_for_ future/ideas/index.html. Sharma, C. 2010. “Sizing Up the Global Mobile Apps Market.” Slideshare. www.slideshare.net/ pmork/sizing-up-the-global-mobile-apps-market. Sharma, C., J. Herzog, and V. Melfi. 2008. Mobile Advertising: Supercharge Your Brand in the Exploding Wireless Market. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Steiniger, S., M. Neun, and A. Edwardes. 2006. Foundations of Location Based Services. www.spatial. cs.umn.edu/Courses/Fall11/8715/papers/IM7_steiniger.pdf. Tiwari, R., and S. Buse. 2007. The Mobile Commerce Prospects: A Strategic Analysis of Opportunities in the Banking Sector. Hamburg, Germany: Hamburg University Press. www.mobile-prospects.com/publications/files/HamburgUP_Tiwari_Commerce.pdf. Ververidis, C., and C. G. Polyzos. 2002. “Mobile Marketing Using a Location Based Service.” In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Mobile Business, Athens, Greece. pages.cs.aueb.gr/~chris/Mobile-Business2002.pdf. Vos, I., and P. de Klein. 2002. The Essential Guide to Mobile Business. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Xu, H., H. H. Teo, and H. Wang. 2003. “Foundations of SMS Commerce Success: Lessons From SMS Messaging and Co-Opetition.” In Proceedings of 36th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 90–9. Los Angeles, CA: IEEE Computing Society Press. Yoffie, D. B., and R. Kim. 2010. “Apple Inc. in 2010.” Harvard Business School (9-710-467). March 21, 2011. Zeman, E. 2012. “Android’s Success: By the Numbers.” Information Week. www.information week.com/news/mobility/smart_phones/232601613.

C h a p t e r

1 9

The Mobile Opportunity in ICT4D Ken Banks

Editors’ Note: This chapter from a digital activist provides first-hand practitioner insights into the mobile-for-development movement (M4D) in emerging economies. Drawing on a decade of experience, the author shows that there is a long shelf-life for the most simple mobile solutions in parts of Africa, provided developers work in partnership with local communities to truly understand their needs and help them devise appropriate solutions. The chapter identifies the rise of locally inspired mobile innovation as a major trend in Africa and makes a number of useful and practical recommendations for project replication, decentralised solutions, collaboration, knowledge sharing, and flexible participatory design. In The White Man’s Burden—Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, William Easterly’s (2007) frustration at largescale, top-down, bureaucracy-ridden development projects runs to an impressive 384 pages. While Easterly dedicates most of his book to markets, economics, and the mechanics of international development itself, he talks little of information and communication technology (ICT). The index carries no reference to computers, ICT, or even plain old technology. But there is an entry for cell phones. Another economist, E. F. Schumacher, the man widely recognized as the father of the appropriate technology movement, spent a little more time in his books studying technology issues. His seminal 1973 book, Small Is Beautiful: The Study of Economics as if People Mattered, reacted to the imposition of alien development concepts on Third World countries, and he warned early of the dangers and difficulties of advocating the same technological practices in entirely different societies and environments. Although his earlier work focused more on agri-technology and large-scale infrastructure projects (dam 345

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building was a favorite “intervention” at the time), his theories could easily have been applied to ICTs—as they were in later years. Things have come a long way since 1973. For a start, many of us now have mobile phones, the most rapidly adopted technology in history. In what amounts to little more than the blink of an eye, mobiles have given us a glimpse of their potential to help us solve some of the most pressing problems of our time. With evidence mounting, a key question arises: If mobiles truly are as revolutionary and empowering as they appear to be—particularly in the lives of some of the poorest members of society—then do we, in the ICT for development (ICT4D) community at least, have a moral duty to see that they fulfill that potential? There is reason for concern in this regard. If we draw parallels between the concerns of Easterly and Schumacher and apply them to the application of mobile phones as a tool for social and economic development, there is a danger that the development community may end up repeating the mistakes of the past. But there is truly a golden opportunity that cannot be missed.

Social Mobile’s “Long Tail” Since 2003, I have been working exclusively in mobile for development (M4D) and have come to a set of conclusions about where we need to be focusing more of our attention to take advantage of this golden opportunity. For a start, not all the action is in big, national-level, top-down deployments. We do need to be looking at that bigger picture—but there is not enough room at the top of the development pyramid for all of us. I, for one, am more than happy to be working at the bottom. Not only do I find grassroots non-governmental organizations (NGOs) particularly lean and efficient (often with the scarcest of funding and resources), but they also tend to get less bogged down with procedure, politics, and egos and are often able to react far more quickly to changing environments than their larger counterparts are. Being local, they also tend to have much greater context in their environments, and in activist terms they are more likely to be able to operate under the radar of dictatorial regimes, meaning they can often engage a local and national populace in ways in which larger organisations might struggle. Waving a grassroots NGO flag, I see a central problem of focus in the mobile applications space. If we take the “long tail” concept articulated by Chris Anderson and apply it to M4D, we get “social mobile’s long tail” (Figure 19.1). What it demonstrates is that our tendency to aim for sexy, large-scale, topdown, capital- and time-intensive mobile solutions simply results in the creation of tools that only the large, resource-rich NGOs are able to adopt and

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Figure 19.1

Social mobile’s long tail. Source: kiwanja.net

afford. Having worked with grassroots NGOs for 20 years, I strongly believe that we need to avoid developing our own NGO “digital divide.” We need to think about low-end, simple, appropriate mobile technology solutions that are easy to obtain, affordable, require as little technical expertise as possible, and are easy to copy and replicate. Another key problem emerges as a symptom of the first. Because larger international development agencies, by their very nature, tend to preoccupy themselves with the bigger issues, they often inadvertently neglect the simple, easier-to-fix problems (the “low-hanging fruit”). The U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals are good examples of the kinds of targets that are far easier to miss than hit. In mobile terms, using the technology to enhance basic communications is a classic low-hanging fruit. After all, that is what mobile phones do, and communication is fundamental to all NGO activities, particularly those of NGOs working in the kinds of infrastructure-challenged environments often found in the developing world. Despite this, few appropriate tools are available that take advantage of one of the most prolific mobile communication channels available to grassroots NGOs: the text message (or short message service, SMS). Much of my own work with FrontlineSMS has sought to solve this fundamental problem, and in places such as Malawi, where Josh Nesbit (founder of Medic Mobile, formerly FrontlineSMS:Medic), the FrontlineSMS software, a

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laptop, and 100 recycled mobile phones have helped revolutionise healthcare delivery to 250,000 rural Malawians. In other countries, where activities of international aid organisations may be challenged or restricted by oppressive, dictatorial regimes, grassroots NGOs often manage to maintain operations and provide the only voice for the people. In Zimbabwe, Kubatana.net has been using FrontlineSMS extensively to engage a population starved not only of jobs, a meaningful currency, and a functioning democracy but also of news and information. In Afghanistan, international NGOs are using FrontlineSMS to provide security alerts to their staff and fieldworkers. The software is seen as a crucial tool in helping keep people safe in one of the world’s most volatile environments (Table 19.1). With a little will, what can be done in Zimbabwe and Afghanistan can be done in any country where similar oppression exists. By January 2011, the software was active across 20 different development sectors. In cases such as these—and there are many more—we need to stop simply talking about “what works” and start to get “what works” into the hands of the NGOs that need it the most. There are, of course, many issues and challenges—a mix of technical, cultural, economic, and geographic. The good news is that only a few are insurmountable, and we can remove many of them by simply empowering the very people the development community is seeking to help.

Context: The Story of FrontlineSMS The FrontlineSMS concept was born in early 2005 one rainy Saturday evening in Cambridge, U.K., a long way from the country that inspired it. During the preceding 2 years, I had been working in South Africa and Mozambique with a South African NGO on a contract with the oldest international conservation organisation in the world, Fauna & Flora International. We were looking at ways national parks could use ICTs to better communicate with local communities, something that has traditionally been problematic. Because SMS use was just beginning its astronomical climb, it seemed to be an obvious communications tool to consider. Back in 2004, M4D was a fledgling discipline, and it was early days in the wider communications revolution. So, as a starting point in the solutions evaluation process, local companies were asked to put in tenders to help develop a service, and existing services were trialed and tested. Several months later, two issues became central in the thinking behind FrontlineSMS. First, everything available back then was web-based. This was fine for a parks authority with a centrally based, well-equipped office. What was missing were tools that could be easily deployed in more challenging

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Table 19.1

FrontlineSMS Deployment in Asia, Africa, and Europe

environments and that were easy to replicate. Second, everything available back then in terms of information flow was one-way or top-down. The parks could send messages to the community, but the community voice was silent. After a short period of research and evaluation, a trial was started with a webbased service—one which ultimately failed because of lack of trust and an alltoo-familiar top-down implementation mentality. One can learn a lot from failure. Although that earlier project in Kruger National Park did fail, FrontlineSMS—which emerged from some of the original

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thinking—has gone on to become a major success story in the M4D field. Launched in 2005, FrontlineSMS was the first text messaging system to be conceived, designed, and written with the specific needs of the nonprofit sector in mind, particularly those working in the last mile. Up until then most systems did not take into account the nature of nonprofit work or the specific conditions—financial and physical—under which many NGOs worked. The nonprofit sector is not considered fertile ground for most for-profit software development companies. Unless time is spent in the field, it is hard to understand the users and hard to build a solution for them that will be deployable, effective, and appropriate. The technology component of an appropriate solution is often touted as the easy part, but FrontlineSMS has had its fair share of challenges. Other than the diverse range of desktop operating systems it needed to support— different flavours of Windows, Mac OS and Linux—there is a dizzying diversity of mobile devices to which the software needs to connect. Computer viruses have the potential to destroy or corrupt data, and for those working in restricted environments, there is an additional matter of data integrity and security. The best people to make decisions on how to address issues of data integrity are often the users themselves, since they understand their context better than anyone. The same logic can also be applied to those developing the software. The closer the problem solver is to the problem, the better the chance of successfully building and deploying an effective solution. In the case of Africa, this means African developers building African solutions to African problems. This is something that has not historically happened very much—until now.

The Rise of Locally Inspired Innovation Today, across the continent, a tech-savvy programmer with access to a computer, cheap mobile phone, software development kit, and the kind of entrepreneurial flair that many Africans have in abundance possesses all the tools needed to solve a business, technical, or social problem. Innovation around the mobile phone is particularly interesting in Africa, often because it is born out of necessity. African countries present an interesting environment where innovation in services is as common as innovation in hardware and software. During the past 20 years working on-and-off across the continent, I have observed that Africans are not the passive recipients of technology many people seem to think they are. In fact, some of the more exciting and innovative mobile services around today have emerged as a result of ingenious indigenous use of the technology.

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Services such as “Call Me”—whereby customers on many African networks, if they run out of credit, can send a fixed number of free messages per day requesting someone to call them—came about as a result of people “flashing” or “beeping” their friends (in other words, calling their phones and hanging up to indicate that they wanted to talk). Today’s more formal and official Call Me–style services have come about as a direct result of this entrepreneurial behaviour. The concept of mobile payments arose in a similar manner. In increasing numbers of African countries, it is possible to pay for goods and services through the mobile phone, something that remains a distant hope for most people in so-called developed countries. Users in rural Uganda were figuring out innovative ways of using their phones to make payments long before Vodafone and Safaricom formalised the service as M-Pesa. Local innovators are also at work in the middle ground between the grassroots and the more formalised private sector. Here, talented individuals are building all manner of solutions to all manner of problems. Sites such as Afrigadget.com proudly showcase African ingenuity even in resourcestrapped environments. These include Pascal Katana’s Fish Detector, which, with the aid of a mobile phone, is able to acoustically detect shoals of fish and alert nearby fishermen by SMS, or Morris Mbetsa’s Block & Track mobile phone-based antitheft and vehicle tracking system. Both innovations are equally ingenious, but the innovators’ backgrounds could not be more contrasting. Pascal developed his idea while he was a fourth-year student at the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering at the University of Nairobi, but Morris had no formal electronics training at all. All they have in common is that they are both from Kenya and both smart, tackling real problems, entrepreneurial, and driven by passion. Spotting and nurturing this kind of talent is seen as critical to the growth of ICTs in East Africa, and universities are increasingly at the centre of this new push. A number of initiatives continue the earlier pioneering work of Nathan Eagle, an MIT professor who, through his EPROM initiative, introduced the idea of mobile phone programming courses to many of East Africa’s computer science departments. There are three reasons to be optimistic about the future in this part of Africa. First, momentum is building on the education front, with increasing opportunities for students to learn how to program and innovate with mobile, the most widely adopted technology in use in many of their countries today. Second, more mobile devices are now being shipped to Africa with data capabilities than without. Very soon, for the first time, the majority of consumers will possess a device with the potential to connect to the internet, spurring a whole new raft of opportunities for budding innovators and entrepreneurs.

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Finally, wireless technologies—likely a mixture of Global System for Mobile Communications and Wimax and maybe others—will probably be the solution to sharing East Africa’s new-found bandwidth among the majority of its citizens. Increased coverage, particularly in the so-called last mile, represents further opportunities, particularly for the development sector that struggles to reach many of the people in the target areas. This rise of homegrown developer communities is happening at a time of increased interest in the potential for mobile-based tools to solve social and environmental problems around the world; there is something of an industry building up around M4D. Unfortunately, many ICT4D tools continue to be developed far away from the problem area and then transplanted into an unsuspecting community in the guise of a pilot. When these projects fail, as many do, rarely is the technology or the approach blamed, however inappropriate it may have been. There are lessons to be learnt from previous projects, both successes and failures. Crucially, from the very beginning, FrontlineSMS took an entirely different approach to the problem. The needs of end users—technically and emotionally—were fully taken into account. They were not seen as just end users— they were seen as equal partners, a constituency to be understood and catered to on multiple levels. This viewpoint has been crucial in uptake and deployment of the tool: We trust our users—rely on them, in fact—to be imaginative and innovative with the platform. If they succeed, we succeed. If they fail, we fail. We are all very much in this together. We focus on the people and not the technology because it is people who own the problems, and by default they are often the ones best-placed to solve them. When you lead with people, technology is relegated to the position of being a tool. Empowering users need not be rocket science. (“Rethinking Socially Responsible Design” 2011) One of the central pillars of our work remains the belief that users do not want access to tools—they want to be given the tools. That is a subtle but significant difference. They want to have their own system, something that works with them to solve their problem. They want to see it, to have it there with them, not in the “cloud.” Ownership is an important matter for many disenfranchised grassroots groups, and it should never be underestimated.

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Mobile Applications Development: Best Practices Plenty of books are available to guide developers through website or games design, but you have far less choice if your work has a social angle, and even less if there is a developing country focus. This is now a particularly exciting time in mobile, with phones working their way into the hands of rural communities the world over, where many previously had no method of electronic communication. The opportunities this has opened up have not gone unnoticed, and the nonprofit community, as well as the commercial world, has been keen to understand and take advantage. But not everyone has got it right. Here are a few myths to debunk and tips to share from M4D over the years.

“High-End Is Better Than Low-End” First, one mobile tool should never be described as being better than the other; it is all about the context of the user. There is just as much need for a low-cost, SMS-only PC-based tool as there is for a $1-million, server-based, high-bandwidth, mobile-web solution. Both are valid. Solutions are needed all the way along the “long tail,” and users need a healthy applications ecosystem to dip into, whoever and wherever they may be. Generally speaking, there is no such thing as a bad tool, just an inappropriate one.

“Centralised Is Better Than Distributed” Not everything needs to run on a mega-server housed in the capital city, accessed through the cloud. Storing data and even running applications— remotely—might be wonderful technologically, but it is not so great if there is a patchy internet connection, if one at all. For most users, centralised means remote, distributed, and local.

“Don’t Bother If It Doesn’t Scale” Just because a particular solution will not ramp up to run an international mobile campaign or healthcare for an entire nation does not make it irrelevant. Just as a long-tail solution might likely never run a high-end project, expensive and technically complex solutions would likely fail to downscale enough to run a small, rural communications network. Let us not forget that a small deployment that helps just a few dozen people is significant to those few dozen people and their families. Scale and replication are discussions that often dominate the ICT4D conference circuit, and many of the arguments are oversimplified and generalised. Believe it or not, not everyone wants to build tools that can grow into large centralised solutions, which is how many people seem to define scale.

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Some of the most successful solutions to local problems have been lowscale—and local—in nature. From the very beginning, FrontlineSMS has strongly focused on the notion of “horizontal scaling,” where the big numbers the ICT4D industry cry out for are achieved by large numbers of individual users with their own systems: In other words, a hundred systems in a hundred clinics serving 10,000 people each, rather than one system adapted and “scaled up” to serve a million. This type of growth is often, however, a bigger challenge because it needs to be based on patience and a “pull” rather than a “push” approach. Through numerous channels—including an increasing number of self-organised meet-ups around the world—potential FrontlineSMS users become aware of the tool, and the NGOs themselves then decide whether they want to try it out. The onus is on the NGOs all the way through the education, installation, and deployment process. Everything is driven by the end user, who needs to be independently motivated to download and use the tool, and not pushed or trained by us. Use is replicated by users sharing experiences, talking about their use of the tool to others, and growing numbers of champions who are either building their own solutions around FrontlineSMS, or by bloggers and researchers who write about its use and impact or highlight it at conferences.

“Big Is Beautiful” Sadly there is a general tendency to take a small-scale solution that works and then try to make a really big version of it. One large instance of a tool is not necessarily better that hundreds of smaller instances. If a small clinic finds a tool to help deliver healthcare effectively to 200 people, why not simply get the same tool into a thousand clinics? Scaling a tool changes its DNA, sometimes to such an extent that everything that was originally good about it is lost. Instead, replication is what is needed.

“Tools Are Sold as Seen” I would argue that everything we see in the social mobile applications ecosystem today is work in progress and will likely remain that way for some time. The debate over the pros and cons of different tools needs to be a constructive one—based on a work-in-progress mentality—and one that positively feeds back into the development cycle.

“Collaborate or Die” Although collaboration is a wonderful concept, it does not come without its challenges—politics, ego, and vested interests among them. There are moves to make the social mobile space more collaborative, but this is easier said than done. The next year or two will determine whether true non-competitive

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collaboration is possible, and among whom. The more meaningful collaborations will be organic, based on needs out in the field, not those formed out of convenience.

“Appropriate Technologies Are Poor People’s Technologies” This is a criticism often aimed broadly at the appropriate-technology movement. But locally powered, simple, low-tech–based responses should not be regarded as second best to their fancier, high-tech, Western cousins. A cheap, low-spec handset with 5 days’ standby time is far more appropriate than an iPhone if you do not live anywhere near a mains (electricity grid) outlet.

“No News Is Bad News” For every headline-grabbing mobile project, there are hundreds—if not thousands—that never make the news. Progress and adoption of tools will be slow and gradual, and project case studies will bubble up to the surface over time. No single person in the mobile space has a handle on everything that is going on out there.

“Over-Promotion Is Just Hype” Mobile tools will be adopted only when users get to hear about them, understand them, and are given easy access to them. One of the biggest challenges in the social mobile space is outreach and promotion, and we need to take advantage of every opportunity to get news of available solutions—and successful deployments—right down to the grassroots. It is our moral duty to do this, as it is to help with the adoption of those tools that clearly work and improve people’s lives.

“Competition Is Healthy” In a commercial environment, competition is healthy—but saving or improving lives should never be competitive. That is a key lesson M4D practitioners can learn from the wider development and ICT4D community. So, you have come up with the next big idea to cure malaria or solve the global food crisis. What next? Historically many developers have shown a tendency to dive straight into programming, but in reality this is one of the last things they should be doing. Here are a few tips on how to best go about validating your idea, and then how to best go about developing it, should you still decide to. Think carefully if you are about to build a solution to a problem you do not fully understand.

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Check to see if any tools already exist that are similar to the one you want to build, and if they do, consider partnering. Despite the rhetoric, all too often people end up reinventing the wheel. Be flexible enough in your approach to allow for changing circumstances, ideas, and feedback. Do not set out with too many fixed parameters if you can help it. From the outset, try to build something that is easy enough to use without the need for user training or a complex manual, and something new users can easily and effortlessly replicate once news of your application begins to spread. Think about rapid prototyping. Do not spend too much time waiting to build the perfect solution, but instead get something out there quickly and let reality shape it. This is crucial if the application is to be relevant. Never let a lack of money stop you. If considerable amounts of funding are required even to get a prototype together, then that is telling you something: Your solution is probably overly complex. Learn to do what you cannot afford to pay other people to do. The more design, coding, building, testing, and outreach you can do yourself, the better. Stay lean. These tasks can be outsourced later if your solution gains traction and attracts funding. The more you achieve with few resources and the more commitment and initiative you show, the higher the chances of attracting a donor or investor. Don’t be too controlling over the solution. Build an application that is flexible enough to allow users, whoever and wherever they may be, to stamp their own personalities on it. No two rural hospitals work the same way, so do not build an application as if they did. Think about building platforms and tools that contribute to the solution for the users, rather than ones that seek to solve and fix everything for them. Let them be part of it. Think about how your imported solution looks to a local user. Are they a passive recipient of it, or can they take it and turn it into their solution? A sense of local ownership is crucial for success and sustainability. Ensure that the application can work on the most readily and widely available hardware and network infrastructure. Text messaging solutions are not big in the social mobile space for nothing. For the time being, try to avoid building applications that require any kind of internet access, as that may restrict the target audience from the outset. Every third party the user needs to speak to in order to implement your solution increases the chances of failure by a considerable margin, particularly if one of those parties is a local mobile operator. Be realistic about what your application can achieve, and whenever possible look for low-hanging fruit. Remember: Big is not always better, small is

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beautiful, and focus is king. A solid application that solves one element of a wider problem is better than an average application that tries to solve everything. Bear in mind that social mobile solutions need to be affordable, ideally free. Business models, if any, should be built around the use of the application, not the application itself. Easier said than done, so try to engage business studies graduates at universities, many of whom are always looking for cool social-change projects to work on. Leverage what local NGOs (or users) are best at and what they already have: local knowledge, local context, local language, and local trust among local communities. Remember that it is unlikely you will ever understand the problem as much as they do and that it is always going to be easier to equip them with tools to do the job than for you to learn everything they know. Don’t waste time or energy thinking too much about the open sourcing process (if you decide to go that route) until you know you have something worth open sourcing (the users will be the ones to let you know that). Don’t build an application for an environment where it may politically (or otherwise) never be adopted. For example, a nationwide mobile election monitoring system would need government buy-in to be implemented. Governments that commit election fraud to stay in power are unlikely to adopt a technology that gives the game away. Consider monitoring distribution and use of your application at the beginning. Not only is it a good idea to be able to contact users for feedback, but donors will almost always want to know where it is being used, by whom, and for what. Neglect to collect this data at your peril. Promote your solution like crazy. Reach out to people working in the same technology circles, post messages on relevant blogs, blog about it, build a project website, brand the solution, and use social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook. Although target users may not be present initially, many are likely to be fairly resourceful, and the more the solution is being talked about, the more likely news is to filter down to them. Finally, build a community around the application, and encourage users to join and share experiences and to help each other. Do not be afraid to reach out for additional information, and work hard to keep it active, engaging, and growing. Communities are notoriously hard to build, but when they work, they are worth it, and they increase the chances of your project’s reaching a degree of sustainability.

The Future of SMS and the Featurephone No discussion on the use of SMS in development would be complete without a look to the future. Since I started out in mobile in 2003, every new year has

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been greeted with predictions of the demise of the text message, yet every year its use seems to rise and its reach increase. Many mobile banking solutions—seen as the leading edge of mobile innovation across Africa, for example—are reliant on SMS as part of the service. The first thing we need to acknowledge is that many of the phones circulating through the second-hand shops, shacks, and markets across much of the developing world are generally older, legacy handsets. These are the phones many people continue to use today and will use well into the future, particularly those the ICT4D community aim to reach at the very bottom of the pyramid. Thanks to the ingenuity and efficiency of the many mobile phone repair shops, it is not uncommon to find people happily using phones 6 or 7 years old. Providing data services of any kind using anything other than the humble text message or voice call is a bridge too far for many of these devices. But it is not just an ecosystem dominated by older handsets that the ICT4D community has to contend with. At the Mobile World Congress 2010, Vodafone announced “the world’s cheapest phone.” At $15, the Vodafone 150 scored low on the price tag—which is good for aspiring phone owners at the bottom of the pyramid—but it also scores low on functionality—arguably not so good for those working in ICT4D. Not only is this limitation a problem for any end user who might need (or want) to use it for things beyond voice calling and SMS, but it also perpetuates a long-standing problem in the M4D world dating back a number of years. With the ICT4D community focusing on smarter phones—ones that feature downloadable applications and allow for cloud-based solutions, for example—where do phones such as the Vodafone 150 fit in? Aimed specifically at emerging markets, these are the kinds of phones Vodafone is hoping will end up in the hands of the very patients or farmers the ICT4D world is itself working hard to reach. The longer these function-limited devices persist in the market, the longer voice and SMS will be the only options available to mobile service innovators. Low-cost phones have certainly achieved one thing—low cost—and in price terms they have done exactly what they say. During the past 5 years or so, prices have indeed steadily dropped, as we can see if we pick an early “emerging market handset” winner from 2005 (the Motorola C113 for $30), a ZTE phone widely available in East Africa in 2008 (for $25), and the more recent Vodafone 150 (for $15). The prices may have changed, but functionality has largely stagnated. You could not browse the web on the Motorola phone in 2005, or the ZTE phone in 2008, or even the Vodafone 150 phone in 2010. You cannot download applications onto any of them, either. They all have monochrome screens and look pretty much the same despite the 5-year gap between them. Very little has

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changed other than price, it would seem. Voice and SMS remain king at the bottom of the pyramid, or so it would seem. The real trick is to reduce the price of these phones while at the same time increasing (or at very least maintaining) functionality, a combination no manufacturer has yet managed to crack. The Android-based IDEOS smartphone, on sale in Kenya at around $80, is the closest yet. For the past few years, when asked what would be the biggest game changer in the field, I have consistently said it would be a sub-$40 smartphone. For the ICT4D community to be able to add cloud-based services and downloadable apps to its toolbox, the remaining 1.5 billion people on the planet without a phone need to start buying phones that do more than simple voice and SMS. Another proposal I have aired during the past few years is whether it makes sense to divert international development funding towards providing a subsidised, fully internet-ready handset for developing markets. Aid donors are already providing funds to the network operators, after all. A few years ago, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Uganda, for example, the International Finance Corporation (an arm of the World Bank) provided US$320 million to five operations of Celtel to help expand and upgrade its mobile networks. But network coverage, important as it is, is only part of the equation. From the perspective of the digital divide, who is addressing the handset issue? For the development community, mobile phones clearly provide huge potential, but are not yet fully realised. Despite the excitement there is a real danger that, through hype, poor technology choice, and an unhealthy competitive environment, we will miss many opportunities. Looking back at earlier predictions, it is clear that we have not made the progress we hoped: By the end of 2011 mobile banking was supposed to be “everywhere” in Africa, tablets would signal the end of netbooks, Africans would have a $50 smart phone, downloadable apps would kill the mobile internet and mHealth would finally meet its promise. Sure, you could argue many of these things could still happen, and some are a lot closer than you think. At $80 the IDEOS smart phone, launched in Kenya a couple of years ago, is the cheapest smart phone yet. Promising, yes, but these devices need to be well under half of that if they are to become ubiquitous across the continent. (Banks 2012)

Recommendations to the ICT4D Community To reach its full potential, the ICT4D community needs to address three key problem areas in the short to medium term.

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Executing Best Practice Technology races ahead at a breathtaking pace, but behaviour change chugs along in a much lower gear. Technology is the easy bit—people (and their habits and expectations) are far more difficult to manage. Thanks to rampant innovation in the commercial sector, the ICT4D community has even more toys to play with than it did a year ago. However, so much of what it debates— and practices—remains the same year after year: Understand the problem before tackling the technology, put the user first, build tools and not solutions, learn from your failures, do not reinvent the wheel, use appropriate technologies, and so on. How many more conferences do we need before we finally settle on a set of best practices? We should know by now what is and what is not a good way to run an ICT4D project. Let us instead match best practice against projects, and let us ensure they become an intrinsic part of the development process rather than simple sound bites and tweets.

Keeping the Tech Real New technologies lead to hype, which in turn leads to new conversations and new big ideas, as if earlier problems had been solved. It is unfortunate that attention spans seem to decrease as rates of innovation increase, and it is easy, in the age of the ultra-smartphone and iPad, to be distracted from the technological reality of much of the planet. Trumpeting the need for “appropriate technologies” at a development conference is helpful only if people do not then run off and build iPad 2 apps for African farmers. The reality is that we are still figuring out how to best use text messaging in a development capacity, and that particular technology has been around for years. In short, the ICT4D community needs to keep its technology choices firmly rooted in what is appropriate for the users, not what is newly available in the local store.

Mainstreaming ICT4D Finally, ICT4D and M4D need to go mainstream within the varying sectors of development. Today, we have a crazy situation in which each seems to be divided into two camps—the people who are deploying (or most likely figuring out how to deploy) mobile technologies, and those who are not. The former put an “m” in front of their discipline, giving us m-heath, m-agriculture, m-learning, and so on. The rest remain plain old health, agriculture, and learning. Even worse, they often go to different conferences. On a personal level, January 2013 will signal 10 years working in M4D. We have come a long way but in impact terms are still only scratching the surface. No one knows what the next couple of years have in store, let alone the next five or 10. Much depends on us.

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Quite rightly, we will ultimately be judged on what we do, not what we say or write or predict. I, for one, spent the best part of my university years critiquing the efforts of those who went before me. Countless others have done the same. Looking to the future, how favourably will the students and academics of tomorrow reflect on our efforts? A wasted, or unnecessarily delayed opportunity? That is up to us to decide.

References Banks, K. 2012. “Technology’s New Chance to Make a Difference in 2012.” The Guardian, January 4. www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/jan/04/technology-makedifference-2012. Easterly, W. 2007. The White Man’s Burden—Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press. “Rethinking Socially Responsible Design in a Mobile World.” kiwanja.net (blog), October 27, 2011. www.kiwanja.net/blog/?s=Rethinking+socially+responsible+design+in+a+mobile+world. Schumacher, E. F. 1973. Small Is Beautiful: The Study of Economics as if People Mattered. London, U.K.: Blond and Briggs.

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Mobile Phones and Financial Inclusion Anir Chowdhury and Partha Sarker

Editors’ Note: This chapter builds a compelling social and business case for leveraging mobile communication to shape financial access and opportunities for people who may not have traditional banking entitlement. It identifies mobile phone–based financial transactions involving government and public-sector agencies and discusses innovations in foreign remittances, micro-credit, and micro-insurance. Roles and partnerships of stakeholders such as banks, operators, and other third parties are identified and illustrated with numerous case studies from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Recommendations are made for regulators and service providers to increase the reach and utility of mobile financial services.

Business and Social Case: Mobile Penetration Compared With Banking Accounts According to African Development Bank estimates, more than 2.7 billion people in developing countries have no access to financial services, yet 1 billion people have a mobile phone but no bank account (Ondiege 2008). In Africa alone, only 20 percent of African families have bank accounts. For example, as per 2007 data, only 30 percent of households in Kenya had bank accounts, and as per 2006 data, Benin, with a population of 7 million, had only 35 bank branches across the country. Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania each have fewer than one bank branch per 100,000 people, compared with one bank branch per 100 people in Spain (Dovi 2008). In 2007, Pakistan had 70 million mobile 363

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phone subscribers, as opposed to 1 million bank account holders (Kimenyi and Ndung’u 2009). A Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) study (Bold 2011a) found a strong inverse correlation between the likelihood of citizens’ being poor and the likelihood of their having a bank account. An estimate shows that between 1998 and 2009, mobile phone penetration in China increased from 1.92 percent to 55.9 percent; in India it rose from 0.12 percent to 44.7 percent. In this period, Africa also witnessed a significant increase in mobile phone penetration, from 0.53 percent of people to 42.82 percent (Ondiege 2008). Meanwhile, the average price of a 2G handset decreased from $150 in 2003 to $75 in 2008 (Hausman 2010). The annual growth rates of mobile phone penetration in the developing world have ranged from 30 percent to 50 percent and sometimes higher. There are several reasons that this disparity between mobile phone and formal banking penetration continues. The cost of formal banking is very high, and citizens of many developing countries cannot afford it. Formal banking requires a physical office, infrastructure, capital inflow, human resources, and so on. In some African countries, maintaining a bank account can be very expensive; the minimum deposit for any bank account can be as high as 50 percent of per capita gross domestic product (Kim 2011). Mobile banking in that case offers an opportunity, not only to serve the “unbanked” who are untouched by traditional financial institutions, but also to offer the service at much cheaper cost. CGAP research suggests that branchless mobile banking can scale up five times faster than traditional microfinance institutions can and is 38 percent cheaper than traditional banks for the low-value transactions typically conducted by the poor (Thomas 2010).

Financial Inclusion: Philosophy and Model Microfinance, microcredit, financial inclusion, and such terms are becoming buzzwords in the parlance of poverty alleviation. Although microfinance and microcredit are often used synonymously, this chapter uses microfinance to include credit, savings, insurance, and transfers that deal with small amounts of money. Financial inclusion refers to high-quality, affordable microfinance services and products for the poor and near-poor population. For many central banks of developing countries, financial inclusion has recently become a prevalent goal for two primary reasons: 1) It has received significant political mileage from poverty alleviation and sustainable development perspectives, and 2) the latest developments in information and communication technologies, especially mobile devices, have enabled cost-effective models of financial transactions for the traditionally hard-to-reach and underserved communities.

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Here is an example: In 2002, Carol Realini, a Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur, noticed that scores of people were standing in line with bags of money to pay the mobile phone agent to top up their prepaid mobile phones. This was in the Congolese capital Kinshasa, a city of 8 million people with only a few blocks of electricity but an overgrowth of cell phone towers, few banks but hundreds of thousands of mobile phones! Realini thought that if people were so keen to talk and text to each other, then they would be overjoyed if they could transfer money over the same device. Out came her new company, Obopay, which was one of the pioneers of money transfer technology over mobile devices. Similar companies sprang up in different parts of the world to introduce person-toperson micropayments, which ultimately led to full-fledged mobile banking. It is important to understand the nature and extent of financial exclusion in order to fully appreciate the need for financial inclusion. It is generally considered that financial exclusion—lack of access to affordable financial services and products—prevents poor people from overcoming poverty and often drives others into poverty. A 2009 McKinsey Report (Chaia et al. 2009), conducted in partnership with Financial Access Initiative, a consortium of researchers at New York University, Harvard, Yale, and Innovations for Poverty Action, shows the following picture of financial exclusion in the world: • 2.5 billion adults, just more than half of the world’s adult population, do not use formal financial services to save or borrow. • 62 percent of adults, nearly 2.2 billion of the unserved adults, live in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. • Of the 1.2 billion adults who use formal financial services in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, at least two-thirds, a little more than 800 million, live on less than $5 per day (purchasing power parity–adjusted). While most people in developed countries have different types of insurance, such as health, crop, automotive, accident, disability, and life, the scenario is rather bleak in developing countries. Only around 135 million, or 5 percent, of the world’s low income people in developing countries are insured through some form of micro-insurance products (Lloyd’s 360-Degree Risk Insight 2010). A 2008 World Health Report states that more than 100 million people

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around the world are forced into poverty annually because of catastrophic healthcare expenditures (World Health Organization 2008). The near-ubiquitous reach of mobile phones, the falling cost of the devices, and the rapidly increasing smartness of features in even low-cost phones allow for very interesting options for banks, lending organisations, service providers, and telecommunication companies to work together to offer innovative financial services and products to the poor at very affordable prices. The cost of transactions—deposit and withdrawal for banking, transfer payments, premium collection, and disbursing the claim for insurance— goes down for both the service providers and the clients and beneficiaries. In addition, communication between service providers and citizens is strengthened through short message service (SMS) reminders, interactive menus, and the like. Finally, customers are empowered through managing their own accounts in a cost-effective and accessible manner. For the purpose of discussion in this chapter, the spectrum of financial inclusion services and products has been divided into the following categories: • Banking to empower the unbanked: Many developing countries have launched mobile banking services, such as M-Pesa in Kenya, Omnilife in Mexico, Easypaisa in Pakistan, and Dutch Bangla Bank in Bangladesh. Services include checking account information and deposits, withdrawals, and transfers. • Government-to-person (G2P) payments to make social safety net payments to the poor and destitute more effective and cost-effective: In developing economies, a substantial percentage of the yearly government budget goes into making social safety net payments to poor citizens. For example, in 2010, United Bank Limited in Pakistan was able to design, procure, and distribute more than 1 million debit cards, filled by mobile money transfer, to flood victims in a matter of weeks (Pasricha 2011). This was remarkable considering that the country had a total of only 5 million debit cards prior to this operation. In Uganda, pension payments will be made to 95,000 rural households using the Mobile Telephone Network (MTN) Mobile Money platform (Tellez 2011). • Person-to-government (P2G) payments to reduce time and cost, and also the influence of the rent-seekers on poor citizens when they travel far to access government services: Several African countries, such as Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, are paying water bills with mobile money transfers to utility companies (Cohen 2012). More than 7 million utility bill payments have been made over mobile phones in Bangladesh in the past few years. The Qatar government recently

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introduced payment for a host of government services through mobile phones (“Vipera Has Provided” 2012). • Person-to-person (P2P) remittance payments from abroad and within the country to bring down the cost of transaction for both persons and financial institutions: Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the South Pacific have enabled international remittances to flow into the country from the working expatriate population. Philippines, in 2004, introduced the first international remittance system over mobile phones (Dalberg 2012). • Micro-insurance to provide the poor with access to proper risk management tools and reduce their vulnerability to falling back into poverty: MTN Ghana introduced life insurance over Mobile Money, and Kenya introduced drought insurance over M-Pesa and health insurance over Changamka. • Micro-credit to lower the cost of micro-credit transactions and, in turn, the interest rate to poor borrowers: Zidisha in the U.S. administers micro-loans using mobile phones. Musoni in Kenya (Tellez 2010) is an all-mobile micro-credit organisation that deals in a cashless manner with its borrowers.

Mobiles in Financial Inclusion: Framework and Operating Model The framework for financial inclusion via mobile devices can be divided into two categories of services: 1. Information services: These are services whereby information on financial options is presented for the mass financial awareness and education of citizens. Often the marginalised are not even aware of the many options of savings, remittance, and insurance available to them, and this information divide exacerbates the economic and social divide. The low-cost accessibility of financial information may act as a catalyst to address the information divide. Information services also include the “information” part of transactions, such as checking account balance, notification of incoming or outgoing remittance, and alerts when insurance premiums are due—all very useful services for financial management. 2. Transaction services: These are services whereby financial transactions are made for savings and withdrawal, for payments to and from the

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government and to other individuals, for insurance premiums and loans, and for other services. For both information and transaction services, one crucial element is security. To ensure that, an age-old method called know your customer (KYC) is typically the first and fundamental step. KYC refers to the collection and maintenance of adequate information about the customer to uniquely identify him or her and is typically used globally to prevent identity theft, financial fraud, money laundering, and terrorist financing. By law, all financial institutions are required to maintain the customer’s KYC information in order to establish an electronic identity for the customer. For most information services and all transaction services, the customer’s identity provided at the time of request is verified against his or her electronic identity. Once KYC is properly established, the customer is free to pursue both information and transaction services. But then comes the issue of banking regulation when airtime has to be considered an alternative form of money. In the cases of G2P payments, P2G payments, and P2P remittance, the issue of storing money does not arise because a fund transfer is typically made from the source account to the destination account. The account could be a bank account or other form of mobile account attached to the KYC information of the customer. If the transfer is made in real time, no money is stored during the transfer. If the transfer takes some time to reach the destination account, as in the case of lack of interoperability between the two accounts or because intermediate steps have to be taken due to technical or regulatory reasons, the money is stored en route for a very short time. However, in the cases of banking, micro-insurance, and micro-credit, the name of the game is primarily storage of money as an asset and provision of some form of return on that asset. This falls squarely within banking regulations in most countries. Many countries have started mobile banking or payment models that are led by mobile operators. For example, the well-known M-Pesa service in Kenya is led by the mobile operator Safaricom. In contrast, many other countries, such as India and Bangladesh, have mandated that all mobile banking functions be led by banks in order to ensure that all banking transactions conform to banking regulations. Bangladesh has modified banking rules and guidelines to accommodate mobile banking by banks rather than allowing mobile operators to function as banks. Since 2008, debate has raged over whether bank-led or telco-led models are better for consumers and businesses. Two other major models—joint ventures and third-party mobile payment service providers (MPSPs)—have emerged to cater to the varied needs of consumers and to conform to the regulatory environment of various countries. Table 20.1 was presented in June 2009 in Trinidad by Radix Consulting Corp. and nicely summarises the five

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Table 20.1

Mobile Payment Models. Source: www.radixconsulting.com/ MobileBankingIsitBankversusNon-Bank.pdf

key issues that have given rise to the four major models in mobile banking and mobile payments. The following are important points to note: • The responsibility for deposits lies with the bank in all four models. • The cash deposits and withdrawals are often handled by retail agents authorised by banks, telcos, or MPSPs. KYC compliance is ensured by the authorised agents. This arrangement greatly reduces the need to set up physical establishments such as bank branches in remote places, where they are often prohibitively expensive and not costeffective because of low volumes of transactions in the catchment area. This form of delegation is particularly important for developing countries where traditional bank branches, automated teller machines (ATMs) or point-of-sale (POS) mechanisms are few and far between. Typically, limits are placed on deposits and withdrawals in order to safeguard against money laundering, financial fraud, and terrorist financing. • There is no clear “one-shoe-fits-all” model, and different models benefit different communities and countries.

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The key point remains that mobile banking and mobile payments are a “nice-to-have” feature in developed countries, which already have strong interbank payment systems, extensive bank branches, ubiquitous ATM and POS networks, high credit and debit card penetration, and high availability of internet banking. In contrast, in developing countries with a weak interbank infrastructure, limited numbers of bank branches, a limited ATM and POS system, and high penetration of mobile devices, mobile banking and payments are a “must-have.”

Addressing Challenges Challenges to implementing mobile banking and mobile payments arise from many sources. In developed countries, the challenges include movement from legacy electronic systems and established norms and cultures. Because mobile payments are a nice-to-have in developed countries, customers are often resistant to moving to a different way of doing things—they prefer credit and debit cards and internet payment, as they have for a couple of decades or more. The challenges in developing countries are somewhat different: lack of a reliable ID system that will form the basis of a KYC mechanism, financial education for customers who have never done banking, and an absence of financing for innovative products to take shape in a particular country context. For all countries, challenges include regulatory bottlenecks, turf battles between established banking and telco players, and lack of interoperability between different electronic financial platforms.

KYC The foundation for a robust KYC mechanism is a trusted, uniform ID system to uniquely identify a customer at the point of transaction. In most KYC systems, a photo ID is required. The details of the ID are verified and stored as proof of the existence of the customer. The KYC system thus established is used to verify the same customer with the same ID in the future as well. In developed countries, multiple IDs that do not share data often complicate the process, whereas in developing countries, lack of an ID document makes establishing a new electronic ID expensive and difficult and puts the burden on the bank or the telco. Sometimes a large number of the ID documents are faulty or not trustworthy. India has made a very bold and ambitious decision to develop a unique ID system by developing a national population register for all its 1.2 billion citizens and non-citizen residents alike (“Mobile Payments in India” 2012). Such bold initiatives in developing countries could easily create a KYC mechanism that surpasses the robustness and reliability of that in developed countries.

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Fragmented and Uninteroperable Platforms There is no standard technology for establishing the ID document of a customer. Along with textual information about the customer, some biometric features such as digital photographs, fingerprints, iris scans, and vein scans are used. Because very little standardisation has been established globally, a wide variety of technical platforms and methods has developed, with little interoperability. This renders ID documents of one provider unusable by others, resulting in a situation in which the customer has to carry many ID documents, exacerbating the problem further. Either a standard, unique ID system such as the one being created by India or an ID mapper that allows mapping of different IDs of the same person for interoperability among systems has to be developed. Similar interoperability problems exist in payment platforms also. Different banks, telcos, and other payment service providers use different technologies, and customers are often locked into one or the other provider’s domain. Some countries are solving this problem by introducing central payment switches.

Bank-Led Versus Telco-Led Models and Other Regulatory Bottlenecks The debate and quest for customer control between banks and telcos creates complex regulatory issues. The attendees of the 2010 Leadership Forum at Mobile Money Summit in Rio de Janeiro agreed as follows: Mobile network operators, not typically accustomed to working with financial sector regulators, are sometimes frustrated by what they view as dilatory and overly cautious reactions of financial regulators to mobile money offerings. A large part of these divergent expectations can be traced to institutional mandates: telecoms regulators are charged with overseeing service provision, interoperability, and competition, whereas financial regulators are charged with overseeing systemic risk, price stability, and, in some contexts, full employment. These divergent mandates have created different cultures of risk tolerance and entrepreneurial speed at financial and telecoms regulators. (Reed 2010) It is imperative that a healthier relationship between mobile operators and financial regulators be established within countries. As of this writing, most mobile money has not been used for revenue-generating activities and thus does not exert any notable inflationary influence. Issues such as this must be well understood through dialogue by both the telcos and the regulators—

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although the nature of this influence may start to change when mobile money becomes huge or micro-lending goes mobile.

Financial Education of Consumers In developing countries, most potential customers have never been exposed to banking services. Moreover, a large majority of them are illiterate and have unpredictable incomes. Even success stories such as M-Pesa in Kenya have not created significant traction with international remittances because an adequate awareness development campaign was not conducted. But achieving a sufficient level of financial literacy for a large uninformed population is a difficult task, and the question arises whether the telcos or banks find it viable to embark on this aspect of marketing their mobile products. It is important for central banks and government to partner with private service providers to raise general financial literacy because this is a prerequisite to bringing people into financial inclusion even when the necessary tools and services are available and affordable. Moreover, higher financial inclusion enables governments, especially in countries where much of the economic activity is informal and thus untraceable, to create new opportunities to track financial crime and better enforce taxation.

Lack of Investments for Innovative Products Can mobile banking and payment products reduce uncertainty of income generation for the poor? How about lessening the impact of catastrophic health or crop events? Can credit scoring be done by analysing patterns of mobile top-ups? Funding for such research and development (R&D) efforts needs to be escalated in order to leverage the full power of the mobile platform for financial inclusion. Large telcos may have the financial resources but may not be forward looking enough because they remain sufficiently profitable by selling air time. Innovations may come from small companies who can look ahead of the current curve. Venture funding opportunities need to be created to support these innovations towards greater financial inclusion.

Case Studies Banking to Empower the Unbanked: Easypaisa in Pakistan Easypaisa (www.easypaisa.com.pk) allows customers to conduct different types of financial services, including bill payment, account opening, money transfer within Pakistan, acceptance of foreign remittance, airtime refill, and donations through Easypaisa shops or agents across the country. With more than 10,000 agents, it already has more access points than does the entire

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banking sector of Pakistan combined. Telenor Pakistan partnered with Tameer Microfinance Bank to introduce this branchless banking using mobile phones. In March 2011, 1.3 million customers processed 1.9 million Easypaisa transactions and $39.2 million in transaction flows. Easypaisa has conducted more transactions in its first 18 months than has any mobile money deployment worldwide except M-Pesa (Kendall 2011). CGAP commissioned a study (Bold 2011a) in January and February 2011 of Easypaisa customers, their income level, banking access, banking activities, satisfaction rate, and so forth. The study suggests that two-fifths (41 percent) of Easypaisa users live on less than $2.50 per day (in 2005, purchasing power parity–adjusted dollars). The majority of the customers (69 percent) live on less than $3.75 per day while a few customers (5 percent) were living below $1.25 per day. Almost half the respondents (45 percent) did not have a bank account, with informal money lenders being the next-highest provider of financial services. Threequarters of the respondents (76 percent) felt the service has a positive impact on their lives, and a high majority of users (88 percent) thought the service was easy to use.

Government-to-Citizen Payments GCASH Remit in Philippines GCASH mobile money service is run by Globe Telecom, one of the leading telcos in Philippines. It supports the government’s poverty alleviation programs, including cash assistance to poor families to pay for their healthcare, nutrition, and education costs in exchange for complying with certain conditions such as keeping children in school, attending regular health checkups, and vaccinating their children. Previously, the government had to hire helicopters to physically bring the cash to target beneficiaries in remote areas. Now GCASH Remit partner outlets that are community-based can disburse this money via a mobile phone that validates and processes the disbursements. In 2010, the World Food Programme’s Cash for Work Programme used this GCASH Remit network to serve a number of its beneficiaries. These disbursements could be monitored in real time through an online platform. A CGAP report (Bold 2011b) suggests that GCASH Remit is serving around 300,000 grant beneficiaries and has already distributed US$23 million in grants to almost 70 areas in 16 of the country’s most remote districts. The service is also well accepted by the beneficiaries, who earlier had to spend as much as 30 percent of the grant on travel and long hours waiting in line. Its success factors include its innovative services of offering the cashout options in both cash card and m-wallet. Its network of outlets includes rural banks,

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pawnshops, other financial institutions, and neighborhood or community establishments. MTN Mobile Money Platform for Pension Payment in Uganda In Uganda, the government has recently started to pay pensions in cash, using mobile banking networks in remote rural locations, where 85 percent of the active population is engaged in agriculture but only 7.1 percent have access to social benefits such as pensions. Even that access is often difficult, costly, and time-consuming. Recently, the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development launched the Senior Citizens’ Grant under a cash transfer system called Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment (SAGE). Considering that a large part of Uganda’s population is unbanked, especially in the rural areas, MTN Uganda has offered its MTN Mobile Money service to the SAGE project to deliver the funds to these beneficiaries, a majority of whom live in rural areas. Beneficiaries who do not have mobile phones will be given SIM cards, through which they will be able to talk to Mobile Money agents for cash disbursement purposes.

Citizen-to-Government Payments: Mobile Money to Pay for Water Services in Africa In many countries of Africa, water or other utility bills are being paid through either mobile money or mobile banking. Such consumer convenience could improve bill collection efficiency and can support wider sustainability of water services. This is particularly true when one in five water bills in urban Africa is unpaid. Mobile water payments represent a secure, low-cost, and increasingly accessible mechanism. In one instance in Kenya, 76 percent of customers adopted the mobile bill payment option. At least a dozen water service providers (WSPs) across four African countries have introduced a mobile water payment service since 2009. Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Corp. was the first utility service in Africa to introduce mobile water payments, implemented through agreements with Vodacom and Zain (now Airtel). WSPs in Kenya, Zambia, and Uganda have all launched similar services. In Kenya alone, seven WSPs offer mobile payments to half of the nation’s urban piped connections. In Uganda, the National Water and Sewerage Corp. transitioned to an electronic system dubbed “e-water” in March 2011; users have to pay their water bills either at bank branches or via mobile money platforms offered by major telcos. Within 4 months of this transition, 20,000 of the corporation’s users moved to the mobile money option, resulting a transaction of $300,000 worth of water bills. Mobile networks now collect 95 percent of the corporation’s water service revenue. Similar plans are under way to introduce mobile water payment systems

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in Rwanda, Zambia, and Tanzania, making the payment option available to an additional 300,000 connections. This payment option is built around the mobile network operator platform, in which users can electronically transfer funds to their water service providers by using any mobile handset. A simple series of on-screen menus or instructions are followed to execute the bill payment.

Mobile Payments for Government Services in Dubai The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has one of the highest penetrations of mobile phones in the world, and Dubai eGovernment has created many mobile solutions: two mobile payment gateways, a dedicated mobile portal, and a mobile SMS gateway to cater to payment needs. The number of transactions issued for m-pay (for government services) in 2009 was 8,380, which increased to 19,433 in 2010 (Bitar 2011). Dubai government revenues from mobile payment transactions across three government departments (Roads and Transport Authority, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, and Dubai Police) jumped 325 percent in 2010, which prompted the government to offer a wide range of electronic payment solutions for government services. Dubai eGovernment has come to an agreement with Etisalat, the largest mobile operator in UAE, to use its mPayment infrastructure and to tap into a customer base of 6 million within the country.1 Most federal and local government entities in the UAE have online and mobile payment channels for their services, which include utility and phone bills, parking fees, and Zakat payment. An opinion poll conducted by Emirates eGovernment on the official portal of the UAE government (www.government.ae) has revealed that most users (83 percent) trust online payment for government services (“83% of the People” 2011).

Person-To-Person Remittance Payments From Abroad and Within the Country M-Pesa in Kenya M-Pesa in Kenya is a joint venture between mobile phone company Vodafone and Kenya’s largest mobile service provider Safaricom and allows many Kenyans to transfer funds as quickly and easily as sending a text message. The majority of these users do not have any regular bank accounts. Almost 7 million customers transfer nearly US$2 million a day through Kenya’s M-Pesa service (“M-Pesa” 2009). M-Pesa is an SMS-based money transfer system that allows individuals to deposit, send, and withdraw funds using their mobile phone. Most of this cash flows from urban areas to families in rural areas, yet one study (“M-Pesa” 2009) found that more than one-fifth of M-Pesa customers in urban areas are storing small amounts of money in their mobile

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wallet. The growth of adoption of M-Pesa services is phenomenal. By August 2009, about 7.7 million M-Pesa accounts had been registered and served nearly 38 percent of Kenya’s adult population (Jack and Suri 2011). To access the M-Pesa service, customers first register at more than 18,000 authorized M-Pesa retail outlets. The authentication is done through a tiered process including mobile number ownership confirmation through SIM card, a user-selected personal identification number, and a national ID card. A research study (“M-Pesa” 2009) by CGAP reports that M-Pesa is boosting the income of rural recipients, although the average amount being transacted is worth around US$20. Users say they adopted M-Pesa because it is cheaper, more accessible, and safer than other money transfer options. Banglalink Mobile Money Remittance in Bangladesh The Banglalink international mobile remittance service is a bank-led service enabling consumers to receive funds either directly in their m-wallet or at a Western Union location in Bangladesh. Banglalink does not receive fees directly from recipients but shares revenue with bank partners (e.g., Dhaka Bank) and Western Union. It can send or receive money from any Western Union agent in more than 200 countries and territories. As of February 2012, the registered userbase for this service stood at 22,000, which Banglalink plans to increase to 50,000 by the end of the year (Dalberg 2012). There are currently 1,700 Dhaka Bank–accredited Banglalink mobile cash-out points within the country to support this mobile money remittance process. This wallet system supports not only international remittance but also services such as ticketing for transportation and utility bill payment. Its success factors include its competitive advantage of being first into the market. Also it has a partnership with Western Union, which allows the sending and receiving of foreign remittances from more than 200 countries. There are certain challenges too. The regulatory environment in the country still does not support peer-to-peer transactions; therefore, this international remittance needs to be bank-led, which puts a barrier on quick scale-up of this experiment. Therefore its marketing will involve lots of hand-holding and education.

Mobile Phones for Micro-Insurance and Micro-Credit MTN Ghana for Micro-Insurance In March 2011, MTN Ghana and other insurance companies launched an innovative mobile money insurance product called Mi-Life, which provides an opportunity to buy life insurance via mobile phones. Users are able to initiate claims and queries and make premium payments using their handsets. Premiums are deducted directly from the m-wallet monthly, and customers receive SMS notification upon deductions. Customers can purchase the insurance through a mobile money agent or directly via their mobile phones

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protected by a pin code. The purpose of this initiative is to make insurance more relevant to the majority of the people, whom the insurers have traditionally ignored. The insurance companies have earned $190 million in premiums in this segment alone. In a country such as Ghana, where only 22 percent of the population has insurance and only 34 percent have bank accounts, but more than 50 percent have mobile, life insurance through mobile money could be an alternative delivery mechanism. In July 2011, MTN Ghana provided its first insurance premiums to a person within 72 hours of submission of all relevant documents. The success factors include the fact that MiLife was the first insurance to be rolled out via mobile network and that it had the support of the MTN subscriber base, the largest carrier in the country. It provides some benefits to the users, including low costs due to existing mobile money services offered by the operator; a massive and efficient distribution platform; helpful communication with the customer via SMS reminders; and interactive menus— all of which empower customers to manage insurance policies in cost-effective and accessible ways (“Hollard Insurance, MFS” 2012). Mapfre Seguros and Retailer Micro-Insurance Distribution in Brazil MAPFRE Seguros, one of the largest Brazilian insurance companies, and Vivo, the largest cellular company in Brazil, launched their first mobile phone insurance service, Seguro Mapfre Celular, in early 2006. The insurance is sold through Vivo retail stores and is available to both pre- and post-payment subscribers. The partnership between Vivo and MAPFRE allows Vivo clients to purchase mobile phone insurance against theft or damage. The insurance product has performed well since its launch in 2006, with 300,000 policies sold (Smit and Smith 2011). Premiums are collected in two ways. For postpaid (contract) clients, the premium is collected with the cellular bill, and for prepaid clients, the insurance premium can be deducted (monthly) from airtime purchase. MAPFRE, in partnership with Vivo, replaces the stolen handset with a handset of equal value. The insured receives the same handset as was insured unless the manufacturing of that handset has been discontinued. Some success factors of this model include large underwriters and a large, trusted distribution network. The premiums integrated with postpaid bills or airtime charges make the system successful in premium collection. An advanced database of subscribers and IT system also allowed the insurance companies to monitor the sale of these products. FrontlineSMS:Credit Launched in 2010, FrontlineSMS:Credit software enables organisations to manage a mobile money account via specially formatted SMS messages that

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notify the network of incoming payments and initiate new payments to an individual or a group. It also provides tools to securely store and flag important payments, analyse trends, and easily update the accounting system. FrontlineSMS:Credit does not require internet access and provides free turnkey software and the interface. It also helps organisations to implement the software when there is no in-house capacity. FrontlineSMS:Credit has released a new software, PaymentView, that enables any organisation to turn a computer plus a USB modem into a hub for using and managing mobile money. FrontlineSMS:Credit is running a series of pilots in Kenya with a wide range of organisations, such as member-owned, community-level, rural MFI, a micro-insurance provider that plans to expand a life insurance and savings product from group to individual distribution through mobile payments, and another pilot involving local non-governmental organisations in western and central Kenya, which distribute ToughStuff solar products through networks of micro-franchisers (Penicaud 2011).

Trends: What Lies Ahead? We believe that the world has so far seen only the tip of the iceberg of financial inclusion via mobile platforms. The ubiquitous reach of mobile devices, the cost-effectiveness of transactions to come, and the endless possibilities of partnership across many different industry verticals will allow disruptions that have not been thought of yet. The following list is only an indication of what the world can dare to dream.

Financial Planning for Individuals and Small, Micro, and Medium Enterprises The financial planning tools on mobile devices will have to address unpredictable income and the semi-literate user. An example is a tool called Mamakiba (2010), which allows women of low income in eastern Nairobi to calculate savings and track payments for their maternal health needs such as prenatal care and clinical delivery. This example shows that innovation may come from people who are not financial experts in fields where financial services are part of the solution to a larger problem.

Supply Chain Management for Small, Micro, and Medium Enterprises A host of supply chain management solutions on mobile devices exist for small and medium companies in developed countries. Many of these systems are hosted solutions rather than purchased software, which means small

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businesses can focus on business productivity rather than worry about IT infrastructure. Similar solutions will start to appear for small, micro, and medium enterprises (SMMEs) in developing countries.

Credit Scoring Most developing countries have little to no infrastructure to collect adequate information about a customer to build credit history. Credit bureaus either do not exist or have limited information on a limited number of high-net-worth individuals. For borrowers without credit history, credit or micro-credit comes at a high price. Companies such as Cignifi in the U.S. are developing solutions that create credit scores on the basis of usage behaviour (calls, text messages, duration, top-ups) of mobile phone users.

Micro-Insurance Such as Health, Crop, and Life Insurance companies can now reach the previously unreachable. A programme called Kilimo Salama (safe farming in Kiswahili) in western and central Kenya, in partnership with Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, UAP Insurance, and mobile operator Safaricom, is designing insurance policies for farmers who plant on small patches of land to the tune of 1 acre. The insurance policies are designed to protect the farmers from financial losses due to natural disasters. Changamka Microhealth, in partnership with GA Insurance, is providing micro-insurance for healthcare.

Micro-Credit Innovations Companies such as FrontlineSMS:Credit have developed tools and technologies for micro-credit organisations to deal with mobile money. Because micro-credit organisations are traditionally weak in technology infrastructure and use, such opportunities can usher in a revolution, making microcredit much more palatable by lowering the relatively high interest rate.

Recommendations This chapter ends with five key recommendations for regulators, service providers, innovators, and the development community.

Promoting a “Test and Learn” Approach to Regulatory Reform Successful regulatory case studies from several countries reveal that the “testand-learn” approach is the most effective in addressing the needs of underserved customers, banks, telcos, and third-party payment service providers.

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This approach is also effective for developing trust and consensus among telcos, banks, and regulators in the bank-led versus telco-led debates and struggles in various countries. Philippines and Kenya reported on the test-and-learn approach in the 2009 Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) Global Policy Forum (Solin 2009). In these countries the telcos were allowed to experiment and to develop their business model under close supervision of the regulators, thereby creating an environment of mutual trust and understanding. Similar approaches will make other countries successful.

Sharing Success Stories of Telco–Financial Regulator Relationships Globally Organisations such as the AFI, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are in a position to engender healthy relationships and spread the good word. AFI catalysed the Maya Declaration, “the first global and measurable set of commitments by developing and emerging country governments to unlock the economic and social potential of the 2.5 billion ‘unbanked’ people through greater financial inclusion” (“Maya Declaration” 2011). More than 80 countries, representing 75 percent of the world’s unbanked population, endorsed the Declaration and made measurable commitments to increase financial inclusion in their countries through contextspecific schemes and regulatory regimes.

Ensuring Interoperability Across Solutions The current fragmentation in technologies needs to disappear through the emergence of platforms that will leverage common ID systems for KYC and common transaction systems for payments. Integration technologies are already emerging that allow plug-ins of disparate financial systems to work with each other. Cellulant (www.cellulant.com) of East Africa is one company that is developing technology platforms for many banks and telcos to interoperate.

Developing Low-Cost Transaction Models and Service Delivery Points The cost of transactions is still prohibitive for the poor who want to deposit, withdraw, and transfer very small sums of money. Innovative approaches, partnerships, and leveraging of existing agencies such as the post office and retail outlets often hold the key to lowering cost. International remittance requires handling of regulatory issues regarding cross-border flow of money. Existing major operators, such as Western Union, with 400,000 agents across nearly 200 countries (Rotman and Thomas 2012), may be able

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to forge powerful partnerships with international telcos and local banks to address some of these issues.

Creating an Investment Climate for R&D in Value-Added Services Investment is needed for R&D and piloting of innovative value-added services that go beyond traditional banking products, including but not limited to the ones described in this chapter. Venture financing opportunities and/or internal investment vehicles by telcos, banks, and governments will accelerate the process, shorten time to market, and create financial inclusion for the underserved.

Endnote 1. Etisalat has more than 6.3 million mobile subscribers in the UAE, representing a market penetration in excess of 140 percent, placing the UAE amongst the most highly penetrated market in the world. Source: www.etisalat.ae.

References Bitar, Zaher. 2011. “AE: Dubai: Mobile Payment Revenues Jumped 325% in 2010.” IfG.CC. www.ifg.cc/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33600. Bold, Chris. 2011a. “Does Branchless Banking Reach Poor People? The Evidence from Pakistan.” CGAP. June 7, 2011. www.cgap.org/blog/does-branchless-banking-reach-poor-peopleevidence-pakistan. ———. 2011b. “GCASH Supports the Philippine Government’s Poverty Alleviation Programs.” CGAP. March 29, 2011. www.cgap.org/blog/gcash-supports-philippine-government%E2% 80%99s-poverty-alleviation-programmes. Chaia, Albert, Aparna Dalal, Tony Goland, Maria Jose Gonzalez, Jonathan Morduch, and Robert Schiff. 2009. “Half the World Is Unbanked.” McKinsey on Society. www.mckinseyonsociety. com/half-the-world-is-unbanked. Cohen, Illana. 2012. “Mobile Water Payments: What’s in It for Mobile Network Operators?” GSMA: Mobile Money for the Unbanked. www.gsma.com/developmentfund/mobile-water-paymentswhats-in-it-for-mobile-network-operators. Dalberg Global Development Advisors. 2012. CGAP Landscape Study on International Remittances through Mobile Money. www.gsma.com/developmentfund/wp-content/ uploads/2012/06/2012landscapestudyoninternationalremittancesthrough Mobile Money.pdf. Dovi, Efam. 2008. “Boosting Domestic Savings in Africa.” Africa Renewal 22 (3): 12. www.un.org/ en/africarenewal/vol22no3/223-boosting-domestic-savings.html. “83% of the People Polled Voice Their Trust in Online Payment for UAE Government Services.” 2011. Zawya. www.zawya.com/story/ZAWYA20111224081822. Hausman, Jerry. 2010. Mobile Phones in Developing Countries. Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional. www.crei.cat/conferences/cornucopia/confpapers/JerryHausman_Barcelona% 20paper.pdf.

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“Hollard Insurance, MFS Africa and MicroEnsure Launch World’s First Mobile Money Life Insurance Pilot with MTN Ghana.” 2012. MicroEnsure. Accessed September 25, 2012. www.microensure.com/news.asp?id=106. Jack, William, and Tavneet Suri. 2011. Mobile Money: The Economics of M-Pesa. www.nber.org/ papers/w16721. Kendall, Jake. 2011. “Telenor’s Easypaisa Penetrating Pakistan’s Poor, Unbanked Populations.” Next Billion: Development Through Enterprise. www.nextbillion.net/blogpost.aspx?blogid=2360. Kim, Gary. 2011. “Mobile Banking in Africa: An Overview.” MM&T. www.mobilemarketing andtechnology.com/2011/03/07/mobile-banking-in-africa-an-overview. Kimenyi, Mwangi S., and Njuguna S. Ndung’u. 2009. “Expanding the Financial Services Frontier: Lessons from Mobile Phone Banking in Kenya.” Brookings. www.brookings.edu/research/ articles/2009/10/16-mobile-phone-kimenyi. Lloyd’s 360-Degree Risk Insight. 2010. “Insurance in Developing Countries: Exploring Opportunities in Microinsurance.” microfinanceafrica.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/ Insurance-In-Developing-Countries.pdf. “Mamakiba.” 2010. Bitbucket. bitbucket.org/gmimano/mamakiba/wiki/Home. “Maya Declaration: The AFI Member Commitment to Financial Inclusion.” 2011. Alliance for Financial Inclusion. www.afi-global.org/gpf/maya-declaration. McKay, Claudia, and Mary Pickens. 2010. “Branchless Banking 2010: Who’s Served? At What Price? What’s Next?” CGAP. www.cgap.org/publications/branchless-banking-2010-who%E2%80% 99s-served-what-price-what%E2%80%99s-next. “Mobile Payments in India.” 2012. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Payments_ in_India. “M-Pesa: Connecting Urban and Rural Communities.” 2009. CGAP. August 1, 2009. www.gsma. com/mobilefordevelopment/m-pesa-connecting-urban-and-rural-communities. Ondiege, Peter. 2008. “Mobile Banking in Africa: Taking the Bank to the Poor.” Africa Economic Brief 1 (8). www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/John%20brief% 201_John%20brief%201.pdf. Pasricha, Nicole. 2011. “G2P Payments for Flood Victims in Pakistan.” CGAP. March 24, 2011. www.cgap.org/blog/g2p-payments-flood-victims-pakistan. Penicaud, Claire. 2011. “FrontlineSMS:Credit: Targeting MFIs and SMEs to Maximise the Social Impact of Mobile Money.” Mobile Money for the Unbanked (GSMA blog). September 28, 2011. www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/frontlinesmscredit-targeting-mfis-and-smes-tomaximise-the-social-impact-of-mobile-money. Radix Consulting Corp. 2009. Mobile Banking: Is It Bank Versus Non-Bank? Paper presented at Banking on the Future Summit Port of Spain, Trinidad June 4–5. www.radixconsulting. com/MobileBankingIsitBankversusNon-Bank.pdf. Reed, David Colby. 2010. “2010 Leadership Forum at MMS in Rio de Janeiro.” Mobile Money for the Unbanked (GSMA blog). June 11, 2010. www.gsma.com/developmentfund/2010-leadershipforum-at-mms-in-rio-de-janeiro. Rotman, Sarah, and Andria Thomas. 2012. “What Do International Remittances Mean for Mobile Money?” CGAP. March 21, 2012. www.cgap.org/blog/what-do-international-remittancesmean-mobile-money.

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Smit, Herman, and Anja Smith. 2011. “Mapfre Seguros: Retailer Microinsurance Distribution in Brazil.” Centre for Financial Regulation and Inclusion. www.cenfri.org/images/stories/ Documents/microinsurance/Case_study_Mapfre_Seguros_Final_10_August.pdf. Solin, Marina. 2009. “Highlights from 2009 Alliance for Financial Inclusion Global Policy Forum.” Mobile Money for the Unbanked (GSMA blog). www.gsma.com/developmentfund/highlightsfrom-2009-alliance-for-financial-inclusion-global-policy-forum. Tellez, Camilo. 2010. “Microfinance 2.0.” Mobile Money for the Unbanked (GSMA blog). www.gsma.com/developmentfund/microfinance-2-0. ———. 2011. “Informal Pension Schemes Powered by Mobile Money.” Mobile Money for the Unbanked (GSMA blog). www.gsma.com/developmentfund/informal-pension-schemespowered-by-mobile-money. Thomas, Jeanette. 2010. “CGAP Drives Expansion of Mobile Banking to Reach the World’s Poorest People.” CGAP. November 16, 2010. www.cgap.org/news/cgap-drives-expansion-mobilebanking-reach-world%E2%80%99s-poorest-people. “Vipera Has Provided the Technology for a Ministry of Interior Mobile Service for Citizens, Expatriates and Visitors in Qatar.” 2012. Metrash2, Mobile Payment for the Citizens of Qatar. www.vipera.com/news/articles/news-0010.html. World Health Organization. 2008. The World Health Report 2008: Primary Health Care—Now More Than Ever. www.who.int/whr/2008/en/index.html.

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Rural Mobile Bashir Patel

Editors’ Note: Packed with compelling data and visuals, this chapter advocates progressive policies to ensure that the fruits of mobile communications, including mobile internet, are extended to the rural areas of the world, where most of its population still lives. The most important driver of mobile growth is the wave of liberalisation of the mobile market. The positive impact mobiles have on rural socioeconomic development is unequivocal, even with basic voice and narrowband services. Long-term challenges lie in reducing illiteracy levels, increasing local language content, and creating better partnerships between operators and service developers for rural information services. Practices such as sharing of operator infrastructure in rural areas and reduction of taxes on mobile operator equipment and handsets can help in this regard.

Background Today, more than two-thirds of the world’s population live in rural areas. There are now 6 billion mobile subscribers worldwide, and this number will exceed 7 billion by 2013. More people than ever before have access to mobile phones, and many of them are at the bottom of the economic pyramid (BoP) and living in less-developed countries. The most important driver of mobile growth is the wave of liberalisation that has led to 87 percent of the world’s mobile market’s being either partly or fully liberalised. Competition among mobile operators has resulted in the rapid extension of mobile networks, falling prices of services and mobile handsets, and innovative business models that have reduced operators’ capital and operating expenditure. Given the 385

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efficient markets, it is estimated that by 2015, only 4.4 percent of the population in Africa will live in the “coverage gap” and will need some kind of support to access networks. However, rural areas are unlikely to have 3G coverage in the near future and will have to rely on 2G applications to provide internet and multimedia services. In recent years, the notion of “digital divide” has attracted much attention, not only among developed and developing economies, but also between rural and urban areas, especially as we move towards IP based networks and broadband applications and services. The digital divide exists between those who have access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) and those who do not, which creates exclusion, endangers social integration, and hampers economic growth. The digital divide has many dimensions and can be categorised as global, regional, and national. At the national level, there are multiple divides, such as between men and women; young and old; rich and poor; and most important, between rural and urban. The purpose of this chapter is to focus on rural mobile and identify obstacles such as illiteracy, lack of skills, infrastructure, and investment in rural areas that have to be tackled. Governments need to put policy emphasis towards connectivity provision, content creation, capacity augmentation, core technology creation and exploitation, cost reduction, capacity building, community participation, and commitment to the deprived and disadvantaged. ICTs can be an important driving force towards accelerated economic, social, and political change across all areas of human activity worldwide. ICTs can enable interactive communication unhindered by distance, medium, or time and can reduce the cost of coordination, communication, and information processing. ICTs hold great promise in the drive for development and poverty reduction in rural areas. In many instances, poor people in rural areas can experience benefits in the form of increased income, better healthcare, improved education and training, access to job opportunities, engagement with government services, contacts with family and friends, enterprise development opportunities, and increased agricultural productivity. The status of ICT adoption in an economy is an indicator of its potential to exploit emerging economic opportunities. But the adoption of ICTs varies significantly across countries and regions, as outlined in Figure 21.1. Research has shown that mobile represents the most effective ICT for delivering services, content, and applications to people, even in areas with narrow bandwidth connections. ICT impacts on socioeconomic development arise because of its interactivity, media richness, large and growing userbase, and documented best practices in effectvie implementation. The positive impact of mobiles on peoples’ livelihoods has been recognised for some time. For example, from a clinical trials office study of 1,500 Nigerian

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Figure 21.1

Comparison of internet users in developed and developing countries. Source: “One-Third of the World’s Population Is Online,” ITU World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators database

subscribers, it was learnt that mobiles overwhelmingly have a positive impact on their lives (Figure 21.2). A range of other studies also reveal that the positive impact mobiles have on socioeconomic development is unequivocal. At a macroeconomic level, mobiles increase gross domestic product (GDP) and the foreign direct investment that less developed countries must attract. An assessment of the

Figure 21.2

Survey results showing levels of satisfaction. Source: Pyramid Research suvery of 1,500 mobile service users in Nigeria, 2009

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Figure 21.3

Percentage of ICT contribution to GDP

socioeconomic impact of mobiles in Indian states noted that, once mobiles achieved a critical penetration rate of 25 percent, every 10 percent increase in penetration resulted in a 1.2-percent increase in a state’s economic growth.1 Research by Ericsson and Zain on the impact of mobiles in Sudan concluded that a 1-percent increase in mobile penetration caused a 0.12-percent increase in the country’s GDP growth rate, due partly to the greater productivity and efficiency of small businesses that benefitted from improved information flows. The economic impact of ICTs is important in overcoming the digital divide and serving rural areas, even with narrowband voice services. The extent of investment in ICTs globally is estimated at $3 trillion, and it is growing at an average rate of 8.9 percent per annum, representing 6.8 percent of global GDP (Figure 21.3). The status of ICT adoption among different regions and categories is shown in Table 21.1.

National Teledensity: Rural Versus Urban The majority of the world’s 7 billion people live in rural areas (Figure 21.4). The level of rural population varies from as little as 50 percent of the national

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Table 21.1

Status of ICT Adoption Among Different Regions per 100 Inhabitants. Source: Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific, 2007

population in the advanced, high-income to as much 80 percent of the national population in the more agriculture-based economies. It is a recognised fact that rural populations over several decades have been dwindling as a consequence of a number of factors, and urbanisation has been on the increase in both the developed and the developing economies. The rate of urbanisation varied within developed economies and was taking place slowly in the developing economies until the past decade, when ICT penetration escalated. Figure 21.5 shows the split between rural and urban population by regions over a 60-year period, with a projection to 2020. Clearly, in the more advanced, high-income countries the size of the rural population has declined because more-efficient means of agricultural production are possible and a higher standard of living has meant an increase in urban dwellers.

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Figure 21.4

Distribution of rural population

Those developing countries whose economies have experienced more-rapid growth over the past decade have also faced increased migration of population from rural to urban centres. However, these developing economies still have more than 50 percent of their population in rural areas and are being served principally by narrowband mobile services.

Mobile Connectivity: Rural Potential The advent of wireless technologies in the early 1990s provided the impetus to operators to move from concentrating on urban and suburban areas to gradually serving the rural communities in order to expand their market and subscriber base. However, the level of penetration of mobile services in rural areas is still low because of the economic barriers of serving rural communities and providing a cost-effective technological solution. With almost twothirds of the populations of Asia and Africa still living in rural areas, considerable opportunities exist for operators with a cost-effective and affordable service proposition. Figure 21.6 shows the exponential growth of mobile cellular subscriptions from 1998 to 2008. Over the past decade, many emerging economies have also experienced rapid growth of mobile communications services, in comparison with the

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Figure 21.5

Rural and urban population in developing regions and highincome countries, 1960–2020. Source: Phillippe Rekacewicz (cartographer), 2006

advanced economies. Figure 21.7 reflects how regions such as Asia Pacific, Africa, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the Arab states have experienced exponential growth rates in their take-up of mobile services. Countries such as Nigeria, India, and China have had increases of several million subscribers per month, including in rural areas. Table 21.2 provides a comparison of the totals and penetration levels for fixed and mobile voice services, as well as active fixed and mobile broadband services and the levels of internet users by regions. The growth of fixed lines

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Figure 21.6

Mobile cellular subscriptions

Figure 21.7

Mobile cellular subscriber take-up by regions

over the past decade has been relatively slow in the emerging economies, and in the case of Asia, Europe, and the Americas, it has in fact declined, and the focus has been on the growth of wireless networks. In contrast, mobile voice has grown exponentially, particularly in Asia, Africa, and the CIS relative to the more advanced, high-income economies, whereas mobile broadband has seen significant growth in the advanced economies, particularly because of greater bandwidth and higher speed availability, with penetration levels as high as 80 percent and more for internet users. The exponential growth of mobile services in the developing

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Table 21.2

ICT Subscriber Totals and Penetration Rates by Regions. Source: International Telecommunication Union, November 2011

economies has been restricted to “mobile voice” and, as evident from the data in Table 21.2, there is very little to showcase on internet and broadband services. Many of the developing countries need to ensure that they have the necessary national backbone infrastructure in place in order to offer broadband services, although many will “leapfrog” through adopting new wireless technologies such as long-term evolution and SCDMA in order to offer broadband services. It is possible to have fourth-generation networks rapidly deployed with the latest wireless technologies. This would help to bridge the digital divide with affordable, accessible, and reliable connectivity for both rural and urban areas. It would also help to harness the potential of rural and semi-urban areas through IP networks with unlimited bandwidth on demand. However, policymakers and regulators need to ensure that adequate bandwidth at affordable rates is available to serve not only urban but also rural communities. Many administrations in developing countries have therefore subsidised bandwidth availability to the rural areas.

Rural Demographics and Psychographics The importance of broadband internet for economic growth and poverty reduction should not be underestimated. Mobile networks and devices are

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the key drivers of broadband access and usage in developing economies. However, the application of ICTs alone is not sufficient to address problems of rural areas without adherence to principles of integrated rural development. Unless there is at least minimal infrastructure development in transport, education, health, and social and cultural facilities, it is unlikely that investments in ICTs alone will enable rural areas to cross the threshold from decline to growth. The digital divide between rural and urban areas goes beyond simply access to the technology and needs to be considered in terms of multiple dimensions. These multiple dimensions, outlined in Table 21.3, cover a variety of societal concerns that have to do with education and capacity building, social equity (including gender equity), and the appropriateness of technology and information to their socioeconomic context. Rural psychographics examines the rural population’s psychology, attitudes, and lifestyles and can include such factors as hobbies, interest, travel, values, and opinion and behaviour. Table 21.4 provides a breakdown of the kind of details used to analyse the rural population. Figures 21.8 and 21.9 show the digital divide in terms of slow pace of growth for both fixed and mobile broadband, particularly in the developing regions, partially as a result of the issues raised in the context of ensuring multi-dimensional development.

Needs Assessment and Service Alignment The first decade of the 21st century has represented the “mobile voice revolution” with SIM penetration reaching 60 percent or more in many of the

Figure 21.8

Fixed broadband subscribers

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Figure 21.9

Table 21.3

Mobile broadband subscribers

Dimensions of Digital Divide

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Table 21.4

Psychographics Breakdown

major developing economies by the end of 2011. The second decade is set to be the age when the internet reaches people not only in urban but also in rural areas, be it via a nomadic service or a more traditional fixed-line connection. By 2015, more than 20 percent of internet traffic will be carried by cellular networks in developing countries, compared with just 3 percent today. Infrastructure investment on 3G networks has been steadily increasing in recent years, coupled with network extension into rural areas by the mobile operators. Many of the mobile operators are upgrading their networks in urban areas and have extended their coverage into rural areas. They have strategically positioned themselves with a portfolio of services to target both urban and rural dwellers with innovative applications, content, and services, alongside convergence. A number of operators are targeting the younger population as a more strategic market segment in both urban and rural communities. Although the most popular mobile applications are caller ringback tones and internet access, operators have begun offering infotainment services (information-based media content that also includes entertainment content so as to enhance its popularity with audiences). Some operators have provided commercial service using existing narrow-band networks. These valueadded services include those highlighted in Table 21.5, including financial services such as M-Pesa in Kenya, launched by Safaricom in 2007.

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Table 21.5

Services Currently Available on Narrow-Band Mobile Devices

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CTO research indicates that only a limited number of the most important livelihood needs are met by mobile content and applications in many emerging economies, especially in rural communities. This is quite evident as a result of more simple mobile devices, illiteracy levels, lack of local content in local languages, and perceived high costs of service content and applications. A recent research survey shows that mobile telephony is seen by most of the survey’s respondents as a highly important service, followed by mobile and fixed broadband and enterprise services (Figure 21.10). Most of the developing markets are consumer driven, and therefore enterprise mobility services will play an important part in the future strategies of many of the operators in both developed and developing markets. The enhanced communication and information flows that mobile provides have significant impact on users’ livelihood, especially users in rural areas, who are difficult to reach. Indeed, the mobile phone has become essential for billions in less-developed countries, transforming their lives. It has helped to increase opportunities, improve social empowerment, reduce the need to undertake costly and sometimes dangerous travel, increase access to health and education services, and create more employment and business opportunities. Many of these benefits are a result of the provision of basic voice services, but there is a growing realisation that the mobile can be used for much more. The seemingly inexorable growth of mobile telephone usage, along with the increasing sophistication of mobile networks coupled with devices and

Figure 21.10

Important mobile services. Source: Informa Telecoms & Media

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applications, has created a wealth of opportunities for the supply of enterprise services.

Issues in Mature and Developing Economies The exponential growth of mobile telephony globally can be attributed to a number of key drivers, summarised in Table 21.6, that have made services more widely available and affordable than ever before. The drivers have led many of those at the BoP in the rural areas, who until recently were perceived by many as being unable to afford mobile services, to become mobile subscribers. Table 21.6

Key Drivers of Mobile Telephony Growth

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The following key drivers have been identified: • The liberalisation of markets, which has allowed highly competitive mobile operators to establish and scale up operations: This has contributed to the rapid extension of mobile networks and the falling price of services, as these operators seek to attract new customers, especially in the suburban and rural areas, and retain existing ones in urban areas. While this driver has been important in all markets, its effect has been most widespread in the developing economies. By 2009, 87 percent of mobile markets were partially or fully liberalised. • The advent of targeted policy and regulation, which has provided mobile operators with stable and enabled environments in which to operate: Regulatory developments have resulted in more efficient spectrum allocation, the use of cost-based interconnection regimes, number portability, the advent of virtual network operators, and licensing provisions that require operators to achieve universal access so that rural users also have access. These developments have all facilitated competition, reduced cost to consumers, and compelled operators to improve and expand their service offerings. • The ambitious roll-out of mobile network infrastructure between 2000 and 2010, which has meant that more people than ever before have access to mobile services (as highlighted in Figure 21.11): Today, many countries have 90-percent population coverage and upward. In Asia Pacific, for example, population coverage rose from 50 percent in 2001 to 80.6 percent in 2007. In stark contrast to more developed markets where most subscribers enter into time-bound contracts with mobile operators, the vast majority of subscribers in less developed countries are prepaid customers, as shown in Figure 21.12. In Africa, Asia, and other developing regions, for example, more than 70 percent, and as high as 95 percent, of subscribers are prepaid. This arrangement provides them with great flexibility, which can be extremely important for low-income users whose income can be unpredictable, as they can subscribe with little or no obligation to pay for and use services. • The falling price of entry-level mobile handsets, which has enabled more people than ever before to own one: Today, users can purchase an entry-level handset for $10 to $15. Indeed, some have suggested that “from a luxury product used primarily in developed economies, mobile telephony has become universally available.”2 This does not mean those at the BoP no longer find the mobile phone to be a significant and expensive purchase—it still is for many. However, evidence suggests that the falling price of entry-level handsets has

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made them desirable and seemingly attainable for many through either direct purchase or some sort of subsidy. • The rise of low denomination top-up cards, which enable users to top up their credit when they have very limited funds: This has provided many people, especially those at the BoP, with the flexibility to use

Figure 21.11

Percentage of the world’s population covered by a mobile signal in 2003 and 2009. Source: ITU World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators database

Figure 21.12

Levels of prepaid subscriptions

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services when income and expenditure may not be predictable. In Sierra Leone, for example, where 53 percent of the population lives on less than $1.25 per day,3 users can top up and make calls for as little as 35 cents. The flexible forms of ownership and usage are increasing, with electronic airtime transfer services being introduced by many operators. These offer users the opportunity to automatically transfer units or credit to others who may have no credit. • The development and use of innovative business models, including infrastructure sharing and unique distribution strategies, which has made the expansion of network coverage to rural areas economically viable to operators and consumers in emerging economies: The innovative business models have been developed in consequence of prevailing market conditions, but they also result from the targeted policies and regulations mentioned above. For example, many regulators now stipulate that mobile operators share infrastructure such as transmission towers. Many operators have approached this enthusiastically as it has helped to reduce capital expenditure and therefore increase network coverage. • Rapid economic development in some regions, which has led to increased citizen prosperity and purchasing power: This has been a significant driver of increased mobile penetration, most notably in the Asia Pacific and the CIS. Between 2000 and 2008, Russia witnessed huge political, social, and economic changes. Amongst other things, these resulted in increasing economic prosperity for many Russians, making access to the expanding mobile networks more affordable and leading to increased penetration. Between 2000 and 2008, Russia’s GDP per capita rose from $1,254 to $9,119, and the penetration rate soared from 2.2 percent to more than 140 percent.

Emerging Trends and Challenges Clearly the trend of increasing mobile subscriptions and penetration highlights huge progress in the expansion of mobile telephony and stakeholders’ efforts to connect people, especially the hard-to-reach rural dwellers who make up many of those at the BoP. It has been suggested that global access to mobile phones will reach universal levels sometime between 2015 and 2020.4 Indeed, the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) suggested that there will be 6.2 billion subscribers by 2013. Yet there are a number of remaining challenges that must be overcome if universal access is to be achieved. Here are the five most important remaining challenges:

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• The continued high price of services in some markets will continue to prevent people from using services, most notably in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia Pacific, and the CIS. There a number of reasons that prices continue to be relatively high in some countries, but high taxes can have a significant impact, increasing the total cost of ownership and circumscribing consumers’ ability to afford mobile handsets and services. This is particularly problematic in sub-Saharan Africa, where the value-added tax (VAT) on mobile services ranges from 5 percent to as much as 23 percent. Uganda is often cited as a country where taxes are particularly high, as shown in Figure 21.13. Uganda has a highly competitive mobile market, yet the tax rate, which stands at 30 percent (18 VAT and 12 percent excise duty on airtime), has restricted mobile penetration. • Poor levels of competition in many countries have hindered increased penetration. Although the large majority of countries have liberalised their mobile sectors, some countries have yet to liberalise, and some that have liberalised do not yet have the deep levels of competition that drive operators to expand networks and reduce prices. The challenge is more common in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and the CIS. For example, Cuba and Eritrea are both yet to be liberalised and have the lowest levels of mobile penetration in their respective regions. • There is a direct correlation between GDP per capita and penetration, suggesting that low levels of economic growth and income have stunted the development of mobile telephony in some countries. On average there are 35 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in lower middle-income economies, compared with 24 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in low-income economies. Bangladesh, a low-income economy with a GDP per capita in 2008 of $467, had a relatively low penetration rate of 27.9 percent. Yet, Malaysia, an upper middle-income economy with a GDP per capita of $7,031, had a penetration rate of 102.59 percent in 2008. • Policymakers and regulators impeding 3G have emerged as a problem in Latin America and Asia Pacific. Indian 3G license auctions, which took place early 2010, were held back for a number of years because of delays in organising the auction process and the Indian military’s relinquishing of required spectrum frequency. In Brazil, to overcome the issue of 3G’s not being provided outside profitable urban areas, allocation of 3G spectrum was given on condition of adherence to

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Figure 21.13

Uganda’s high taxes

provisos that operators will advance access to mobile telephony throughout the country. • Extending networks to rural areas in order to achieve universal access remains a significant challenge. Rural access has improved immensely in many countries, but disparities between urban and rural access persist in a number of countries. An example of the level of disparity between rural and urban is shown in Figure 21.14 in the case of India. Obstacles and challenges to increasing content and application usage include policy preoccupation with voice provisions, poor copyright enforcement, low revenue share from value-added services (VAS), poor consumer protection, and inefficient spectrum allocation and reallocation.

Recommendations for Business and Development Community: Policymakers Despite the many challenges cited here, there is reason for optimism. An assessment of the challenges suggests most will be overcome in the short to medium term if the trends identified in the above section continue. Poor enabling environments, low levels of rural access, and a lack of local content are challenges that will be surmounted by ongoing liberalisation of markets and growth of effective competition, use of targeted policy and regulation,

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Figure 21.14

Rural versus urban: Phone subscribers in India

ambitious rollout of mobile network infrastructure in rural areas, and growth of mobile penetration. The challenge posed by the high price of handsets and services may also prove to be short term if their falling prices over the last few years continue. The challenge of too much competition is likely to be overcome in the near future as mobile markets consolidate. It is unlikely that markets such as Ghana, a country with a population of 23 million, can support all six of its licensed mobile operators. A number of challenges, however, are to likely persist beyond the short to medium term. Illiteracy is the most significant long-term issue. Efforts to provide universal education should help, but raising literacy levels significantly in many countries will require a long-term commitment. Low levels of ICT literacy may not be easy to overcome, and it will take time for people to gather knowledge and understand how to use mobiles to their full potential. Having said that, handset manufacturers are focused on providing phones that are easy to use, and there is evidence of mobile operators’ making efforts to educate users about how to use SMS functionality, for example. A lack of innovation is likely to be a long-term challenge in some markets, such as Malawi, where little VAS has been provided to date. This lack of innovation will impede the development and use of mobile-for-development (M4D)

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Table 21.7

Challenges to the Use and Development of VAS

services, too. Although there is growing interest in M4D services in such markets, it may take some time, and a considerable shift in thinking by development organisations and operators, before the services are widely available. Table 21.7 summarises key challenges, the countries where they exist, and whether the challenges will be short- to medium-term or long-term. In sum, in order to bring about greater penetration among rural dwellers and increase availability of ICTs, the following factors need to be taken into consideration: • Increased competition amongst operators will help to force down prices. • Mobile advertising is helping to reduce access cost to consumers. • Number portability can increase competition and reduce costs. • Operators can invest more in remittances and m-banking platforms. • 3G for mobile television and internet appeals to consumers.

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• Services such as egovernment, ecommerce, eagriculture and ehealth will make subscription more attractive. • Greater collaboration between manufacturers and content producers can boost service creation and adoption.

Endnotes 1. Zain Group and Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, “Economic Impact of Mobile Communications in Sudan,” Ericsson.com, 2009, accessed October 14, 2012, www.ericsson. com/res/thecompany/docs/sudan_economic_report.pdf. 2. A. Banjanovic, “Special Report: Towards Universal Global Mobile Phone Coverage,” Euromonitor International, December 8, 2009. 3. UNICEF, “At a Glance: Sierra Leone,” UNICEF Country Statistics (1992–2007), accessed September 21, 2010, www.unicef.org/infobycountry/sierraleone_statistics.html. 4. Universal Access (UA): Ensuring all people have reasonable means of access to publicly available telephone and emergency services in their communities. The solution is mobile. In the vast majority of countries, more than 95 percent of the total population is economically reachable with mobile networks.

References and Resources “A Decade of ICT Growth Driven by Mobile Technologies.” 2009. ITU Telecom World: The World in 2009: ICT Facts and Figures. www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/facts/2011/material/ICTFactsFigures 2009.pdf. Emerging Rural Mobile Market in India. 2009. Produced by RNCOS, Industry Research Solutions. www.rncos.com/Report/IM567.htm. “Global Mobile Statistics 2012 Home: All the Latest Stats on Mobile Web, Apps, Marketing, Advertising, Subscribers and Trends.” 2012. mobiThinking. December 2012. www.mobithinking. com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats. Harris, Roger W. 2004. Information and Communication Technologies for Poverty Alleviation. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: United Nations Development Programme’s Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme. www.sdc-learningandnetworking-blog.admin.ch/ uploads/2010/12/undp-asia-ict-and-poverty-alleviation-2004.pdf. “ICT Data and Statistics.” 2012. International Telecommunications Union. www.itu.int/ITU-D/ ict/statistics. “Improving Rural Telecoms Connectivity in Africa.” 2008. Cellular-News. June 13. www.cellularnews.com/story/31794.php. Mbarika, Victor W. A., Jennie E. Raymond, and Terry A. Byrd. 2000. “Growth of Teledensity in Least Developed Countries: Need for a Mitigated Euphoria.” www.pacis-net.org/file/2000/712731.pdf. “One-Third of the World’s Population Is Online: 45% of Internet Users Below the Age of 25.” 2011. ITU Telecom World: The World in 2011: ICT Facts and Figures. www.itu.int/ITUD/ict/facts/2011/material/ICTFactsFigures2011.pdf. Rekacewicz, Philippe. 2006. “Trends and Projections in Rural and Urban Population in Developing Regions and High-Income Countries.” United Nations Environment Programme GRID-Arendal. www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/trends-and-projections-in-rural-and-urbanpopulation-in-developing-regions-and-high-income-countries_8bd9#.

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“Rural Population (% of Total Population).” 2011. World Bank: Data. data.worldbank.org/indicator/ SP.RUR.TOTL.ZS/countries?display=map. World Bank. 2009. “Information and Communications Technology: Connecting People and Markets.” siteresources.worldbank.org/IDA/Resources/IDA-ICT.pdf.

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Mobile Telephony in Rural Areas: A Case Study in Puno, Peru Mireia Fernández-Ardèvol, Roxana Barrantes Cáceres, and Aileen Agüero García1

Editors’ Note: This in-depth case study provides insights into the value and impacts of mobile communication in rural areas, particularly among impoverished communities. In the rural areas of Puno, Peru, mobile phone usage was tracked among producers, traders, veterinary technicians, and young students. Prepaid subscription was the most common payment option, and sharing of mobile phones was not unusual. Mobiles were used for sharing social and business information, micro-coordination of activities, market expansion, and planning of livestock operations. Youth tended to use high-end phones for offline entertainment (games, music), and not for voice communication. The authors recommend that industry and government work together to make mobiles more affordable and network coverage more extensive. The diffusion of mobile telephony around the world faces limitations in rural areas of developing countries. Peru is not an exception. In 2008, the year of the study, 59.7 percent of Peruvian households had at least one mobile phone, a figure that drops to 24.3 percent in rural areas. While diffusion is increasing, the latest available data (2010) still shows a great gap, with 73.1 percent coverage for Peru on average but 46.2 percent in Peruvian rural areas (INEI 2008, 2010). There are significant discrepancies between ownership and use of mobile phones in Latin America, with subscriptions being lower than use (Barrantes 2007; Fernández-Ardèvol 2010; Galperin and Mariscal 2007). This disparity is due to shared use among family members (Chipchase 2006; Donner 2008; Heeks 2009; Islam and Grönlund 2011; Ureta 2008), as well as 409

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the spread of mobile public booths in areas where fixed telephony never arrived. Rural areas are situated around corridors that are articulated by small and medium-sized cities. Inhabitants of rural areas have access to more-active markets by means of intermediaries or in weekly fairs that gather producers, buyers, and products in specific localities. Access to communication and information is a key element in the decision to participate in markets as long as communication and information contribute to reduce information asymmetries that increase transaction costs. We present evidence on the role of mobile phones in the socioeconomic development of a rural area in Latin America. Specifically, our results come from a case study on a set of towns in the region of Puno, Peru, that belong to the influence area of two weekly fairs. Within these fairs, the mercantile relations that valorize rural household assets are captured. For these rural households, the access to information and communications allowed by mobile telephony is particularly important. In choosing Puno we opted to study the impact of mobile communication in a poverty context. If it can be demonstrated that the use of mobile telephony is generating benefits in this case, it can be inferred that the development potential of mobile communication for other communities will be significant as well. We analyse the impact of mobile telephony use. This concept is wider than ownership, as we consider a mobile user to be any person who has made or received a phone call with a mobile phone in the past 3 months. In this, we are taking the approach suggested by de Silva and Zainudeen (2007),2 applied as well in Latin America by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC; Galperin and Mariscal 2007) and Galperin and Molinari (2011). Our study used a combination of research methods that covers the multidimensionality of the impact of mobile communication in rural areas. Indepth interviews and participant observation during 4 months were complemented by two surveys that gathered quantitative evidence. Within the area of influence of the two fairs, up to 1,200 households were selected randomly. Each household was interviewed; additionally, one informant in each household was randomly selected to answer a detailed questionnaire on mobile phone use. Almost all the traders (500 individuals) in the two selected weekly fairs were interviewed. The results in this chapter are the output of this research.

The Area Under Study The department of Puno borders Bolivia. Located in the highlands, in the El Collao Plateau, it is part of the Lake Titicaca ecosystem (Parodi 1995). It is

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home to almost 5 percent of the Peruvian population and is the second poorest region in the country, with up to 70 percent of its households qualifying as poor (INEI 2007). In 2007, no rural household in the department had access to fixed telephony, internet, or cable television. In urban areas the access to these technologies was slightly higher (14 percent had fixed telephony, 4 percent had cable TV, and 1 percent had an internet connection). In contrast, 10 percent of rural households had at least one mobile phone, a percentage that reached 56 percent in urban areas of Puno (INEI 2008). The two commercial weekly fairs were selected by taking into account three criteria: altitude, population size, and poverty incidence. This approach allows the comparison of two contexts that are structurally similar. First of all, altitude is a geographic indicator that shapes agricultural production: Most of the Puno region is more than 3,500 meters above mean sea level (AMSL) in a basically flat area, the Meseta of the Collao. The extreme weather conditions have severe consequences on agricultural activities, so altitude constitutes a key structural difference among localities. Second, population size is determined by the number of inhabitants in each of the localities in which the fairs take place. Third, the poverty incidence is considered as well, by the number of unmet basic needs. In this manner, we selected the fairs of the district capitals of Asillo (3,913 meters AMSL, province of Azángaro) and Taraco (3,829 meters AMSL, province of Huancané). There are 4,673 households in the area of influence of the weekly fair of Asillo and 4,986 households in the case of Taraco. Concerning poverty, three of each four homes in each place show at least one unmet basic need. While the city of Puno is the political center, the commercial center is the city of Juliaca. Asillo is closer to Juliaca than Taraco is (1 hour versus 2 hours by public transportation, respectively). In Asillo, weekly fairs are celebrated on Sundays, whereas in Taraco the day of the fair is Thursday. Both fairs last between 5 and 15 hours. The main economic activities in Asillo and Taraco are farming and agriculture, production of milk and cheese, and trade. Economic actors are 1) local traders, 2) foreign traders, and 3) buyers. Local traders are the majority in both fairs (89 percent in Asillo, 80 percent in Taraco). Most of the traders sell in at least two fairs and have, on average, three providers. Finally, buyers come from neighbouring peasant communities, and traders claim an average of 24 customers. Seasonal migration is an important phenomenon among families, who offer to work in order to have additional incomes (Pereyra 2003). Young individuals from Asillo tend to migrate to villages located in the jungle of Puno or in the frontier department Madre de Dios, while those from Taraco go to the gold mine located in La Rinconda. It is common, as well, to move temporarily to the cities of Cuzco, Tacna, Arequipa, or Moquegua in Peru.

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Users and Use of Mobile Telephony “Everybody has a cell phone.” This is, indeed, what individuals stated when asked about the ways they get information. It is the general perception of a variety of people, from the lady who sells fried fish and hangs her mobile behind her in the grilles of Taraco’s principal park, to the drivers of collective transportation vans (combis) who connect to the cities of Azángaro or Juliaca. Indeed, the mobile phone is not a luxury instrument anymore.

Mobile Phone Users As for our household survey, 76 percent of the interviewed individuals are mobile phone users, but only two-thirds of them are mobile subscribers. By taking into account the main economic activities of the individuals, we identified different types of mobile users. The most relevant for our goals are 1) “small” producers, 2) “medium-sized” producers, 3) “large” producers, 4) traders, 5) veterinary technicians, and 6) young students. Small producers have a non-intensive and unstable production and are able to generate only a low income. Production is primarily devoted to home consumption, while marketing of products is done informally, especially at fairs. Most people involved in production of milk or cheese are medium-sized producers. Semi-intensive production describes their activity, and they also sell their products in weekly fairs. Large producers are a small group of inhabitants of the area who have achieved intensive production and formalisation of both processes and trade relations with suppliers and their customers (intermediaries). Traders typically stock up in the city of Juliaca. They bring to local fairs products that come from the borders with Bolivia and Chile. Such merchandise often comes from smuggling, but they also sell domestic products from other cities, such as Cuzco. Veterinary technicians are hired by municipalities for the purpose of promoting livestock development and work within a program that subsidises health monitoring of animals, including emergency care. Young individuals are high school students who help in the family activities but do not have independent income. In their free time, they often engage in collective consumption of the internet and shared use of mobile phones.

Access and Use: General Characteristics Handsets tend to be simple and “old fashioned,” even though the vast majority of individuals (90 percent) bought them new. The low average purchasing

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power could explain this finding, as well as the few skills that, on average, individuals have developed for intensive use of sophisticated functionalities. Use is usually restricted to voice calls, while a significant minority of users (39 percent) communicates by means of short message service (SMS). This, indeed, is a common observation (Ilahiane and Sherry 2012; Zainudeen and Ratnadiwakara 2011). Among the rest of the handset features, respondents in the household survey highlighted the use of the clock. Prepaid subscription is the most common payment option (99 percent). This is a worldwide trend (ITU 2011), described for Latin America as a whole (Galperin and Mariscal 2007) and for different areas as well (three cities in Peru: Barrantes 2007; Buenos Aires: Galperin and Molinari 2011; and Sao Paulo: Bar, Pisani, and Seabra 2011). The main reasons for the popularity of prepaid subscriptions are their ability to help keep spending under control (24 percent) and the perceptions that they are cheaper than other options (38 percent) and easier to obtain than postpaid plans (22 percent). Indeed, to obtain a postpaid plan, a set of official documents must be submitted, so transaction costs are higher than for prepaid subscriptions. In addition, a network effect that supports the widespread use of prepaid plans is in operation here: Individuals tend to choose the system that is most popular with their acquaintances. Few mobile subscribers regularly put credit on their phones. Thus, airtime is scarce, and mobile phones are used mainly for receiving calls, because being reachable is highly appreciated (Castells, Fernández-Ardèvol, and Galperin 2011). When they had no air credit, people would use chalequeros or public mobile booths when they need to make a call.3 Besides, shared use within families is common, as in many developing countries (Chipchase 2006; Donner 2008; Heeks 2009; Islam and Grönlund 2011; Ureta 2008). It could happen that poorer users have the cell in a fixed location at home, on a shelf or hung on a wall, and use it as a substitute for a landline (as already described by Kalba 2007 and Ureta 2008). Women show less access to mobile telephony than men do (72 percent, compared with 82 percent among men). The gap is even greater regarding ownership (60 percent of women, compared with 72 percent among men. The evidence we gathered by means of the representative household survey challenges the findings of Barrantes (2007) in low-income urban areas of Peru, where users were mostly women. This discrepancy might be explained by the different roles women play in rural and urban areas. Rural women’s traditional role is the articulation of private family spaces, while men’s role is the coordination of public space (Ledezma and Pozo 2006), and the phone would be one of the men’s tools. Young people show specificities regarding access and use, compared with the adult population. As they do not have their own income, they do

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not usually have credit on their phones. Unlike adults, they look for handsets with advanced features (embedded cameras, MP3 players) that they use offline. Informal markets tend to be the place to buy a handset (as already described by Mujica 2007). Finally, the average experience of use is short because the service was recently introduced. Of the survey respondents, 25 percent had been using mobile telephony for less than a year, 40 percent between 1 and 2 years, and 35 percent more than 2 years.

Access and Use Among Traders Up to 78 percent of Taraco and Asillo fair traders declare being mobile users; 18 percent of them use mobile phones to communicate with their customers, while 42 percent use this channel to communicate with their suppliers. Indeed, traders who participate in the Asillo fair show a markedly higher level of use of mobile phones to communicate with both customers and suppliers (23 percent in Asillo versus 12 percent in Taraco for customers, and 55 percent versus 29 percent for suppliers).4 This might be because Asillo is located at a relatively long distance from Juliaca, the commercial hub of the area. Traders participating in endogenous networks—that is, those formed by individuals and selected by the individual—are a minority. In this sense, traders identified an average of 13 vendors of similar products, which could qualify as a potential network, but only 12 percent of traders said they were associated with these vendors for sales. Even fewer traders (6.6 percent) participate in other kinds of endogenous partnerships/networks. Exogenous networks—that is, those not selected by individuals—are more important but not mainstream; 41.2 percent of the traders find a relative in the weekly fairs they attend. Networking facilitates access to information. Mobile phones would allow for the acquisition of timeline information that would help in reducing information asymmetries. In this sense, traders’ interest was in the use of the mobile phone to decide which fair to attend. This, indeed, is a key decision for local traders and involves mobility and opportunity costs. Responses to the survey show relevant differences between the traders in the two fairs.5 When asked about the use of mobile phones to decide where to sell, 70 percent of traders in Asillo seek advice from relatives, and 59 percent use the mobile phone. In Taraco, the figures are 45 percent and 36 percent, respectively. Similar differences are found regarding communication with suppliers and customers. To analyse the likelihood that a trader would use a mobile phone to decide where to sell, we set up an econometric model. Details are not shown here,

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but the main results are that the analysed probability increases when the trader owns a mobile phone, communicates with customers by phone, meets relatives in the weekly fairs in which the trader participates, and sells perishable goods. In addition, belonging to an endogenous network increases this probability (but the influence of this factor is weaker).

Impact of Mobile Telephony in Productive Activities Information and communication accessed through mobile phones shape and impact in several ways the population in the area of study. By combining evidence gathered by ethnography and the surveys we conducted, we explored the following dimensions of mobile phone use regarding productive activities: 1) communication with relatives and friends, 2) the role of mobile phones as an information system, 3) the use of this technology for market expansion, 4) veterinarian assistance, and 5) micro-coordination.

Communication With Relatives and Friends We already know that when it comes to the use of mobiles, communication with family and friends, which strengthens social bonds, is predominant. This has been described by, for instance, Frost and Sullivan (2006) for rural and semi-urban areas of Latin America; Galperin and Mariscal (2007) for lowincome urban users in Latin America; Barrantes (2007) for three cities of Peru; Souter et al. (2005) for India, Mozambique, and Tanzania; Donner (2006) for micro-entrepreneurs in Rwanda; and Ilahiane and Sherry (2012) for Morocco. We can confirm this trend for our study area as 99 percent of surveyed individuals reported that the predominant use is “to communicate with my family.” Synchronous communication, which allows the individual to have updated family news, is much appreciated by users (Souter et al. 2005): [Now] we immediately know what is going on everywhere, you call if you want and learn immediately what is going on. It was not like this before. If your grandma died, you knew it after a month, when she was already buried. —Zenón, town of Progreso, Asillo district Just dial the number and in seconds you hear what happened to your family. —Severo, community of Ñaupa Pampa, Asillo district In migratory contexts, relationships with family give emotional support to those outside the community. In these contexts the use of mobile telephony becomes even more important (Deloitte 2008; Furuholt and Matotay 2011;

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Schapendonk 2009; Souter et al. 2005; Steinberg 2003). The mobile phone also provides privacy in communications, compared with payphones. In Asillo, mobile communication shapes family cohesion and remote control of children. However, social relations are linked to economic activity, especially in contexts where markets are weak (Nadvi 1999; Pedersen 1996; Stiglitz 2000, quoted in Molony 2006), as in our study area. Social networks—strong and weak ties—are important for accessing economic and social opportunities, such as finding a job or support during key moments in life (Goodman 2005). Therefore, we can understand that calls to family and/or friends are means of increasing social capital. In their study in Bangladesh, Aminuzzaman, Baldersheim, and Ishtiaq (2002) mentioned that the socalled social calls (made to family or friends) also include messages about transactions, such as transfers of money or orders regarding livestock or land, among other things. Donner (2009) and de Silva, Ratnadiwakara, and Zainudeen (2011) describe this as the blurring of social and business spheres. We observed similar practices in Puno. We analysed incoming and outgoing calls, as well as their motivations, by reviewing the call history of the handset with some mobile owners. The gathered evidence is very interesting. Most calls are to or from family members, followed in frequency by friends, and then calls between traders and suppliers or between producers and clients. However, a significant number of calls are motivated by businessrelated issues, transactions, or the checking of prices. Thus, when subscribers report using the phone to communicate with their relatives, motivations for the call extend beyond strictly family purposes to also include commercial or production issues in most cases.

Information System Traders and large and medium-sized producers use the cell phone as part of an information system for checking the availability of products or prices and for keeping in touch with suppliers and customers. While there are situations in which mobile phones are acknowledged to contribute to the reduction of travel (as in Furuholt and Matotay 2011; Martin and Abbott 2011; or Sife, Kiondo, and Lyimo-Macha 2010), Jagun, Heeks, and Whalley (2007) argue that although the information can be acquired at a distance, there is not a complete distance relationship through mobile among traders in Nigeria. For traders in our survey, travel and face-to-face meetings were still essential for the exchange and in-person inspection of goods. Traders indicated that negotiation and verification of quality and product conditions as well as getting the lowest price need to be done in person. In addition, there is a high incidence

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of fraud, theft, and crime in commercial transactions that cannot be controlled by phone. This is of utmost importance among traders of perishable products as these products deteriorate rapidly. Therefore, the mobile phone is a complement to physical presence; not a substitute: What if you check [by phone] with somebody in Juliaca you don’t know. He can tell you it is like that [referring to the price] or the goods are OK when they are not. In order to sell, they can tell you whatever. This is why it’s better to go there and see by your own. — Aurea, trader in Asillo fair You can’t trust them. What if they say “Yes, I have” and then they don’t send [the product]? What is most, one has to check prices, quality. You always have to go yourself. —Julia, trader in Asillo fair When commercial transactions involve trust, face-to-face communication is preferred over technology-mediated communication. However, the consolidation of commercial networks, the establishment of relationships of trust with suppliers, and the knowledge of the market could partially overcome the need for face-to-face meetings in commercial activities. While examples are limited, some specific cases have arisen. For instance, Estrada is a trader who sells used clothes he brings from Juliaca to the weekly fair of Asillo. He trades in a clearly non-perishable good, and he explains he does not need to travel to Juliaca anymore. A phone call is enough to have the clothes sent to the market he is planning to attend. His long experience allows him to know the market and, in addition, to establish trust with his suppliers. Itinerant traders, on the other hand, are a collective that also makes heavy use of mobile phones as an information and coordination system, which allows conjoint decision making. Itinerant traders do travel in search of business opportunities. This is the case of Luque, a native of Asillo and trader of non-perishable products. He has traveled to the border with Bolivia, to La Paz; the city of Arica, on the border with Chile; and the southern cities of Puno and Arequipa. Thanks to the mobile phone, Luque can communicate with a group of friends who, like him, are itinerant traders. The relationship with this group is very important because it allows him to deal with the risks of theft and scams. The group also operates as an information system, through which they learn very fast about opportunities, benefits, and/or disadvantages of doing business. They make decisions together, jointly evaluate the actions to be taken, and decide on the acquisition of merchandising. Having this technology does not prevent them from travel, but it allows for more efficient trips.

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Market Expansion Large producers in this study use mobile technology intensively. They consider it an essential tool for their job as they are permanently in touch with suppliers and customers. In addition, mobile telephony allows them to expand their markets. For instance, Pedro relies on his social network when looking for new opportunities to sell his cheese. Among his acquaintances are civil servants from institutions that occasionally launch tenders for the purchase of milk: I need to call all the time; as I already have acquaintances, I ask them when there will be bids. And sometimes when I sell milk to them, I have to be aware of the check to get paid. For those things I use the cell, because I don’t go [there], I just call and here I work. Otherwise I’d waste my time. This is why the cell is important to me. —Pedro, milk and cheese producer, Asillo district

Veterinarian Assistance Mobile phones are used extensively for medical emergencies (Alterna Perú 2008; Souter et al. 2005) and for veterinarian support (Martin and Abbott 2011). Similarly, in the area studied, veterinary technicians who work for the municipality’s special care service show an intensive use of the mobile phone. They organise their activities and move around the area according to the information they get through their mobile phone. It is an extraordinarily useful tool for the timely responses appreciated by the farmers: In the past when there was no cell phone, we only thought about killing animals when they got sick for, at least, regain the meat. — Fulgencio, Asillo district In addition, the mobile helps in cow insemination because farmers can call a veterinary technician in time for the technician to arrive and inseminate the cow while she is in heat. Furthermore, a technician can send SMS messages to farmers with instructions for assisting their animals while the technician is on the way to the farm.

Micro-Coordination Micro-coordination is the short-term management of social interactions (Ling 2004) and can be observed in various contexts, such as when agreeing where to meet with friends or, as exemplified in the next quotation, when somebody is late:

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To me the cell phone is important, because I can call those who sell the milk to ask them to wait a bit when I suddenly get late. —Luis, producer of cheese, Sacasco rural community, Taraco district In this sense, mobile communication minimises the uncertainty in joint activities (Blount and Janicik 2001, cited in Ling 2004), as in the case of sale and purchase of milk. This, in turn, increases efficiency, which is important in the context of informal marketing of these perishable products. Similar uses within the framework of agricultural activities have been described in recent papers by Martin and Abbott (2011) and Furuholt and Matotay (2011), among others. Micro-coordination was observed as well in social contexts, as in a wedding celebration when a guest called his friend from his mobile phone wondering what time the friend would arrive at the party).

Mobile Phones Beyond Productive Activities Appropriation of mobile phones intersects different dimensions of everyday life that have little to do with the productive sphere. We highlight the three main aspects we identified during our extensive fieldwork: cultural and social uses, alternative strategies of access, and myths and fears arising in connection with the mobile phone.

Cultural and Social Uses Entertainment Children and young people use mobile phones for entertainment. Groups of children gather and use their parents’ handset to play with. After long periods of play, batteries can drain, and communication turns out to be impossible, an especially problematic issue in localities where there is no electricity: We must take care with the battery so it doesn’t drain. Sometimes my kids play and drain the battery. So I sometimes hide it [the mobile phone]. Otherwise, how I would do to communicate with my daughter? —Fulgencio, Huarahuarani community, San Antonio, Asillo district Owning a personal mobile phone is common among high school students. However, it is not used for mediated communication as voice calls and SMS are not affordable for them. Indeed, they seldom buy credit for the mobile phone. Voice communication usually corresponds only to calls initiated by their parents. Mobile use among this demographic is highly related to peer relations and internet use. During breaks at school, youth use the phone to play games,

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take pictures and, above all, listen to music together. There is a shared use of the internet and the mobile phone in internet kiosks, where youth gather around a computer. Young people download music, images, and other files from the internet at the kiosk and store them in their mobile phone by using zero-cost transfer options. The mobile handset ends up working as a USB memory stick. Later on, they meet outside the kiosk and share content. Here is part of a conversation with students from the secondary school in Taraco: Student: We don’t use it to call, just to listen to music. Interviewer: Why don’t you call, if the cell phone is for calling? Student: Because cards [with air credit] are expensive. It’s only to play with it, to listen to music. Interviewer: But do you receive calls? Student: Yes, but seldom, only our dad calls us, because they are in the countryside and we only go there on Sunday and Saturday. Symbolic Device The ownership of advanced mobile handsets from specific brands provides a certain level of prestige to users (Ling 2004) as a “symbolic tool and a physical extension of the human body” (Katz and Suygiyama 2006, 321). Ling (2004) evokes Goffman (1981) and states that artifacts express our identity as they allow displaying a façade that is a presentation of the self. In the same sense, Pedersen (2005, 13) calls them “value-expressive products” because handsets embody personal identity. In our study area, veterinary technicians are among the few individuals who always have credit to make calls, a cost they absorb in their own personal budget. They are frequently required by farmers for emergencies, so their mobile phone rings constantly. These technicians always display their handset, holding it in their hands most of the time. They tend to show off, demonstrating their ability to make calls and even lending their mobile to persons who do not have credit in their phone. Mobile phones have become an icon for young people in a number of countries (Castells et al. 2006; Ling 2004) including in Latin America (for Brazil, see Bar, Pisani, and Seabra 2011; for Chile, see Ureta et al. 2011). We observed the same phenomenon in our study area and can confirm that mobile phones and the internet belong to youth social life, both as technological objects that express their identity as “modern” young people and as objects and spaces for socialisation. Lack of Inhibition Some users explained how, through the mobile, they lost their fear of speaking to given interlocutors. Usually, local inhabitants show a passive attitude in

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front of authorities and public officials. However, as one of the interviewees explained, he used to fear local authorities and institutions, but thanks to the mobile phone, this fear dissipated. Suler (2004) described this phenomenon: He calls it the “online lack of inhibition effect” (2004, 1) and described the “immunisation of authority” (2004, 4) factor in operation, allowing for horizontal communication. If you see a farmer getting in the city hall, they are not even able to walk because of fear, distrust. But through the cell they yell, and even speak Quechua. —Raul, official of the municipality of Asillo

Alternative Strategies of Access While they constitute an expensive service, mobile phones are not a luxury good for poor individuals (Agüero, de Silva, and Kang 2011). Different strategies of access in resource-constraint settings have been described as these users “find ways to make the most of the access they have” (Donner, Gitau, and Marsden 2011, 589). In this sense, two communities to the east of Asillo, Huarahuarani (San Antonio) and Curani, do not have mobile coverage because they are located in a kind of basin flanked by hills. However, all the families in these two communities own a mobile device and deploy alternative strategies to access the service. One of these strategies is to coordinate specific days and times to set a call and, eventually, move to a place with coverage. This is the case of Evaristo, who arranges communications twice a week with his daughter living in Lima. Evaristo calls his daughter on Sunday, when he attends the Asillo fair, where service coverage is always guaranteed. The daughter, on the other hand, calls on Wednesday at 11 PM. At that hour the whole family goes to the top of a nearby hill, where the signal is good enough for the call. A second strategy occurs in the case of emergency calls, for which no coordination can be set in advance. In this case, communication means available in the community are used. This involves a call to the local radio station (Surupana) in Azángaro City, which broadcasts a notice, that the named person must communicate urgently with his or her family through a mobile phone. If the person is not listening to the radio at that moment, neighbours must alert him or her: Here, we all know. If somebody hears the notice, you tell quickly, you must tell the notice. Then we go up, there to the top [of the hill] and have the call. This is why we listen to the radio. —Evaristo, Huarahuarani community, San Antonio, Asillo district

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Once the person learns about the urgency of the communication, he or she must wait for the incoming phone call at the top of the hill. The strategy is therefore based on the ecosystem of communication options available in the locality (Donner 2008): mass media (radio), face-to-face communication (neighbours), and mobile communication. None of these would be needed if there were coverage, but this example shows the importance given to the mobile phone even in contexts where access is not as simple as it could be. The third strategy we observed appears in communities to the south of the Asillo district, an area with no electric power supply. It is necessary to go to the district capital to charge batteries. Battery charge service is provided at the weekly fair, at a cost around 1.5 and 2 soles (48–64 cents), which is quite a high price given the low purchasing power of the population in the area.

Myths and Fea rs There is also a range of myths and fears about the mobile phone, from scams via mobiles to exotic ideas that the cell is “devil’s work.” A fairly widespread fear is that using mobile phones is harmful to health: They say this also causes cancer, because everything is radioactivity. —Companion at breakfast in a fried fish stall, Progreso fair One rumour about scams is related to anonymous calls, or calls made on behalf of Telefónica, requesting a deposit in a bank account as a compensation for a prize the call recipient will receive. Another call of this type might claim that a relative has suffered an accident and is requesting the call recipient to go to the place where the accident happened. In doing so, the person would be assaulted and robbed. Finally, there is a fear of being spied upon by either the Chileans or the gringos (Americans) as “they know what we do” or “they study us” by means of mobile telephony: They say that in Lima everything belongs to the Chileans: pharmacies, shops, and banks. They even say that the hill where the mobile antenna is belongs to that [mobile] company […] even when we speak through the cell phone they are listening to everything, this is why they get into the cell phones [business]. — Companion at breakfast in a fried fish stall, Progreso fair However, fears and myths about mobile phones do not preclude consumers from the use and diffusion of this technology in the area.

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Conclusion When this study was conducted in 2008, there was massive use of mobile phones in the area of influence of the weekly fairs of Taraco and Asillo (Puno, Peru). Thus it is true that “everybody has a cell phone,” as three out of four respondents had used the mobile phone at least once in the previous 3 months to make or receive a call. In addition, two-thirds of mobile users were service subscribers, of whom 99 percent opted for prepaid billing. These figures might be even higher in the future as mobile penetration increases. Mobile telephony is mainly used with family and friends, which in the context of seasonal migration becomes a key tool of family cohesion. In addition, synchronous communication is highly appreciated by users as it allows timely information about family issues. It is of most interest that communications with family and friends incorporate economic information in addition to social issues, a result in line with the fact that in poverty contexts, social relationships are linked to economic relationships. The use of mobile telephony for economic purposes is different among economic agents. Large producers, itinerant traders, and veterinary technicians are the agents who use the mobile the most. On the other hand, a non-intensive use is observed for micro-coordination and, in general, among the rest of the traders and small and medium-sized producers. Usually, face-to-face meetings are relevant, with commercial fairs being the preferred physical space for get-togethers. Therefore, mobile phone–mediated communications tend to be a complement to face-to-face activities. Several factors hamper intensive use of mobile telephony. Affordability of services is a key element, while poor skills for managing the handset could act as a barrier as well. Besides, and more important, there is no trust in negotiations and information acquired by mobile phones. In addition, the lack of mobile value-added services, whether from the state or from other institutions, limits the relevant information that can be accessed by mobile devices. Beyond economics, this technology is linked to symbolic use and entertainment. At a symbolic level, using a mobile phone with advanced features brings status to children and young individuals. For veterinary technicians, in addition to the handset itself, being able to make calls has the same effect and gives them prestige. Noteworthy is the predominant use of non-communicative features of mobile handsets by children and youth who focus on entertainment uses. Alternative strategies for accessing mobile telephony demonstrate how important it is when public phones are scarce or do not exist and when households are located in areas where a mobile signal is not available. Creativity is in operation to overcome communication difficulties in a synchronic way.

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Networks constitute a key instrument for economic agents to reduce markets’ information asymmetries. Networks can be potential or real, endogenous (not chosen) or exogenous (chosen). Networks can provide valuable information to traders in rural areas when they are making decisions such as where to sell their products. Mobile telephony allows the fastest access to this information, as synchronous distance communication could be one of the mechanisms to keep these networks alive. The study of traders participating in weekly fairs provides new evidence of the role of mobile networks. First, most traders move and sell within a limited number of fairs bounded by geography. Second, traders are more involved in exogenous networks (those composed of relatives) than in endogenous networks or more formal networks, such as associations of producers or traders. Third, the mobile phone is important for making decisions on where to sell for those traders who have relatives in a given fair if the trader already communicates with customers; that is, if the trader participates in an endogenous network that creates value for the individual. The availability of mobile telephony in the main localities is relatively recent, while coverage still lags in some localities. This circumstance opens interesting lines of further research to determine what changes will bring the increase in subscriptions and the improvement of the mobile communication infrastructure. At present, however, we have been able to describe the ways mobile telephony is transforming some productive spheres of a poor area in Puno, Peru. Finally, two main issues should be addressed by policymakers and the industry, given the importance of mobile communication and the implications we have described, together with the constraints faced by most users in the study area. The first issue is improvement of the telecommunication network. Even though diffusion is growing, mobile service should be geographically extended to minimise the number of uncovered rural communities. Besides, the network should allow for advanced mobile services such as internet. Indeed, we gathered no evidence of internet surfing on mobile devices. It is not only price that shapes this kind of restriction, but technical capabilities of the network as well. The second issue has to do with prices, which appear to be really high for a majority of users. Being reachable is important, but being able to place a call is relevant as well. To allow for a more symmetric, empowered use of the mobile phone, the effective costs of communication should approach the purchase capacity of rural users. In sum, within a context of better and improved mobile service where prices are more affordable, the likelihood of adoption of new mobile services would increase, particularly those services addressed to rural traders and rural producers. The design of these services should take into account the local context.

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Endnotes 1. This text is a summary of selected results published in “La telefonía móvil en el ámbito rural: Un estudio de caso en Puno, Perú,” by R. Barrantes, A. Agüero, and M. Fernández-Ardèvol, included in Comunicación Móvil y Desarrollo Económico y Social en América Latina, edited by M. Fernández-Ardèvol, H. Galperin, and M. Castells (Barcelona, Spain: Ariel, 2011). We acknowledge the support of Fundación Telefónica Spain. Other results of this research are available in “Todos tienen celular,” by M. Aronés, R. Barrantes, and L. León, included in Uso, apropiación e impacto de la telefonía móvil en el área de influencia de dos ferias en Puno, Perú (Lima, Perú: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2011), and also available at www.iep.org.pe/textos/DDT/todostienencelular.pdf. 2. De Silva has subsequently applied the same approach (for instance, Agüero, de Silva, and Kang 2011; de Silva, Ratnadiwakara, and Zainudeen 2011; Zainudeen and Ratnadiwakara 2011). 3. Chalequeros provide a per-minute rental service of mobile phones. They can be found in crowded squares or corners. They can be identified by the vest (chalecos) they wear, hence their nickname. They have cheaper rates, compared with public telephones and prepaid subscriptions. 4. Differences are statistically significant. 5. Differences are statistically significant.

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Deloitte. 2008. Economic Impact of Mobile Communications in Serbia, Ukraine, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh and Pakistan: A Report for Telenor ASA. www.telenor.com/wp-content/ uploads/2012/03/Economic-Impact-of-Mobile-Communications.pdf. de Silva, H., D. Ratnadiwakara, and A. Zainudeen. 2011. “Social Influence in Mobile Phone Adoption: Evidence from the Bottom of the Pyramid in Emerging Asia.” International Technologies & International Development 7 (3): 1–18. de Silva, H., and A. Zainudeen. 2007. Teleuse on a Shoestring: Poverty Reduction through Telecom Access at the “Bottom of the Pyramid.” Paper prepared for Centre for Poverty Analysis Annual Symposium on Poverty Research in Sri Lanka. www.lirneasia.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/ 04/lirneasia_teleuse_cepa_-mar07_v30.pdf. Donner, J. 2006. “The Use of Mobile Phones by Microentrepreneurs in Kigali, Rwanda.” Information Technologies and International Development 3 (2): 3–19. ———. 2008. “Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature.” Information Society 24 (3): 140–59. ———. 2009. “Blurring Livelihoods and Lives: The Social Uses of Mobile Phones and Socioeconomic Development.” Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization 4 (1): 91–101. Donner, J., S. Gitau, and G. Marsden. 2011. “Exploring Mobile-Only Internet Use: Results of a Training Study in Urban South Africa.” International Journal of Communication 5: 547–97. Fernández-Ardèvol, M. 2010. “Household Access to Mobile Telephony in Latin America.” In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on M4D Mobile Communication Technology for Development M4D, edited by J. Svensson, and G. Wicander, 60–9. Kronoparken, Sweden: Karlstad University. Frost & Sullivan. 2006. El Impacto Social de la Telefonía Móvil en América Latina (Social Impact of Mobile Telephony in Latin America). GSM Latin America y AHCIET. www.ahciet.net/index. php/estudios/estudios-ahciet/doc_download/4-el-impacto-social-de-la-telefonia-movilen-america-latina. Furuholt, B., and E. Matotay. 2011. “The Developmental Contribution from Mobile Phones Across the Agricultural Value Chain in Rural Africa.” Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 48 (7): 1–16. Galperin, H., and J. Mariscal. 2007. Poverty and Mobile Telephony in Latin America and the Caribbean. Lima, Perú: IDRC. www.dirsi.net/files/regional/REGIONAL_FINAL_english.pdf Galperin, H., and A. Molinari. 2011. “Telefonía móvil y negocios inclusivos: el Proyecto Suma en Argentina.” In Comunicación Móvil y Desarrollo Económico y Social en América Latina, edited by M. Fernández-Ardèvol, H. Galperin, and M. Castells, 181–221. Barcelona, Spain: Ariel. Goffman, E. 1981. La Presentación De La Persona En La Vida Cotidiana. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Amorrortu Editores. Goodman, J. 2005. “Linking Mobile Phone Ownership and Use to Social Capital in Rural South Africa and Tanzania.” In Africa: The Impact of Mobile Phones, edited by D. Coyle, 53–65. Newbury, U.K.: Vodafone. Heeks, R. 2009. Beyond Subscriptions: Actual Ownership, Use and Non-Use of Mobiles in Developing Countries, ICTs for Development. ict4dblog.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/beyondsubscriptions-actual-ownership-use-and-non-use-of-mobiles-in-developing-countries.

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Ilahiane, H., and J. W. Sherry. 2012. “The Problematics of the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ Approach to International Development: The Case of Micro-Entrepreneurs’ Use of Mobile Phones in Morocco.” International Technologies & International Development 8 (1): 13–26. INEI (Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática). 2007. Censos Nacionales 2007: XI de Población y VI de Vivienda. Lima, Perú: INEI. ———. 2008. Encuesta Nacional de Hogares (ENAHO) 2008. Lima, Perú: INEI. ———. 2010. Encuesta Nacional de Hogares (ENAHO) 2010. Lima, Perú: INEI. Islam, M. S., and A. Grönlund. 2011. “Bangladesh Calling: Farmers’ Technology Use Practices As a Driver for Development.” Journal of Information Technology for Development 17 (2): 95–111. ITU (International Telecommunication Union). 2011. World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database 2011. Geneva, Switzerland: ITU. Jagun, A., R. Heeks, and J. Whalley. 2007. Mobile Telephony and Developing Country MicroEnterprise: A Nigerian Case Study. Developing Informatics Working Paper Series, No. 29. Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, Manchester, U.K. www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/idpm/research/publications/wp/di/documents/di_wp29.pdf. Kalba, K. 2007. The Adoption of Mobile Phones in Emerging Markets: Global Diffusion and the Rural Challenge. Informe para el 6th Annual Global Mobility Roundtable 2007, Los Angeles, 1-2/6, Center for Telecom Management Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. www.marshall.usc.edu/assets/006/5577.pdf. Katz, J., and S. Suygiyama. 2006. “Mobile Phones as Fashion Statements: Evidence from Student Surveys in the US and Japan.” New Media and Society 8 (2): 321–37. Ledezma, J., and M. E. Pozo. 2006. “Género, trabajo agrícola y tierra en Raqaypampa.” In Las Displicencias de Género en los Cruces del Siglo Pasado al Nuevo Milenio en los Andes, edited by N. Laurie and M. E. Pozo, 129–82. Cochabamba, Bolivia: Centro de Estudios Superiores Universitarios. Ling, R. 2004. The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phone’s Impact on Society. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann. Martin, B. L., and E. Abbott. 2011. “Mobile Phones and Rural Livelihoods: Diffusion, Uses, and Perceived Impacts among Farmers in Rural Uganda.” International Technologies & International Development 7 (4): 17–34. Molony, T. 2006. “‘I Don’t Trust the Phone; It Always Lies’: Trust and Information and Communication Technologies in Tanzanian Micro- and Small Enterprises.” Information Technologies and International Development 3 (5): 67–83. Mujica, J. 2007. Local Strategies for Mobile Telephony Access: Functions and Structures of the Informal Market in a Low Income Community. Lima, Perú: IDRC. www.dirsi.net/sites/default/ files/dirsi_07_CJ3_en.pdf. Nadvi, K. 1999. “Shifting Ties: Social Networks in the Surgical Instruments Cluster in Sialkot, Pakistan.” Development and Change 30 (1): 141–75. Parodi, A. 1995. El Lago Titicaca: Sus Características Físicas Y Sus Riquezas Naturales, Arqueológicas Y Arquitectónicas. Arequipa, Perú: Regentus. Pedersen, P. 1996. “Flexibility and Networking: European and African Context.” In Small Enterprises: Flexibility and Networking in an African Context, edited by D. McCormick and P. O. Pedersen, 3–17. Nairobi, Kenya: Longhorn. Pedersen, P. 2005. Instrumentality Challenged: The Adoption of a Mobile Parking Service. Agder University College, Kristiansand, Norway. ikt.hia.no/perep/semoc_pep_paper.pdf.

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Pereyra, O. 2003. “Más Allá Del Mito Del Progreso: Estrategias De Supervivencia Y Movilidad Social En Familias Aymaras Del Altiplano Puneño.” Debates en Sociología 28: 133–53. Schapendonk, J. 2009. “Moving and Mediating: a Mobile View on Sub-Saharan African Migration towards Europe.” In Communication Technologies in Latin America and Africa: A Multidisciplinary Perspective, edited by M. Fernández-Ardèvol and A. Ros, 293–318. Barcelona, Spain: IN3. in3.uoc.edu/web/IN3/communication-technologies-in-latin-america-and-africa. Sife, A. S., E. Kiondo, and J. G. Lyimo-Macha. 2010. “Contribution of Mobile Phones to Rural Livelihoods and Poverty Reduction in Morogoro Region, Tanzania.” Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 42 (3): 1–15. Souter, D., N. Scott, C. Garforth, R. Jain, O. Mascarenhas, and K. McKemey. 2005. The Economic Impact of Telecommunications on Rural Livelihoods and Poverty Reduction: A Study of Rural Communities in India (Gujarat), Mozambique and Tanzania. Report of UK Department for International Development, KaR Project 8347. www.telafrica.org/R8347/files/pdfs/Final Report.pdf. Steinberg, J. 2003. “Information Technology and Development Beyond ‘Either/Or.’” Brookings Review 21 (2): 45–8. Stiglitz, J. 2000. “Formal and Informal Institutions.” In Social Capital: A Multifaceted Perspective, edited by P. Dasgupta and I. Serageldin, 59–68. Washington, DC: World Bank. Suler, J. 2004. “The Online Disinhibition Effect.” CyberPsychology and Behavior 7 (3): 321–6. www.sam blackman.org/Articles/Suler.pdf. Ureta, S. 2008. “Mobilising Poverty? Mobile Phone Use and Everyday Spatial Mobility Among Low Income Families in Santiago, Chile,” Information Society 24 (2): 83–92. Ureta, S., A. Artopoulos, W. Muñoz, and P. Jorquera. 2011. “Cultura juvenile móvil en un entorno urbano: un estudio de caso en Santiago de Chile.” In Comunicación Móvil y Desarrollo Económico y Social en América Latina, 273–317, edited by M. Fernández-Ardèvol, H. Galperin, and M. Castells. Barcelona, Spain: Ariel. Zainudeen, A., and D. Ratnadiwakara. 2011. “Are the Poor Stuck in Voice? Conditions for Adoption of More-Than-Voice Mobile Services.” International Technologies & International Development 7 (3): 45–59.

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Mobile Government Seang-Tae Kim

Editors’ Note: This chapter outlines the spectrum of mobile government services, for citizens, businesses, and government employees. Mobiles have extended the scope and immediacy of government services beyond e-government and can also improve democratic engagement if the service design is bi-directional. Numerous case studies are provided from developed and emerging economies along with impact analysis. The chapter ends with useful recommendations on mobile government (m-government) strategy, design, testing, security, privacy, and partnerships. Emerging trends include enhancement of m-government through social media, sensor networks, and augmented reality, as well as m-government services among national governments.

— Evolution of Digital Government— From E-Gov to M-Gov The penetration of mobile devices and the speeds of networks and services have been increasing rapidly around the world. An estimated 90 percent of the world’s population and 80 percent of those living in rural areas now have access to the mobile network. Worldwide, the mobile service penetration rate increased from around 5 percent in 1998 to more than 85 percent in 2011.1 The number of mobile service subscribers is expected to reach the level of the world’s total population by 2018. It is certain that mobile services are spreading faster than any other type of services in the history of mankind (see Figure 23.1 and Table 23.1). 429

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Figure 23.1

Global ICT developments, 2001–2011. Source: International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database

Table 23.1

Key Performance Metrics. Source: Chetan Sharma, “Mobile Services Evolution 2008–2018,” paper presented at the Mobile Services Evolution 2008–2018 conference, Bellagio, Italy, July 13–August 1, 2008

In such an environment, more countries around the world are adding mobile government (m-government) services. The reasons are that mobile technologies are widely accepted by the public sector and mobile services are achieving higher penetration, ease of use, and greater interoperability, ensuring easier

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access by the government to the citizens, cheaper than PC-based government services, and customisable options. Countries around the world are competitively making efforts to deploy more mobile-based services. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have joined hands with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) in providing preliminary data on implementing m-government initiatives and published the report M-Government: Mobile Technologies for Responsive Governments and Connected Societies in January 2012.2 It may be useful to relate and understand the e-government paradigm shift with reference to two aspects of the relationship between e-democracy and e-government. That is, e-democracy classifies e-government into different types based on the level of social pluralism and maturity of civic society, as well as in line with the models already classified according to social paradigms.3 With the vertical axis in Figure 23.2 representing the degree of social pluralism and maturity of the civic society, the pattern signifies that as the degree of social pluralism and the maturity of the civic society get higher, civic society moves from passive to active. The horizontal axis represents the level of information

Figure 23.2

Shift in the social paradigm and e-government paradigm. Source: Seang-Tae Kim, E-Government: Theory & Strategy (Bubmoonsa, 2003)

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technology development. When the e-government and e-democracy models are put together, they can be classified as in Figure 23.2. Figure 23.2 represents m-government as a transitional stage in a transformation from participatory e-government, in which citizens’ engagement in government decision making is facilitated, into governance-type e-government or “smart e-government,” in which information is shared through various wired or wireless channels, including social and mobile services, and in which such activities influence transparency as well as democratic decision-making processes.4

Mobile Service Delivery The service models of m-government can be classified as government-tocitizen (G2C), government-to-government (G2G), government-to-business (G2B), and government-to-employee (G2E) and are described as follows in Figure 23.3:5 • G2C: Services in which the government provides citizens the information they want (e.g., interactive services such as weather information, tour information, road information, health status, and emergency help services; transactional services such as job advertisements and ticket booking services; and citizen participatory services, in which citizens can take part in policy or decision-making processes) • G2G: Services in which information is exchanged among government organisations in order to respond to citizens’ demands in an efficient way through an integrated back-office infrastructure (e.g., in the areas of law enforcement, public safety, emergency management, healthcare, and education) • G2B: Services supporting businesses (e.g., in the areas of business development, procurement, licensing, and tax payment) • G2E: Services that provide tools and education and allow data sharing for government workers to use in their businesses and improve organisational efficiency

M-Government Service Design and Best Practices Some of the most common demands in providing e-government services are that the services be independent of the platform, that they be always usable, and that all public information be easily available. To satisfy such demands, m-government should allow anyone to access the services regardless of time,

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Figure 23.3

Service delivery model of m-government. Source: Uhm Oui-Suk, “Introduction of m-Government & IT Convergence Technology,” KAIST, 2010

place, or device type. Some of the main considerations for designing m-government services are developing citizen-oriented services, improving cost-efficiency, maximising usability and accessibility, and closing the digital divide. M-government is not a whole different paradigm from e-government; rather, it is the extension of e-government, in which the paradigm moves from e-government to smart government. Therefore, when designing m-government services, it is advisable to adapt as many of the existing e-government services to mobile services rather than developing totally different types of services. Developing new services requires in advance an accurate analysis and evaluation of service delivery or citizens’ acceptability, and provision of extensible and flexible mobile applications to meet diverse requirements from citizens and changing technologies. Policymakers should consider investment in mobile services from the perspectives of increased efficiency, prevention of redundant investment, increased service levels, increased user convenience, and acceptability of future requirements rather than from the simple perspective of return-on-investment. For closing the information divide, services for the visually or hearing impaired should be developed and provided. Learning from the low usage rate of technology-oriented services in e-government, human-oriented m-government services should be developed and provided in such a way that citizens can conveniently use them. In terms of mobile technology for advanced countries, such as the U.S., U.K., and South Korea, public applications of government organisations are provided through a single channel (U.S. through apps.usa.gov; U.K. through

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data.gov.uk; Korea through m.korea.go.kr) to improve the efficiency of public service delivery and maximise user convenience. Some of the apps that citizens use most provide the most required information, and this could serve as a lesson for other countries developing mobile public services. Table 23.2 shows some successful cases of advanced countries’ mobile apps, categorised as G2C, G2G, G2B, and G2E.6 Table 23.2

Examples of Mobile Applications in Advanced Countries. Sources: apps.usa.gov, m.korea.go.kr, data.gov.uk, and OECD/International Telecommunication Union, M-Government: Mobile Technologies for Responsive Governments and Connected Societies (OECD, 2011)

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Table 23.2

(cont.)

M-Government and Its Impacts: From Marketing to Community Participation M-government is expected to have a great influence in different areas of society. It can provide opportunities for government to save costs, improve communication, adjust data, extend services, and achieve digital equality. Citizens can use government services and interact with the government, and businesses can reduce costs and improve productivity. The impacts of m-government on the government itself are as follows: • Thanks to wide penetration of mobile devices, the government can now provide services to those who used to be alienated from such information, such as the elderly, the visually or hearing impaired, and residents living in remote areas. • Thanks to the mobility and wide penetration of mobile devices, the government can allow citizens to access government services regardless of time or place.

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• Using the features of mobile phones that provide location-based services, the government can provide customised services for individuals. • Costs can be saved through simplified processes, data sharing, having access to coordinated data, electronic processes, communication, and transactions. • Business adjustments between public institutions are always possible, and cooperation is improved. • Government workers can manage financial and human resources in a more convenient way by using mobile technology. • Government workers can reach out for general and mainstream public opinion and reflect it in policies on a real-time basis. • Mobile technologies provide an environment in which more citizens can participate in policy development and decision-making processes, further improving the transparency and efficiency of the government, as well as contributing to democracy. The impacts of m-government on citizens are as follows: • Mobile phone penetration allows all subscribers to access government services and communicate with the government. • Citizens can use e-payment and e-signature services and interact with service providers and government workers. • Healthcare and emergency medical services can be provided to areas not covered by existing services. In addition, location information provided via GPS can improve response times in cases of crime or emergency. • Financial services such as deposits, money transfer, remittance, and loans can be used conveniently at all times and in all places. • Teachers can deliver lectures via mobile devices, and parents can obtain information on their children’s exam results and attendance. The impacts of m-government on businesses are as follows: • Economic opportunities are provided (e.g., recruiting, real-time support of business processes, fast access to data, and product ordering from places of origin). Farmers and fishermen can have opportunities for better productivity and income through weather and market information.

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• Productivity can be improved through mobile phones that enable businesses to accurately meet the customer demands for products and services. .

• Workers can provide customised services by checking customer information anywhere, while customers can place orders after checking products and prices, changing the customer service framework from the roots. • Mobile infrastructure reduces energy consumption in many cases, and businesses can save energy through field services and video conferencing.

Bridging the Mobile Digital Divide Considering that mobile technology has advantages over PC-based internet technology in terms of social acceptability, friendliness, and costs, it is expected to significantly contribute to closing the digital divide. Mobile networks are cheaper to construct than are wired networks. Moreover, they enable information provision to remote areas not covered by existing services, and they contribute to narrowing the digital gap. The rapidly falling prices of mobile devices are also contributing to narrowing the gap between advanced and developing countries. The mobility and convenience of mobile devices allow more people to use mobile devices, and it is especially providing the environment for the disabled, elderly, or illiterate to access information. The largest digital gap exists with the social classes of the disabled, elderly, and low-income wage earners; many efforts are needed to close this gap. Figure 23.4 shows the mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants around the world. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was signed as of July 20117 and specifies that it is the government’s duty to provide mobile services for the disabled. This requirement reflects worldwide efforts to close the digital divide. Around 10 percent of the world’s total population is estimated to be disabled, with an even larger portion estimated to be challenged to use mobile phones. To lead these people into the world of information, it is necessary to distribute handsets they can use and provide customised services that use voice or braille.

Security and Risk Management In all m-government projects around the world, a main focus of both government and citizens is security and privacy protection. With their personal data

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Figure 23.4

Mobile-cellular subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, 2011. Source: ITU World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database

unprotected, users would hesitate to use mobile services; therefore, mobile security and personal data protection should be regarded as a top priority when policies are implemented. Since security means more than just installing the latest devices or applying specific technology, the “2002 OECD Security Guidelines”8 therefore should be followed. Privacy protection deals with anonymity, linkability, unlinkability, undetectability, unobservability, and identity management, and protecting these elements is one of the legal tasks. Protecting personal information that is exchanged between countries requires serialisation of the personal data of each country. Because diffusion of mobile devices increases security threats to organisations, mobile solutions should be developed based on a balance between information access and security. Security and identity management encompass mobile applications, risk evaluation, security tests, policies on monitoring of security threats, lists of information providers, information security, encryption, and authentication codings; therefore, it is necessary to develop and follow concrete guidelines. To prevent money transfers or illegal information access by others, as a result of loss or theft of mobile phones, or downgrade of someone’s credit rating due to false SMS on m-government services, it is advisable to deploy additional identification schemes.

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Emerging Trends and Issues Government services are known to evolve from unilateral to bilateral and then to personalized services.9 As many mobile devices that allow use of bilateral services have been released, respective country governments are actively using the services for facilitating communication with citizens. Most of the countries that are currently developing m-government are focusing not only on developing mobile services for public information but also on communicating with the citizens through the bilateral social networking service (SNS) features of mobile devices. For instance, the U.S. government has disclosed all public information for government transparency and work efficiency; as part of the project called “Making Mobile Government,”10 it actively adopts citizen opinions and interacts with its citizens via social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. As for the U.K., it is trying to create citizen-oriented m-government by disclosing all public information to citizens and actively providing public information via mobile devices. Table 23.3 outlines the major changes of the Smart Society e-Government Model.11 The following are the some key emerging technology and service issues in m-government: • Long-term evolution (LTE): LTE is a technology that was first introduced in Uzbekistan in August 2010. It is considered the nextgeneration technology, following GSM or CDMA, and connecting the 3G and 4G technologies; it is currently being adopted by many countries. • Location-based service (LBS): LBS, which provides specific information according to the location of users, is expected to grow from $1.9 billion in 2008 to $8.3 billion by 2014, thanks to the spread of GPS-embedded devices and the success of location-based business models.12 Currently, services are evolving to converge LBS with augmented reality and with SNSs. • SNSs: SNS represented by Twitter and Facebook, and the like, are being actively used for interaction with citizens in an increasing number of countries. • Augmented reality (AR): AR provides location information of the nearest stores, coffee shops, or banks through pictures or street signs and has been adopted by the transportation segment for the first time in the public sector.

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Table 23.3

Major Changes of the Smart Society e-Government Model. Source: National Information Society Agency, “Government Service Development Strategy Based on Three New Information Technologies,” IT Policy Research Issue, No. 12, December 2009

• Near field communication (NFC): NFC was first developed as an alternative to the credit card system and is serving many areas, such as payment of fares, identification, inquiry, data transmission, and shopping. • Translation: It is forecasted that in the near future, mobile technology will have the ability to overcome language barriers in international conferences, or in business. • Big Data: Big Data refers to data sets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage, and analyse. According to a Cisco report, it was forecast that global mobile data traffic will total a CAGR of 78 percent between 2011 and 2019, reaching

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10.8 exabytes per month by 2016 through the facilitation of smartphones and SNS usage.13 • 4G: 4G is the mobile communication technology that enables data transmission at 100 megabits per second in the vehicles with highspeed (100 km/h) and at 1 gigabit per second in low-speed environments. This technology is expected to be realized in 4 to 5 years. • User interface (UI): The current touch-based UI will be upgraded to one that is more human-oriented, that is, based on voice, handwriting, motions, face recognition, retina-scanning detection, and the like. • Citizen engagement: Active participation of citizens in policy-making and decision-making processes through the bilateral features of mobile devices is expected and will contribute to improving government–citizen interaction, as well as the transparency and efficiency of the government.

Recommendations for Policymakers and Industry Because m-government is not a whole different paradigm from e-government but rather the extension of e-government in which the paradigm moves toward smart government, it is advisable to keep and upgrade existing e-government services rather than making reformative changes. Specifically, the construction and stepping up of the smart infrastructure through upgrading the usability and utility of the current information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure is necessary to successfully move on to smart government, which is characterised by user-oriented, personalised services, real-time government focused on the front office, preventive services, active intelligent services, and so on. Other prerequisites for smart government include improved information security and privacy protection; a narrowing of the information divide by fostering “smartizens,” creative and smart citizens playing key roles in the smart society and having powerful capacities for obtaining information and networking; and improved organisational culture and capacities of government workers. A smart infrastructure and smart society will allow m-government to gain more traction. The following main points will support this claim: • M-government should be approached from the viewpoint that mobile services are not sets of initiatives of individual organizations but should be carried out in a comprehensive and systematic way at a government level.

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• The public mobile service markets in most countries are still in the initiation stage, allowing for use only within those countries. However, it will be necessary to address the compatibility of these markets in preparation for active global exchange in the future through international m-transactions or immigration. • Government workers may be passive in adopting mobile services because of security and budget issues and fear of deploying new technology. Government policymakers should deliver consistent policies, share information on mobile technology and services, minimise fear through education and learning, and organise a community for mobile capacity building. • Investment in mobile technology should be approached from the perspectives of increased efficiency, prevention of redundant investment, increased service levels, increased user convenience, and acceptability of future requirements rather than from the simple return-on-investment perspective. • Because most mobile initiatives are being carried out by only a few institutions or persons, the service level is still very low. Therefore, it is advisable to achieve m-government by establishing a nationwide cooperative framework. • As the mobile service platform evolves through public–private cooperation as well as collaboration among industry, research institutions, government institutions, nonprofit organisations, and service users, it is necessary to establish a cooperative framework incorporating all stakeholders and business models for each stakeholder. • As called for in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, it is necessary to develop and provide handsets that people with visual, hearing, speech, or cognitive impairment can use, as well as services they can access. • Because mobile technology is rapidly changing, the latest trends should always be monitored considering future service expansion. • As mobile services expand, security and privacy protection issues arise. Therefore, it is necessary to prioritise security and privacy protection and serialise personal data with that of other countries for the protection of personal information exchanged between countries. • To facilitate citizen engagement, diverse platforms and communication channels should be developed and provided.

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• By applying sophisticated mobile technologies used in the private sector, including real-time communication and fast data access, the public sector can provide services more promptly, so it is necessary to establish a strategy for creating the public and private cooperation framework that would transfer the know-how and expertise of the private sector to the public sector. • The mobile industry consists of device manufacturers, infrastructure providers, and application developers. Device manufacturers should consider the size, quality, appearance, functionality, and synchronisation of mobile devices when developing them to meet the demands of citizens. Infrastructure providers should make efforts to develop low-cost and high-efficiency networks. Developers of applications that serve as an interface between mobile devices and a network or hardware should focus on the efficiency, personalisation, and synchronisation of the mobile internet.

Suggestions for Implementing Mobile Government in Developing Countries It is advisable for developing countries to make and execute their own policies at the government level in order to best serve the local context and conditions of their countries. As government services are evolving from one-way service delivery from government offices to citizens into bilateral service delivery through facilitated communication between the government and citizens, developing countries will need to set up citizen-oriented m-government strategies that reflect public opinion or that define and provide the services citizens have requested in the early stage of m-government development. It is easier for developing countries to create advanced government services via mobiles rather than for them to develop them in a wired network environment. However, most developing countries are providing mobile services based on individual projects. Strategy development at the government level is required in order for an entire population to enjoy m-government services. Good examples of such strategy are the M-Government Program of Singapore, which provides mobile websites and government office apps through a single site (data.gov.sg) and the Framework for Mobile Governance of the Indian government, which was established in January 2012. It is also necessary to analyse and learn from m-government implementation efforts of other countries in order to be prepared for globalisation of mobile services (global transactions) in the future. Benchmarking successful

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cases of the U.S. (Making Mobile Government Project, Figure 23.5) and the U.K. (data.gov.uk) are a feasible way to progress. Table 23.4 outlines some of the emerging mobile services that are being utilized in some different countries around the world.

Figure 23.5

Making Mobile Government Project homepage

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Table 23.4

Emerging Mobile Services. Source: Financial Times, March 21, 2012; Reuters, October 11, 2011; IDA, October 25, 2011; OECD/International Telecommunication Union, M-Government: Mobile Technologies for Responsive Governments and Connected Societies (OECD, 2011)

Endnotes 1. ITU World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators database. 2. OECD/International Telecommunication Union, M-Government: Mobile Technologies for Responsive Governments and Connected Societies (OECD, 2011), dx.doi.org/10.1787/ 9789264118706-en. 3. Chetan Sharma, “Mobile Services Evolution 2008–2018,” paper presented at the Mobile Services Evolution 2008–2018 conference, Bellagio, Italy, July 13–August 1, 2008. 4. Seang-Tae Kim, “Converging E-Democracy and E-Government Model Toward an Evolutionary Model of E-Governance: The Case of South Korea,” 2003, accessed January 24, 2013, unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/unpan/unpan033197.pdf. 5. Uhm Oui-Suk, “Introduction of m-Government & IT Convergence Technology,” KAIST, 2010. 6. “Mobile Apps Gallery,” USA.gov, accessed January 24, 2013, apps.usa.gov. 7. OECD/International Telecommunication Union, M-Government: Mobile Technologies for Responsive Governments and Connected Societies (OECD, 2011), dx.doi.org/10.1787/ 9789264118706-en. 8. Ibid. 9. Seang-Tae Kim, E-Government: Theory & Strategy (Bubmoonsa, 2003). 10. “Mobile Apps Gallery.” 11. National Information Society Agency, “Government Service Development Strategy Based on Three New Information Technologies,” IT Policy Research Issue, No. 12, December 2009. 12. Singapore Government homepage, accessed January 24, 2013, data.gov.sg.

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13. “Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2011–2016,” Cisco, May 30, 2012, accessed January 24, 2013, www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-481360_ns827_Networking_Solutions_ White_Paper.html.

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Mobile China: Opportunities and Challenges Xu Xiaoge

Editors’ Note: China is the largest mobile market in the world, and Chinese mobile infrastructure players Huawei and ZTE have a notable presence overseas, especially in regions such as Africa. This chapter describes the scale and scope of China’s mobile market, while also delving into details of media dynamics, health content, online activism, and regulation. Major social media from countries such as the U.S. are blocked in China, but they have Chinese counterparts, which have gone beyond the copycat phase to offering innovative features. Mobile and internet companies in China need to strike a delicate balance between the bottom line and the party line, because the Chinese government is keen on economic reform and advancement while also keeping a tight lid on political expression and news. This combination makes China one of the most fascinating country profiles of digital media. China is far more mobile than any other country in the world. With more than 1 billion mobile connections (Xinhua 2012) and 356 million mobile internet users (CNNIC 2012), the country is experiencing an outburst of mobile activities beyond phone calls: texting, tweeting, blogging, watching videos, listening to audios, banking, reading, gaming, shopping, emailing, enjoying location-based services, or social networking. Earning more than $30 billion, excluding phone call revenues, the mobile industry has become the largest revenue earner in the media sector. Although a newcomer in the media industry, dubbed the fifth medium (after newspapers, TV, radio, and the internet), mobile has a market share of 32 percent, 447

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much bigger than TV (18 percent), newspapers (12.2 percent), the internet (11.2 percent), and radio (1.7 percent; Cui 2011). With increasing mobile connections provided by the three mobile operators in the country, Mobile China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecomm (with market shares of 67 percent, 21 percent, and 13 percent, respectively; Dewar 2011), mobiles have been changing the media landscape, the way of living, the way of communicating, the way of social networking, and the way of doing business for the Chinese. This chapter offers insights into major changes, opportunities, and challenges wrought by mobile technology in China in the following areas: 1) mobile social media, 2) mobile news, 3) mobile advertising, 4) mobile healthcare, 5) mobile games, 6) mobile money, 7) mobile activism, 8) rural mobile, and 9) mobile regulations.

Mobile Social Media Every type of social medium from countries such as the U.S. has its Chinese counterpart. The Chinese versions of social media have moved from mere replicas to hybrids of foreign and local, as demonstrated by the Chinese version of Twitter, Weibo, which is a combination of microblogging, video or audio sharing, social networking, and group buying. Instead of YouTube, which is blocked in the country, China has its own versions, such as youku, ku6, and qiyi. For blogging, China has, among others, Hexun, sina blog, blogus, and bolaa. Among Chinese versions of Delicious (social bookmarks) are QQ bookmarks, sina vivi bookmarks, and Baidu bookmarks. Wiki also has its Chinese counterparts, including Hudong, soso baike, baidu baike, and MBAlib. Location-based services in the country include Jiepang and Qieke, Chinese versions of Foursquare. In the absence of Facebook, China has its various counterparts such as Renren, Kaixin, Qzone, and Douban. Instead of Twitter, which is also blocked in China, the Chinese have their own versions: Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo, Netease Weibo, and Souhu Weibo. QQ, the most popular instant messaging service provider, has more than 710 million active user accounts. Qzone, the most popular nickname-based social network, has more than 500 million accounts. Pengyou, a Tencent’s real-name social network, has 130 million registered users. Renren, the leading real-name social network, has more than 170 million registered users. Sina Weibo is the most popular micro-blogging service, with more than 250 million registered users. Sina Weibo’s immediate rival is Tencent Weibo, which claims to have more than 300 million registered users (thempro 2012). Social media users have reached 450 million, including 415 million instant messaging users, 325 million online video users, and 300 million microbloggers.

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More than 50 percent of social media users have more than one social network profile, and 30 percent of them log onto a social network at least once a day. More than 1.4 million people check in daily via Jiepang, a Chinese version of Foursquare (thempro 2012). With almost half a billion social media users who are engaging in mobile activities of all kinds and more than 69 percent of internet users who are mobile-based (CNNIC 2012), China is becoming exponentially social. Among the mobile activities, mobile instant messaging remains the most popular, accounting for 83.1 percent of the total population of mobile users, followed by mobile search (62.1 percent), mobile news (60.9 percent), mobile music (45.7 percent), mobile literature (44.2 percent), mobile social networking sites (42.3 percent), mobile micro-blogs (38.5 percent), mobile games (30.2 percent), mobile posts and reposts (29.7 percent), mobile emails (24.1 percent), mobile videos (22.5 percent), mobile payment (8.6 percent), mobile banking (8.2 percent), mobile shopping (6.6 percent), travel booking (4 percent), and mobile daily deals (2.9 percent) (CNNIC 2012). Social media, especially those on mobile devices, are a growing power in aggregating not just content and services but also users from different walks of life. They have provided a solid foundation for business expansion, social networking, and political activism. Mobile social media have become catalysts of economic, social, and political change. The social changes brought about by social media are largely reflected in more and more people turning to social media (such as QQ, Weibo, and Renren) to make friends and to stay connected with friends and family members across time and space, and these changes have been reshaping social structures and modes of interpersonal and family communication. More important, a new channel of social capital flow has been established in the country, paving the way for further rapid economic, cultural, and political reforms. Economically, more and more business and transactions are conducted via mobile social media, such as social commerce (Chinese versions of Groupon: Gaopeng, Ruomi, Meituan, and Lashou), ecommerce (Chinese versions of eBay: Taobao, Dangdang, Joyo, Okbuy), and emarketing (such as Bolaa). Mobile entertainment such as video sharing sites and/or applications (apps) (e.g., PPTV and PPS) and audio sharing sites and/or apps (e.g., Kugou and Xiami) is also on the rapid rise, and mobile games are growing exponentially in popularity. And China is witnessing increasing business and corporate communication via mobile social media (such as Chinese versions of LinkedIn: Ushi, Wealink, and Jingwei). Politically, more civil forces are turning to mobile social media to increase their presence and influence, and more political forces are also leveraging mobile social media for more discourse power. Individually, the Chinese

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people have been greatly empowered to make their voices heard via mobile social media such as the Chinese versions of Twitter, mentioned earlier, and Blogger (Sina blog, Hexun blog, and Blogbus). Amid abundant changes and opportunities, challenges are by no means fewer. Among others, service and content providers of mobile social media in China are struggling between the bottom line and the party line. On one hand, they have to struggle to survive amid increasingly fierce market competition. On the other hand, they try to find a balance between making a profit and staying politically safe within the parameters set by the ruling party. They have to exercise self-censorship in order to toe the party line so that they can stay alive to operate in the market.

Mobile News Unlike its fast and remarkable economic reform, which resulted in tremendous changes in the economic field, China has been rather slow in reforming its news industry. Structurally, news organisations have been gradually corporatised, enjoying more leeway on the business or production side. On the editorial or broadcast side, however, they remain tightly controlled by the Chinese government. Against this backdrop, there are increasing needs and spaces for mobile news, which can be defined as news stories reported, written, and shared on mobile devices by professional journalists, citizen journalists, and mobile journalists. Mobile news in China takes various forms and formats. One of the earliest forms is short message service (SMS) or multimedia message service (MMS). Primitive as it is, it is the easiest and quickest way of reporting and spreading news since it can reach out to the widest possible target audience. With mobile sites, apps, and mobile social media coming into the picture, mobile news is maturing very quickly and strengthening its impact. On top of mobile versions or platforms of mainstream news media, there are abundant additional platforms, including social media, for mobile news dissemination and consumption in the country. Differing from the news flow in the traditional mainstream news media, mobile news is more like a two-step or multiple-step information flow; it snowballs, getting bigger and bigger along its way through different channels or platforms of mobile social media. Mobile news has been proven very powerful and influential as evidenced in covering natural disasters such as the SARS epidemic in 2003, the Wenchuan Quake in 2008, and the Wenzhou bullet train crash in 2011, when news and information got viral through mobile connections, in the context of tightly controlled information flow through traditional mass media.

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SMS, MMS, apps, mobile sites, and social media are commonly employed as preferred platforms or channels for mobile news communication, largely bypassing the traditional gatekeeping process or censorship. They have become popular venues for news that ordinary Chinese do not get from the mainstream news media. Mobile news sites, mobile news apps, and mobile social media serve as additional platforms for professional journalists to publish stories that cannot be published in the mainstream news media because of time or space constraints or censorship. Further driven by principles and practices of citizen journalism, mobile news has been on the rapid rise among citizen journalists, who are very keen on reporting news on their mobile devices whenever they happen to be on the spot where a news story is unfolding. And more and more citizens use their mobile devices to provide tips for news coverage or clues for follow-up coverage by professional journalists. Mobile devices have also been widely used to investigate and report on social issues and to expose corruption and social injustice, generating news stories through unofficial or underground channels. News consumers, perhaps driven by a growing distrust of mainstream news media, are flooding into the mobile news space, constantly generating insatiable demand for news and information. The mass hunger for instantly available news has created huge opportunities for further growth of mobile news in the country, changing the news media landscape in China and engaging and empowering mobile users in an unprecedented way.

Mobile Advertising Largely SMS- and MMS-based in its initial stage, mobile advertising has been increasing its penetration into mobile webpages and mobile apps, thanks to the growing availability of mobile phones and 3G connections. And mobile activities have been creating more opportunities for mobile advertising. Consequently, mobile advertising grew from only 5.9 percent in 2010 (iResearch data cited in Xu 2011) to 10.7 percent in 2011 (iResearch data, July 2011, as cited in thempro 2012). Behind the growth in mobile advertising lies robust mobile commerce. Between 2008 and 2010, the number of online shoppers, including those who shop online via their mobile devices, grew steadily at more than 50 percent for three consecutive years. By 2011, the total number of online shoppers hit 194 million (CNNIC 2012). In terms of online shopping penetration, compared with South Korea and the U.S., China still has a long way to go and much more space for further growth. In 2010, the online shopping penetration rate hit 64.3 percent in South Korea and 66 percent in the U.S., but it had

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reached only 37.8 percent in China by the end of 2011 (CNNIC 2012). Although mobile commerce accounted for only 11.8 percent of total mobile revenues (20.25 billion renminbi [RMB]) in 2010 (iResearch data cited in Xu 2011), by July 2011 mobile commerce’s share of the total mobile market hit 31.4 percent (iResearch data, July 2011, as cited in thempro 2012). Another driving force behind the booming mobile advertising industry is the popularity of mobile search: It is the second-most-popular mobile activity, accounting for 62.1 percent of the total population of mobile internet users (mobile instant messaging, accounting for 83.1 percent of mobile internet users, is first; CNNIC 2012). The average daily search volume reached 718 million in the third quarter of 2011, with a sequential growth rate of 15.7 percent and a year-on-year increase of 55.4 percent. Chinese mobile search volume share in the third quarter of 2011 is divided as follows: Baidu, 33.5 percent; Easou, 22.00 percent; Tencent Soso, 21.0 percent; Google China, 11.3 percent; 3GYY, 5.7 percent; Yicha, 4.7 percent; Netease Youdao, 0.7 percent; and others, 1.1 percent (Analysis International 2012). Still another driver is that since the first day of 2012, TV commercials have been even more tightly regulated by the Chinese government, resulting in more opportunities for other media, especially mobile media. No commercials can be inserted in the middle of a TV program of 45 minutes, resulting in limited time slots available for commercials and increasing costs of advertising. Mobile advertising, however, is more cost-effective than is traditional media advertising. Furthermore, in the presence of increasing mobile content and services available anytime, anywhere, more and more people are turning away from traditional media to mobile devices. They can consume multimedia content and services as well as interact with other users on mobile devices. The engaging and empowering nature of mobile devices is creating powerful opportunities for mobile advertising.

Mobile Healthcare Mobile healthcare refers to “a service or application that involves voice or data communication for health purposes between a central point and remote locations” (Leslie et al. 2011), which is crucially important in catering to the needs of “around 260 million Chinese (20 percent of the population) … reported to suffer from chronic diseases such as heart disease, hypertension and diabetes” (Jantunen, Lehväslaiho, and Forsberg 2009). As the leading cause of death in China, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) accounted for “close to 70 percent of the disease burden and over 80 percent of the 10.3 million deaths caused by all diseases annually.” As NCD mortality in China is higher than in other leading G-20 countries, “The total

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years lost due to NCD morbidity and mortality are expected to increase significantly” from 2010 to 2030. “Population aging could compound the NCD burden by at least 40 percent by 2030 if effective measures are not taken to prevent and control NCDs and promote healthy aging” (World Bank 2011). In response to such a dire health situation, as part of nationwide efforts to improve the healthcare system around the country, mobile healthcare can play a major role, especially for the rural and remote areas where healthcare is seriously or even totally lacking. The crucial role of mobile healthcare can also be tapped in urban areas with limited access to healthcare. The mobile communication infrastructure across the country and the widely available mobile connections make it possible for China to provide “affordable and accessible basic health care services for patients with chronic diseases.” These services can be embedded in the existing networks and devices via apps and products after being made “compatible with existing devices and regulations, easy to use and accepted by the end-users” ( Jantunen, Lehväslaiho, and Forsberg 2009). As part of unremitting efforts to improve healthcare for the nation, after extending its “network and service to approximately 89,000 villages in the border and remote areas of China,” hitting at a coverage of “over 98% of the population,” China Mobile has rolled out “many innovative applications, including medical and health information services, mobile registration for appointments, remote visitation and diagnosis, and so forth” (Wang 2011, 9). Furthermore, China Mobile is also set to “identify and promote the best applications that can fully take advantage of mobile communications technology and meet social needs … in line with changes in technology and need” (10). Mobile healthcare apps can be grouped into six major categories: 1) public health research, 2) primary care, 3) emergency care, 4) management of long-term conditions, 5) information and self-help, and 6) whole-system efficiency improvement (Leslie et al. 2011). In the category of public health research, China has Influenza A Epidemic Prevention (hosted by China Mobile), “a system linking the general public, hospitals, the health bureau and other government departments to enable real-time supervision of infectious diseases and major epidemics, and to provide online expert consultation for real-time diagnosis and treatment. The system can also be used to help coordinate hospitals and communities, and to encourage people to take measures to control the spread of the disease” (Leslie et al. 2011, 95). As far as primary care is concerned, China has Hospital CRM (a system managing information about patients before, during, and after hospitalization), 12,580 Appointment Registrations (an SMS–MMS-based system for hospital appointments and provision of transport of information), the New Rural Co-Operation Project (networked IT support for rural healthcare),

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and Mobile Video Visitation (video feeds of patients in hospital; Leslie et al. 2011, 96). Although no apps in the categories of emergency care or management of long-term conditions could be located when this chapter was written, China has three apps in the category of information and self-help: 1) Medical Link (“to deliver medical information and popular scientific health information to support the medical care process, and to promote healthcare service efficiency”), 2) Medicine Link (“a mobile information service encouraging safe and rational drug use”), and 3) Vaccine Link (“vaccination information for parents and children”) (Leslie et al. 2011, 83–84). In the category of whole-system efficiency improvement, China has appointment reminders by mobile phone or SMS (improving patient attendance), PatientLink (integrated IT platform for hospitals, patients, and the public: multiple apps built on a converged fixed–mobile platform), and Drug RFID Smart Regulation (drug tracking through the supply chain using radio frequency–tagged drugs; Leslie et al. 2011, 109). Mobile healthcare can play a paramount role in “bringing healthcare to unserved or underserved populations; increasing the effectiveness and reducing the costs of healthcare delivery; improving the effectiveness of public health programs and research; preventing illness (including through behaviour change); managing and treating chronic diseases; and keeping people out of hospital” (Leslie et al. 2011, 5). In terms of reach and coverage as well as availability and accessibility of mobile healthcare, however, China remains far behind the developed countries. And China has a long way to go before it can reduce hospitalisations and emergency room visits in the context of limited healthcare resources.

Mobile Games The gaming market (online PC gaming, other standalone PC games, and mobile games) was worth 44.6 billion RMB or $7.1 billion in 2011. The total number of game development companies hit 164. And the mobile gaming market was worth 1.7 billion RMB in income in 2011 (Flynn 2012). The market share of mobile games grew from 12.7 percent in 2010 (iResearch data cited in Xu 2011) to 30.2 percent in 2011 (CNNIC 2012). That is a fast-growing market. With close to more than 1 billion mobile connections, China promises huge opportunities for further growth in mobile games, which integrate web games and social games on mobile devices. Among the leading players in the mobile gaming industry in China are Tencent Games, Shanda Games, Netease, Perfect World, Changyou, The9, and Giant. They are all sizable, NASDAQ-listed game publishers and developers in

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China. In addition to games apps, efforts have been made in developing HTML5 mobile games. For instance, Kaixin001 launched the first HTML5 mobile game with Spil Games Asia in 2011. Besides HTML5 mobile games, China has Flash games. The mobile gaming industry also witnessed more and more cooperation between Chinese mobile game developers and major international mobile game developers. For instance, The9 introduced OpenFeint, a mobile social gaming platform, to China. Zynga teamed up with Tencent to offer Zynga City, a heavily localised version of FarmVille, an effort led by Zynga China. And more are on the way, including Rovio Mobile Ltd, the Finnish developer of hit game Angry Birds. Games companies are increasingly interested in making games “lighter and lighter” by “enabling users to play directly on a webpage” and “providing players with easier access and easier designs,” according to Alan Tan, chief executive officer of Shanda Games Ltd, China’s second-largest online game company by market share (Chen 2011). Combined with social games, mobile-based or mobile-accessed games are becoming more and more popular in China. The booming mobile gaming industry is largely a result of “the increasing capability of handsets, having more games on ‘freemium’ (under which games can be downloaded free but extras cost money)—in line with Chinese people’s paying habits—and an increase in WiFi coverage,” according to Ray Cheng, the China president of Glu Mobile Inc, a leading publisher of social mobile games worldwide (Chen 2011). Amid changes and chances, the state regulators will continue to regulate the mobile gaming industry to keep it on a healthy track (in the state definition). With the state parameters, however, mobile operators and service providers “have enormous leverages in shaping the rules of game playing in the market” (Tai and Zeng 2011).

Mobile Money As a form of digital wallet, mobile money “refers to a digital repository of electronic money developed and implemented on mobile devices, allowing peerto-peer transactions … between mobile devices … from users of the same service” (Diniz, Albuquerque, and Cernev 2011). In the presence of increasing mobile shopping, mobile transactions, mobile payments, and mobile banking in China, mobile money is becoming imperative in boosting the mobile economy in the country. Mobile money services in China have been developing rapidly, with key players forming alliances domestically and internationally between mobile

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telecommunication services and financial services. For instance, a Chinese mobile money company, SmartPay, has joined hands with BICS to offer mobile remittances from Europe, Asia–Pacific, and the Middle East to China by utilising the HomeSend remittance hub, a strategic partnership between BICS and the mobile money solutions provider eServGlobal. SmartPay “allows for the real-time transfer of various types of funds, including airtime or money, to fund sources, such as bank accounts, credit cards, cash and eWallets” (Hawkes 2011). According to SmartPay’s CEO and president, Edward Wu, the international remittance market amounts to $500 billion per year, a very promising market for mobile money services. Another recent development in mobile money is the Trunkbow–UnionPay mobile payment applet, developed by Trunkbow International Holdings Ltd, a provider of mobile payment solutions and mobile value-added solutions in China, in partnership with China UnionPay, China’s leading bankcard association. A Trunkbow–UnionPay merchant network is expected to be operating soon in a market with a mobile commerce solution to China’s nearly 1 billion mobile phone users (PR Newswire 2012). Mobile payment providers fall into four major categories: 1) third-party mobile payment, 2) mobile operators, 3) banks, and 4) foreign mobile payment providers in China. Third-party mobile payment providers include Alipay, China UnionPay, Tenpay, Union Mobile Pay, 47Pay, 99Bill, Chinabank Payments, IPS, Lianlian Pay, MoBo, Qiandai, SandPay, Shanghai FFT, Smartpay, Yeepay, and Yinsheng E-Pay. Mobile payment is also provided by the following commercial banks: Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Minsheng Bank, China Merchants Bank, Bank of Communications, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, and China CITIC. Major foreign mobile payment providers in China include Apple, Google, Isis, Mastercard, PayPal, Square, and Visa (Maverick China Research 2012). Mobile payment technologies and business models in China include 1) SMS-based payment, 2) mobile internet payment, 3) near field communication and contactless mobile payment, and 4) direct mobile billing (app stores). Mobile payment services cover 1) mobile top-up, 2) mobile ticketing, 3) mobile banking, 4) peer-to-peer mobile remittances, 5) mobile gambling and lotteries, 6) utilities payment, and 7) m-commerce retail shopping (Maverick China Research 2012).

Mobile Activism The close to 1 billion mobile connections in China have opened up a huge space for mobile activism of all kinds, ranging from political dissidence to

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environmental activism. Being more pervasive and portable than other devices, mobile phones are appealing to activists and advocacy groups because the phones make it easier and cheaper for the activists to actively engage civil society. As part of digital activism in China, mobile activism has become more and more vocal and viral, increasing its penetration, presence, and influence in the mobile universe. Political activists in China largely turn to mobile social media to organise their activities and to spread their messages. One of the prominent activists is the artist Ai Weiwei, who has been using Twitter and other mobile social media to engage in his activism and to promote political activities. As a “defender of human rights defenders,” Zeng Jinyan started out as an advocate for people living with HIV or AIDS. After her husband, activist Hu Jia, was sentenced to prison in 2006, she has been using social media including Twitter to disseminate information about her husband and other activists (Ross 2010). Mobile social media have become important organisational tools for activists and an excellent channel for activists to organise and to build a network. Mobile social media have also been widely used by the Chinese to express their grievances and different opinions, to expose illegal activities and malpractices ranging from the abuse of local power to land grabs, to fight against injustices, and to expose issues from corruption to pollution. For instance, a group of up to 2,000 internet users, after being organised through online and mobile social media such as blogs, QQ, Twitter, and other tools, gathered at a district court to support three activists in Fujian province who were convicted of “slander” for posting articles and video online urging the government to investigate the rape and murder of a young woman (Ross 2010). Largely because of online and mobile social media, more and more cases of social injustice, corruption, and pollution have been exposed and brought to the attention of the whole nation. Examples of these cases include the abduction and selling of children; government officials’ wearing luxury watches with a price way beyond the officials’ purchasing power; and the Guo Meimei scandal, in which a 20-year-old girl who claimed to work for the Red Cross of China flaunted her designer lifestyle in pictures on Weibo, sparking a national crisis of confidence in Chinese charities (Sebag-Montefiore 2012). Mobile social media have become a popular platform where people can garner support for activists. After spending 3 months in Tokyo’s Narita airport after Chinese authorities denied him entry to his own country, Feng Zhenghu, a prominent Chinese human rights defender, was finally allowed to return home in February 2010. His story went viral through online and mobile social media (Ross 2010). Social media, online or mobile, allow activists to exchange timely information, to find friends and supporters all over the world, and to give one another support and solidarity, as Wang Yi,

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a Beijing-based human rights activist, told Inter Press Service over Skype (Ross 2010). The events in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011, whereby both governments were toppled by antigovernment forces and activists who used mobile devices to prompt massive street protests, also had some ripple effects in China when overseas dissidents called for a “jasmine revolution” in China’s major cities through online and mobile social media. This effort turned out to be unsuccessful because the Chinese government rounded up activists and dissidents, increased online censorship, and deployed police to quash any demonstrations (Ramzy 2011).

Rural Mobile Rural mobile connections account for only 27.3 percent of mobile connections in China while urban connections account for 72.7 percent (CNNIC 2012), despite the fact that the rural population accounts for 53 percent of the total (CIA 2012). Rural China has largely been neglected in the mobile space, resulting in a digital divide between the country’s rural and urban areas. Although two in three rural Chinese internet users get online by mobile phone, rural users remain poorly connected and lack spending power (Fletcher 2010). To stay ahead of other competitors, China Mobile, the largest mobile carrier in the world in terms of subscribers, started a big move in 2009 to add more than 10,000 villages annually to its network coverage. By the end of 2012, China Mobile planned to cover 98 percent of China’s rural areas (Zacks Investment Research 2009). Besides improvements in telecommunication infrastructure and network coverage, more and more mobile content and services have been introduced into the rural mobile space. Mobile banking is an example of these ongoing efforts. As an effective tool in making up for the shortage of banking outlets in rural areas, mobile banking can significantly reduce financial service costs and provide affordable modern financial services to low-income rural residents. Mobile banking services in China include account management, money transfer, remittances, payment of fees, and wealth management. As banking outlets are far fewer and much more difficult to reach in rural areas than in urban areas, the rural demand for mobile financial services is huge. Mobile banking can become an ideal choice for meeting rural financial needs (Chan and Jia 2011).

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Mobile Regulations Like other media industries in China (print, radio, television, and the internet), mobiles in China remain under the tight regulation of the Chinese government. Unlike the open and reformist moves in the economic field, mobiles in China are protected and controlled by the state since mobiles are part of the media industry, which involves national sovereignty and security as well as national and cultural identity in the eyes of the Chinese government. Beyond those rationales are the government’s motivations to maintain rule and authority. Within this big picture, four major regulations are in place to monitor the overall operation of mobiles in China: 1) Internet Information and Services Regulations (2000), 2) Online News and Services Regulations (2005), 3) Online Audiovisual Regulations (2004), and 4) Online Audiovisual Services Regulations (2008). Although these four regulations are meant mainly for the internet in general, they are also applied in regulating mobiles in China. Besides the regulatory mechanism of the state, media organizations that provide mobile content and services are also forming an alliance to self-regulate themselves. For instance, the People’s Daily online outlet and 10 other media organisations have initiated and signed an agreement of mobile media self-censorship. Another part of the regulatory mechanism is real-name registration of all mobile phone numbers, reportedly in order “to trace and control those who commit offenses such as sending spam messages when they are sent from unregistered mobile numbers” (Liu 2010). This real-name registration was extended to microblogging sites in March 2012, when millions of Chinese micro-blog users were forced to reveal their identities in a real-name registration drive, a move to bring heightened censorship and a crackdown on social media users. Although piloted in only five cities, the regulations were reported to prevent “the spread of rumours,” because microblogging sites can cover a wide population, mobilise people, spread information rapidly, and have a big influence (Sebag-Montefiore 2012). Critics viewed the real-name registration as “a violation of privacy and security” with “negative effects” as it will turn away users. As Human Rights Watch warned, the rules would discourage the public from participating in political discussions and activities and from exposing contentious issues for fear of retaliation (Sebag-Montefiore 2012). Obviously, real-name registration is part of the government’s move to tighten its control over the mobile space, where any information, in the form of text messages, blogs, microblogs, photos, videos, or audio recordings, alone or in various combinations, will be censored or regulated if the government deems it harmful to cultural or national identity and sovereignty or to threaten its rule, authority, or legitimacy.

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Two other examples serve as a case study of the Chinese government’s pragmatic approach to mobile regulations. In less than 3 hours after the announcement of Bo Xilai’s being removed from the post of mayor of Chongqing, one of the four municipalities in China, the news went instantly viral on weibo.com, a Chinese version of Twitter. Within a short time span, one post on the in-house Top News feed generated more than 60,000 reposts and 15,000 comments (Chin and Chao 2012). In sharp contrast, a Ferrari accident in Beijing involving the male driver’s death and the injury of two women got a blackout on social media sites. Thus, in the same month (March 2012), Chinese censors did not block “Bo Xilai” from search engines or social media, but they heavily censored “Ferrari accident,” producing two sharply contrasting and contradictory cases and thus offering much food for thought. In the case of Bo Xilai, the government did not mind the downfall of the highflying Communist Party official being publicly discussed, which was already a breakthrough as the ruling party would never have allowed in the past such an open discussion and information flow regarding the removal of a high-ranking official. But the heavy censoring of a car accident sent a totally different message regarding the information flow on social media. Although the Ferrari accident remains mysterious (at the time of the writing of this chapter), what is obvious is that the central government continues to be pragmatic in handling the internet and the mobile sphere. Politically and culturally, if any information is deemed to be unwanted, indecent, undesirable, or unhealthy in the definition of the government or will endanger the government’s legitimacy and authority, the government will censor or ban it on the internet and the mobile space at all cost. Economically, however, much leeway is given to the internet and the mobile for further growth as they have tremendously benefited the economic development in the country. If the Chinese government wants to continue to benefit economically from the internet and from mobile communications, which it surely does because it has accumulated a huge amount of wealth from both industries, it has to keep the internet and mobile communications largely open and free. Its strategy, however, is to gradually loosen, instead of altogether losing, its grip on the information flow over these media. Nevertheless, if any information is deemed to threaten or endanger the rule, authority, and legitimacy of the Chinese government, it will tighten its control at all costs.

Conclusion Mobile technology in China has been changing the country socially, culturally, economically, and politically, and consequently deconstructing and

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reconstructing the country in a gradual and subtle fashion. Within the Chinese government’s pragmatic approach to the development of the mobile industry, mobiles in China have brought about far more changes and opportunities on the economic and cultural fronts than on the political front. These changes are driven by the overall strategy of the Chinese government in reforming the country, that is, to allow greater, faster, and deeper economic reform than cultural and political reform. Although mobiles in China have been growing at an exponential rate in both presence and influence, they have not generated enough people power for more and faster changes in the political system. For one thing, the economic benefits of mobiles are distracting mobile users from taking steps to change the political landscape faster and more profoundly. For another, the Chinese government heavily censors and tightly controls mobile information flow. Despite the limited power of mobiles in changing the political landscape, mobiles in China remain vibrant and vital in creating further development of the mobile industry. Within the political parameters, mobiles in China will bring more and more cultural and economic benefits to the Chinese people and also present great and golden opportunities for foreign investment and business activities in the country.

References Analysis International. 2012. “Baidu, Easou and Tencent Soso Lead Mobile Search Market 2011Q3.” Analysis. December 5, 2012. english.analysys.com.cn//article.php?aid=121081. Chan, A., and T. Jia. 2011. “The Role of Mobile Banking in Facilitating Rural Finance: Reducing Inequality in Financial Services between Urban and Rural Areas.” Accenture. www.accenture. com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/PoV-Mobile-Banking-051611-EN.pdf. Chen, L. 2011. “Mobile Telephone Games Prove to Be Competitive and Cheaper.” China Daily, September 26. www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2011-09/26/content_13789947.htm. Chin, J., and L. Chao. 2012. “Bo Xilai Sets Off China Social Media Storm as Deadline Looms.” Wall Street Journal: China Real Time Report. blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2012/03/16/bo-xilaistirs-chinas-social-media-as-real-name-deadline-looms. CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). 2012. China. The World Factbook. Washington, DC, USA: Central Intelligence Agency. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-fact book/geos/ch.html. CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center). 2012. “The 29th Report on the Development of Internet in China.” CNNIC. http://www.cnnic.cn/research/bgxz/tjbg/ 201201/t20120116_23668.html. Cui, B. 2011. Report on Development of China’s Media Industry. Beijing, China: Social Sciences Academy Press. Dewar, C. 2011. “China Approaches 1 Billion Mobile Connections as 3G Services Gain Traction.” Wireless Intelligence. http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=56402d3944a50175491cb92fb& id=16bdb004bc&e=[UNIQID].

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Diniz, E. H., J. P. Albuquerque, and A. K. Cernev. 2011. “Mobile Money and Payment: A Literature Review Based on Academic and Practitioner-Oriented Publications (2001–2011).” In Proceedings of SIG Global Development Fourth Annual Workshop, Shanghai, China, 1–27. Atlanta, GA, USA: Association for Information Systems. Fletcher, O. 2010. “More Rural Chinese Surf the Web by Mobile Phone.” PCWorld. www.pcworld. com/article/194383/article.html. Flynn, O. 2012. “China Gaming Market Worth $7.1 Billion, Still Growing Fast.” Big Board News. www.bigboardnews.com/2012/01/09/china-gaming-market-worth-7-1-billion-in-2011-stillgrowing-fast. Hawkes, A. 2011. “Chinese Company Partners with BICS for Mobile Money Service.” Capacity Magazine. www.capacitymagazine.com/Article/2854860/Chinese-company-partners-withBICS-for-mobile-money-service.html. Jantunen, I., K. Lehväslaiho, and J. Forsberg. 2009. Possibilities for Mobile-Phone Based Remote Health Care in China: Doing Business in China Project. users.tkk.fi/ijantune/papers/ Jantunen_Lehvaslaiho_Forsberg_DBiC.pdf. Leslie, I., S. Sherrington, D. Dicks, N. Gray, and T. T. Chang. 2011. Mobile Communications for Medical Care: A Study of Current and Future Healthcare and Health Promotion Applications, and Their Use in China and Elsewhere. University of Cambridge and China Mobile. www.csap.cam.ac.uk/media/uploads/files/1/mobile-communications-for-medicalcare.pdf. Liu. C. 2010. “Real-Name Registration for New Mobile Phone Numbers to Start.” Global Times. August 31, 2010. www.globaltimes.cn/china/society/2010-08/568897.html. Maverick China Research. 2012. “Mobile Payment in China: 2011–2012 Edition.” Maverick. www.maverickchina.com/mobilepayment2012. PR Newswire. 2012. “Trunkbow International and China UnionPay Form Mobile Payment Partnership.” PR Newswire. www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/trunkbow-internationaland-china-unionpay-form-mobile-payment-partnership-137004268.html. Ramzy, A. 2011. “State Stamps Out Small ‘Jasmine’ Protests in China.” Time. February 21, 2011. www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2052860,00.html#ixzz1pGX8SR1X. Ross, G. 2010. “Social Networking Sites Vibrant and Thriving Among Activists.” Inter Press Service. www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51647. Sebag-Montefiore, C. 2012. “You Name It, We Lost It.” Inter Press Service. www.ipsnews.net/news. asp?idnews=107078. Tai, Z., and H. Zeng. 2011. “Mobile Games in China: Formation, Ferment and Future.” In Global Media Convergence and Cultural Transformation: Emerging Social Patterns and Characteristics, edited by D. Y. Jin, 276–95. Hershey, PA, USA: Information Science Reference. thempro. 2012. “China Internet Statistics [infographic].” Them. www.them.pro/China-InternetStatistics-Infographic. Wang, J. 2011. “Foreword.” In Mobile Communications for Medical Care: A Study of Current and Future Healthcare and Health Promotion Applications, and Their Use in China and Elsewhere: Final Report. University of Cambridge and China Mobile. www.csap.cam.ac.uk/media/ uploads/files/1/mobile-communications-for-medical-care.pdf. World Bank. 2011. “Toward a Healthy and Harmonious Life in China: Stemming the Rising Tide of Non-Communicable Diseases.” World Bank: News & Views. www.worldbank.org/en/news/

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2011/07/26/toward-health-harmonious-life-china-stemming-rising-tide-of-non-communicablediseases. Xinhua. 2012. “China Mobile Phone Users Exceed 1 Billion.” Xinhua. March 30, 2012. news.xinhuanet. com/english/china/2012-03/30/c_131499039.htm. Xu, J. 2011. “Report on Development of China’s Mobile Industry.” In Report on Development of China’s Media Industry, edited by B. Cui, 243–8. Beijing, China: Social Sciences Academy Press. Zacks Investment Research. 2009. “China Mobile Stays Ahead of Competitors with Rural Expansion.” Seeking Alpha. seekingalpha.com/article/149376-china-mobile-stays-ahead-ofcompetitors-with-rural-expansion.

P a r t T h r e e

The Road Ahead

C h a p t e r

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Mobile Innovation Ecosystems: The Global Mobile Monday Community Jari Tammisto

Editors’ Note: The global race is now underway for companies, industries, and countries to win the innovation game in the mobile information society. One of the more unusual models of mobile innovation comes from the global Mobile Monday network, a community of developers and startups in more than 140 cities around the world. The local organisers bring together mobile developers and other mobile industry stakeholders for discussions and knowledge exchange based on core values such as volunteerism and trusted peer relationships. This chapter highlights the success factors of this grassroots innovation model and some of the challenges it faces. A case study section features Mobile Monday’s activities in Africa, with valuable lessons for other aspiring innovation hubs around the world. Mobile Monday (MoMo) started in Helsinki, Finland, when mobile enthusiasts Peter “Angry Bird” Vesterbacka and Vesku “Windows Mobile” Paananen invited peers to an informal event to share knowledge on mobile trends, markets, technologies, and innovative services. Since this landmark meeting way back in 2000 on a Monday evening (hence the name Mobile Monday) at Molly Malone’s Irish Bar in Helsinki, Mobile Monday today is present in some 140 hubs on all continents. Mobile Monday Oy, based in Finland, coordinates global activities and online service, guides new chapter formations, assigns chapter rights, and manages the regional and global partnerships. Mobile Monday Oy was awarded Finland’s Presidential Internationalisation award in 2008 and the World Brand Leadership award in 2009. MoMo’s success is based on its visionary structure and mutually agreed and shared core values: volunteerism, 467

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orchestrated leadership, hub focus, and trusted peer relationships at the local, regional, and global level.

The Context The global race is now underway for companies, industries, and countries to win the innovation game. A number of models and frameworks have been proposed for corporate innovation, but only a few are addressing the global as well as the local nature of innovators around the planet. The successful MoMo model of networked innovation communities around the world demonstrates valuable experiences ready to be shared across other sectors as well. The wireless market is one of the most dynamic and fastest-growing industries ever. From tablets in the U.S. and augmented reality apps in Japan to “village phone ladies” in Bangladesh and short message service–based payment systems in Africa, mobile innovation in all regions is offering huge opportunities for investors, vendors, and governments of the world. A number of books have been published about global innovation; most of this literature addresses how a global company should tap the wealth of knowledge outside its own corporate boundaries via a combination of outsourcing, venture capital investments, “intrapreneurship,” “innomediaries,” and engagement with entrepreneurs in India and China. The MoMo model, however, is radically different from these models. MoMo shows how regular periodic rhythms can be created for developers and innovator communities via a network of face-to-face monthly meetings in dozens of cities around the world, along with collaborative tools for online networking and business development. This model yields tighter integration of best practices with tacit and explicit knowledge exchanged on a global scale. The mechanics of design, governance, participation, and “co-petition” within each MoMo chapter city is a fascinating and working test bed of innovator meetups. Success factors include varied event formats, community building, peer-review mechanisms, and international awards. Some creative global, regional, and national players have successfully tapped this grassroots growth via investments, alliances, and acquisitions.

Mobile Monday Values The mutually agreed and shared core values of the MoMo community are volunteerism, orchestrated leadership, hub focus, and trusted peer relationships at the local, regional, and global level.

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Volunteerism: All MoMo chapters are founded and operated by mobile industry volunteers who are passionate about supporting local holistic development needs. In the roles of founders or organisers, a typical chapter has three to five individuals with different backgrounds. Five to ten supporting local advisers find the most relevant event topics, formats, presenters, and sponsors; reach out to universities, developers, venture capitalists, and public and private sector influencers; and communicate with all relevant individuals locally and abroad. Orchestrated leadership: Local MoMo chapters get support and vision from the global side and knowledge sharing from already established chapters but are more bonded by the mutually agreed core values than by guidelines or operational or brand manuals. MoMo events take place in many formats: morning workshops, Saturday seminars, and weekend hackathons, but mostly on Monday evenings in “neutral” locations. Events are generally free for attendees (via sponsorship or public sector support), but participants must be relevant to the agenda and ready to contribute. A typical Monday evening event has 150 attendees (range: 25 to 800). Annual global summits and regional meetings contribute to regional and global community building and showcase developments from all parts of the world. Organic development hubs: MoMo is built on the belief that innovative and sustainable development is based on personal trusted peer relationships that encourage knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing can best be encouraged by regular physical meetings in organically formed hubs. Most MoMo chapters relate to a suburb or city rather than a whole country. Currently some 140 MoMo chapters exist in more than 80 countries, with new chapters launched on a weekly basis. The most recent and upcoming chapters are in Dhaka (Bangladesh), Minsk (Belarus), Lusaka (Zambia), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Baku (Azerbaijan), Astana (Kazakhstan), Las Vegas (USA), Athens (Greece), Timisoara (Romania), and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). Trusted peer relationships: It takes time, mutual experiences, willingness to share relevant know-how, and common core values to build trusted relationships among peers (which might even include competitors from time to time). When established, trusted peer relationships are most effective in developing sustainable cluster knowledge, individual success cases, and cross-border business opportunities. MoMo is moving from benchmarking into benchlearning and from competition into collaborative development. One internationally successful local startup can spark success in an entire cluster of companies, and innovative ideas can become global phenomena even before an actual company is formed. MoMo has sparked hundreds of these success stories and continues to do so at an ever-faster pace and reach.

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Hyperlocal and Super-Global Innovation Community-based practices and social platforms have led our daily lives to become increasingly interactive and transparent. The triumph of Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0 has inspired users to create a new knowledge production and usebased economy, where anyone can have a say in any arena of interest and be heard by their peers through blogs, tweets, and wikis. Socialising is overexpressed in social media and online forums as innovation and internationalisation have become increasingly intertwined: Innovative knowledge assets are required for successful international growth, and on the other hand, innovation and new value can be created through internationalisation as it supports the widespread creation and use of such assets. The world is hot on innovations, both in the corporate world as well as in public services. The downside of innovations and innovative people is that true innovation disrupts existing operational models, physical products, or intangibles such as services. For this reason, existing international organisations are challenged when it comes to supporting such innovative activity since they are mostly mandated to represent current actors and operational models. The telecom sector especially has focused on growth capacity and operational efficiency to cope with the enormous growth experienced in all markets. During just over a decade, MoMo has emerged from Helsinki as the global community persistently attracting mobile professionals and influencers to common events to exchange ideas on the developments, news, and trends of their mobile societies. While innovation activities in international settings can surely take place within companies, they seldom are carried out completely within a single team or organisation. At the minimum, ideas for new products and services or more efficient business and production processes are extracted broadly. Why has the Mobile Monday model emerged from Finland when most online communities are formed in the U.S.? Functionality is the word that best describes the society, culture and practices of a solution-focused nation. Indeed, in many surveys and comparisons, Finland is named as the most functional country in the world. Functionality combines two aspects that are characteristic to us: on the one hand, reliability and mutual trust, and on the other, an unconventional, non-hierarchical way of solving problems. Finns are skilful team players and able to solve problems by establishing societies and associations and by organising community efforts. Practicality and durability are the basic principles of design. Design is for ordinary people, not just the

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rich. Thanks to these practices that emphasise equality, Finnish society is even today characterised by a strong trust. This is the foundation of functionality, whether it is a question of technical systems, human relationships or agreements. (“Mission for Finland: Finnish Country Brand Report” 2010, 41) From a cultural and societal point of view, Finland has a system-level advantage in creating innovations. Finnish companies need to decide whether they want to compete by the cost benefit of perfect practices and reliability or by innovations. Getting both of these in the same package requires management-level innovation and a deep understanding of the operating models of the company’s internal and external networks. An old solution whereby development tasks are isolated in separate units of an organisation, invisible to others in order to dispel cultural differences and led by a specialised leader, is not necessarily competitive. Innovations are requested from all employees, and understanding about repetitiveness is requested from the innovators. After the management has given power and favourable conditions to every organization, then these organisations themselves can be given the chance to find solutions to a challenge. From these starting points, would it be a coincidence if many organisations ended up with a solution where new ideas are being found and created in social networks and self-organised communities that cross organisational and corporational boundaries, after which production and efficiency were optimised with more traditional management solutions? There are already examples, from many companies, of employees being offered so-called dabble time for creating self-led projects and virtual communities. From the viewpoint of creating competitiveness, the ability to create anew and the passion it brings are more important factors than a so-called perfect procedure that aims for faultlessness and eliminating “DNA” variations. Moreover, it is far more difficult for an organisation based on a perfect procedure to adapt to rapid changes in its environment. The DNA of scattered communities includes diversity that is needed for fast changes and a sense of belonging. For this reason Finnish corporations and public offices encourage employees to participate in MoMo and similar communities. In many cases, they even financially support employees to start up a new venture that might act as a supplier to the original corporation.

A Community Model of Innovation As of 2012, MoMo has held events in more than 140 cities worldwide, all organised by passionate volunteers. These events are attended by some

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200,000 visitors, and over the years, more than a million trusted introductions are estimated to have been made by members. These figures make MoMo a global leader in organising mobile industry events. Regarding networks that potentially generate innovation, certain characteristics need to be acknowledged, especially as they can take different forms. The MoMo community model is based on a volunteer peer model that typically frees participants from corporate or communal barriers in order to promote free and open discussion of issues. Such an open model of networking enables participants to discuss and create radical and systemic innovations and to have influence in emerging fields and systems. Knowledge in such an innovation community is often highly tacit, individual-bound, and dispersed; there is a high level of ambiguity and uncertainty related to cause-andeffect chains, and the relationship between existing and emergent knowledge is vague. It may not be known what kind of knowledge different actors possess, what kind of knowledge is needed in innovation processes, and what kind of value may be generated as a result. The community in which innovation emerges may be even more vague and fuzzy. In such community settings, the actors (organisations and/or individuals) are somewhat hard to identify as they may come and go according to their shared interests, and they may be more or less connected to different organisations (that may eventually commercialise innovations). Also, it may be very difficult to pinpoint exactly when and where an innovation is generated. Yet such MoMo-modelled community-like networks are increasingly valuable for the emergence of innovations. “Especially neutrality and integrity present within the MoMo network seem to improve common identity and trust, and hence openness can be taken to the level where innovativeness is really supported: with company direction such discussion might not be possible” (HurmelinnaLaukkanen and Nätti 2012). The challenge now is to determine how to systematically organise such networks and how to orchestrate and facilitate innovation in them (Figure 25.1). Indeed, considering the features of innovation-generating communities or networks, it can be noted that they can hardly be managed by a single actor—although it might often seem they are way when large corporations are participating through their own research organisations. Steering and maneuvering is inherently restricted by certain factors such as the looseness of the ties among the actors, their autonomy, and their different cultures and languages. Trying to fight these restrictions may break the network, or at least deteriorate the leading role of the organisation. Trying to tightly control the network—let alone a community-like network—might actually destroy the whole system or limit the variety of potential outcomes. Nevertheless, if there are no supporting structures, common goals, or coordination at all, the

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Figure 25.1

Mobile Monday innovation ecosystem

system may be short-lived. For example, one prevalent managerial challenge in innovation networks is to make sense of all the fuzzy ideas. Thus, guidelines for “managing” the community or network may be found in the MoMo leadership model of orchestration and shared core values. Network orchestration builds on the idea that certain factors are inherently important for the survival and functioning of networks and that these factors need to be facilitated. Three areas of importance in this context are knowledge mobility, network stability, and innovation appropriability, according to Charles Dhanaraj and Arvind Parkhe (2006) in their paper “Orchestrating Innovation Networks.”

Strategies for Sustainable Innovation Network stability is needed in innovation-related communities since “a community/network that is unravelling is not conducive to value creation or value extraction” (Dhanaraj and Parkhe 2006, 663, see also Augier and Vendelø 1999; Håkansson and Johanson 1992; Lam 1997) and since adequate stability can enhance knowledge mobility and innovation appropriability. For example, as the actors get more familiar with one another and learn about one another’s cultures and ways of working and thinking, they are more likely to share knowledge. It is important to note, however, that a stable community or network is very different from a static one. Innovation appropriability, for its part, is needed for distributing the created value fairly among the actors, as well as for dealing with free riding and opportunism. Also, appropriability can, like stability, make or break knowledge exchange, and it also has an effect on the willingness of the parties to stay within the community or network (Figure 25.2).

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Figure 25.2

Structure spectrum: Mysteries, heuristics, and algorithms. Source: Petri Salminen

Open Interaction and Inspired Learning MoMo has noted how much motivated individuals are ready to give of their free time for meaningful activities and community tasks. According to an interview study, MoMo chapter founders use an average of 20 hours of their own time monthly to manage the activities of their chapters. In addition, participants of MoMo events are motivated to spend hours of their spare time participating in events and networking activities. In a research conducted in Finland, more than 70 percent of MoMo participants were also willing to join peer workshops or panels without financial reward, provided the themes and logistics suited them. A key conclusion is how important it is for innovative people to feel that they belong to a trusted peer group and to reach tangible goals together.

Growth Model The factors behind MoMo’s phenomenal growth can be crystallised into the following drivers and features: 1. There has been a need for a community concept because the mobile industry is having an impact far beyond its “industrial boundaries”: We are living in connected societies. 2. Many participants enjoy MoMo’s community learning, opportunity to meet local people, and informal interaction, but the passion and motivation come from individuals and their new ventures—startup companies with global opportunities.

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3. The MoMo concept gives the local organisers and communities very wide-ranging powers to tailor the concept, and therefore the local community feels ownership in its chapter and is very committed to linking local to regional and to global. 4. The threshold for opening a new chapter is low because the license is free and the community’s practices can be modified to meet the resources and competencies available. The “superglue” binding the community is the core values. 5. MoMo’s development projects, such as Hello Africa, broaden the community’s development agenda, raise fellow feeling, and give the community new practices and new reference groups. 6. MoMo has been able to bring forward, through Peer Awards and other such formats, innovative individuals and companies long before they emerge above the radar. Many such inspirational individuals have come from Africa and emerging markets.

Mobile Monday Chapter Dynamics MoMo has created a practical, experience-based model that allows a new chapter to be set up effectively and successfully. Since the management is people management, it is important to first communicate the common purpose and vision of MoMo: 1. Create a clear vision of how things could be better and work together to enhance the local ecosystem. 2. Describe an example of the target state, if one exists. If no example model can be found, imagine a model of the desired future situation. 3. Create an orchestration of grassroots-based management, highlighting the benefits of cooperation among the various parties. 4. Bring together interested parties to a neutral arena and create a crossborder team spirit. 5. Create an emotional commitment to the conditions of a joint effort by building trust among all actors. 6. Highlight the voluntary commitment. 7. Get out of there and create self-organising principles, promising returns by means of peer learning.

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8. Drive orchestration until the existence of the basic objectives has been achieved. 9. Use a balance of cognitive (intellectual) and emotional strategies. 10. Update the development agenda of a community, and leverage the community agenda to prove the return on investment. 11. Benchmark with other chapters regionally and globally.

Five Challenges Facing Mobile Monday and How to Overcome Them Despite its successes, MoMo faces a number of challenges and has identified some ways they can be overcome. Maintaining and Sustaining Volunteer Chapter Founders’ Interest and Passion Building a local founding team to manage MoMo chapter operations has proven the most important factor for the success of its operation. As the chapters maintain nearly all operational rights of managing MoMo locally, the core values of MoMo need to be shared by all founders; in other words, local ecosystem development has to be supported over single companies or interest groups. MoMo’s passion is to enable startups and to individually inspire professionals to prosper. It is good to have a founding team to share organisational responsibilities so that the volunteer work does not impose overwhelming time demands on any single founder. Developing Tools and Processes at the Global Level for Local Support MoMo’s next major development focuses on establishing physical support functions to the community. MoMo will establish a separate organisation called MoMo Alliance to partner with companies, non-governmental organisations, and regional and global events in order to build some capital for major global projects. MoMo Alliance will also look for options to set up permanent “MoMo Nets” for training, co-creation of services, and global support functions. Maintaining a Grassroots Operational Model When Partnering With Global Players Local MoMo chapters will continue to operate as they have from the beginning. The regional and global partnerships will be established through the MoMo Alliance, and each chapter has full rights to decide whether it wishes to join any of the projects or partnerships planned by the MoMo Alliance. Once a chapter joins any project, a separate project agreement is to be signed

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and key performance indicators agreed upon. These projects then form more professional activity and stretch beyond purely volunteer resources. Enabling Other Industries to Learn From Mobile Monday The MoMo model has already been copied by several other industries as MoMo willingly shares its success factors with any other industry. One such community is No Emission Monday (Nemo). Nemo is a global community whose members share insights and network with green explorers searching for the way to create a “no-emission” future. It welcomes passionate grassroots creators and business visionaries as well as gatekeepers to an open arena for tackling climate change and sustainable development (www.no emissionmonday.com). Measuring Mobile Monday’s Value to Different Stakeholders Normal MoMo chapter operations have a challenge in measuring success in various parameters, but in MoMo Alliance projects, measuring success will prove to be much more transparent. Each project has normal timelines, deliverables, key performance indicators, and resource allocation so that all parties involved can measure the success of the project. Benefits to various stakeholders include the following. Local chapter founders: The principal benefit for local chapter founders is the network of industry professionals that they are able to build and maintain. They get peer recognition and gain an enormous personal contact network. They also become widely aware of industry trends and players and therefore advance in their careers faster. These benefits motivate them to contribute volunteer resources for the community. Public sector: MoMo engages the community to discuss what is best for local ecosystem development holistically. The public sector should engage in this discussion and value the MoMo community’s views. By encouraging innovations and success in local markets, the public sector realizes more employment and export opportunities. Multinational corporations: Multinationals face the unexpected power of peer communities in many ways. Their operations have become much more transparent and complex. New leadership requires multinational corporations to be able to work as a platform—to be able to gather communities (inhouse or external, such as MoMo) to solve common challenges. New management is done by engaging possibilities. Startups: A key challenge for any startup is to know whether its business idea is worth developing further. If startups can gather together local and international mentors to benchmark their business idea, that is the best investment they can make. MoMo has the network of industry’s most talented people willing to support other talented individuals to prosper. MoMo

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also encourages startups to find similar companies from different regions to develop products and services in a co-creative model. Time to market is of the essence, and if products and services can be delivered simultaneously to various markets, the more traction and opportunities the startup gets. Individuals attending MoMo events and contributing to the discussions: The MoMo community is built on passionate individuals willing to learn and share views, contacts, trends, and visions. Those who contribute to others will in turn receive from the community many times more. MoMo is a community of a million-plus trusted introductions. Everyone willing to learn and share should join NOW! However, being a self-funded operation, MoMo’s ability to venture into new projects is somewhat limited. Every year, MoMo seeks to organise regional and global Summits to bring chapter leaders and members to showcase the most innovative products/services and share trends. World Bank/infoDev has also extended its funding support to individual MoMo chapters in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Case Study: Mobile Monday in Africa Until 2010, MoMo expanded its global reach to markets with local ecosystems in place to support the MoMo model. This strategy did not initially allow MoMo to reach undeveloped markets in parts of Africa. The first trial partnership between Word Bank/infoDev and MoMo was launched in early 2010 to test the MoMo concept in focus markets of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. The chapters were to be run by volunteers in the mobile sector to encourage innovation, investment, information sharing, and partnership building. Supported by the government of Finland and handset manufacturer Nokia, this project harnessed social networking for innovation in mobile applications. It was part of a broader Finland–Nokia programme called “Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy” and is also supported by the Korean Trust Fund for ICT4D (information and communication technology for development). This project has become a channel for African innovation and mobile market know-how to flow to other parts of the world. Since 2010, MoMo chapters have been launched in the following countries in Africa: Mauritius, Uganda (Kampala), Tanzania (Dar es Salaam), Kenya (Nairobi), South Africa (Johannesburg, Cape Town), Senegal (Dakar), Nigeria (Lagos), Ghana (Accra), Egypt (Cairo), Algeria (Algiers), Morocco (Casablanca), and most recently in Ethiopia (Addis Ababa), to be followed by Gambia, Liberia, and Zambia. MoMo still urges each local chapter to build its own agenda for operations but at the same time supports local startups in finding funding and markets outside Africa. MoMo also publishes the Mobile Africa Report, released at the

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annual Innovation Africa Digital Summit via a partnership with technology media and facilitation firm Extensia. The 2012 report states that a major challenge for mobile startups in Africa is sensitising people about their solutions and then expanding solutions beyond the beta stage. In the past 2 years, MoMo has identified tens of African startups that have won international mobile awards and received funding. For instance, Kenyan developer James Mwai won the Global Nokia App Contest Award. This included a prize of KSh 8 million (€75,000) after his mobile application was voted the best in one of the categories, also sharing the top spot in another category with a Colombian in the global developers’ contest. Mwai beat hundreds of developers around the globe with his application dubbed AroundMe in the Nokia Create for Millions challenge In the Know category. “Mobile-phone technology is like fire: as soon as a society gets it, it can’t imagine life without it,” writes Rollo Romig (2011), former assistant director of New York University’s Journalism in Ghana program. Some technophiles even hail the mobile phone as a silver bullet for Africa and the “entry ticket for Africans to join the 21st century.” But as with other emerging economies, such as India, more Africans have access to a cell phone than to a clean toilet or even shoes. Thus the mobile hype needs to be tempered with other socioeconomic development trajectories. Africa’s globally plugged-in generation expects more of its leadership and has access to instant information; older African leaders ignore this political dynamic at their own risk, many observers warn. Sixty percent of Africa’s population is younger than 24 years. Urbanised youth populations are techsavvy—and demanding. “Whatever is cutting edge in San Francisco or London today will start trickling through to the market in places like Uganda from maybe a year onwards,” according to Jan Chipchase, in media reports. Awards handed out at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2011 highlight Africa’s innovation in mobile money products and services— technology developments that benefit people who do not have access to traditional banks. The key to driving mobile data revenues upwards starts with an understanding of how Africans use the mobile internet and their willingness to spend on mobile applications such as music download, online news, social networking, email, and search engines. According to McKinsey research, the number of middle-class consumers in Africa may increase by more than 50 percent during the coming decade. Private consumption also surged by $275 billion in the past decade, a figure surpassing Brazil’s and India’s. The number of households possessing a combined income of $5,000 a year or above will expand to 128 million in 2020. Within such an environment, MoMo chapters in African cities such Kampala, Uganda, provide a regular forum for local innovators while also drawing in players across the mobile spectrum, as Table 25.1 shows.

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Table 25.1

MoMo Kampala Meetups in 2011

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In sum, MoMo is unique not just because it regularly reaches mobile developers and influencers in more than 140 regions around the world and organises hundreds of events annually with purely volunteer resources; it is one of a kind because it has excelled in developing trusted relationships for innovation among peers locally, regionally, and globally. Sustainability of the innovation ecosystem (particularly in emerging economies) requires the right blend of bottom-up entrepreneurial energy and top-down facilitation of investment policies, education, and infrastructure. These roles are played by global–local networks of mobile startups and professionals, such as the MoMo chapters around the world (in order of the year established): 2000: Helsinki 2004: Milan, Rome, Silicon Valley, Tokyo 2005: Adelaide, Austin, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Seattle, Singapore, Sydney 2006: Atlanta, Bangalore, Bangkok, Barcelona, Beijing, Boston, Chennai, Copenhagen, Dublin, Dusseldorf, Geneva, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Madrid, Melbourne, Mumbai, Munich, New Delhi, St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Stockholm, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington D.C. 2007: Amsterdam, Austin, Brussels, Caracas, Dallas, Frankfurt, Hyderabad, Jakarta, Kiev, Marseilles, Pärnu, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seoul, Tallinn 2008: Belfast, Berlin, Bogotá, Brisbane, Bucharest, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Casablanca, Geneva, Hamburg, Hanoi, Lisbon, Montreal, Moscow, Oslo, Sao Paulo, Taipei, Tel Aviv, Warsaw, Vilnius, Zurich 2009: Ann Arbor, Boulder, Calgary, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Malmo, Malta, Medellin, Mexico City, Miami, Philadelphia, Portland, Riga, Rio de Janeiro, Sofia, Vienna 2010: Ahmedabad, Alger, Brooklyn, Colombo, Columbus, Dar es Salam, Gainesville, Islamabad, Jacksonville, Kampala, Karlskrona, Ljubljana, Manila, Nairobi, Orlando, Oulu, Pasadena, Perth, Ramallah, Richmond, Tampa, Zagreb 2011: Accra, Athens, Baku, Cairo, Casablanca, Chennai, Chisinau, Dakar, Dubai, Ho Chi Minh, Lahore, Las Vegas, Karachi, Lagos, Lyon, Manchester, Nantes, Porto Alegre, Skopje, Tampere, Thisinau 2012: Addis Ababa, Beirut, Dhaka, Guangzhou, Lansing, Ludhiana, Lusaka, Minsk, Riyadh, Shoreditch (London), Tbilisi, Trivandrum

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References Augier, Morten Mie, and Thanning Vendelø. 1999. “Networks, Cognition and Management of Tacit Knowledge.” Journal of Knowledge Management 3 (4): 252–261. Dhanaraj, Charles, and Arvind Parkhe. 2006. “Orchestrating Innovation Networks.” Academy of Management Review 31 (3): 659–669. Håkansson, Håkan, and Jan Johanson. 1992. “A Model of Industrial Networks.” In Bjorn Axelsson and Geoffrey Easton (Eds.), Industrial Networks: A New View of Reality. London: Routledge. Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, Pia, and Satu Nätti. 2012. “Network Orchestration for Knowledge Mobility—The Case of an International Innovation Community.” Journal of Business Market Management 5 (4): 244–264. www.jbm-online.net/index.php/jbm/article/view/32/31. Lam, Alice. 1997. “Embedded Firms, Embedded Knowledge: Problems of Collaboration and Knowledge Transfer in Global Cooperative Ventures.” Organization Studies 18 (6): 973–996. “Mission for Finland: Finnish Country Brand Report.” 2010. Country Brand Delegation. www.maakuva.fi/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/TS_Report_EN.pdf. Romig, Rollo. “Africa’s Cell-Phone Revolution.” NewYorker.com. March 4, 2011. www.newyorker. com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/03/africa-cell-phone-revolution.html.

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Mobile Excellence: Awards and Mentorship Processes for Innovators Osama Manzar

Editors’ Note: This chapter highlights the World Summit Award (WSA) process, instituted during the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society, as an effective way of honouring and accelerating innovations in mobile content and services. WSA has inspired the mBillionth Award South Asia, which now receives more than 200 nominations for mobile projects and products each year. The awards are given in 10 diverse categories and are accompanied by a major conference and followed up with mentorship programmes. Such professional awards can also open up new avenues for research and multi-stakeholder alliances and should be replicated in more regions and countries around the world. This chapter describes the vision and activities driving the mBillionth Award South Asia, a South Asia forum for recognising and rewarding innovative uses of mobile and mentoring young award-winning social entrepreneurs. Since 2010, mBillionth (named for the “billionth mobile subscriber” in South Asia) has been active in nurturing and networking hundreds of mobile content creators in startups, educational institutes, business, and government. This model is inspired by the World Summit Award (WSA) process initiated as part of the United Nations’ WSA of 2003 and 2005. This chapter strongly recommends that the WSA process be replicated in other regions as well, in order to accelerate the information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) movement in the domain of mobiles. Every year (usually in April or May), expert jurors from across South Asia meet for 3 hectic days of assessment of more than 400 nominations for the best mobile projects and services in the region. The awards are announced at 483

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a mid-year gala (usually in July), generally accompanied by a congress, at which the winners and finalists, as well as established experts and policymakers, speak in panels and forums. Recommendations about best practices and scalability of outstanding ideas thus directly reach the ears of key players in the field, and the winners are also eligible for mentorship programmes with industry veterans. It took little more than a year to transform the idea of the mBillionth Award and Congress into reality. The hard work has also involved sharing ideas, building trust, forging partnerships, building an image, calling for nominations, and enlisting the best minds as motivators and experts. Three successful editions of the mBillionth Award and Congress (2010, 2011, and 2012) have taken place, celebrating bright ideas and robust partnerships through collective effort.

Vision Given the challenges of landline PC-based internet penetration and adoption in South Asia, mobiles are seen by many as a key tool for citizen empowerment in one of the most populous as well as poorest regions of the world. The fundamental pillar for the awards was the urge to bring the fruits of mobile to a cause of utmost importance: using the growing mobile infrastructure, networks, services, and energy of the emerging players towards meeting the information and service needs of hundreds of millions of people in the region who are living “at the edge of information.”1 Through small but not hesitant steps, the vision of the awards process has now materialised into a hub of knowledge about mobile impacts, strategies, and innovation. To date, the mBillionth repository features a catalog of more than 1,000 mobile applications and innovations. Vital endorsement in the form of government support and industry sponsorship came through, and the support and enthusiasm has been consistently growing since inception.

Context: Mobiles in South Asia It has now become a common sight in South Asia: not only office-goers on smartphones but street vendors, rickshaw pullers, newspaper hawkers, maids, and other blue-collar workers routinely talking on mobiles. Mobile subscribers in India are becoming empowered economically by timely access to crop prices and agriculture products; in Bangladesh, women are using mobile phones to streamline their microfinance-enabled livelihood-generation programmes; in Sri Lanka, mobile phones are being used to get train timetables, ticket prices, and traffic updates. Mobile phones are no longer seen just as an

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accessory with a luxury tag but as a powerful medium of communication and a tool for mass empowerment. This process is further accelerated as mobile telecommunication moves from second-generation to third- and fourth-generation technologies. Accessibility of the internet and its services by mobile has not only attracted “business-class” subscribers but also enhanced the internet’s usability in rural regions of countries like India and other South Asian countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan. Mobile devices are now regarded as the “fourth screen” in the market, after the cinema, TV, and PC. Today, these handy gadgets can do anything from accessing and tracking patients’ records and banking information to coordinating meetings and playing games. South Asian media and academia have documented many of the impacts of mobile in South Asia, including fresh entertainment and responsive government services. It is not just “ABCD” services (astrology, Bollywood, cricket, and devotional content) that are drawing attention in India, but also traffic and ticket alerts for urban commuters; health advocacy campaigns via texting; pricing information for farmers; and timely redress of grievances that can bridge gaps between citizens and government. Provisioning each and every service in physical form at people’s doorsteps is a Herculean task in South Asia. What could be better for this than mobile devices, which have already brought about miraculous changes in the 21st century? Observing, understanding, researching, and analysing citizen needs and activities vis-à-vis mobile-based applications and services can benefit multiple stakeholders: the mobile industry, business, government, citizens, and civil society. For more than 65 percent of India’s population and a majority in South Asia, optimal utilisation of mobile phones would mean meeting day-to-day needs. Industry and government can play an important role here in making the lives of citizens easier, particularly in the crowded and notoriously bureaucratic countries of South Asia. Mobiles can play an important role as the first or second layer of facilitation services. One of the aims of the mBillionth Award is to encourage submission and assessment of pilot projects from civil society and government and promote cluster-based programmes and demonstrations. The jury members are drawn from a range of sectors and collectively learn from one another’s experience. A regular and professionally conducted awards program can encourage innovators, resolve certain doubts and dilemmas, and provide a useful barometer of mobile innovation for researchers, civil society, and industry. Two key considerations arise here. First, how do we leverage the great proliferation of mobiles in this country and region to suit development and governance needs? Delays in understanding and acting on this front will dilute the wider opportunities inherent in this great technology miracle. The treatment

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has to go beyond mobiles as mere entertainment or communication devices. Second, how do we accelerate mobile service diffusion via proactive government and policymaker education? Admittedly, there are security, credibility, management, and operational factors in promoting emerging technologies. The bigger challenge is putting in place an institutional mechanism that can determine the shape, management, and regulation of mServices. There are intra- and interdepartmental gaps as well as intra- and interstate gaps in policy and programme coordination in a large region such as South Asia. Once sorted, South Asia has the potential to lead the world in innovative and inclusive mobile innovation. The awards process thus addresses three key questions: How do stakeholders come together to realise further gains through mobiles via enlightened policy? How do we integrate essential pillars in civil society agencies to deliver mServices? How can corporate social initiatives be aligned to recognise, support, scale up, and nurture mobile practices serving social good?

Digital Divide in South Asia The mobile userbase in India is 812 million, followed by Pakistan with 100 million, Bangladesh with 73 million, and Sri Lanka with 18 million. Sri Lanka and Pakistan lead South Asia in mobile teledensity. India has the largest and most diverse userbase, while countries such as Bangladesh are pioneering services such as mobile microfinance. The oral communication preference of South Asians is a main pull factor for the high degree of mobile penetration in the region, and this preference can be harnessed for further development of the medium. Mobiles have reached much of the working population in South Asia. A big chunk of the South Asian mobile market is still in voice and in entertainment based on value-added services (VAS); there is a huge opportunity for more “meaningful” content and services through mobile. The challenges of scalable models and services designed to reach the masses through mobile are not easy. Creating multi-stakeholder forums is one way to get scale by involving industry and government in face-to-face interactive formats with grassroots innovators. Although mobile penetration in much of South Asia exceeds the reach of all other media, the region suffers from a significant digital divide. Mobiles have the potential to become a liberating and empowering tool for the South Asians at the “bottom of the pyramid” (BoP) previously locked out of the digital movement. The mobile revolution now needs regular industry-driven peer recognition, awards, fellowships, nurturing, and mentoring to highlight the best successes and point the way towards even more benefits.

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There is an immense potential for social and economic good in the mobile ecosystem, and countries of South Asia need the mobile edge to move towards a knowledge-enabled social and economic landscape. The mBillionth Award is therefore given in 11 categories, covering the entire breadth of the mobile ecosystem through a transparent process presided over by expert jurors from across South Asia: health, travel and tourism, infrastructure, governance, entertainment, business and commerce, inclusion, education and learning, environment, culture and heritage, and news and journalism. Of particular note are the categories of inclusion (aimed at reducing the digital divide and content gap for marginalized communities and groups, such as rural women) and environment (about green practices and environmental conservation); these categories do not feature as prominently in awards organised by industry.

Inspiration From the World Summit Awards The mBillionth Award South Asia is formatted on the basis of the Manthan Award South Asia (focused on categories other than mobile as well), which itself drew inspiration and motivation from the WSA process. The close involvement and association of the Digital Empowerment Foundation with the WSA process led to the launch of the South Asia chapters of both the Manthan Award (2004–2005) and the mBillionth Mobile Award South Asia and Congress in 2010–2011. The WSA jury process is characterised by impartiality and independence of the award process to recognise and celebrate progressive innovation. Rather than sticking to the “gold-silver-bronze” categorisation of many commercial awards, the WSA process typically awards 2 to 5 winners in each domain category, without ranking them in order. Another set of nominees is classified as finalists. The process also includes special mentions and chairperson’s awards. The rigour and quality of the process have made the awards a trendsetter and thought leader in the field, and this spirit carries on in the South Asian incarnations of these awards. The WSA has established the following evaluation criteria for best practices in eContents and applications:2 • Quality and comprehensiveness of content • Ease of use: functionality, navigation, and orientation • Value added through interactivity and multimedia • Quality of design (aesthetic value of graphics, music, or sounds) • Quality of craftsmanship (technical realisation)

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• Strategic importance for the global development of the Information Society • Accessibility according to the W3C (www.w3.org) The initial seed for the South Asia mobile awards was sowed in 2003 and 2004 when India had its first expert nominated to the WSA process: the author of this chapter, as founder/director at the Digital Empowerment Foundation. The jury and awards were held in Geneva, venue of the World Summit on the Information Society. The relationship between the Digital Empowerment Foundation and the WSA has grown over the years, and the WSA team itself is closely involved in both the Manthan Award and the mBillionth Award process. The WSA program also has a global edition of awards specifically for mobile (www.wsa-mobile.org). At another level, the WSA and the Digital Empowerment Foundation came together to bring out two editions of the books e-Content: Voices From the Ground, sequels 1 and 2, with a focus on 52 countries. The WSA program also works with other countries and regions and enriches the flow of the WSA spirit around the world.

Recognising Innovators: Challenge and Opportunity In 2010, an unprecedented number of nominations were received from mobile innovators and content and application providers from across South Asia. Out of 165 nominations, 23 eventually became winners, and 12 won special mentions. The number of nominations in 2011 passed 200. In terms of nominations by country, India led with 137 nominations, followed by Sri Lanka with 19 nominations and Bangladesh with 16. By category, 30 nominations were received in the business category and 24 each in government and entertainment. The huge number of nominations clearly reflects a lot of development in a wide range of domains. It is interesting that most of these nominations came from organisations that many of the expert jurors had never heard of, thus revealing a groundswell of innovation in mobile. For instance, the See’n’Report project from Pakistan has enabled citizen journalism via news reports from cell phones. ChOpaal is a free-to-use group short message service (SMS) with Twitter-like features. Many to One SMS is an mGovernance application that collates a large volume of real-time data related to India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The GPS/GSMbased Train Tracking System of the Sri Lanka Railways Department delivers governance through mobiles. Based on an interactive voice response system (IVRS), a daily monitoring system from the state of Uttar Pradesh, India,

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monitors data on children participating in the midday meal scheme on a daily basis. Nepal’s “Kumari Mobile Cash” helps citizens of Nepal to do banking services through mobile phones. The big takeaway from the mBillionth platform is that many young companies are not only developing great mobile content and apps but furthering entrepreneurship in the sector via mentoring, funding, and creating a pool of funds. For example, mobile service providers OnMobile, IMImobile, and One97 have all created either entities or divisions to fund mobile innovations, ideas, and projects, and the mBillionth team partnered with the Internet and Mobile Association of India to create the Mobile Application Developers Community.

The Power of “M”—mBillionth Spin-Offs The mBillionth Award process has spun off a number of interesting initiatives (Figure 26.1). The mPower Forum was launched to encourage social

Figure 26.1

mBillionth Award spin-offs

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entrepreneurship in the use of mobile phones as information and communication technology tools for development via incubation and acceleration. The forum (mpowerforum.eksoch.in), an initiative of the Ek Soch Foundation and the Digital Empowerment Foundation, is currently nurturing and mentoring 10 social entrepreneurs. The Women and Innovation for Mobile Awards were launched in 2011 to celebrate and recognise innovative mobile applications and solutions that enable information and communication service delivery to women in India. It is an initiative of the Vodafone India Foundation and the Digital Empowerment Foundation (mobilesforgoodwinaward.manthanaward.org). Another spin-off is the launch of the Mobiles for Good prize (mobilesfor good.mbillionth.in) by mBillionth and the Vodafone Foundation. The fund is honouring two nonprofit organisations with 1,000,000 Indian rupees (10 lakhs) each for their outstanding work in empowering society through the use of mobile technology. The prize money helps winners in scaling and sustaining their projects for a 12-month period. The 2011 edition received 52 nominations from 15 states all over India, and the 2012 edition had an increased grant outlay of 4 million Indian rupees. It has been encouraging to see mobile innovation emerge in South Asia, not just in business and civil society, but also in a few government agencies and ministries. For instance, the Kerala State IT Mission in India has initiated action to make available about 20 mGovernment services, with a challenge to integrate 90 departments altogether. Citizens are coming up with their own innovations, such as missed calls. At a recent meeting in Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh, south India, it was observed that 30 women in a self-help group training program had devised their own coding system for interpreting missed calls based on the number of rings.

The mBillionth Award South Asia 2010: Winners’ Highlights The statistics for the mBillionth Award South Asia 2010 were comprised of the following (Figure 26.2): • Total entries: 250 • Valid nominations: 165 • Winning nominations: 23 • Special mentions: 12

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Figure 26.2

mBillionth Award South Asia 2010 statistics

mGovernance Many to One SMS, India The Many to One SMS application endeavours to collate a large volume of real time data pertaining to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and integrate it into a compressive and organised framework. It is being implemented in Katni and other districts of Madhya Pradesh. This application is a simple way to collect data from the NREGA worksite and deposit the real time data into a central server so that a master management information system (MIS) can be generated for better management and monitoring of the scheme.

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GPS/GSM-Based Train Tracking System, Sri Lanka The GPS/GSM-based train tracking system is an application combining mobile technology with software/hardware technologies to provide a comprehensive train tracking and management system for Sri Lanka Railways. Paperless Admission System of Shahjalal University of Science & Technology (SUST), Bangladesh Shahjalal University of Science & Technology has introduced “SMS-Based Automated Registration of Admission Test” procedure for the first time in Bangladesh via a 24/7 service. mDistribution The mDistribution application, designed for the Food and Civil Supply Department of Kolhapur in Maharashtra, endeavours to ensure the proper distribution of food grains to all ration card holders, especially those below the poverty line.

mInclusion Dialog Tradenet, Sri Lanka Tradenet is a solution to bridge information asymmetry in the market especially for communities at the bottom of the pyramid in Sri Lanka. Tradenet is a multimodal information platform (or a virtual marketplace) that enables dynamic matching of buyers and sellers, while also providing reference prices on demand. Dakia, India Dakia empowers a mobile-enabled subscriber to use voice to provide a technology-illiterate rural community member access to information that he did not have before. Voice of Youth, Nepal Voice of Youth is a free SMS service that endeavours to provide a platform for the youth of Nepal to voice their opinions on contemporary issues. Panini Keypad, India The Panini keypad is a patented multi-lingual keypad that enables a user to type in all the regional languages of India on the keypad of his/her mobile phone.

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Nepal Wireless The main focus of Nepal wireless is to bring the benefits of information and communication technology (ICT) and related services to all the rural and urban areas of Nepal.

mNews and Journalism Reuters Market Light, India Reuters Market Light is a pioneering service that provides crucial, local, and customised information to Indian farmers via mobile phones. Gaon ki Awaaz, India Gaon ki Awaaz is an application that articulates the interests and activities of the people of the Rampur-Mathura Village of Uttar Pradesh in North India. See’n’Report, Pakistan See’n’Report is a citizen journalism service that enables people to report photos and videos directly from their cell phones as and when they witness a breaking news story. CGNet Swara, India CGNet Swara is a community radio station based in Chhattisgarh that is accessible via mobile phone.

mEducation and Learning English Seekho English Seekho is an innovative mobile learning solution that is aimed at teaching situational spoken English through a simple interactive voice call. Drona – Mobile Learning Management System, India Drona is a mobile learning solution that empowers organisations and trainers to create their own mobile learning courses and applications. Ability, India Ability is a unique communication tool that aims to eradicate the lack of local, custom-built software that can bridge the digital divide of converting text to sign language to voice, and vice versa.

mEntertainment 3G Play, Sri Lanka 3G Play is an entertainment service that enables subscribers to engage in multi-player games via video calls using their 3G-enabled handsets.

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M-Search, India M-Search is a music content search and delivery solution that works across voice, SMS, and WAP channels. Colombo Ride 2.0, Sri Lanka Colombo Ride 2.0 is a Sinhala multi-player mobile game. Mobile Antakshari, India Mobile Antakshari is the first ever multi-lingual mobile game that is based on the classic Indian music game of Antakshari.

mTravel and Tourism SMS 139 Railway Enquiry, India The success and efficacy of the SMS 139 railway enquiry was confirmed by the more than 36 million SMS enquiries that were received within the first year of operation. AWATAR Mobile Booking, India The AWATAR mobile booking application provides for advance ticket booking for Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) passengers through mobile phones. Suruk, India Suruk is an application for GPS-enabled mobile phones that allows autorickshaw passengers to keep track of distance covered and rate charged, and to detect if an auto driver is overcharging or taking a wrong route. MobileWish Pocket Travel Assistant, India MobileWish Pocket Travel Assistant is a freely available application for Flash Lite 3x-enabled mobiles that compiles a whole range of information that can prove to be indispensable for the traveler.

mBusiness and Commerce EKO, India EKO has pioneered the delivery of basic banking services through the mobile phone by developing an open source platform called EKO SimpliBank, which connects banking and telecom infrastructure seamlessly. WorldGSM, India WorldGSM is the first commercially viable GSM system that is independent of the power grid.

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Mobiquity mMoney, India The Mobiquity platform embraces the mobile phone as a convenient, cash-free, and card-free payment and transaction medium, delivering a range of financial and payment applications. Business Express, Bangladesh Business Express in Bangladesh is a new process that includes automatic reporting from the sales force, such as customer orders and credit collection. Voice ERP, India Voice ERP is an interactive voice-based application targeted for manufacturing, retail, and contract farming organisations.

mHealth Eliminating Queues in OPDs in Hospitals – An mHealth Initiative by JPNATC, India JPN Apex Trauma Centre, AIIMS initiated this project to streamline the process of hospital visits and minimise wait times for patients by using mGovernance. Jaroka Tele-Healthcare, Pakistan Jaroka Tele-Healthcare is an effort to provide healthcare to the underprivileged in the far-flung areas of Pakistan. Students Health Information Tracking System (SWHITS), India SWHITS was developed to fill in the gap witnessed in dissemination of information concerning students’ health. Aarogyam, India Aarogyam, a project begun in the state of Uttar Pradesh, is India’s first endto-end community-based digital health mapping.

mEnvironment mGovernance for Forest and Wildlife Management, India The main objective of the m-Governance for Forest and Wildlife Management application conceptualised by the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department (MPFD) is to develop a system that aids in the organised monitoring of forests and wildlife, along with providing a repository for the collection, aggregation, and storage of MIS and geo-spatial data through a computer-based communication network.

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Chairman’s Award for Emerging Initiative Mobile Zakat, Maldives Mobile Zakat, a joint venture of Dhiraagu, a telecommunications provider in the Maldives, and the Ministry of Islamic Affairs (Government of the Maldives), facilitates the payment of zakat through a mobile phone.

The mBillionth Award South Asia 2011: Winners’ Highlights The statistics for the mBillionth Award South Asia 2011 were comprised of the following (Figure 26.3): • Total entries: 200 • Total nominations after screening: 185 • Winning nominations: 21 • Special mentions: 11

mGovernance IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System)-based Daily Monitoring System (DMS) of the Mid-Day Meal Scheme in Uttar Pradesh, India The IVRS-based DMS project is designed and developed by the Mid-Day Meal Authority in Uttar Pradesh. This project envisages an automated MIS (Management Information System) where data of children availing mid-day meals is made available on a daily basis. “Em-POWER KERALA” – Mobile Governance Project of Government of Kerala, India EM-POWER KERALA is designed and developed by Kerala State Information Technology Mission. This project is to make e-governance services of the government of Kerala accessible to the masses through the mobile phones. Off Site Real Time Monitoring System (OSRT), India OSRT, designed and developed by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), is an anywhere, anytime accountability mechanism, which provides real-time information in solid waste management, urban planning, public works, and street lighting to municipal managers and the citizens.

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Figure 26.3

mBillionth Award South Asia 2011 statistics

m-Governance: An Efficient Way to Meet Citizen’s Expectation, India m-Governance for the citizen of Rajkot is developed in-house by Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC). This service is a convenient communication point for time-bound service delivery powered by pre-defined process-cycles and back-office computerisation.

mInclusion Babajob.com, India Babajob.com is a Bangalore-based start up that uses the web and mobile technology to connect employers and bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) informal sector workers (e.g., maids, cooks, drivers) with the goal of creating a scalable, replicable, and profitable solution to combat poverty.

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Benefit Disbursement System, India Benefit Disbursement System is a project implemented by APOnline Ltd. (formed as a joint venture company by the Government of Andhra Pradesh in partnership with Tata Consultancy Services). The Benefit Distribution System aims at disbursement of benefits like wages and social security pensions to beneficiaries. SETT Browser for Android, Sri Lanka SETT Browser is a free and open source mobile web browser application for Android with the capability of rendering and displaying Sinhala/Tamil Unicode text in the web with no rendering errors. With this browser, users can conveniently read any Sihala/Tamil website, webpage, or web content through their Android phones with no rendering issues and without having to root the phone or install the fonts manually.

mInfrastructure Etisalat App Zone, Sri Lanka Etisalat Lanka partners with hSenid Mobile in launching the country’s first mobile application platform, not only allowing users to browse and download applications, but significantly creating the opportunity for Sri Lankan mobile application developers to create, test, and sell their own unique applications. INTEX V.SHOW – India’s First Projector Phone, India INTEX V.SHOW IN 8809 and IN 8810 have an inbuilt projector to combine projection with mobility and are developed by INTEX TECHNOLOGIES (INDIA) LTD. It actually brings entertainment at palm’s length and enables the user to project movies, pictures, music videos (saved in the phone and from the internet), and other internet content on up to 61 inches of screen/wall with a high intensity projection of 10 lumens and QWVGA resolution. BOLT Mobile Browser, India BOLT Mobile Browser supports viewing websites in all Latin-based languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Flemish, Swedish, and many others that are fundamentally Latin-based. AVAN (Aggregated Voice and Video Application Network), India AVAN is a platform to create, manage, deliver, and market a compelling catalogue of voice and video applications. AVAN was developed by Comviva Technologies Limited. It enables operators to rapidly retail a wide catalogue of services tailored to specific consumer sub-segments who

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demand personalized, content-rich and context-aware value-added services over their mobiles.

mEducation and Learning Sparsh, India Sparsh is designed and developed by IL&FS Education and Technology Services Ltd. It provides a complete on-the-go learning solution that focuses on sexual and reproductive health for teens and adults that is divided into 12 modules. m-Pustak, India Hazel Media, a technology startup based in Delhi, has developed m-Pustak, a mobile technology framework that bridges the language barrier for masses by bringing vernacular language applications to a low-cost mobile device. BBC Janala, Bangladesh BBC Janala is part of English in Action, a major initiative launched to raise the language skills of 25 million people in Bangladesh by 2017, funded by the U.K.’s Department of International Development. Kisan Sanchar, India Kisan Sanchar is an interactive platform for scientists/experts to share their technology with farmers, designed and developed by Kisan Sanchar C/o Innovations Promotion Company.

mEntertainment GamesClub, India GamesClub, developed by Nazara Technologies Pvt. Ltd., is a first of its kind of inexpensive cross-platform gaming service. GamesClub offers its users unlimited mobile gaming experience for as little as Rs.5 per day or Rs. 99 per month. IPL T20 Fever, India IPL T20 Fever was launched by Indiagames Ltd. After mesmerising the whole nation on television, IPL T20 has been brought to mobile gaming by IndiaGames.com. HiBuddy, India HiBuddy was brought into the market by Times Internet Ltd. (Indiatimes). To cope with challenges such as time constraints and inaccessibility to the

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internet, Indiatimes launched HiBuddy, India’s first social networking platform on voice. The Sealink, India The Sealink is a 3D racing game designed by Spiel Studios Pvt. Ltd., where the player can drive his or her favorite car on the Bandra-Worli Mumbai Sea-link.

mTravel and Tourism mTicketing – Train Ticket Reservation System, Sri Lanka mTicketing system has made the Colombo Kandy Intercity Train Ticket Reservation system computerised and also made it possible to purchase tickets over mobile phone.

mBusiness and Commerce Electronic Money Transfer Service (EMTS) of Bangladesh Post, Bangladesh EMTS is a newly introduced and very successful mobile and web-based remittance service provided by Bangladesh Post. Kumari Bank – Mobile Cash, Nepal With Mobile Cash, users can deposit and withdraw money using their cell phone. It also facilitates transfer of funds from one account to another among Kumari Bank account holders. eMudhra SecMsg, India eMudhra SecMsg was developed by 3i Infotech Consumer Services Ltd. Banglalink mWallet, Bangladesh Banglalink Orascom Telecom holding, the second largest cellular service provider in Bangladesh, shook hands with Comviva Technologies Limited, the global leader in providing mobile solutions, to introduce a flexible, farreaching financial services delivery network cost effectively.

mHealth CommCare, India CommCare is a job-aid tool developed by NEEDS, India & Dimagi Inc., USA. This application contains illustrations and audio messages covering essential topics in antenatal care, which ASHA/Sahiya can use to educate pregnant women in their village, regardless of their level of literacy.

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Operation ASHA, India ASHA is a project ensuring reliable delivery of Tuberculosis DOTS Medications using low-cost Biometrics and mobile phones. Battling Counterfeit Medicine With an SMS, India PharmaSecure is a life-saving invention of PharmaSecure PAS India Ltd. It is a cost-effective solution to fight the problem of counterfeit drugs using digital mass serialization. Rural Primary Healthcare Model, India Impel Care is a joint product of PK4 Software Technologies and Care Foundation. It aims at addressing health issues at the bottom of the pyramid in India with the use of appropriate technology.

mEnvironment Busday Gets Busier With Mobile, India Busday is a daylong event promoting public transport in major transport hubs and 124 hangout locations across Bangalore on the fourth of every month through utilities, promotions, and reinforcement of value.

Most Promising HealthPhone, India HealthPhone is a venture of the Mother and Child Health and Education Trust that uses communication processes to improve life chances for poor and vulnerable populations.

Juror’s Distinction TukTuk Meter 2 MindHelix Technologies LLP launched a new product called TukTuk Meter that can help the commuter to get a fair fare from the auto-rickshaws. It is a dynamic GPS-based auto-fare calculator made for India.

The Road Ahead: Challenges and Recommendations Despite the momentum and acclaim received by these awards, there have been some challenges along the way: Campaign and outreach: Reaching out to the wider community of practitioners and innovators across South Asia has been a challenge. For instance, the number of nominations from Pakistan, Maldives, Nepal, and Afghanistan

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is negligible. Perhaps adequate information about the award process has not yet reached enough locations or the level of innovative projects is low. Making the process more dynamic: One desired approach for mBillionth is to organise road shows, camps, workshops, mentoring sessions, and statelevel roundtables to take the platform to a broader range of stakeholders, outside the capital cities of South Asia. Scaling up: mBillionth desires national-level and even state-level award platforms in all countries of South Asia. The objective is to tap into local cultural and entrepreneurial strengths and keep up with the rapid pace of mobile diffusion, which will help scout for and nurture existing entrepreneurs in the mobile domain. Reaching out to more partners: It is vital to engage more partners at the global and local level and solicit their association, inputs, and knowledge contribution in order to help broaden the base of economic and social stakeholders who can benefit from mobile innovation. Thus far, the quality of partners chosen and their belief in and commitment to the mBillionth process has been overwhelming and holistic. Fundraising: As the awards process increases in number of nominations and scope of entries, more funds are needed to accommodate larger forums, sessions, and pavilions and more participants and experts, all creating resource gaps. This is further linked to the continuous efforts being made to add value, excitement, and interest while delivering desired outputs for partners and stakeholders. On the basis of almost 10 years of experience in running the Manthan Digital Awards and more recently the mBillionth Award, a number of useful recommendations can be offered to mobile innovation stakeholders, both within the mBillionth framework and for others hoping to start such initiatives in their own regions and countries. 1. There is a need for a continuous, long-term award platform to scout, nurture, mentor, and scale up existing and budding ICT4D entrepreneurs in mobile. The key lies in providing an enabling environment to promote entrepreneurs in this ever-expanding domain that has turned out to be one of the largest contributors to the South Asian gross domestic product and the biggest creator of jobs. Such a process must receive diligent support from industry, government, and the development community. 2. In addition to entrepreneurship, special attention must be paid to issues of inclusion and environment so that mobile innovation becomes broadly based and sustainable. Therefore, new forms of research and collaboration are needed among government, industry, practitioners, researchers, investors, and the like.

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3. The awards must be kept independent and meritocratic and avoid the taint of being biased or controlled by large industry players and sponsors. 4. The awards platform should be nurtured as a fertile ground for triggering research in the specific domains of mobile innovation, which could include service design, long-term impacts on vertical sectors, and the changing technology platform needs of social entrepreneurs. The Manthan Awards process has helped launch books such as NetChakra: 15 Years of the Internet in India, and the mBillionth process is triggering similar books and reports on mobiles in South Asia.

Endnotes 1. Digital Empowerment homepage, accessed January 24, 2013, defindia.net. 2. World Summit Award homepage, accessed January 24, 2013, www.wsis-award.org.

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Mobile Innovation Trends: Beyond the Hype Cycles Anuraj Gambhir

Editors’ Note: This chapter offers a range of vignettes of mobile trends, in areas ranging from infrastructure and services to devices and frameworks. The convergence of communications, computing, and consumer electronics capabilities is bringing about a paradigm shift. The chapter provides useful snapshots of the pace of change in digital activities and charts the evolution of mobile innovations along the hype cycle of trigger, growth, disillusionment, and eventual productivity. Snacking media, appcessories, natural user interfaces, connected cars, morphing devices, augmented reality, haptic feedback, mobile clouds, gamification, and wireless wellness are some of the fascinating topics touched upon. New forms of design thinking are called for between all stakeholders in the industry to create value for end users in the world of E3 (Everything Everywhere Embedded).

Introduction: Changing Landscape and Reinvention of Innovation Digitalisation is rapidly taking on the world across a number of domains. We live in a new world that is reinventing itself every day, our economic landscape is changing with the entrance of new stakeholders, and industry leadership is changing hands across the value web. The 3C convergence— whereby communications, computing, and consumer electronics capabilities are integrating and fuzzing the boundaries of what we call a computer or 505

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a mobile phone—is bringing about a paradigm shift in our industry. A rapidly growing base of citizens now conducts its personal and social life on Facebook and professional life on LinkedIn, and expresses its views in real time on Twitter! It is said that content (rather context!) is king and those enabling it are queen—but the customer and eventually the end user or consumer is the real King Kong, the ultimate stakeholder at the centre of the value web. We are witnessing a new era of control and power by the end user of the truly connected world. The mobile industry landscape has changed dramatically over the past decade, from a value chain driven to a complex value web. The mobile device itself has transformed from a mere communication device (or handset) to a lifestyle phenomenon with convergence and also divergence to some extent. People may forget their wallet, keys, or watch, but doing without the mobile phone is getting to be impossible. It is often dubbed the ultimate intimate object, a true extension of the network in the end user’s hands. It has been strongly influenced by adjacent and converging industries. As a tool for mass empowerment the mobile device with the right services (as a holistic solution) has greatly enriched lives and transformed the digital divide to digital dividend.

Mobile Operators: From Dumb Pipes to Smart Enablers Some of the powerhouses of the early days of the telecom industry, such as Nortel, Siemens, and Motorola, have all shifted focus and realigned to new domains. The internet companies such as Google (which acquired Motorola), Facebook, and Twitter have built major brand equity and shifted the overall equation of the influencers within the industry, on wired and mobile internet. Some new forms of collaboration are visible, such as search giant Google cooperating with Samsung Electronics for the development of the next-generation Nexus smartphone and HTC reportedly developing a customised smartphone in cooperation with Facebook. In the network operator space, the traditional walled gardens have been torn apart, giving rise to open and in some cases smartly controlled offerings for end users and enabling a lot of consumer-driven innovation. Service providers and mobile network operators are transiting and redefining their position in the value web by offering to be anything from a fat or smart pipe to an orchestrator bringing together the key stakeholders, ranging from content providers to device vendors. A fair revenue split (amongst the developer community) is also an important and desired model, as has been successfully demonstrated by the likes of Japan’s NTT DOCOMO (for i-mode).

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Multiscreen Convergence The mobile device stands to be the latest and greatest evolution of the media revolution (considered the 7th mass media)—it imbibes the best from all three screens (cinema, TV, and the PC) and integrates and converges all six historical mass media: printing (1500s), recording (1900s), cinema (1910s), radio (1920s), TV (1950s), and the internet (1990s). In terms of eyeball attention, it has made its way up the ladder to the rank of second dominant screen or, for many, first. Connected mobile devices have evolved from basic handsets to mobile internet devices, ultra-mobile PCs, hand-held PCs, smartbooks, smartphones, tablets, super-phones, smart HD surface tables, and a bunch of other new device categories. Operators and consumer electronics makers are increasingly adding meaningful industrial design and user experience into the development life cycle. Convergence across screens—primarily TV, PC, and mobile device—is critical to offer seamless access. Managing the right quality of experience (QoE) is a highly important factor in success. Hence adaptations and transcoding of content with multidimensional parameters (both qualitative and quantitative, such as length, type, quality, and size) will need to be carefully addressed by industry players. Smartphones have moved down from high tier to low or mid with price points of less than US$70 for an entry-level 3G Android smartphone. It has become the fastest growing segment; in fact, smartphones have a sizable footprint across the globe and are not just a Western or mature market trend. This coming year will see more than a billion smartphones sold, of which over half of the sales will be coming from emerging markets. Simple-to-use, widget-type apps have brought high impact to many, enabled productivity, and brought new experiences in multimedia for infotainment services and many dedicated functions that have made data capability and broadband into key pillars of a new revolution. Smart devices with ultralow price tags and an open platform customisable for segments such as rural enterprise have tremendous potential in this regard.

Convergence on the Outside, Divergence on the Inside What end users are looking for ultimately is a delightful total user and product experience (TUPE) as the real differentiator where simplexity springs out of the box. Simplexity expresses the need for simplicity in an increasingly complex ecosystem, device, architecture, or world. It means that complex technology needs to be hidden in the background while presenting simple usability/benefits at the front end to provide an enriched and superior overall user experience.

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The challenge arises in managing complexity in order to deliver convenience, and this challenge leads to endless possibilities for innovation. There will be compromises dealing with convergence, but the most innovative solutions will convert the trade-offs into opportunities. Examples include distributed device architectures (e.g., portable energy with solar-battery hybrids) and personal mobile gateways to theme-oriented devices. The other end of the spectrum is the Swiss Army knife approach, whereby TUPE would play an even more important role. Adapting a quote from Leo Tolstoy, it can be stated that “Where there is no Simplexity, Goodness, and Truth, there can be no greatness.”

From Smartphones to Tablets The year 2012 was truly dubbed as the year when tablets took on the world with mass market appeal. Applications from all nooks and corners are transforming the way this new category of device is being used. Companies such as Apple have given a whole new meaning to tablet computing; low cost tablets are also making a mark with new experiences and dedicated applications across sectors. Events in locations ranging from Las Vegas (Consumer Electronics Show; CES) to Barcelona (Mobile World Congress; MWC) are giving the end user a wide choice of products and innovations: flip or morphing netbooks; Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4) enabled, superfast, multi-core processor; multi-boot operating systems (e.g., Windows Mobile and Android); and vivid, 3-dimensional (3D) graphics and 3D image capture. Tablets are already claiming five times the data traffic of smartphones. Cisco is already predicting the mobile-only internet population will grow 56-fold, from 14 million at the end of 2010 to 788 million by the end of 2015.

The Next Wave of Content and Apps The content industry too is undergoing major transformations as the key players attempt to address the most compelling needs in the market. Here we are evolving from the ABCD (astrology, Bollywood, cricket, and devotional) content genres in countries such as India to a much wider selection of locally and contextually relevant vernacular content. Content discovery and “snacking” will be key to widespread growth and subsequent monetisation of new applications and services. Made-for-mobile content (e.g., TV mobisodes) will play an important role, but dynamic and seamless adaptation from one screen to another will also be required. User-generated content, already estimated to account for more than 25 percent of data traffic, will drive further growth.

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True value and customer stickiness or pull will come from highly relevant, hyper-local, and meaningful content. There seems to be a clutter of content, apps, and social media to choose from, and many users want their choices to be simplified in order to find what is really important. Hence rapid discoverability of the most appropriate content will be fundamental, along with the optimal pull or push model. It is crucial to find the right opt-in and opt-out balance whereby mobile marketing or advertising can be used as a powerful feature to target compelling data to users. An interesting business model being tried by the apps community is the freemium model, whereby a basic version of a product or service is made available for free and one has to purchase (pay a premium for) advanced features (e.g., new levels in a game or more functionality). The freemium model is a smart “up-sell” that has made up-selling more popular.

Apps Galore One of the thriving innovations witnessed in the mobile industry over the past couple of years is the increasing penetration of mobile apps. The exponential growth started with Apple’s App Store for the iPod, iPhone, and iPad family of devices (for which Apple offers more than 600,000 apps). There is a plethora of application stores, specifically Android Market (now Google Play), with more than 400,000 apps and demonstrating exponential growth, having reached in just 18 months what Apple took 4 to 5 years to achieve. Several of the large mobile operators have launched their own app stores, but fragmentation has been an issue, and there are now a number of umbrella stores offering micro-segmented and tailored content for specific communities. Through a widget approach, applications are the true conduit of relevant and compelling content that boosts the productivity and enjoyment of end users. Consumers seem to have a huge appetite for apps, and innovation has leaped ahead with a wide range of applications in the areas of 3D, augmented and virtual reality, location-based service, social networking, and multiplayer interactive gaming. Smartphones such as the iPhone have been a major trigger as a connected platform, with apps using multi-sensors for input and output and taking user experience to a new realm.

Video Is Going Places Multimedia in many forms are having profound effects on content consumption and creation, with video predicted to account for 66 percent of global mobile data traffic by 2014 according to the Cisco VNI (Visual Networking Index) forecast. If a picture represents a thousand words, moving images or video probably represent a million. Video transcends language barriers and a lot can be conveyed by just body language, motion, and animation.

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Video conferencing is making a comeback with an enhanced experience, given the improvements in quality and bandwidth. There is also increased significance and value in video for rural populations migrating to urban or metro areas to keep in touch with their families. A pilot by a 3G operator in India called Aamne-Saamne (meaning “in front of each other”) is already yielding promising results. Video brings a mass emotional connection to communities, allowing family members to see and talk with one another and feel they are never away from home. Video is also a universal medium as it can play a vital role in education, especially in reaching out to the illiterate.

Media Transformation: From Passive to Experiential True interactivity is the next step in the media revolution, shifting from the old couch potato, TV mode to a pseudo-interactive computer (“leaning forward”) and to a converged and fully interactive and immersive experience. The Nintendo Wii (and Sony PlayStation Move) provides a glimpse of Media 3.0. Microsoft’s Natal (Kinect) offers remote accelerometer sensor-based gaming with gesture feedback. It in turn has given birth to a new wave of natural user interface technologies that are helping to usher in the next generation of human–computer interaction (HCI). Using the sixth-sense concept from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) media labs, Pranav Mistry has configured the converging boundaries of the real and the digital world to create of a new form of natural HCI. In examples such as this, innovation starts to resemble magic. Major disruptive and radical developments will be unveiled in this space as we move closer to nature, evolving from graphical user interface to natural user interface.

The Connected World Industries such as healthcare, education, media, transportation, utilities, government, hospitality, energy, and retail, whose content can be enabled via information and communication technology (ICT), have an exciting future. Smart urban homes are already benefiting from connected technologies to enable seamless experiences. The connected car is another major trend whereby smart applications make driving and travel safe, comfortable, and enjoyable. At the Mobile World Congress 2012, Ford launched a small connected car (the B-MAX) showcasing the company’s SYNC technology. For the first time ever, an automobile was launched at a mobile trade show! Various new technologies in the Digital Living Network Alliance and using the universal plug-n-play protocol are enabling seamless experiences in this space. Utility value-added service (VAS) in these areas is growing by leaps and

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bounds so that ICTs can become a foundation pillar and transform gross domestic product into gross happiness quotient. An interesting case of ubiquitous content access (enjoying a movie) can be described as follows: ‘‘I start watching it on my home theatre, pause the movie and un-pause it in the taxi to the airport on my personal tablet, and on arrival at the airport pause again to restart where I left it on the aircraft IFE (in-flight entertainment) system. I start watching a new documentary there and before I could finish the flight is landing so I pause to regain the viewing with a flick on my tablet to the large LED flat-screen in the hotel room.” As we move along in the new decade, we have yet another inflection point hitting the industry as the world moves from global connectivity of places (0.5 billion) to personal mobility for people (5 billion subscriptions) and to a digital society or connected world where any “thing” that can be connected, will be. Ericsson describes a world of more than 50 billion connections by 2020 (thanks to embedded devices and machine-to-machine communication, also called the “Internet of Things”), leading to a world of “machine to anything” connectivity. Ericsson describes three waves of connectivity: networked consumer electronics, networked verticals (industries), and “networked everything” or “networked society.” Amdocs is also bullish and predicts more than 7 trillion connected devices by 2020. In this connected world, young people (Gen Y, the previous Gen X, and the forthcoming Gen Z) are now more global than ever: They are very much switched on and ahead of the curve and, in many cases, prime early adaptors. Being tech savvy and up-to-date with the latest and greatest, along with high aspirations and thought-provoking ideologies, are changing the face of the world for youth. With more than 54 percent of its population under the age of 25 years (and 45 percent under 19 years) and the youngest population worldwide, the country of India is sure to witness some game-changing innovations.

Network- and Infrastructure-Based Innovations High speed packet access, 3G, and long-term evolution are enabling several innovative uses. With the launch of higher bandwidth, HD video and advanced multimedia (e.g., interactive multiuser gaming) have become popular. On the infrastructure side, there is a substantial movement towards sustainable and eco-friendly solutions, such as green housing, with alternative and renewable energy such as solar, wind, and hydro power. The running costs of diesel generators are a major OPEX constraint for operators and have led to a need for cost-efficient energy. Mobile prepaid subscription has changed the dynamics and scalability of mobile communications, bringing affordability and accessibility to a much

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larger base. Dynamic discounting schemes are seen as a game changer, giving operators the ability to launch a unique offering that increases revenues and service usage and reaches the low-income segment by applying discounts on existing call rates based on network use. User notifications are sent to the subscriber on handsets, and cell broadcasts continuously provide information about current discounts. Mobile number portability will help in giving users freedom of choice. Multiple SIMs are also being used heavily for better coverage, cheap tariffs, free calls within a network, and social media. The willingness to churn is bound to increase with 3G services coming in.

Rural Transformations The connected ecosystem is also extending into the rural areas of our planet. As one example of a large agrarian emerging market, India has 71 percent of its population (with more than 51 percent of the wealth and 60 percent of the mobile growth) living in rural areas. Various projects have been designed to boost the livelihood of rural communities, including targeted offerings for rural enterprise and farmers to enrich their productivity by ICT enablement (e.g., Kissan Mobile Mandi, market information delivered to farmers via mobiles). Reverse and frugal innovation is playing a prime role with base-ofthe-pyramid markets and grassroots-inspired ideas. Connecting the unconnected has been pushed globally by the Global System for Mobile Communications Association with programs such as the Emerging Market (Ultra Low Cost) Handset. The Indian government has been playing a major role in uplifting its 600,000 villages via programmes such as the Universal Services Obligation Fund. Jagdish Sheth, author of the book Chindia Rising (2008) has transformed the 4P’s of traditional marketing to the 4A’s—awareness, accessibility, affordability, and acceptability—all of which are essential for rural market development. It ultimately comes to bringing the total cost of ownership down for the packaged digital access solution. Anil Gupta of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, with the National Innovation Foundation, has been leading several initiatives, such as the Honey Bee network of indigenous innovations and a rural immersive visit called Shodhyatra to spread best practices and learn about locally developed innovative solutions. The Rural Technology Business Incubator is being mentored by Ashok Jhunjhunwala of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. There are other major developments in the areas of micro-finance and uplift of the role of women in rural emerging markets, many of which leverage mobile connectivity. Self-help groups such as artisans in remote villages are being enabled with mobile services to optimally market their offerings; other examples include Vyapaar Sewa with support from Sasken Technologies. India’s universal identity ecosystem is ranked as the largest

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ICT innovation project (with the largest biometric data collection to date) in the world.

Emerging Trends and Innovation Paths With a plethora of new devices being launched in the market, the urge to provide something unique is stronger than ever, harmonising the consumer pull and tech push. The price game is generally not going to be successful or sustainable. “Value add” will be a key constituent, and smart content bundling and access frameworks will be needed to enable the right “wow” experiences. Gartner’s Technology Hype Cycle (Figure 27.1) shows some of the major milestones of technology adoption. Interesting depictions of the scale and speed of uptake of new digital services and technology have been made by Go-Globe (Figures 27.2 and 27.3). One of the major challenges the industry faces is how to address apps discoverability: There is too much clutter of apps, with in excess of 1.5 million apps across various stores in 2012. Hence there is a need for local, meaningful, and purposeful app content that users want, rather than just fun stuff (the current majority). The life cycle usage models of the device will be key so as to ensure that there is constant renewal and relevance provided for users. Smart customer support will also play an important role here.

Figure 27.1

Gartner’s Technology Hype Cycle

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Figure 27.2

Digital activities in a typical 60-second period. Source: Go-Globe.com

Figure 27.3

Devices profiled in a typical 60-second interval. Source: Go-Globe.com

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One of the prime trends from recent mobile industry events has been appcessories (i.e., new-age apps enabled or bundled with accessories, such as the Nike Fuelband and other products launched in the healthcare and education space). The advent of a multitude of sensors is creating a large number of new use cases and applications (e.g., glucometer apps for users monitoring their blood sugar). Augmented reality (AR) can be another major differentiator of a range of multimedia experiences in a near-magical form. Companies such as Blippar, Aurasma, and metaio are making big waves in this space. SPRXMobile’s hype cycle diagram (Figure 27.4) shows some of the key developments across the four levels of AR: Level 0 (Physical World Hyper Linking), Level 1 (Marker Based AR), Level 2 (Markerless AR), and Level 3 (Augmented Vision). There are applications of AR across advertising, ecommerce, gaming, computing, mobile information, the military, education, and healthcare; the various business models include ad funded, app purchase, content driven, subscription based, and featured content. Multimodal input and output (i.e., providing voice and vernacular support) will be an important development as well, with hyper–context-driven speech-to-text.

Figure 27.4

Hype cycle of augmented reality. Source: SprxMobile

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Haptic feedback has also come a long way, thanks to pioneers such as Immersion (which designed the iDrive for BMW). Precise, 3D-type tactile experiences can be created with a number of multi-touch–oriented granular vibration interfaces. Use cases are emerging around new gaming experiences and music applications (e.g., learning to play a musical instrument). Cloud computing and services in various shapes and forms are a major topic of the industry, from personal clouds (e.g., data backup for consumer content) to corporate or enterprise cloud solutions. Cloud computing can be offered via as-needed, pay-per-use business models. Broadband penetration will have a much greater impact in emerging markets with solutions deployed in the cloud space that are very simple to use, particularly for micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises. Mobile marketing is coming of age and bringing a meaningful shift in user behaviour. Smart data mining and customer information management tools will effectively target and deliver contextual advertisements that benefit brands and consumers, particularly via opt-in mobile marketing. Mobile money and m-commerce are also growing exponentially, and many players are adding near field communication–based payment solutions. Over-the-top players such as Google, Facebook, and Yahoo! have banked on their brand equity to build large loyal followings via mobiles. This dominance has been a concern for mobile operators, although there is room for further “collabovation” (collaborative innovation) that new ecosystems can provide. There are many innovative players in the business-to-business-toconsumer or direct-to-consumer space, such as MyToday from Netcore Solutions in India, which used SMS as a key gateway to compelling content and services.

Wireless Meets Wellness With rising stress levels (24/7 lifestyles and lack of work–life balance), the desire for harmonious living is growing in importance. Mobile devices may soon utilise all five senses and even enter the realms of spirituality and holistic existence. Lives could be transformed with a handheld “spa” that would greatly enrich people’s well-being. Wirelessly enabled sensors of various types would monitor body and mood levels and offer new kinds of services (e.g., via apps such as Yoga Lite, Medicine Buddha, iRelax, Fitness Trainer, and iZen). With the worlds of AR, 3D, and holography coming together, along with embedded sensors, interesting mashups of apps and content can emerge. Companies such as NeuroSky and MyndPlay have used electrocardiogram-based sensing to innovate on mood-based movie manipulation as well as new ways of learning. Emerging economies such as

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India’s, with a long tradition of spirituality and a booming mobile sector, are well-poised to harness this frontier.

Rural Services Emerging economies have challenges—and opportunities—in creating affordable mobile devices and services. Tele-medicine (in partnership with Apollo Hospital), tele-education, and egovernance have been designed for the rural communities in 18 towns and villages in Tamil Nadu, southern India. The launch by the Indian government of the $35 or 1,500–Indian rupee tablet computer (Aakash) made big waves (similar to what the Nano car did for the automobile sector), bringing together academic, research, and industry players. Mass adoption of services in an emerging market such as India will most likely be triggered by cloud-based pay-as-you-go models. New categories of devices will bring new data consumption patterns with divergent and theme-oriented dedicated offerings. With screens getting bigger, processors getting faster, and industrial designs becoming more user friendly, a lot of innovation can be expected in this space. Gamification—the fun way of learning—is a mega-trend that is also spreading fast, bringing “edutainment” to new levels. The virtual and real worlds are interlacing to form a new realm of mashup content and immersiveness. The umbrella and ultimate metric will be the QoE as directly perceived by the end user. This QoE will consist of several underlying key performance indicators for various quality of service (QoS) parameters that will be critical for mass acceptance and true success (e.g., auto/OTA updates, responsiveness performance, and hassle-free and seamless connectivity).

Visions of Personal Mobility Looking at the not too distant future (about 2015), Ken Blakeslee, chairperson of WebMobility Ventures, has observed that the wisdom of the consumer “crowd” will define and refine the big head and the long tail of content and applications over the next 5 years. With the exponential growth of tablets and their variants, publishing will become personal. “Virtually large actually small” technologies will be adapted for mobile devices (e.g., rollable displays, large screens in small packages such as pico projectors, video eyewear, and flexible epaper.) Time- and place- shifting infotainment will become second nature. The combination of affordable mass storage in the pocket with home and cloud connectivity everywhere means each person’s unique “collection” will be on tap at all times, to be enjoyed on whichever screen and speakers best suit the situation.

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Stereo 3D content will grow from creation (i.e., user generated) to distribution of a wide range of titles. E3 (Everything Everywhere Embedded) will prevail, with more connectivity inherent in devices, accessories, sensors, and tools that we carry with us. Technology will become invisible or go transparent; fashion will follow function. Mobile money will have reached a tipping point, with wide acceptance globally.

Key Takeaways Ray Kurzweil of MIT is bullish on what the future holds: images written directly to the retina; electronics embedded in the environment, our clothing, and eyeglasses; full-immersion visual-auditory virtual reality; and interaction with virtual personalities as a primary interface. Wolfgang Grulke (2000), chairperson emeritus of FutureWorld and author of Ten Lessons From the Future, observes that the new economy is shifting from central control to individual responsibility, fractal and nonlinear behaviour is the norm, and uncertainty presents a moment of real freedom. Emerging economies are becoming new hotbeds of innovation (e.g., Indian companies such as Micromax, Spice, Karbonn, Olive, Bling, Zen, Intex, Videocon, and Lemon) that have brought some interesting innovative offerings (e.g., multiple SIM support, UV torches for detecting counterfeit currency, “missed call” services, per-second billing, and calling party pays). Speed is of the essence, and in the words of Rupert Murdoch, “The world is changing very fast, big will not beat the small anymore, it will be the fast beating the slow” (www.quotesmessages.com/4036). It has also been said that the world is moving so fast that there are days when the person who says “It cannot be done” is interrupted by the person who is doing it! To sum up, design thinking across the board is crucial; all that matters is the experience at the end, and those that can get the end-to-end customer experience right will be the winners. No single company can do it alone; they have to collaborate and create a winning ecosystem. Fundamental shifts in telecom have created substantial new product and service innovation challenges, making it imperative for all stakeholders to work together to create a new and better-connected world. It is all about customer delight, the “wow” factor, and bringing meaningful benefit to users—true value generation. There are tremendous opportunities to leapfrog, for those with open minds and open hearts. It would be fitting to end by adapting a quote from Mahatma Gandhi: “True Innovation happens when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony!”

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References and Resources “Augmented Reality Hype Cycle.” 2009. sprxmobile Mobile Service Architects. www.sprxmobile. com/the-augmented-reality-hype-cycle. “Augmented Reality Market Map.” 2010. First Partner. www.firstpartner.net. “CES 2012, Las Vegas.” 2012. CNET. ces.cnet.com. “ETSI.” 2012. www.etsi.org. “Freemium.” 2012. Wikipedia. wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium. “Gartner’s Technology Hype Cycle 2011.” www.augmentedtomorrow.com/tag/gartners-hypecycle. Grulke, Wolfgang. 2000. 10 Lessons From the Future: Tomorrow Is a Matter of Choice, Make It Yours. Parklands, South Africa: One Communications. “GSMA – MWC 2012, Barcelona.” Mobile World Congress. www.mobileworldcongress.com. “Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence.” 2012. KurzweilAI.net. “Manifesto for Change – ITU Telecom World 2011.” 2011. ITU Telecom World. world2012. itu.int/2011-manifesto. “Seven Mass Media.” 2012. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_mass_media. “Simplexity.” 2012. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplexity. Sheth, Jagdish N. 2008. Chindia Rising. New Delhi, India: McGraw Hill. “Telecomasia.net.” 2012. www.telecomasia.net. “Things That Happen on the Internet Every Sixty Seconds.” 2011. GO-Gulf.com. www.gogulf.com/blog/60-seconds. “Things That Happen on the Internet Every Sixty Seconds: Part 2.” 2011. GO-Gulf.com. www.gogulf.com/blog/60-seconds-v2. “Web Mobility Ventures.” 2012. www.webmobility.com.

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Mobile Operators: Shifting Value Chains Karim Taga and Clemens Schwaiger

Editors’ Note: This chapter provides deep insights into the rapidly changing mobile ecosystem and the challenges it raises for operators. Consumer demands for more data services, the entry of overthe-top services in voice and messaging, regulatory pressure on wholesale prices, and intense competition have led to declining and at best flat mobile revenues for many operators, especially in Europe, although emerging markets are bucking this trend. This chapter provides visual depictions of such trends, identifies emerging alliances formed by operators, and describes five emerging business models. The authors recommend that operators engage in multifaceted business models (e.g., explore services for specialised markets such as automotive, energy, and utilities). Regulators should also be prepared to challenge old regulatory models and respect Net Neutrality. Mobile operators worldwide are finding themselves under pressure in terms of both revenues and capital expenditures. Changing consumer behaviour, regulatory pressure on wholesale prices, and intense competition have led to flat and, in some markets, even declining mobile revenues. Data and other new services have not compensated for voice decline and are unlikely to do so in the future because of the growing threat from over-the-top (OTT) services. These pressures on revenue are also coming at a time when mobile operators are investing heavily in their networks in order to meet customers’ demand for mobile data. Market players are reacting to these new realities by increasing partnerships and rethinking their position in the value chain in order to more effectively 521

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react to customer demand and technological advances. This chapter assesses the various factors that are impacting mobile operators and the potential business models that operators can adopt to remain competitive in their markets.

Mobile Revenues Are Under Increasing Pressure The number of mobile devices in use globally is expected to double from 6 billion in 2012 to 12 billion in 2020, according to the Global System for Mobile Communications Association.1 This growth in mobile devices, coupled with the dramatic increase in demand for mobile data, should result in significant revenue potential across the mobile industry. Why then have mobile operators found their revenue under increasing pressure? Clearly, the difficult global macroeconomic situation continues to adversely impact the telecommunications industry. In addition, mobile operators’ revenue has been affected in recent years by a range of industryspecific factors, including the following: • Regulation: Regulators in many markets have had a tendency to take steps towards deregulation, opening up communication markets and supporting universal broadband coverage while protecting the customer by regulating prices and roaming charges. In addition, wholesale price regulation (on mobile termination rates) by European regulators has led to a sharp decline in wholesale revenues of mobile operators. • Customer behaviour: Operators have been pressured to make considerable investments in their networks in order to satisfy customers’ demand for better coverage and faster data rates. • Competition: Competition is becoming fierce as new entrants from complementary industries move in to take advantage of both new demand and technological opportunities. To remain competitive and respond to new market demand, operators have been forced to increase capital investments into network capacity and connectivity. However, given the regulatory pressure and increased competition, operators are increasingly struggling to monetise these investments. Analysis of the mobile revenue of 76 companies in 21 European countries indicates that developing markets account for all growth in mobile revenue, and challengers have higher growth prospects. Overall, market leaders in established markets are under the most pressure. When assessing total revenue across Europe, the picture is cautiously optimistic. While total revenue2

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decreased by 8 percent in 2009, there was a recovery in 2010, with year-onyear growth of 3 percent (Figure 28.1). However, when analysing revenue by market position, it is clear that market leaders are under pressure. While market leaders’ revenue decreased between 2007 and 2010 by 2 percent, challengers’ revenue declined by only 1 percent. More telling, challengers’ revenue increased by 4 percent in 2010, while market leaders experienced growth of only 1 percent over the same period (Figure 28.2). The data indicates that challengers are responsible for the bulk of the industry growth, and leaders are in an increasingly more difficult position. When the revenue data is split geographically between western and eastern Europe, the contrast becomes even more marked. Mobile operator revenues in eastern European countries grew overall by 2 percent between 2007 and 2010, and in 2010 alone, revenues increased by 13 percent. However, revenue of mobile operators in western Europe decreased overall by 3 percent since 2007, with a slight decrease even in 2010 (Figure 28.3). While our analysis focused on Europe, similar trends can be seen in markets around the globe. Figure 28.4 illustrates that established players in developed

Figure 28.1

Overall, while mobile revenues in Europe have not reached their 2007 levels, there was moderate growth in 2010. Source: Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Arthur D. Little analysis

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Figure 28.2

Challengers are experiencing strong growth, while market leaders are lagging behind. Source: Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Arthur D. Little analysis

Figure 28.3

A geographical analysis indicates that eastern Europe accounts for all of the revenue growth. Source: Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Arthur D. Little analysis

markets are under the most pressure. This is true for developed markets in Asia Pacific and increasingly so in the Middle East and Africa. Only Latin America and emerging markets in Asia still offer considerable revenue growth rates around 10 percent year-on-year.

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Figure 28.4

Global service revenue growth by region, first quarter 2009 through third quarter 2011. Source: Merrill Lynch, Arthur D. Little analysis

Data and Other Services Have Not Compensated for Voice Decline Despite the proliferation of smartphones and the promotion of advanced data services by almost all mobile operators, the bulk of industry revenues is still generated by basic voice services (Figure 28.5). This is a significant challenge for the industry, as global voice revenues overall have been negative since the first quarter of 2009. Europe clearly leads the world in this trend, but North America, developed markets in Asia Pacific, and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa show equally sluggish performance. Given the competitive environment and regulatory pressure on these revenues, mobile operators strive to compensate for the decline by increasing data revenues. However, the overall revenue trend of stagnation or even decline in some markets has not been turned around so far. Mobile operators are under further pressure from new players, mostly internet based, accelerating voice and messaging revenue decline through OTT services. These services use the data connection of a mobile subscriber to substitute previously paid-for services such as voice communication or short message service (SMS) and mobile messaging with free or low-cost internet-based services. One example is the use of Skype on a mobile device for long-distance calls, substituting regular international voice revenues.

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Figure 28.5

Voice revenues are still the dominant component of total service revenues and show negative growth. Source: Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Arthur D. Little analysis

The development of such voice and messaging OTT services is being led by sophisticated players that are well-positioned to attack the most fundamental model on which carriers base their business. Since its launch in the mid1990s, voice over internet protocol (VoIP) has had a negligible impact on the telecommunications industry. However, a new phase of VoIP innovation is now being led by very innovative OTT companies focused either exclusively on mobile VoIP, such as fring, Tru, and mig33, or on developing OTT services as part of their broader web-activated business, such as Skype, Google Voice, and JAJAH. The development of the OTT sector is being influenced by several factors. Clearly, the increase in use of voice and text OTT services would not have been possible without the rapid growth in mobile data usage and portable smart device penetration. OTT players are well positioned to leverage the mobility trend with their appealing mobile VoIP applications. Mobile voice OTT is expected to become an integrated part of websites or applications not previously focused on voice communication. Social media, online gaming, and dating sites are integrating OTT voice as a part of a larger user experience. OTT providers have been enabling smart functionality, developing innovative features, increasing convenience, and enhancing customer value beyond price savings. Regulators worldwide are expected to follow developed markets such as the U.S., the European Union, and Japan and seek to secure Net Neutrality with greater transparency, without blocking or unreasonable discrimination. Such development will also provide favourable conditions for OTT industry growth. Finally, large private equity and information and communication

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technology companies have shown increased interest in OTT players as they enter the high growth phase, which will support the further development of the OTT sector. Research and interviews with more than 50 telecom and OTT corporate officers reveal scenarios of OTT growth that vary depending on the actions of market players, investors, and regulators. Arthur D. Little expects mobile voice OTT market size to reach US$45 billion in 2016, accounting for 10 percent of total voice revenues (Figure 28.6). In all scenarios, voice OTT will show considerable growth, albeit from a low base, and represents a real threat to traditional operator revenues. However, especially in postpaid markets, mobile operators are moving their subscribers into tariffs with large bundles of included voice minutes to de-incentivise usage of such services. This tactic essentially replaces variable revenues with flat-fee revenues. In some western European markets, up to 80 percent of postpaid subscribers are already in such “abundance” bundles. The reaction of mobile operators to the development of OTT services has varied depending on particular market conditions and the position of the operator. Challenger telecoms often use VoIP to enter markets and to strengthen their market positioning by using partnerships with OTT players as means of differentiation. A number of market leaders, however, have prohibited or hindered the use of mobile voice OTT. Some market leaders that initially banned usage have caught on and are now exploring new revenue OTT models. Going forward, telecoms are expected to move away from blocking or penalising the usage of VoIP services in order to avoid the risk of alienating a

Figure 28.6

OTT voice revenue could account for 10 percent of total mobile voice revenue by 2015. Source: Arthur D. Little analysis

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significant portion of their customer base and increasing churn. For instance, T-Mobile and Vodafone Germany have lifted the ban on VoIP and imposed a surcharge. Although mobile VoIP represents a threat to the traditional telecom value chain, it could also provide opportunities for market players. Operators can use partnerships as opportunities to establish themselves as innovators and gain market share through cost-efficient customer acquisition.3 Although at an early stage of development, OTT messaging services gained traction in 2011, especially among younger consumers. Globally, more than 6 trillion SMSs were sent annually in 2010, up from 2 trillion in 2007. The increasing popularity of smartphones is also a key enabler for the further development of OTT messaging. Apple has introduced an OTT messaging service in its operating system; the BlackBerry Messenger application has a large userbase; and such messaging services are also available on Android phones. Together, these three companies account for more than 80 percent of all smartphones on the market worldwide. Currently, the cannibalisation effects are limited, as the messaging OTT market shows high fragmentation, thus limiting the network effect. However, a recent announcement by KPN in the Netherlands has been an awakening for some players in the industry. Between the first quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011, KPN saw a 21-percent decline in SMS traffic as a result of increasing smartphone penetration (48 percent of subscriber base) and the proliferation of the OTT application called WhatsApp (on 85 percent of Android smartphones) in its youth-oriented brand. Over time, there is a risk of OTT messaging’s cannibalising the SMS revenue of mobile operators. Arthur D. Little believes that messaging OTT could prove to have an even greater impact on mobile operators’ revenue than voice OTT. Messaging is more profitable than voice, and as a consequence its cannibalisation has a much bigger impact on margins. Second, the percentage of subscribers with SMS bundles is much lower than that with voice bundles. Third, social networks are focused on chat functionalities rather than voice, and thus their usage on handsets drives down traditional SMS usage. However, also in the case of messaging revenues, operators in postpaid markets have already started to actively move subscribers to large SMS bundles limiting operators’ exposure to a reduction in “out-of-bundle” usage and its associated revenues, which are most at risk in the case of subscribers with a data plan.

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Mobile Operators Will Increasingly Become Cash Strapped Telecom stocks have long been a safe haven for investors, who have come to expect significant dividends from investments in the sector. On average, European telecommunications companies have offered a dividend yield of approximately 8 percent and U.S. companies about 5 percent. These dividends are now at risk as telecom companies struggle to simultaneously come up with more cash and manage the debt they have already taken on. Operators are investing significantly in their networks in order to meet increasing capacity demand. Regulators in many countries are also auctioning spectrum that will enable companies to offer 4G services. Figure 28.7 illustrates the difficult position of many leading operators as they continue to pay out high dividends even amid increasing debt. With payout factors in excess of 70 percent of free cash flow and in some extreme cases even above 100 percent, telecom operators are becoming increasingly cash strapped. With these various demands on cash, leading companies announced cuts to their 2012 dividends in order to give themselves more financial flexibility. Telefónica cut its 2012 dividend from an expected €1.75 a share to €1.50, and Telekom Austria cut its dividend by 50 percent. At the beginning of 2012, France Telecom’s dividend yield was 12.1 percent and that of Telefónica, 12.0 percent. European telecom stocks are returning to an average 7.8-percent dividend yield, which is still significantly above other industries’ yields.

Figure 28.7

Telecom companies’ dividends are under threat as debt increases. *Excluding spectrum expenditures. EBITDA, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Source: Morgan Stanley, Financial Times

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In addition, telecom operators are crippled by the high debt load they still carry, primarily from previous mergers and acquisitions activity. Among Europe’s Top 10 indebted companies are five telecom operator groups, with Telefónica sitting on a whopping €73 billion debt pile (Figure 28.8). Telefónica and Portugal Telecom have the highest debt-to-dividend payment ratio, more than 12 percent. Not surprisingly, telecom operator groups have started to look for ways to reduce debt without sacrificing free cash flow for repayment. One recent trend emerged in the form of portfolio optimisation of their subsidiaries. The industry witnessed Deutsche Telekom’s failed attempt to sell its U.S. subsidiary to AT&T and France Telecom’s recent sale of its operations in Switzerland and ongoing sale process in Austria. More announcements of such transactions are expected during 2013, with mobile-only operations expected to be on the top of the “for sale” list.

Mobile Operators Need to Rethink the Value Chain and Their Role In times of flat or even declining revenues, crippling debt, and conflicting demands on cash, telecom operators will not be able to continue with “business

Figure 28.8

Dividend yields of telecom stocks are significantly higher than in other industries. Source: Bloomberg, Dividend Growth Investor, CN Analyst, Arthur D. Little analysis

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Figure 28.9

Partnering enables mobile operators to meet industry challenges, offer new services, and maximise their asset base. Source: Arthur D. Little

as usual.” Because of the transformation of the mobile industry, mobile operators are now beginning to focus on their core competency and using partnerships to cover a broad array of new initiatives. This trend has resulted in a more permeable value chain that requires the mobile operator to determine where to focus its business (Figure 28.9). Market players need to be able to move quickly and respond to customer demands and technological advances. Mobile operators can benefit more from increased customer expectations and technological openness by addressing key areas of the value chain, such as service provision and system integration, as well as partnering with vertical industry players to offer new services to customers, including the following initiatives: • Outsourcing and shared or jointly operated networks: Operators increasingly consider network sharing, assets sales, and managed services if under cost pressure and in order to reduce uncertainty from traffic growth and network complexity. Some mobile operators are combining, outsourcing, or selling their passive infrastructure to an independent tower company in order to raise cash and to focus on more value-adding activities. In addition, the trend towards active network sharing continues to be strong, with a large number of such initiatives around the globe successfully deployed or under way. This leads to a continued stream of “joint network” deployments and wholesale offers, enabling companies to reduce capital expenses and to optimise operating expense.

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• Network abstraction: Operators capitalise on their network assets (e.g., presence, geographic location, traffic management) by providing access to these assets to third parties. One possibility is to participate in the marketplace by cross-selling applications developed by third parties; another is to provide APIs to allow developers to build more intelligent applications. An even more radical approach of abstraction has been deployed by Verizon, which is allowing smaller, regional mobile operators to build wireless networks on its behalf through spectrum lease agreements and a national roaming deal. • Service delivery platforms: Operators are also moving away from silos to reduce costs and accelerate time to market while providing integrated and mashed-up services. This is a clear move aimed at limiting the effect of disintermediation from competitors outside the telecom industry (i.e., OTT). With the advent of such new competitors, mobile operators are also increasingly open to new business models involving freemium and revenue-sharing with their suppliers. • Customer relationships: Operators need to manage content aggregation in a timely manner and take advantage of the “cloud.” They should also manage partnerships so as to have first-mover advantage and differentiate themselves from the competition. Operators can build customer relations via mashed services (own and third party). • Third-party brand management (mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs/fixed virtual network operators, or FVNOs): Operators capitalise on network capacity and acquire “new” channels via commercial partnerships to address untapped segments and niches. The focus mainly is on cherry-picking, and mobile operators are very cautious to avoid potential price wars. Given the radical changes in the mobile industry, it is increasingly necessary to rethink the value chain itself, transforming it from a linear flow chart to an open business model that enables players to fully take advantage of the new opportunities in the market (Figure 28.10). This new framework enables companies to better assess their own, as well as their competitors’, role in the new telecom media market. The position of market players in this new value chain is defined by their role, whether acting as point of contact for the customer, offering retail services, providing content or connectivity, or developing the systems that make it all work. This value chain revolves around the customer and provides a view of the cooperation that is necessary for the more efficient and profitable functioning of the market overall.

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Figure 28.10

The new telecom media value chain enables better strategic positioning analysis. Source: Arthur D. Little

Emergence of Different Mobile Operator Business Models In addition to the value chain positioning, mobile operators will need to decide how they approach convergence of fixed and mobile networks and services (Figure 28.11). In the case of mobile network operators that choose to remain mobile only, we see two main strategic options: • Brand play: The strategic thrust lies in strong branding of services, as well as an excellent customer experience in general. Virgin and Orange, in most of their markets, are good examples of this strategy. These organisations excel at selling products online and promoting agile self-service processes. Such operators also focus on cost-effectiveness, promote a lean organisation, and partner in infrastructure. Subscribers expect flexible and cost-effective tariffs, access to content, and innovative services, as well as a credible image. • Infrastructure play: The priority of such operators lies in providing the best service and network quality possible. In the foreground of the operational model is a network- and IT-focused organisation, mobile virtual network enabler (MVNE) capabilities, and access to capital. Successful operators in this category are Verizon and Hutchison 3G Austria. These operators also build on partnerships and third party

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Figure 28.11

Decision tree for mobile-only telecom operators. Source: Arthur D. Little

brands to achieve economies of scale. Subscribers connect “best in class network” as well as “great quality of service” with these players. Mobile operators that decide to move towards convergence (i.e., also offering fixed services) have a choice of three main strategic options: • Convergence play: These players build on the fixed line infrastructure of the incumbent operator to extend their portfolio towards convergence. Leveraging wholesale access regulation, in particular with regard to next generation access, will be essential for these operators. Although trapped in a “me-too” position versus the incumbent, these operators are very competitive in a mobileonly–dominated market. SFR, as well as o2 Germany, has chosen to move to convergence through such wholesale access, offering to subscribers a converged offer with broad coverage. Such operators excel at portfolio and product management, customer resource management and marketing, and regulatory management. Success can be achieved through smart bundling and limiting complexity. • Merge without merge: A less cash-intensive way of getting access to the last mile on fixed networks is through commercial partnering with a fixed-only player. Comcast and Verizon have recently announced such extensive cross-selling agreements. Cross- and up-selling, as well as value management, are key operational features of this business model. Key skills lie in technological integration and product development for these separate networks.

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• Disruptive play: Another trend is the merger between mobile-only and cable operators. Such a tie-up is a clear challenge to the incumbent, in particular in urban areas, where cable operators are historically strong and can offer substantially higher data rates than xDSL-based operators. The operational focus is on technology management and service differentiation. Subscribers expect fully converged products based on an ultrafast broadband connection with broad coverage. The choice of the strategic path depends, of course, not only on the assets of the company, but also on the market environment. In particular, mobileonly strategies will require backup plans to secure access to fixed infrastructure, should fixed-mobile convergence really become the norm in the telecom industry.

Recommendations to Industry Telecom operators need to adapt quickly to the new reality of competition from their traditional players as well as new competitors from the OTT space, resulting in a number of key actions for the industry: • In mobile, OTT is a direct threat to legacy voice and SMS revenues as SMS can be displaced rapidly by independent and embedded messaging applications. The downside risk remains significant, and operators will need to redouble their efforts to manage the OTT risk actively through a pricing response (tiered pricing or bundling) and/or a product response by offering their own or an enhanced third-party OTT product. Operators could also engage in multifaceted business models by charging OTT players for preferential treatment of their traffic. • In an all-IP world, everything will be connected. This creates opportunities for telecom operators in adjacent markets such as automotive, energy and utilities, and financial services, but most of these are very long-term opportunities. We estimate potential revenues at 4 to 9 percent of large telecom operators’ revenues by 2015, significant but not enough to reverse the overall negative trend. Operators will need to work hard to be positioned for the long term. Large incumbent operators are already laying foundations, with some players radically restructuring to improve their prospects of success (e.g., Telefónica Digital). • In this context of prolonged revenue pressure, telecom operators must accelerate their cost transformation. Operators will need to tap into opportunities for large cost savings, both in operating expenses, by

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shifting more and more customer interactions towards online channels, and in capital investment, through network consolidation and sharing.

Recommendations for Policymakers and Regulators Policymakers and regulators also need to adapt to the new competitive environment and carefully balance the need for consumer protection and investment security in an industry with substantial up-front sunk cost: • Through continued regulatory pressure on wholesale revenues and end-user pricing, most operators have cut down on infrastructure spending, and many operators barely earn their cost of capital. A continuation of the status quo regulatory policy will lead to more companies operating below their cost-of-capital, thereby being unable to justify further investment. This has profound negative consequences for employment in this and related industries and for a country’s macro-economic growth in general. As a consequence, policymakers and regulators in developed markets in particular will need to challenge old ideas and take a fresh look at regulating the telecom industry (e.g., regulate handset subsidies). • A fair and balanced resolution of the Net Neutrality debate by regulators and policymakers will be critical for the long-term financial stability of telecom operators in general and mobile operators in particular. Regulatory actions and/or policy decisions should not be made on a categorical level but only after carefully considering the benefits and drawbacks of measures such as quality of service or double-sided business models, in particular in technologies that represent shared media.

Conclusion Given the market pressures, mobile operators can no longer afford a broad focus but will benefit from rethinking the value chain and their role within it. As a consequence, transforming the value chain into an open business model that more accurately illustrates the strategic realities in the market will be essential. Mobile operators will also need to decide how they approach convergence of fixed and mobile networks and services going forward. In the mid to long

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run, this will result in five different mobile operator business model archetypes. The choice of strategic path depends, of course, on the assets of the company and the market environment. In particular, mobile-only strategies will require backup plans to secure access to fixed infrastructure, should the convergence of fixed and mobile really become the norm in the telecom industry.

Endnotes 1. Global System for Mobile Communications Association press release, October 2011. 2. Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Arthur D. Little, “Multiple Mobile Market Revenue Studies,” December 2011, www.adl.com/OTT. 3. Arthur D. Little, “Disruptive Threat or Innovative Opportunity: Scenarios for Mobile Voice OTT,” November 2011.

C h a p t e r

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Policy and Regulatory Issues in the Mobile Internet Russell Southwood

Editors’ Note: This chapter highlights some of the key regulatory challenges brought about by overlay and convergence of the internet on mobile networks. The mobile phone is becoming both a media platform and media itself. The internet was designed to be open to users through publicly available standards, whereas telephone networks are centralised and generally proprietary. Apps have introduced a new form of hybrid internet. At different times, governments have used different reasons to shut down short message service (SMS) versus the internet (e.g., SMS has broader reach). Commercial players such as Apple also have had their own reasons to block certain apps. These events have different implications for Net Neutrality and freedom of expression. This chapter identifies new challenges in location privacy as well as in further convergence between print, broadcast, internet, and mobile media. The mobile phone is rapidly becoming media, both as a primary source for content and as a platform for delivery of content. With rapid changes in what a mobile phone can actually do, millions of people are using it to access the internet and upload and distribute content. In many developing countries, a mobile phone is the technology device most likely to be owned by people after a radio. The mobile as a medium is relatively young, particularly in developing countries, and may yet catch up with and overtake other media, particularly as local content becomes more widespread. Distinguishing between different types of phones is important to understanding their role as media. In broad terms, there are three different types of mobile handsets: the smartphone, which is a small handheld PC; the feature-rich phone, 539

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which has more limited functionality but can access the internet; and the basic phone, which has voice and short message service (SMS). This stratification will create a mobile digital divide between those who have access to phones providing a wider range of services (smartphones and feature-rich phones) and those who do have only basic phones. And this divide will be one of an increasingly complex set of divides based on device ownership and device access: In many developing countries, few people will have access to PCs and tablets and therefore to the wider functionality of the internet.

Access: Mobile Versus Internet It would be logical to see mobile internet access as simply a subset of overall internet use: It is, after all, just another form of access using a different device. The same might also be said for the use of tablets such as the iPad. However, the rules and processes that have governed the internet so far are very different from those applied by the mobile operators who control access to the internet on their networks. Indeed, the very nature of the networks over which the internet and the mobile internet are delivered differs. From its university origins, the internet was designed to be open to users through publicly available standards, making it easy to access and largely free at the point of delivery. Traditional telephony (out of which mobile telephony emerged) is a highly centralising technology. The “intelligence” in the network is located centrally (the switch) and usually controlled by one organisation. In its historic form, largely “dumb” devices (telephones) were attached to the network, and these had only a limited set of functions. More recently, the functional attributes of devices attached to the network have increased considerably, but this functionality is run centrally. The telephone network’s root and branch structure means that traffic flows to and from exchanges in ways that reinforce this pattern. Mobile operators have sought to work through proprietary systems that allowed the operators to control who had access to their networks and how they were charged for access. Therefore, early content efforts by mobile operators were “walled gardens” (like AOL in the early days of the internet) for which operators could charge, and users had no easy access to the wider internet. With the arrival of applications-based access to the internet (i.e., apps), a new form of hybrid internet has been born, and it is only one symptom of a broader struggle between the traditional values and business assumptions of the mobile operators and the values and assumptions of those who operate

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the internet. Mobile operators fear a loss of control over what are termed value-added services (like charging for content) and a fate as the “dumb pipe” (moving data around at low, commoditised prices). On the internet side, “free at the point of delivery” means that the business model is largely one paid for through advertising. And there is no doubt that Google has a position of considerable market power in terms of internet advertising, on both the PC and the mobile. Its way of operating has increasingly separated other media owners from their traditional sources of advertising revenues. Although the argument is self-serving, media owners observe with some justice that there would not be traffic for content if they did not spend the money they do on creating content: Google is not a significant content producer but rather a search engine and aggregator. The way that internet advertising operates through Google makes it extremely hard for smaller, niche online content (with traffic in the tens or hundreds of thousands) to raise sufficient revenues to survive. If all of the above is true for the internet, it is doubly true for the mobile internet, where Google is again a dominant player. These are not simply moral arguments about values but also practical arguments about how, in financial terms, diverse media will survive and flourish online. The issue of scale of traffic and revenues is particularly acute in developing countries, where online markets are significantly smaller and therefore online advertising revenues through Google are correspondingly lower. Positions on both sides of this divide are often more nuanced, but it is this clash of values and business models that requires policymakers and regulators to ensure, in a defensive sense, that users do not lose gains that have been made since the internet was launched. But, in a positive sense, policymakers and regulators also have to ensure that mobile as media can contribute to the widening of freedom of expression in more and more countries, rather than tightening those rights.

Mobile as Media This chapter deals with issues affecting access to the internet on any device. Some of the issues, such as censorship and Net Neutrality, are huge topics in themselves but need summarising in relation to their impact on mobiles.

Governments’ Power to Shut Down SMS and the Internet This section looks at the political framework that governs whether the service operates or not and the reasons given for closure. A recent example of countrywide closure of both SMS and the internet took place in January 2011 in Egypt and demonstrated that significant parts of the country’s economy

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are internet-dependent, so that if a government shuts down the internet, it also shuts down many parts of the economy. In the wake of Egyptian political activists’ use of Facebook and Twitter to organise protests, other governments have become more nervous and are adopting a more targeted approach. For example, in Uganda in April 2011, the government appears to have blocked both Facebook and Twitter: Users trying to access them got a message saying “Server not found.” But the majority of attention by developing country governments has been paid to the use of SMS messaging to spread campaign news and organise protests and, much less admirably, intercommunal violence. Developing countries’ governments are much more likely to fear SMS communications because the number of people able to send and receive these messages is much larger than those who can receive the internet on their mobile phone. The Indian government put in place bans of various kinds on SMS messaging in Kashmir for security reasons. MTN Cameroon was asked by the government, for “security reasons,” to close its Twitter via SMS service in the wake of events in Egypt. The ban was lifted in April 2011. The Ethiopian government banned SMS for 2 years after the contested elections in 2005. The opposition party Kinijit was particularly effective at using text messaging to mobilise its supporters and get them to the polling booths. When the election result was announced, the government took fright, contested what had happened, and then moved quickly to shut down SMS service to ensure that the opposition party could not use it again. As reported by Josh Goldstein and Juliana Rotich in a case study of the use of digital technologies in the postelection violence in Kenya in 2008, the Kenyan government considered closing down the SMS messaging system that was being used to send hate messages encouraging intercommunal violence. Michael Joseph, then CEO of Kenya’s largest mobile provider, Safaricom, said in a subsequent interview that the country’s mobile phone providers convinced the government not to close down SMS service and instead allowed the mobile operators to send out messages of peace and calm, which Safaricom did to all of its customers. It was also reported that a list of more than 1,700 contacts of individuals who created or forwarded SMS messages to incite ethnic violence had been compiled and was awaiting action by the government. However, the government did ban broadcasting, and this gave Kenya’s bloggers new prominence as one of the few sources of information for what was happening. It also gave birth to the Ushahidi project, which helped track and map violent incidents in the country with both PCs and mobile phones. The internet in Kenya was also used for the same kind of hate messages. For example, “The Kenyan online community, Mashahada, became overwhelmed with divisive and hostile messages,” which prompted the moderators to “shut

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down the site, recognising that civil discourse was rapidly becoming impossible.” However, David Kobia, the administrator of Mashahada, decided to launch a new site a few days later explicitly centred on constructive dialogue. The site, “I Have No Tribe,” promoted a more constructive discourse and demonstrates that “one possible response to destructive speech online is to encourage constructive speech.” In India in September 2010, the Allahabad High Court deferred its verdict on the Ayodhya title suits, a 60-year dispute between Muslims and Hindus regarding a religious site. Violence between Hindus and Muslims can flare up around such events in India, and intelligence agencies believed that “antisocial elements” could use text messages and SMS-based networks to incite rioting. A Home Ministry official told The Hindu newspaper that intelligence agencies and law enforcement officials would be monitoring SMSs and multimedia message services (MMSs) to seek out those fomenting tensions, and bulk SMS and MMS services—defined as more than 10 messages a day for individuals and 100 for companies—were banned for several days. This decision effectively shut down SMS GupShup, an SMS-based social messaging network with 36 million users, for that period. Again, the government was anxious to control any potential for intercommunal violence. These examples illustrate that the new mobile means of communication and access to the internet are intrinsically neither good nor bad but become so through the use that is made of them. Mobile operators can be pressured by governments to shut down the service and have to take the income “hit” from that decision: Their rights are not protected in any way. You can hardly sue the government or the regulator for loss of trade if they are the hand that gives you your licence to do business. So, clearly, there is an issue that affects both citizens and mobile operators that needs to be addressed.

Commercial Companies Exercising Control Over Access to Content Mobile companies and mobile operating system (OS) companies (including Apple, Google, and RIM) have, in several cases, become “gatekeepers” for what can appear on their delivery platforms. This section focuses on commercial terms of entry, and the next section discusses legal frameworks that govern access to different types of content. Mobile operators and mobile OS companies themselves have a dual role in terms of mobile as media. They can be content producers (commissioning and publishing content for their users) and distributors (delivering on behalf

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of other content providers). For their part, content providers currently have four routes to users: 1. They can send SMS (or MMS) information services to subscribers (push services) or only to those who request the service (pull services). In this case, the income from the SMS messages sent is split among the content provider, the SMS aggregator (who works on behalf of the mobile operator), and the mobile operator. 2. They can supply content to mobile operators who run “walled gardens,” content zones accessible only to their users or having services that only their users can access. The income for accessing those services will be split between the mobile operator and the content provider. 3. They can put information up on the internet, which will be accessible only to those with feature-rich devices and smartphones. In this case, most of the services are free at the point of delivery and can be supported by advertising revenues. 4. They can create an app-based service that can be accessed only by the smartphones that support a particular app. In this case, the content provider gets a small sum per user and may also have advertising support. A viable business model usually requires high volumes of users, which may not be available in all countries. The mobile operators and the mobile OS companies have the potential to act as “gatekeepers.” Mobile OS companies can—and have—banned apps from their competitors. For example, Apple’s App Store banned an app for a magazine about Android, something that is perhaps understandable in a highly competitive market. But more worrying was the banning of Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Mark Fiore by Apple. According to a December 21, 2009, email reprinted by Laura McGann at the Neiman Journalism Lab, Apple rejected Fiore’s iPhone app NewsToons because it “contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement which states: Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.” There are two issues here: First, there is an inconsistency in terms of what may appear in a newspaper (a satirical cartoon) or a movie (sexual content) or on the internet and what may not appear on mobiles; second, these decisions are being made by commercial entities rather than governed transparently by

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public law. Apple has said it does not want certain types of content associated with its brand—again, this is the issue of mobile as media versus it being a distribution channel. It is entirely legitimate that a media owner chooses what is published, but this is not the same as a media delivery platform acting as a “gatekeeper.” But the same set of gatekeeping issues exists in relation to SMSs, except that the criteria and process of refusal will more likely be described as a “commercial decision.” This situation does not seem to have occurred yet, but if mobile operators increasingly become both media content providers and media delivery platforms, it is only a matter of time. Therefore one of the key issues is, What rights do content providers have in relation to access to mobile media platforms? One easy response is that if one mobile operator refuses to carry some content, then the content provider can always go to another operator. Competition might obviate the need for any wider controls. But the difficulty with this approach is that many countries have only two operators, and both might have governmentrelated shareholders. Furthermore, even in more competitive markets, sometimes one operator is dominant. For example, in Kenya, Safaricom has around 80 percent of all mobile customers. If it refused to carry particular content (and there is no sign that it has done this), then the other operators could enable the content provider to communicate with only a relatively small section of the population. The key issue is that SMS and apps are media channels, but there are almost no ground rules governing either access to them by content providers and users, on one hand, or the circumstances under which different types of content can be excluded, on the other. Furthermore, if in the future a majority of media users access media via a tablet or mobile handset, what are the rules governing this access? Inevitably, smaller publications and dissident voices might easily be excluded. This future debate has an echo of a long-forgotten set of arguments about what kinds of publications might be distributed in print form: In other words, if the media delivery platforms that deliver to most audiences are a duopoly or triopoly, who provides rules governing access for content providers? If one measure of the health of a democracy is the diversity of voices in its media, who provides safeguards in terms of access to audiences for smaller, lesspowerful content providers? Without a transparent set of rules, government, mobile operators, and OS companies can all take action in a less-than-transparent way, and there are no processes through which such actions can be challenged.

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Terms Under Which Service Is Supplied to User Net Neutrality is a principle that advocates no restrictions by internet service providers (ISPs) and governments on content, sites, platforms, the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and the modes of communication. It has been advocated based on concerns over what ISPs and broadband providers might do on several fronts. In some instances, they have blocked particular websites and particular service protocols—particularly voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and other peer-to-peer (P2P) applications—and in some instances they have blocked out competitors. Net Neutrality advocates believe that telecom companies (including mobile operators) will impose a tiered service model, whereby those paying more will get better speed. Or telecom companies could sell capacity bundles, whereby a user gets a certain amount of data access for a given sum and then pays at a much higher rate for any additional access. In this way, it is claimed, telecoms could remove competition, create artificial scarcity, and oblige subscribers to buy their otherwise uncompetitive services. On content access and speeds, the director general of the U.K.’s public broadcaster (the British Broadcasting Corporation), Mark Thompson, has said that the continued success of online TV services such as the iPlayer could not be guaranteed if ISPs introduced a “fast lane” that would allow them to charge customers for receiving content more quickly. Opponents of Net Neutrality argue that broadband service providers have no plans to block content or degrade network performance for particular categories of users. They argue that the best solution is to provide greater competition among providers, which is currently limited in many areas. An underlying bone of contention is that the newer generation of bandwidth-hungry services and applications requires considerably more investment in larger networks. Because of this, some ISPs have argued that content providers should pay some of the costs through some form of charging system to either users or content providers. By design, the internet protocol contains parameters to request differentiated levels of service, and even today the internet is not the level playing field that Net Neutrality proponents want to protect. Delay-sensitive applications such as voice and live video are given priority over data applications that do not require transmission at the same speed. Calls via the internet to national emergency numbers may be given an even higher priority. The BitTorrent P2P application that is used to share large amounts of data (often of copyrighted material) is widely given reduced bandwidth or even blocked entirely. And in most countries it is normal for ISPs to offer tiered broadband packages with different amounts of bandwidth, whereby users exceeding their monthly

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limit are either throttled down to dial-up speed or pay extra for additional bandwidth used. Nevertheless, many of the issues raised by Net Neutrality advocates touch on concerns that need to be taken seriously, and particularly so in the context of mobile providers. When mobile networks were launched, they were not designed to carry the internet. Their primary purpose was to allow voice communications for the lowest possible overhead in terms of capacity and spectrum; in other words, they were “narrow pipe” networks. Over time, equipment vendors have upgraded mobile networks so that they can carry increasingly large amounts of data. The new generation of smartphones (iPhones, Android-enabled phones, and the latest generation of BlackBerry phones) all encourage users to make far greater use of internet-based services that drive up the need for more capacity on the networks. Clearly the mobile OS companies’ creation of app markets goes against the idea of the internet being free at the point of delivery, but because users have a choice as to whether to use the free internet or buy a paid app, the issue is not currently one that requires attention. It would only be so if mobile operators were to prioritise access speeds for app-based services or in some way privilege their use. There is currently no sign that they will do so. There are clearly concerns arising from the Net Neutrality debate that may yet be addressed. The European Commission announced in April 2011 that it plans to investigate whether European mobile operators are managing wireless internet traffic to discriminate against competitors or consumers who use data-intensive services. European Union telecommunications commissioner Neelie Kroes said she was so far unconvinced that there was a serious problem of this kind or that new legal consumer safeguards were needed. She added, however, “The Commission does not have evidence to conclude that these concerns are justified at this stage but should be borne in mind in a more exhaustive, factfinding exercise” (O’Brien 2011). Critics of the fact-finding exercise point out that mobile operators often do not connect Skype as it competes with their own voice business. The review will ask regulators from European Union member states to examine whether a European telecommunications law that took effect in May 2011 is sufficient to ensure an open internet. The law requires operators to disclose traffic management practices to consumers, gives consumers the right to switch operators in a single day, and gives national regulators the power to set minimum levels of service for mobile internet operators. On the charging side of SMS services, concerns have arisen about how push services are charged for. In developing countries, mobile operators or their content providers will sometimes supply services and deduct the

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amount from the user. The latter may have chosen to use a service once but be unaware that he or she is still being charged. In 2006 in China, the regulator tightened up the regulations governing ringtones in order to ensure that users got a message reminding them of the fees they would be charged.

Privacy for the User Mobile networks store records of phone locations, but access to these records may well be covered by legislation. For example, in the U.K., the police and other organisations have to obtain a court order under the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act. Obviously there may be concerns in countries where there is no clear framework covering access to these records and where bribery may be used by private individuals to obtain them. It was revealed in April 2011 by security researchers that the Apple iOS 4 keeps track of where the user goes and saves every detail of it to a secret file on the device which is then copied to the owner’s computer when the two are synchronised. The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone’s recorded coordinates, along with a time stamp, meaning that anyone who stole the phone or the computer could, with a simple program, discover details about the owner’s movements. Simon Davies, director of the pressure group Privacy International, said, “This is a worrying discovery. Location is one of the most sensitive elements in anyone’s life—just think where people go in the evening. The existence of that data creates a real threat to privacy. The absence of notice to users or any control option can only stem from an ignorance about privacy at the design stage” (Arthur 2011). According to Privacy International, concern is that location databases are extremely useful for police or civil litigants: Requesting mobile phone location information from wireless carriers has become a staple of criminal investigations, often without search warrants being sought. It is not clear how often legal requests for these records have been sent to mobile OS companies. It is important that there are clear rules governing what mobile subscribers can be sent. As a new frontier in communications in the developed world, this issue is just beginning to receive attention. In January 2011, the Communications Commission of Kenya, the industry regulator in Kenya, warned operators and content providers about increasing unsolicited text messages, saying they are illegal and an infringement of personal privacy. The warning came in the wake of the growing number of telemarketing business operators who have swamped mobile phone subscribers with SMS messages on deals and offers for their services and products without first seeking the consent of the subscribers.

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Issues That Affect Content In a way, restrictions on content express broader conflicts about both politics and values in a society. However, it is important that both mobile as a new medium and its use as a channel for internet access are at the forefront of opening up freedom of expression, rather than simply being a closed and more tightly controlled channel than other media. The grounds on which content can be banned from publication are many and various but can broadly be summarised as follows: 1. Issues of racism (sometimes defined as hate speech) 2. Issues of sexual and violent content (sometimes defined as public morals and obscenity, covering portrayal of violence and sexual conduct) 3. Issues of accuracy and fairness (sometimes defined through libel and defamation laws) 4. Issues of privacy (a person’s private life not having a direct public interest) 5. Issues of protecting children 6. Issues of protecting health (in the depiction of smoking, drug abuse, and alcohol use) 7. Issues of reputation of a public figure (for example, Thai royalty or the president of a country) 8. Issues of security (sometimes defined under antiterrorism law) Mobile as a medium and a content delivery platform is affected by two broad types of restrictions on content: first, any effort by governments that includes filtering of the internet, and second, broader laws that cover all media on the basis described above. Much has been written about internet filtering, and its use by the government of China has made it well known globally. Filtering is one of the preferred methods of controlling internet content by governments. For example, from 2006 the Iranian government has used the content control software SmartFilter to censor local Persian-language sites and block prominent English-language sites such as the New York Times, YouTube, Facebook, and others. Sites will be blocked if they “insult sacred concepts of Islam, the Prophet and Imams” and if they spread “harmful and deviated beliefs to promote atheism or promote sinister books” (“Internet Censorship in Iran” 2012). The key issue in terms of controlling mobile content is how the rules governing it relate to other media and the practical means of enforcing controls.

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The key issue here for a number of countries is where “holes” appear in terms of laws or regulations on expression that are not covered by existing law but have serious consequences. The examples of hate speech in the Kenyan postelection violence described above are one example. The exact form of law, regulation, or self-regulation may be debatable, but there is usually widespread agreement that it may be necessary. However, the further we move along this spectrum, there will be far greater disagreement and much less consensus. Content control for security reasons can be seen as a necessary response to an internal or external threat, or it can simply be an excuse for controlling all discussion. In practice, these forms of control are applied differently to different media, which is discussed in the next section. The concern is that whereas the relatively liberal controls applied to the internet have extended the boundaries of what can be discussed, a fear of this relative freedom may lead governments, mobile companies, mobile OS companies, and others to insist that the rules governing content on mobiles should be more tightly drawn to avoid controversy.

How Regulations Are Applied to Different Media As different media have appeared, the regulations and legislation applied to them have also been different. For example, in most countries, the control of what can be broadcast is considerably tighter than what can be published. There seem to be two underlying reasons for this disparity. First, television and radio were more widely used than print media and operated in what was seen as real time; in other words, anything might happen unless there were clearly established rules. Second, both radio and television could be “chanced upon” by viewers or listeners (in other words, a push service) who might hear or see something they considered offensive: an adult made a conscious choice to buy a newspaper (a pull service), whereas a child walking into a room and seeing a programme did not. Hence the use of controlled hours for adult programming that is described as “before and after the watershed” in the U.K. Broadcasting and radio were highly regulated from the beginning of their existence. By contrast, the internet grew out of a completely different context in which its primary purpose and value were the distribution of knowledge and ideas. In reality, its growth was also spurred by adult content and gambling, but with them came all sorts of other developments. Because it was never “licensed” by government, it sat within existing laws but also outside them by the nature of its international governance and operation.

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Arguably, therefore, the internet sets a gold standard in terms of freedom of expression precisely because the most liberal national legislation (wherever that can be found) allows it to operate more freely. The problem for regulators and governments is that the neat boundaries between different media have begun to disappear with the impact of convergence. A newspaper is both printed and online. Mobile TV airs programmes that are both covered and not covered by broadcast regulation. YouTube (and other online video delivery platforms) offers video material that some would argue is the equivalent of broadcasting. Indeed, many broadcasters see themselves as chafing under a far tougher regime than their online equivalents have. As the previous section illustrates, some developing country governments have differentiated between controlling the use of SMS and not necessarily controlling the internet on the basis that one is a mass medium and the other is not yet one. For example, postpaid subscribers in Kashmir can use SMS, but prepaid subscribers cannot. Cameroon’s government chose to close down Twitter by SMS for a period but not Twitter on a PC. Other governments have sought to control certain types of internet software (Facebook, Twitter) that is available on PC, mobile, and tablet because they see them as politically threatening to their own survival.

Conclusions It is important to think about the economic and social dividends provided by the mobile internet as the starting point from which to think about how mobile content regulation will work. U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair Julius Genachowski has said that in creating a framework for the internet, the FCC “would closely monitor the development of the mobile broadband market and be prepared to step in to further address anti-competitive or anti-consumer conduct as appropriate” (Federal Communications Commission 2010). The default position in the treatment of mobile as both a medium and a content delivery platform is that there should be the maximum level of freedom of expression (as with the internet) for pull services: in other words, those services that adults choose to access. Content supplied by mobile OS companies need be governed only by national laws covering content, not by the companies themselves acting as “gatekeepers.” Self-regulation with clear rules and guidelines offers a useful starting point for this discussion, rather than the assumption that all issues of controversy have to be settled by national laws. Attitudes as to what content is acceptable change over time, and self-regulation allows for easier negotiation of the following changes.

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Issues of market power and the business model: Wider public debate and research need to be carried out on issues of dominant power in the online advertising market, the financial terms under which both online advertising and apps operate, and the impact of the current model on both niche media and media in developing countries. Ground rules for closing SMS and internet: The default assumption must always be that these channels of communications are kept open except in the direst of emergencies. Any closure must be applied for transparently through the courts and be subject to legal appeal. The assumption must also be that any closure is kept to a minimum period of time stated in the court application. Governments, in asking for a closure, must also accept some form of liability for lost trade. Hate speech can be dealt with through appropriate legislation. Access for content providers to distribution platforms: No form of communication that might be made in other media (press, radio, and television) should be prohibited by arguing that mobile operates under a different standard. For platform distributors, the key reference point for distributing content should be the laws governing that content, and they should not seek to act as “gatekeepers.” Regulators and policymakers need to ensure that there is healthy competition between distribution platforms (apps and SMS) and that there are no undue barriers to market entry. The only exceptions should be argued for on the basis that they do not meet existing legal requirements. Issues of age can be dealt with in ways already put in place for internet content. Protection of personal privacy: Mobile OS companies need to ensure that users are aware of the information that their handset gathers on them and can opt out of certain functions if they want to do so. Users also need to have the same set of choices and protection against spam messaging. All users need to be protected under existing law against predatory actions by media groups, and any media regulation needs to outlaw the practice. Public interest service requirements: Without necessarily imposing a heavy financial burden on operators, there is no reason certain forms of public interest service requirements should not be imposed. In developing countries, once the network rollout process is largely complete, there is no reason that public obligations on operators might not be changed in form. This change might usefully be done in two ways. First, regulators might insist that mobile operators offer a certain amount of public service–type messages (at a concessionary price) to not-for-profit organisations. Second, the regulators themselves might take a part of the universal access revenues and use it to fund “public interest” content.

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References and Resources Arthur, Charles. 2011. “iPhone Keeps Record of Everywhere You Go.” The Guardian. April 20. www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking-prompts-privacy-fears. Bratsberg, Haakon, and Ole Wasenden. 2004. “Changing Regulation: Impacts on Mobile Content Distribution.” Presentation at the 32nd Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy, Arlington, VA, USA, October 2. web.si.umich.edu/tprc/ papers/2004/373/bratsberg_wasenden_tprc04_mobile_content_distribution_final.pdf. Comstedt, Anders, Eric Osiakwan, and Russell Southwood. 2005. Open Access Models: Options for Improving Backbone Access in Developing Countries. Washington, DC: infoDev/ITU. “Federal Communications Commission, Chairman Julius Genachowski Remarks on Preserving Internet Freedom and Openness, Washington, DC.” 2010. FCC.gov. December 1, 2010. www.fcc.gov/document/federal-communications-commission-chairman-juliusgenachowski-remarks-preserving-internet-f. Hargrave, Andrea Millwood. 2006. Mobile Radio and Self-Regulation. London, U.K.: Stanhope Centre. www.slideserve.com/presentation/69542/Mobile-Radio-and-Self-Regulation. “Internet Censorship in Iran.” 2012. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_ Iran. Kelly, Tim. 2012. “ICT Regulation Toolkit.” infoDev. www.infodev.org/en/Project.14.html. Media Development Authority of Singapore. 2007. “Public Consultation on Policy and Regulatory Framework for Mobile Broadcasting Services in Singapore.” www.mda.gov.sg/Documents/ PDF/Reports/mobj.1167.Mobile_TV_Consultation.pdf. O’Brien, Kevin. 2011. “E.U. to Review Mobile Operators’ Policies on Web Access.” NYTimes.com. April 18, 2011. www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/technology/19data.html?_r=1&. Ofcom. 2008. UK Code of Practice for Self-Regulation of New Forms of Content on Mobiles. London, U.K.: Ofcom. Sarfaraz, Hina. 2009. Freedom of Expression in Dissemination of Mobile 2.0 Content: Pakistan. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1618168.

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Mobiles and the Law Pavan Duggal

Editors’ Note: This chapter by a cyberlaw expert traces the growth of new kinds of crimes in the world of mobiles, ranging from theft of device or information to harassment and child pornography. Governments and legislators around the world have only recently started thinking about how to classify, detect, and deter crime in the world of mobile networks, data, and devices. The chapter compares mobile law provisions in India and the U.S. and makes recommendations for corporate leaders in drawing up policies for use of mobile devices in offices. As mobile phones become more powerful and diversified in terms of information capture, storage, processing, and transmission, they open up ever-increasing risks of cybercrime and call for greater vigilance by citizens and government. Today an average smartphone has more computing power than the computers that sent man to the moon in 1969. In the 1990s, many mobile phones were expensive toys with very expensive talk time. Mobiles today are no longer talking boxes or communication devices; they are now instruments of education and change of lifestyle. Yet governments and legislators around the world have only recently started thinking about how to regulate these mobile devices. Mobile law is the law of the future, but it is at a nascent stage today. Many business users are carrying confidential business data on their mobile phones, and mobiles have become the first form of default storage. But people forget that mobiles can be theft prone and crash prone. The theft of a mobile is often not as important as the loss of valuable information resident therein. The usage of mobiles has thrown up various significant and extremely complicated legal challenges and issues. These issues relate not only to privacy but also to security, and even to liability of the owner of the phone with 555

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respect to illegal activities conducted with the phone. Can a mobile be the basis for a person to be sued? The reality is that if you use your mobile for tweeting while you are angry or in a bad mood and you say something that is defamatory or derogatory, the chances are that you can be sued for such defamatory tweets.

What Is Mobile Law? Mobile law is an emerging area of legal jurisprudence that deals with communication devices and mobile phones. Mobile law can be defined in the following terms: Mobile Law refers to the emerging legal discipline and jurisprudence that impacts, pertains to, is associated with or has a bearing upon complicated legal issues concerning mobiles, communication devices of any kind whatsoever, mobile networks, mobile platforms, mobile computers and laptops, as also all data, and information, in any form, digital or otherwise, which is hosted, generated, sent, received or transmitted, in any manner whatsoever, using the said mobile devices and platforms. The emerging area of mobile law encompasses, within its ambit, complex legal issues and challenges that would impact within the mobile ecosystem, any device, computer, computer system, computer network, computer resources as well as data or information in the electronic form. Mobile law promises to become a much bigger discipline of law as the world progresses towards increasing penetration, adoption, and usage of mobile devices. (Duggal 2011, 18) As a discipline of jurisprudence, mobile law is cutting-edge. The use of communication devices and the data and information resident therein has led to various complex legal issues and challenges all around the world. Different countries of the world are waking up to the need for coming up with enabling regulatory regimes to govern aspects pertaining to use of communication devices, mobiles, and the resident data and information. Varying and complicated legal, regulatory, and policy challenges concerning the use of mobile devices are coming to the forefront, especially in countries where mobile penetration is high, such as India and China. It is expected that over time, mobile law would emerge as a distinct area of legal practice and jurisprudence, given the predominant use of a range of mobile devices.

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Need for Mobile Law Given the size of the mobile userbase in India and China, this chapter is based on some of the stands taken by the relevant governments. Although mobiles qualify as computers and computer systems, there is a need for distinct legislation to deal with them. Issues of mobile law will relate not just to the production, manufacture, sale, marketing, distribution, and related activities pertaining to mobile handsets and mobile devices but also resident data and its transmission, reception, and preservation. The mobile industry needs the enabling support of legislative and legal frameworks. These legislative and regulatory frameworks are critical to support the growth, prosperity, and adoption of mobile devices. India’s mobile law is based on the Information Technology Act of 2000 as amended by the Information Technology (Amendment) Act of 2008. By virtue of the 2008 amendments to the 2000 act, Indian cyber law has for the first time defined the term communication device. These amendments have had the effect of transforming India’s cyber law into India’s mobile law. The definition of the term communication device appears in Section 2(1)(ha) of the amended Indian Information Technology Act of 2000: “Communication Device” means cell phones, personal digital assistants or a combination of both or any other device used to communicate, send or transmit any text, video, audio, or image. This definition is one of the widest possible definitions of communication devices. All kinds of existing and future devices used to communicate, send, or transmit any text, video, audio, or image would qualify as communication devices. The various legal intricacies and challenges relating to the use of mobiles and other communication devices have to be addressed by nations through dedicated legal provisions concerning mobiles, either as separate, dedicated legislation or as dedicated legal provisions in existing law. Mobile phones can, unfortunately, facilitate crimes, criminal activities, and manifestation of criminal intentions. The transformation of mobile phones from mere tools of communication to perpetuators of crime is a distinct trend that has emerged in the past decade and a half. In the early days of mobile use, criminals used mobiles only for communicating with their accomplices about their criminal designs and activities. As mobiles started getting more and more advanced, their new features started providing yet another facet for exploitation. Mobile crime is a relatively new term and refers to all criminal activities and crimes done either using mobile phones or targeting mobile phones, as also mobile networks and data and information resident therein (Duggal 2011, 235).

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Categories of Mobile Crime Mobile crimes can be classified into three main categories. The first category is mobile crime against persons, in which the target of criminal activity using mobile phones is a particular person. Mobile phones are used for the purposes of annoying, harassing, terrorising, defaming, or prejudicially impacting the mental capacities and health of the target individual(s). Prominent mobile crimes in this category would include mobile stalking, mobile harassment, mobile nuisance, and mobile defamation. The second category of mobile crimes would be mobile crimes against property, in which the target of the mobile criminal activity is data and information in electronic form or resident on mobiles, communication devices, and mobile networks. Prominent mobile crimes in this category would include mobile hacking, mobile cracking, and unauthorised use of data or information in electronic form resident on mobiles, communication devices, and mobile networks by persons who have no legal authority, right, title, or interest to access or use it. The third broad category is mobile crimes against nations, whereby the target of criminal activity done using mobiles, mobile networks, or communication devices is a particular nation or particular nations. This category includes mobile crimes targeted at prejudicially impacting the sovereignty or integrity of any country or its security and stability or its friendly relations with other nations. It also includes misuse or abuse of mobiles, communication devices, and mobile networks for the purposes of propagating false propaganda against any particular nation or propaganda that aims to prejudicially impact the sovereignty and integrity of a nation. Criminals and terrorists use mobile phones as a tool for committing these sorts of crimes. Countries such as India have been the target of such mobile terrorist attacks. The following sections describe all these mobile crimes in greater detail.

Mobile Hacking Hacking (also known as cracking) means an illegal intrusion into a computer system and/or network. Every act committed towards breaking into a mobile, communication device, computer, and/or network is hacking. Hackers write or use ready-made computer programs to attack the target computer, mobile, and/or communication device.

Mobile Cyber Defamation This kind of crime has become more prevalent of late. Criminals use their mobiles or communication devices to send derogatory, humiliating, or

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obscene messages by short message service (SMS) or email in order to defame others in the eyes of those who hold them in high esteem.

Mobile Pornography The internet has unfortunately become a conduit for child pornography and networks of child abusers. As more homes have access to the internet and more children use mobiles, children can be at risk of becoming the victims of pedophiles. In India, pornography using a mobile phone is a crime under section 67B of the Indian Information Technology Act of 2000 as amended and is punishable by imprisonment for a term of up to 5 years and a fine of up to 1.000,000 Indian rupees (Rupees One Million only).

Identity Theft Mobile phones can be used for identity theft, and criminals can commit crimes such as subscription fraud using various communication devices.

Cloning of Phones A clone is an analogue mobile phone that has been programmed to impersonate a phone owned by a legitimate subscriber by use of the legitimate phone’s electronic serial number (ESP) and telephone number. These numbers are usually obtained by interception with a scanner radio, theft of a dealer’s or service provider’s records, or directly from the impersonated phone. New types of cloned phones are coming to the U.K. from the U.S. and Hong Kong: “tumbling” phones, which automatically seek an identity from a preprogrammed list, and the most recent “magic” phones, which act as their own scanners, copying identities from nearby phones in use.

Mobile Cyberstalking Mobile cyberstalking can be defined as repeated acts of harassment or threatening behaviour of the cyber criminal towards the victim by the use of mobile internet services. Stalking in general terms can be referred to as repeated acts of harassment such as following a victim, making harassing phone calls, killing the victim’s pet, vandalising the victim’s property, or leaving written messages or objects. Stalking may be followed by serious violent acts such as physical harm to the victim, and the crime has to be treated and viewed seriously.

Denial-of-Service Attack A denial-of-service attack involves flooding the bandwidth of the victim’s network or filling the victim’s email box with spam mail, thereby depriving the victim of service.

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Mobile Virus Dissemination A mobile virus is an electronic virus that targets mobile phones or other communication devices. In typical mobile virus dissemination, malicious software attaches itself to other software.

Mobile Software Piracy Mobile software piracy consists of theft of mobile software through the illegal copying of genuine programs or the counterfeiting and distribution of products intended to pass for the original.

Mobile Credit Card Fraud The crime of mobile credit card fraud is the unauthorised and illegal use of a credit card through a mobile to purchase products and/or services.

Mobile Phishing Mobile phishing is the act of targeting mobile phone users by sending them emails that appear to come from mobile service providers. Mobile phishing also includes the act of sending a user an email that falsely claims to be from an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. At the juncture, it is important to mention the Baazee.com case in India in 2004 (“DPS MMS case”),1 in which a mobile phone was used for recording an obscene mobile message, which was then posted on the online auction portal Baazee.com. The making of such a mobile message clearly is a mobile crime. A perusal of the aforesaid various mobile crimes shows that mobile crimes are beginning to evolve as a major challenge for law enforcement agencies around the world. The aforesaid mobile crimes are only illustrative in nature and not an exhaustive list.

Mobiles and Corporate Data Theft As mobile phones become more powerful and diversified in terms of information capture, storage, processing, and transmission, they open up everincreasing vulnerabilities of theft and abuse of stored emails, songs, videos, calendars, contact details of friends and colleagues, and other personal details. A large number of corporate losses are taking place because of theft of confidential data, trade secrets, and trade information via theft or unauthorised use of mobile phones and communication devices. Corporate losses as a result of theft of confidential data reached $30 million in the U.S. in 2005 alone. According to a Ponemon Institute survey of 945

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employees who lost or left a job in 2008, 59 percent of them admitted to stealing confidential company information. In addition, researchers found that many of these instances of data theft could have been prevented with better data loss prevention policies and technologies (Ponemon 2009). Unfortunately, mobile phones and other mobile devices open up risks via theft of confidential data and trade secrets from the workplace. Further, smartphones with cameras can be a big challenge to the security of enterprises in several ways: 1. Intellectual property, trade secrets, and other confidential and proprietary business information can be captured easily on a camera phone. 2. Customer information such as credit card information and personnel information such as social security numbers can be recorded on a camera phone, and this information may cause damage in the hands of unauthorised individuals. 3. Any unhappy employee can use a phone camera to fabricate health and safety issues in a realistic-looking replica of an actual workplace. Therefore, it is of paramount significance that employers do their level best to protect their confidential data, information, and trade secrets from the prying eyes of cell phones or camera phones.

Case Study: Mobile Law in India In India, prior to the enactment of the Information Technology Act of 2000, in case of breach of any confidential information, parties would normally invoke the provisions of the Indian Contract Act of 1872 in the event of existence of a contract. In the absence of a contract, the parties would sue for damages under the provisions of India’s tort law. The Information Technology Act of 2000 brought a new provision pertaining to breach of confidentiality or privacy and provided criminal penalties. Section 72 of the Information Technology Act of 2000 detailed the criminal offence in the event of a breach of confidentiality of privacy as follows: Save as otherwise provided in this Act or any other law for the time being in force, any person who, in pursuance of any of the powers conferred under this Act, rules or regulations made thereunder, has secured access to any electronic record, book, register, correspondence, information, document or other material without the consent of the person concerned discloses such electronic record,

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book, register, correspondence, information, document or other material to any other person shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine which may extend to one lakh rupees, or with both. (“Information Technology Act of 2000” 2000) A perusal of the aforesaid section clearly shows that, for the first time in legislation impacting electronic format, the legislature had provided a criminal penalty for breach of confidentiality and privacy. However, detailed examination of Section 72 of the Information Technology Act of 2000 demonstrates that this provision was extremely limited in its scope and applicability. This is so because it was applicable only to the persons who were conferred powers under the Information Technology Act and, in pursuance of the said powers, had secured access to an electronic record, book, register, correspondence, information, document, or other material of the concerned person. The Information Technology (Amendment) Act of 2008 introduced a new section, 72A, providing statutory remedy to victims of disclosure of information and breach of lawful contract. Section 72A deals with punishment for disclosure of information in breach of lawful contract and provides as follows: Save as otherwise provided in this Act or any other law for the time being in force, any person including an intermediary who, while providing services under the terms of lawful contract, has secured access to any material containing personal information about another person, with the intent to cause or knowing that he is likely to cause wrongful loss or wrongful gain discloses, without the consent of the person concerned, or in breach of a lawful contract, such material to any other person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine which may extend to five lakh rupees, or with both. (“Information Technology Act of 2008” 2008) One of the biggest advancements made by Section 72A is that it provides for the disclosure of information in breach of lawful contract as a penal offence. The offence is punishable with imprisonment for a term of up to 3 years or a fine of up to 500,000 Indian rupees or both. Section 72 has provided a distinct remedy to victims whose information is disclosed by any person, including intermediaries, in breach of lawful contracts. Section 72A is clearly applicable to any person, including intermediaries. The legislature included the term intermediary specifically because intermediaries today are repositories of third-party information and have been found, in certain cases, to be disclosing information belonging to third parties in

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breach of lawful contracts. Section 72 provides that the following essential ingredients must be fulfilled for the offence to be punishable: • The act must be done by any person including intermediaries. • The said person, including intermediary, should be providing services under the terms of the law of contract. • By providing services under the terms of the contract, the said person has secured access to any material. • The said material must contain personal information about another person. • The said access must be done with the intention to cause or knowing that the said person is likely to cause wrongful loss and wrongful gain. • The disclosure has to be without the consent of the person concerned. • Alternatively, the disclosure has been in breach of a lawful contract. This particular section is of direct relevance to intermediaries and network service providers, especially in the context of the mobile ecosystem. Today, mobile service operators, telecom service operators, telecom value-added service operators, and other content service providers inevitably collect information pertaining to their customers and clients and thereafter, can share the same without the permission or consent of the said customers with their other business partners or other clients. This invariably leads to a tremendous violation of privacy. Section 72A can be directly applicable in the context of the mobile ecosystem, especially with respect to all mobile service providers who, in breach of the lawful contracts with customers, secure access to information containing personal information about other persons and, with intent to cause or knowing that they are likely to cause wrongful loss or wrongful gain, disclose that information without the consent of the person concerned or in breach of the lawful contract to any other person. An offence under Section 72A is a bailable offence and clearly lacks effective teeth, but it is nevertheless an advancement because it labels such acts a crime. The Indian government has not passed specific guidelines pertaining to cell phone and personal digital assistants’ security. Without such specific guidelines, it might be a good idea to follow international best practices pertaining to cell phone and personal digital assistants’ security as industry best practices.

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Case Study: Mobile Law in the U.S. From time to time, the National Institute of Science and Technology of the U.S. Department of Commerce issues guidelines pertaining to security of cell phones and personal digital assistants. These guidelines detail the need for users, companies, and organisations to take effective safeguards ensuring that data and information contained in such cell phones and personal digital assistants are secure from any outside unauthorised access or use. The U.S. has distinct legislation in this regard. The Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), which has been adopted by approximately 46 states, is the basis for trade secrets law. The District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Texas have not adopted UTSA. Some of these states continue to apply common law to trade secrets, and some have adopted separate state statutes. In 2007, UTSA was introduced in both the New York and New Jersey legislatures. On January 9, 2012, New Jersey became the 47th state to adopt a form of the UTSA (Milligan 2012). UTSA imposes civil rather than criminal liability for misappropriation of trade secrets and creates a private cause of action for the victim. Remedies for misappropriation of trade secrets under the Act are injunction; damages, including “exemplary” (punitive) damages; and, in cases of bad faith or willful and malicious misappropriation, reasonable attorney’s fees as well. The act also permits courts to grant protective orders to ensure the secrecy of a trade secret during discovery and to prevent disclosure by witnesses. The Act authorises in-camera hearings to take testimony.

The Road Ahead It is likely that mobiles will increasingly be used as surveillance and preying devices. Already, some companies have begun requiring all their employees who carry mobile phones to their workplace to deposit the phones at one place before they enter their work area so as to ensure that the mobiles do not interfere with the productivity of the employees and are not misused for the purposes of capturing confidential data, information, or trade secrets of the corporate entity. For companies that enter the Indian market and want to protect their confidential trade secrets and confidential data and information from misappropriation via mobile phones, it is important to take various steps to protect the legal interests of the company. Comprehensive employment agreements should set out suitable confidentiality, nondisclosure, and noncompete clauses with respect to employees. These agreements should state specifically that employees will not be

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allowed to use mobile phones, cell phones, personal digital assistants, or any other kinds of communication devices in an inappropriate manner while working at their workplace on the premises of the company. Guidelines should also tell the employee whether to carry such communication devices while on corporate premises. If it is essential for employees to carry their communication devices with them, the employment agreement must include suitable provisions restricting employees from misusing confidential data, information, or trade secrets of the company and from accessing, sending, transmitting, misusing, or handling, in any manner whatsoever, without authorisation, the said confidential data, information, or trade secrets of the company. Furthermore, companies must adopt a trade secrets policy. This is all the more important for businesses that rely heavily on their trade secrets. Trade secrets policies help a company to identify and prioritise its trade secrets based on their value and sensitivity. Companies must also inform their employees of the trade secrets policy and obtain the employees’ written acknowledgement of the policy. Getting appropriate acknowledgement from the employees goes a long way towards preventing abuse of trade secrets via communication devices. Companies also need appropriate security systems that ensure that access to confidential data, information, and trade secrets is restricted to only select personnel or employees who have to undergo proper security checks. In the case of an electronic environment, it is incumbent upon companies to use adequate software programs, virus scans, firewalls, and other security and authentication technologies to safeguard their trade secrets. With time, it can be expected that employees will use their communication devices and cell phones to misuse confidential data and information more frequently. Companies may also need to put in place appropriate technological infrastructures that could capture proof of misuse of confidential information by the communication devices of the relevant employees. It is possible to contractually bind an employee not to disclose the confidential information or data and trade secrets, to which the employee has access, during the term of employment with the company. Courts in India have upheld restrictive clauses in employment contracts that prohibit employees from revealing or misusing confidential data, information, or trade secrets to which the employee has access during the course of employment. Indian courts have also, by and large, granted injunctions to owners of confidential data, information, and trade secrets preventing the disclosure of their confidential data, information, and trade secrets and directing the return of confidential data and information. Furthermore, the law relating to compensation for losses suffered because of disclosure of trade secrets, confidential data, and information in India is also developing.

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Conclusion While the law relating to protection of trade secrets, confidential data, and information is developing in India, there is only a limited legal regime to regulate the use of mobile phones. It will be important to tweak the existing law to not only prevent misuse of cell phones and communication devices but also restore the confidence of the owners of confidential data, information, and trade secrets in the efficacy of the law. This is all the more important given the advent of new mobile technologies that facilitate access and misuse of confidential data, information, and trade secrets. A lot of development has yet to take place in mobile law. This development is most likely to take place in countries where mobile penetration is high and mobile usage is increasing in workplaces by employees of companies, corporations, and other legal entities who give the employees access to confidential data, information, and trade secrets. This is one of the most vibrant areas of growth in mobile law. Laws are essential to provide effective legal remedies to victims of misuse or abuse of confidential data, information, and trade secrets by employees and third parties using their cell phones or other communication devices.

Endnote 1. Crl.M.C.3066 of 2006 decided by the High Court of Delhi on May 29, 2008.

References Duggal, Pavan. 2011. Mobile Law. Dehli, India: Universal Law Publishing Co. “Information Technology Act of 2000.” 2000. Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India. deity.gov.in/content/view-it-act-2000. “Information Technology Act of 2008.” 2008. Ministry of Law and Justice (India). deity.gov.in/ sites/upload_files/dit/files/downloads/itact2000/it_amendment_act2008.pdf. Milligan, Robert B. 2012. “New Jersey Adopts Variation of Uniform Trade Secrets Act.” Trading Secrets. February 3, 2012. www.tradesecretslaw.com/2012/02/articles/trade-secrets/new-jerseyadopts-variation-of-uniform-trade-secrets-act. Ponemon, Larry. 2009. “Data Loss Risks During Downsizing.” Ponemon Institute. February 23, 2009. media.techtarget.com/Syndication/NATIONALS/Data_Loss_Risks_During_Downsizing_ Feb_23_2009.pdf.

C h a p t e r

3 1

Mobile Partnerships and Alliances V. Sridhar

Editors’ Note: This chapter digs into the converging technology changes that are compelling a range of alliances to be formed between various players of the mobile ecosystem. Drivers include market access, economies of scale and scope, and technology control. A range of case studies of such alliances and acquisitions is provided, involving operators, device manufacturers, and internet and social media companies. The centre of gravity in such alliances is shifting from Europe to the U.S., triggering a flurry of acquisitions of patents. The chapter ends with discussions of important issues such as Net Neutrality and provides proactive recommendations for mobile operators, app developers, and policymakers.

Convergence and the Mobile Value Chain Convergence can be explained as the blurring of dividing lines among traditionally distinct products and services, technologies, industries, and markets. The internet is a powerful medium and has embraced convergence quite effectively. Technology convergence has enabled applications and services such as broadband internet connectivity, video on demand, peer-to-peer audio and video sharing, collaborative gaming, and augmented reality on a wide range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and televisions. Industries and markets have responded in turn. Figure 31.1 illustrates how the “walled-garden” approach of the telecom operator has collapsed to include other stakeholder entities in the value chain. There are strong network effects between content and network access service, especially as more and more wireless broadband networks are getting 567

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Figure 31.1

The enhanced mobile value chain

deployed. There are strong complementarities between the two. A network is of no value if content cannot be provided; content is of no use if there is no network to carry it to the end user. The service provider can be facility-based or non–facility-based, such as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) or an internet service provider (ISP). If the service provider is non–facilitybased, it depends on network operators to provide the required capacity. The applications, or more broadly the platforms, enable delivery of content to the end users to provide quality of experience (QoE). The device manufacturers often work with the network operators and service providers to enable devices to operate to access content and application.

Mobile Internet, Smartphones, and Tablets The collaborative competition fuelled by convergence has also given birth to 1) increase in data usage, specifically mobile internet access, and 2) powerful smartphones that enable easy and flexible access to mobile data on the go.

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A recent study pointed out that mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 92 percent from 2010 to 2015, reaching 6.3 exabytes (i.e., 6.3 x 1015) per month by 2015 (Sridhar and Hämmäinen 2011). The study also found that the “mobile-only internet” population will grow 56-fold, from 14 million at the end of 2010 to 788 million by the end of 2015. These trends clearly indicate the possible exponential growth in the use of mobile devices to access internet and bandwidth-intensive applications. Though newer technologies such as long-term evolution (LTE) and LTEAdvanced, which increase speed of access roughly 10-fold, are being deployed, the battle and partnerships have intensified among various entities in the mobile value chain that offer mobile services and the internet firms such as Google that provide content over the internet. The slew of smartphones pioneered by Apple and Google is changing the landscape of the mobile communications industry worldwide: from hardwarecentric to software-centric (viz., the operating platform and associated applications are the key differentiators in the mobile industry), from bandwidth to content (viz., raw bandwidth is being commoditised while content is becoming critical), from Europe to the U.S. (viz., Nokia and the like, once dominant, giving way to Apple and Google), from mobile to internet technology standards, and from de jure to de facto standards. Thanks to the disruptive entry of Apple’s iPad, the tablet market is catching up and even surpassing smartphone sales. Seeing the success story of iPad, many major PC and laptop manufacturers, including Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo, and mobile device vendors, such as Samsung and RIM, have forayed into the already crowded tablet market (Subhash and Sridhar 2011).

The Two-Sided Market and Platforms The availability of feature-rich smartphones and tablets, along with highspeed network connectivity, has ushered in two-sided markets (2SMs) and platforms (Sridhar and Venkatesh 2012). The mobile used to be a simple device when we used it only for making voice calls. However, with the deployment of wireless broadband network services and the availability of powerful smartphones at reasonable prices, 2SMs and the associated platforms are becoming a reality. The same-side network effect that is often present in homogeneous voice networks is well known. The more the number of users in a circle or network, the more the network is of value. However, in a typical 2SM, there are two sets of users who complement each other’s usage, thereby increasing the network effect for enhanced value for both. In the smartphone market, the user of the mobile device on one side and the application developers on the other side create strong cross-side network effects to complement each other,

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as shown in Figure 31.2. One cannot exist without the other. The platforms that provide the glue for these two sets of users to interact are particularly important in this context. Success of the platform depends on the number of users on each side and the usage across the platform. In a 2SM, applications and content provide the required glue between users and developers to sustain the cross-side network effects—with the application store serving as the meeting place where users find the applications and content they need. Developers try to woo users by striving to design apps that are rated at the top of the downloads list. Apple, through its iStore, managed to create strong cross-side network effects for the content providers to build more and more interesting applications. The applications in turn increased sales of the iPad, leading to spiralling growth. While Apple’s App Store and Google Play for Android have clocked more than 1 million and 700,000 applications, respectively, as of December 2012, Nokia-Micrsoft and RIM are struggling with about 50,000 applications, as a result of their failure to create the required cross-side network effects, which bring on board the partnerships between device manufacturers, platform providers, and operators.

The Open Source Movement and Collaborative Innovation Important differences exist between Apple and Google. Google fuelled the collaboration between mobile application developers, independent software vendors (ISVs), and device manufacturers through its Android platform. Although the open source software movement just did not take off in the PC world, thanks to the close control of the market—of both consumers and developers—by Microsoft, things are very different in the mobile space. Google’s Android is being willfully accepted by all stakeholders, including developers, handset makers, and consumers, as the default operating system (OS) for mobiles, as well as consumer electronics. The proprietary platforms

Figure 31.2

Model of cross-side network effect

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are withering. The huge direct and indirect network externality effects of open platforms and OSs have helped Google make giant strides in this space, in which it did not have any presence at all a couple of years ago. The order of things here is collaborative innovation (Mody and Sridhar 2011). Firms do not have to invent on their own from the basics. The “flat world” has opened up avenues for tapping the innovative potential of millions of individuals and small firms across the world and garners them for competitive advantage. With this as the backdrop, this chapter critically analyses the partnerships and alliances in the mobile space.

Motivation for Partnerships In a classic article, Grover and Saeed (2003) pointed out the following as the strategic directions for the mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships among the various players in the telecom value chain: 1. Market access: Enter into hitherto unexplored markets to acquire customers. This may be driven by saturation of the existing market, geography, or the desire to grow outside domestic markets. 2. Economies of scale and scope: Acquire or merge to achieve complementary synergies and develop a more comprehensive product or service set. To achieve “economies of scale and scope,” firms acquire networks and customers from existing service providers for expanding their operations. 3. Controlling technology: Enter into partnerships to control emerging technologies. 4. Technology hedging: Enter into hitherto unknown technology areas because of the promise of futuristic technologies.

Market Access Partnerships between different firms in the industry evolve first to achieve larger “market access.” Since telecom requires high sunk cost in developing networks, many companies try to enlarge market access by buying networks from existing service providers. An excellent example of the leverage of the 2SMs and associated cross-side network effects can be seen in the exclusive partnership between AT&T Wireless and Apple. Apple gained access to AT&T’s millions of wireless subscribers for selling its iPhones, while AT&T gained subscriptions from the loyal fans of Apple. In April 2011, Microsoft partnered with Nokia to build Nokia phones using the Microsoft Windows OS. A laggard in mobile platforms, Microsoft gained

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entry into the market through the well-entrenched veteran Nokia. Nokia’s Symbian OS, on the other hand, has been steadily losing market share to market leaders such as Google Android and Apple iOS. Hence Nokia’s alliance with Microsoft underlines the tectonic shift in the mobile handset space from hardware to software. Another notable one is the acquisition of Hutchison’s stake in a mobile operator in India for $11.1 billion, whereby Vodafone entered the high-growth Indian market and hedged it against the saturating European markets (Sridhar 2008). The same holds for Telenor of Norway, Maxis of Malaysia, Sistema of Russia, and SingTel of Singapore in their forays into emerging markets such as India (Sridhar 2012).

Economies of Scale and Scope Since telecom requires large investment in developing networks, apart from market access, many companies try to achieve “economies of scale and scope” by buying networks from existing service providers. According to Stanley Sigman, CEO of Cingular in the U.S., one of the main reasons for taking over AT&T Wireless in 2004 in a whopping $41 billion deal was to combine the assets of these two companies to take advantage of economies of scale and scope to be the “best in class” (Sridhar 2006). The recently barred acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T Wireless for $39 billion is a case in point. The merger would have allowed AT&T to consolidate its spectrum asset, to get captive subscribers of T-Mobile, and to bring in economies of scale to push ahead of Sprint. However, this consolidation was considered as limiting competition, and hence the U.S. Department of Justice blocked it. Bell Atlantic, NYNEX, and GTE, all local service providers, merged to become Verizon during the 1980s and 1990s to leverage the economies-of-scale effect (Sridhar 2003). SBC Communications’ 1996 merger with Pacific Telesis for $16.5 billion also demonstrates this reasoning. WorldCom was built on 60 mergers and still controlled 50 percent of the U.S. internet backbone market at one time. Economies of scope refers to a broadened array of offerings through partnerships and alliances. In the U.S., for example, AT&T, the long-distance operator, acquired cable companies such as Media One and TCI, mainly to enter into customer premises to provide cable telephony service, expanding its offerings from the traditional long-distance telephony service. For more than two decades, Cisco and AT&T have collaborated to provide value and leadership in enterprise networking. In fact, AT&T currently offers more Cisco-certified managed services than any other provider in the world. AT&T–Cisco Telepresence solution allows companies to extend multipoint meetings beyond the enterprise boundary to help enable meetings with customers, suppliers, and partners via the AT&T Business Exchange. WorldCom’s 1997 takeover of MCI for $37 billion for integrating telephony and internet,

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and the disastrous $160 billion AOL-Time Warner merger for offering a bundle of internet and TV broadcasting are examples of partnerships for expanding the service offerings. The acquisition of Instagram by Facebook for $1 billion just before its initial public offering demonstrates how Facebook planned to integrate the photo editing and sharing platform of Instagram to enhance the scope of its social networking to provide added value to its users.

Technology Control In the developed economies, the dominant strategy of most of the telecom players has been partnering to battle for supremacy through “control of technology.” Seeing the future of Telepresence, Cisco also acquired Norway-based Tandberg, the maker of video conferencing solutions, for $3 billion in 2010 to retain leadership in video and Telepresence space. In 2012, Cisco acquired U.K.-based NDS, a pay-TV software firm, for $5 billion in order to get into the domain of conditional access for TV riding on Cisco’s IP-based TV set-top boxes. In emerging economies including India, Airtel, the largest mobile operator, struck a mega outsourcing contract on its entire network management and operations with Nokia Siemens and Ericsson (Sridhar 2006). One of the reasons was to transfer technology obsolescence and infrastructure upgrading risk to equipment manufacturers. Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011 to take control of Skype’s widely used voice over internet protocol platform and possibly venture into the telephony market. Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in 2012, mainly to get access to more than 17,000 Motorola patents (plus 7,500 applications in progress) in the wireless domain, which Google, having none, needed in order to compete against Apple and Microsoft. Table 31.1 gives a list of recent examples of telecom partnerships that have occurred with the motivating factors discussed previously. As can be seen in the table, most of the partnerships with the main objective of market access and economies of scale and scope are among network providers and equipment makers. However, the New Age partnerships between application and content firms aim to achieve technology control.

Mobile Follies Firms in the mobile space not only partner but also fight against each other to keep control over technology and market leadership. Patents have always played their part in shaping the telecom industry, but as the 2G and later 3G telecom standards matured, things began to settle down, with clearly established patent winners. At this stage the entry of new players in the smartphone arena, along with the explosive growth of smartphones, reignited a fresh round of patent wars.

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Table 31.1

Examples of Alliances and Partnerships

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The players in this struggle can be classified as follows: 1. New entrants: User experience players. These new players mainly hold patents related to application stack, user interface, and user experience (UX), that is, in the higher layers of a smartphone. To protect their innovation from being copied by old or new players, they use their patents to both attack and defend. A clear case is Apple, with its arsenal of UX patents, including Siri for voice recognition and gesture-based interfaces. These new entrants mainly have nonessential patents and design patents in their patent arsenal. 2. Incumbents: Wireless telecom veterans. These incumbents predominantly hold patents relating to the core 2G and 3G standards, their implementation, and related technologies that are in the lower software layers of smartphones. These patents are mostly essential patents related to the standards. Examples include Motorola and Nortel. The much publicised acquisition of the bankrupt Canadian telecom giant Nortel’s patents by the consortium of RIM, Microsoft, and Apple for $4.5 billion at a rate of $750,000 per patent and later Google’s $12.5-billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility mainly for its 24,500 patents brings into the limelight the importance of patents, especially those in the telecom space, for software firms. The patent thicket in the mobile handset space is depicted in Figure 31.3. Furthermore, there is a massive patent thicket in the much-hyped social networking space. It is estimated that when someone is developing a social network application, the developers have to be concerned that they might get sued over upwards of 30,000 patents.

What to Expect in the Future As applications and content gain more importance in today’s mobile world, what are the traditional telecom firms thinking? Net Neutrality and its aftereffects are on their minds. Since the mobile access network is an essential facility, the mobile operator that stands tall in the middle of the 2SM (viz., consumers and application and content providers) often reigns supreme and protects its turf by using the walled-garden approach (Sridhar and Subhash 2011). This approach is often felt in markets where high-end smartphones are bundled with 2 or 3 years of service agreement and sold by the mobile operators. In a classic case of such restrictive practices, AT&T Wireless, the U.S. mobile service provider that bundles iPhone handsets along with its access service, put restrictions on iPhone applications such as Sling Player and

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Figure 31.3

Patent thicket in mobile space. Source: Masnick 2010

Skype to run on its 3G network, citing their extensive use of access bandwidth, which would deprive the other genuine users from using their network. Skype had to restrict its almost free internet telephony application designed for iPhone to make it work on the public Wi-Fi network but not on AT&T’s 3G wireless data connection. Only this restricted application is available through the App Store. The proponents of Net Neutrality, mainly internet geeks, want prohibitions against such blockages of content and applications, especially those that are bandwidth intensive. In a competitive market, it should not be in the interest of the access service provider such as AT&T to constrain a customer’s ability to access particular content or applications (Venkatesh and Sridhar 2009). Net Neutrality advocates also argue that regulators should restrain or constrain the ability of network operators to enter into the production of content or application. Through its bundled offering, AT&T controls the way in which applications are made available to subscribers through its mobile network. Bundling safeguards the walled-garden approach practiced by the operators. Until recently, most countries in Europe did not allow bundling, so that subscribers could have freedom of choice of content or application.

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There are theoretical models that explain why operators should not be charging content providers for gaining access to the network and should share more revenue with content providers. These models evaluate the tradeoffs in the 2SM, where on one side the subscriber pays the operator for access and content and, on the other side, the operator pays a percentage of content revenue to the content provider and charges the content provider for access to the network. A smaller revenue share by the operator to the content provider would increase the marginal cost of the content and hence increase the final price that consumers would pay. In December 2010, in a partial nod to Net Neutrality and to the satisfaction of mobile operators, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the U.S. ruled that wireless service is different and still evolving, compared with wire-line services, and laid down lenient rules regarding blocking, prioritising, and pricing of content. These developments indicate that innovations continue to happen in the internet and content world and that the mobile operators cannot be content with the FCC ruling. They either embrace the developments and become part of the ecosystem or continue to innovate to provide better value to the customers. The patent wars, associated intellectual property infringements, and the importance of network content also have an effect on national security and prohibitions. A German court in 2011 issued an injunction preventing the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Samsung smartphones from being sold throughout the European Union, thanks to Apple’s lawsuits. The Australian government barred Huawei from bidding for its $38 billion national fiberoptic network for security reasons. In October 2012, the U.S. Congressional panel concluded that ZTE and Huawei pose a national security threat and that both should be banned from doing business in the country. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Orkut, and even Google are engaged in a censorship battle against the Indian government over blocking of abusive content. Can customers finally become kings, having absolute discretion to choose the service, content, and application they need at good prices and of adequate quality? This is the ultimate test of convergence, 2SMs, Net Neutrality, and the blossoming alliances and partnerships in this space.

Conclusions and Recommendations Given the trends in technology, 2SMs, and Net Neutrality, the following recommendations are offered for mobile operators:

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1. Shed the walled-garden approach. Embrace the paradigm of 2SM and partner with content providers and application developers so that the bandwidth they offer to their subscribers has value. 2. Work with the network equipment manufacturers closely to upgrade their network in tune with capacity to meet the explosive pent-up demand for data and internet usage. Recommendations for regulators and policymakers include the following: 1. Although the FCC has taken the initial steps, the European Union is behind in the enactment of policies relating to Net Neutrality. The call for network neutrality regulation is a classic example of a situation in which making ex ante prohibitions could be very costly socially (Sidak 2007). Thus, a framework for selective application of the principles, along with significant market power determination, is required. 2. Partnership is the norm across the entities in the value chain. Hence regulations and policies should promote a merger and acquisition framework that does not hinder formation of such partnerships. Recommendations for content and application developers are as follows: 1. Although content is king in the wireless broadband space, content and app providers should not underestimate the value of the last-mile access provided by mobile operators. Hence a sharing relationship is required between the two in order to gain from the cross-side network effects. War and friction between the two entities will result only in consumer loss. 2. App and content providers should be innovative in their development and not forget the value that other entities, such as mobile operators, will derive by allowing their application and content to be accessed by consumers. The “tragedy of the commons” principle should be borne in mind by every developer to reinforce the fact that bandwidth is not infinite.

References Grover, V., and K. Saeed. 2003. “The Telecommunication Industry Revisited.” Communications of the ACM 46 (7): 119–25. Masnick, M. 2010. “Meet the Patent Thicket: Who’s Suing Who for Smartphone Patents.” Wireless by Tech Dirt. October 8, 2010. www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20101007/22591311328/ meet-the-patent-thicket-who-s-suing-who-for-smartphone-patents.shtml. Mody, R., and V. Sridhar. 2011. “Changing World Order in IT, Telecom.” Economic Times. January 10, 2011. economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/guest-writer/changing-world-order-in-ittelecom/articleshow/7250678.cms.

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Sidak, G. 2007. “What Is the Network Neutrality Debate Really About?” International Journal of Communication 1: 377–88. Sridhar, V. 2003. “Is Telecom Fit for Mega Mergers?” Economic Times. December 22, 2003. articles. economictimes.indiatimes.com/2003-12-22/news/27548265_1_cellular-service-unifiedtelecom-licence-unified-licensing. ———. 2006. “Mega Telecom Partnerships.” Financial Express. September 12, 2006. www.financial express.com/news/mega-telecom-partnerships/177329. ———. 2008. “Blossoming Telecom Partnerships.” Economic Times. March 26, 2008. economic times.indiatimes.com/opinion/guest-writer/blossoming-telecom-partnerships/article showarchive/2899540.cms. ———. 2012. Telecom Revolution in India: Technology, Regulation and Policy. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press. Sridhar, V., and H. Hämmäinen. 2011. “Mobile Internet: Indian Telecom Leading the Way.” DataQuest, July 15, 34–35. Sridhar, V., and P. Subhash. 2011. “Threat to Walled Garden.” Business Line. April 4, 2011. www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/eworld/article1594587.ece. Sridhar, V., and G. Venkatesh. 2012. “The Mobile Platform Wars: A Two-Sided Market View.” DataQuest, April 15, 58–60. Subhash, P., and V. Sridhar. 2011. “iCloud, A New Ballgame for Apple.” Business Line. August 8, 2011. www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-eworld/article2334244.ece. Venkatesh, G., and V. Sridhar. 2009. “Let the Traffic Flow.” Business Line. September 14, 2009. www.thehindubusinessline.in/bline/ew/2009/09/14/stories/2009091450080300.htm.

About the Contributors Tomi Ahonen is an author, consultant, and motivational speaker. His books include Services for UMTS, m-Profits, 3G Marketing, Communities Dominate Brands, Digital Korea, and Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media. Ahonen has pioneered industry concepts, including the hockey sticks theory, Connected Age, and the 7th Mass Media taxonomy. His reference list includes Nokia, Ericsson, HP, Vodafone, Siemens, NTT DOCOMO, and other industry powerhouses. He is a supporter of the Mobile Monday (MoMo) movement and spoken at numerous MoMo chapters. Ahonen serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Telecommunications Management and is an editor at the Forum Oxford Journal. Twitter: @tomiahonen Websites: www.communities-dominate.blogs.com, www.tomiahonen.com Ken Banks devotes himself to the application of mobile technology for positive social and environmental change, and is the developer of FrontlineSMS, an award-winning text messaging system. He was awarded a Stanford University Fellowship in 2006 and named a Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow in 2008. He was named a Laureate of the Tech Awards in 2009, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer in 2011, and an Ashoka Fellow in 2011. He was the recipient of the Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest and the Curry Stone Design Prize, both in 2011. Twitter: @kiwanja Website: kiwanja.net Kate Blatt is director of public relations at FICO, a company specialising in decision management tools and technologies. Based in San Francisco, she was previously director of public relations at iPass and group PR manager at Adobe Systems. Blatt’s prior PR experience also includes stints at Blue Martini, Abilizer, Netscape, and InSoft. She has a degree in public relations and political science from Syracuse University.

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Tobias Brockmann is a doctoral researcher in communication and collaboration management at the University of Muenster, Germany. He studied information systems at the University of Muenster. While finishing his master’s degree, he worked as a consultant for process management in public administrations. His main research fields are communication behaviour analysis of the mobile knowledge worker and the adaption process of mobile applications in enterprise systems. Brockmann is a voluntary blog-author at Germany’s most read mobile blog, www.mobile-zeitgeist.com. Twitter: @wikuk Website: www.wi.uni-muenster.de/kuk Roxana Barrantes Cáceres is executive director of the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos. She is also a professor in the Department of Economics at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Her main focus is in regulation and privatisation of infrastructure sectors, and environment and natural resources. She has served as staff and member of the board of directors of the Peruvian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (OSIPTEL), and consultant to the Transport Regulatory Commission in Peru (OSITRAN) and to the Inter American Development Bank. Currently, she serves on the steering committee of DIRSI, the Latin American and Caribbean research network on ICT regulation to foster inclusion by the poor into the information society. Yi-Fan Chen is an assistant professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She has a PhD in Communication, Information, and Library Studies from Rutgers University, and a Masters in Communication Studies from Marshall University. Her work has been published in the Intercultural Communication Studies, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Journal of Cyber Culture and Information Society, and Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies. She has also taught courses in persuasion, journalism, and mass communication in Taiwan. Her research is in the interplay between technologies, social processes, and interpersonal relationships. Twitter: @yifanchen Anir Chowdhury is the policy advisor of the Access to Information Program, Prime Minister’s Office, Bangladesh, where he coordinates policy formulation and nationwide implementation of e-governance. He is a member of the National Digital Task Force and National ICT in Education Task Force. He cofounded several software and IT strategy companies, and ICT4D/e-learning nonprofits in the U.S. and Bangladesh. Chowdhury graduated magna cum laude in computer science and applied mathematics from Brown University, and studied management, marketing, and education reform at Harvard and Columbia. His interests include co-creation of e/m-services, wide-scale

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adoption of open source/content, community empowerment, and youth development. Twitter: @anirchowdhury Lawrence ‘Lars’ Cosh-Ishii is the director of Mobikyo. Based in Tokyo since 2001, Cosh-Ishii has gained a unique understanding of, and developed a strong personal network with, telecom carriers and hardware and device makers, as well as content, application, and service providers in Japan and overseas. As founding partner of Wireless Watch Japan, he serves as director of Mobikyo, which also organises Mobile Monday Tokyo events and operates Mobile Intelligence guided missions, while providing related custom research and advisory services. Often quoted by overseas media, he regularly speaks at global industry events and is a frequent contact point for visiting executives. Website: about.me/Laars Pavan Duggal is an expert and authority on cyberlaw and mobile law. He is a practicing advocate at the Supreme Court of India. He has been a consultant to UNCTAD and UNESCAP on cyberlaw and cybercrime, consultant with the Council of Europe on Cybercrime, and reviewer for Asian Development Bank. Duggal is a member of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center Panel of Neutrals. He has been a member of the Public Interest Registry’s Advisory Council and is also a member of the UNICT Task Force’s Policy and Governance Working Group. He has published six books and been a columnist for the Economic Times for eight years. Mireia Fernández-Ardèvol is a full-time PhD researcher at the IN3 – Open University of Catalonia and co-director of the research program Mobile Communication, Economy & Society. She is as well a part-time lecturer in the Department of Econometrics, Statistics and Spanish Economy, University of Barcelona. Mobile communication has been one of her main areas of study since 2003, with a combined sociological and economic focus. Her interests are set both in developed and in developing countries. She also focuses part of her research on the study of economic activity and innovation in small and micro firms. Twitter: @mireia Website: www.femrecerca.cat/mireia John Gallagher is director at the Brunswick Group in San Francisco and previously was director for analyst relations at iPass. He is the author of the iPass Mobile Workforce Report and was previously investor relations officer at Global IP Solutions (acquired by Google). Gallagher has worked in the technology media sector in the U.S. and Europe. His prior media experience

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includes managing editor at the American Irish Media network (AIM) and marketing specialist at Rovi Corporation for clients such as Macrovision. Lynne Gallagher is president of Telecom/Telematique. She has consulted extensively for USTDA, ITU, United Nations, European Union, U.S. Department of State, USAID, and national governments and technology corporations. She has conducted studies in telecom policy, regulation, infrastructure, and e-government in a number of emerging economies, ranging from Colombia and Croatia to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. She has implemented distance learning courses to train telecom managers and specialists in 25 countries. Gallagher graduated from Stanford University with a degree in communications and journalism, and from the University of Colorado with an MBA and Masters in Telecommunications. Anuraj Gambhir has worked in the mobile telecommunications industry for more than two decades across the mobile value web and devices ecosystem, in four continents. He has worked for NASA/JPL, SingTel Optus, Logica/Aethos, T-Mobile, Orange, GSM Association, Sharp, Siemens/BenQ mobile, Spice, and Ericsson. Some of his contributions and involvements include NITZ (Network Identity and Time Zone ETSI standard), COW (Cellon-Wheels), integrated cameraphones, laser micro-drive-based movie phones, and, currently, India’s low-cost indigenous mobile tablet (Aakash). He is a strong believer in innovation as a “heartset” and the notion of “simplexity.” He graduated from the University of NSW (Australia). Aileen Agüero García has been an economist at the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos since 2006. She has worked extensively in ICT and development in Latin America and also in Asia during her six-month internship at LIRNEasia, and in telecommunications policies in Latin America (especially broadband policies). Other research topics of her interest include rural development, poverty, and public utilities regulation. She is also a teaching assistant at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Twitter: @AAileen Dr. Phil Hendrix is the founder and director of immr, a research and consulting firm that helps clients bring innovative new products and services to market. He is also an analyst at GigaOm Pro, focusing on mobile, location, and m-commerce. His recent reports include “SoLoMo: Empowering Consumers” (September 2011), “Market Outlook for Tablets” (April 2011), and “Location: The Epicenter of Mobile Innovation” (February 2010). Dr. Hendrix was previously a partner with DiamondCluster (now PwC Advisory) and a principal

About the Contributors 585

with Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman). He was formerly professor at Emory University and the University of Michigan. Twitter: @phil_Hendrix Dayle Kern is the communications officer at the mHealth Alliance, which is hosted by the United Nations Foundation. Her professional background has focused on health communications with experience at the American Diabetes Association’s national office and the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. She has spoken on several topics, such as interactive marketing to build customer loyalty through social media, blogging, and new media for nonprofit associations. She has also worked with public schools in the U.S. and Japan. She holds a Masters in Sustainable Development from the SIT Graduate Institute. Dr. Seang-Tae Kim is the president of the National Information Society Agency (NIA) of South Korea. He was a member the South Korean Prime Minister’s Informatisation Promotion Advisory Committee from 1998–2004, member of the Special Committee for e-Government (advising body to the president) from 2001–2003, and dean of the Graduate School of Governance of Public Administration at Sungkyunkwan University from 2005–2008. He currently sits as a commissioner of the ITU-UNESCO Broadband Commission. Dr. Kim has a BA from Seoul National University, a Masters in Politics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a PhD in Public Administration from the University of Georgia. Twitter: @stkimkorea Ada Kwan is a researcher in the Centre of Evaluation Research and Surveys (CIEE) at the Mexico National Institute of Public Health (INSP) and an affiliate of the Consortium for Research on HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis (CISIDAT) in Mexico. Her research addresses how to utilise mobile phones in maternal and child healthcare services; national health insurance schemes; and development in business, agriculture, and education sectors. She has worked with the Rockefeller Foundation, Grameen Foundation, United Nations Foundation, and mHealth Alliance. She holds a Masters in Health Sciences from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Dr. Rich Ling is a professor at the IT University of Copenhagen and at Telenor’s research institute located near Oslo, Norway. He has also been visiting professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and is the author of New Tech, New Ties: How Mobile Communication Is Reshaping Social Cohesion; The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phone’s Impact on Society; and Mobile Phones and Mobile Communication (with Jonathan

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Donner). Dr. Ling has published numerous articles and organised academic conferences around the world. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Osama Manzar is the founder and director of the Digital Empowerment Foundation. He is a pioneering social entrepreneur and has been recognised as a British Chevening Fellow in 2002. In 2011, he was invited by the U.S. State Department for the International Visitors Leadership Program. Manzar’s most recent publication is NetCh@kra: 15 Years of Internet in India; other titles include e-Content: Voices From the Ground, Internet Economy of India, India’s Best e-Contents, and Development and Digital Inclusion. He is chairman of Manthan Award for Digital Inclusion and mBillionth Award for Mobile Innovations. He writes columns for Mint. Twitter: @osamamanzar Website: www.DEFindia.net Jon Mason is the e-learning director at the Centre for School Leadership and Learning Development at Charles Darwin University. He was previously director and principal consultant at InterCog in Australia, associate editor at International Journal of Learning Technology, and program director at the World Computer Congress 2010. Mason has also been a member of the advisory board at the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. He graduated from Queensland University of Technology, University of Canberra, and University of Melbourne. He has established international networks in ICT, e-learning, and knowledge management. His aim is to find the “sweet spot” between organisational hierarchies and networks, tribes and teams. Twitter: @intercog Patricia Mechael is the executive director of the mHealth Alliance and faculty at the School of International and Public Affairs and Earth Institute, Columbia University. She has been involved in international health for 15 years with field experience in more than 30 countries, primarily in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. She was previously director of strategic application of mobile technology for public health and development at the Centre for Global Health and Economic Development at the Earth Institute. She has a Masters in Public Health and Hygiene from the Johns Hopkins School and a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Bashir Patel has more than 35 years of experience in the telecommunications industry covering new technology developments. He has managed major projects including development and launch of low-cost satellite systems and regional development dealing with multiple stakeholders

About the Contributors 587

including governments. He has pioneered rural village phone networking projects based on using low-cost satellite technology. Patel has held various positions at British Aerospace, International Mobile Satellite Organisation (Inmarsat), ICO Global Communications, and, more recently, Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation. He has a wealth of experience specifically in the markets of Europe, Central and Western Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Twitter: @bashpat Andrew Pearson is the president of Intelligentsia, a leading digital marketing, mobile, and social media company. With a degree in psychology from UCLA, Pearson has had a varied career in IT, marketing, mobile technology, social media, and entertainment. Raised in Singapore and educated in England and the U.S., he is a sought after speaker and a noted columnist. He has written for the Mobile Marketer and ComputerWorld HK on such topics as mobile, social media, and cloud technology. His book The Mobile Revolution is on its second edition and is available at Amazon.com. Twitter: @Qualexasia Website: www.intelligentsiafilms.com Dr. Stephen Quinn is digital development editor at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He trains journalists in multimedia skills, focusing on the mobile phone. From 1996 to 2011, Dr. Quinn, an Australian, was a journalism professor in Australia, the UAE (where he freelanced for the Middle East Broadcasting Center), U.S., and China. Between 1975 and 1995, he worked for Australian newspapers, the Bangkok Post, the U.K.’s Press Association, BBCTV, ITN, The Guardian, and TVNZ. Dr. Quinn has written 17 books. The most recent, the third edition of Mobile Journalism in the Asian Region, was published in 2012. Twitter: @sraquinn Dr. Pamela B. Rutledge is an author, consultant, and director of the Media Psychology Research Center. Her current research focuses on the development of an evaluation model for optimal user experience in interactive, trans-media, and blended reality applications. The author of numerous articles and a frequent presenter, Dr. Rutledge is also adjunct faculty at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology and an instructor of social media marketing at University of California–Irvine. She holds a PhD in Media Psychology from Fielding Graduate University and an MBA from the Drucker School of Business. Twitter: @pamelarutledge Website: www.mprcenter.org

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Partha Sarker works with telecentre.org to help build up and support online knowledge sharing projects. He has been involved with ICT4D domain for quite a long time now and co-founded a citizen network, bytesforall.org, in South Asia. His areas of interest and expertise include community building, open access, telecentres, and business models in distributed networks. Website: www.telecentre.org Clemens Schwaiger is a manager with Arthur D. Little’s TIME (Telecommunications, Information Technology, Media and Electronics) practice and leads the global Competence Centre on Digital Media Strategies, focusing on growth strategies in mobile data and digital media. He has a strong know-how in the latest technology developments in the wireless and broadcasting sector and, in particular, their economic evaluation. He is chair and keynote speaker at public events and industry conferences. Schwaiger received a Masters in International Business Administration from the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Website: www.adlittle.com/time.html Chetan Sharma is president of Chetan Sharma Consulting and is a leading strategist in the mobile industry. He has served as an advisor to several Fortune 100 companies in wireless, as well as each of the Top 6 global mobile data operators. Sharma is the author or co-author of five books including Mobile Advertising and Wireless Broadband. He is the editor of the Mobile Future Forward Book Series. Sharma is interviewed frequently by international media such as Time magazine, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Japan Media Review. He graduated from Kansas State University and the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. Twitter: @chetansharma Website: www.chetansharma.com Ralph Simon is acknowledged as one of the founders of the modern mobile entertainment industry. He heads the London-based Mobilium International, and is founder and chairman emeritus of the Mobile Entertainment Forum – Americas (MEF). Simon co-founded the Zomba Group of music companies (and Jive Records) and has worked at Capitol Records, Blue Note Records, and EMI Music. Simon has also been dubbed “Father of the Ring Tone” and started the first ring tone company in the Americas, Europe, U.K., Australia, and Africa called Yourmobile. He serves on the boards of companies, including Hungama Digital Media Entertainment and Tunewiki.com. He is a Fellow of the U.K. Royal Society of Arts.

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Russell Southwood is the chief executive of Balancing Act, a consultancy and online publishing company specialising in telecoms and internet in Africa. His recent consultancy work has included an assessment of the Pay-TV market in Africa; an appraisal of an investment in a wireless broadband operator; the implementation of an African Internet Exchange Point; an assessment of investment finance options for African telecoms and internet infrastructure; and a study on open access models. He has recently researched voice over internet protocol (VoIP) markets in three African countries. He is the coauthor of Balancing Act’s African VoIP Markets. Twitter: @BalancingActAfr Dr. V. Sridhar is a Research Fellow at Sasken Communication Technologies, Bangalore, India. He has published many articles in peer-reviewed leading telecom journals. His latest book, The Telecom Revolution in India: Technology, Regulation and Policy, has been published by Oxford University Press India. Dr. Sridhar has taught at many institutions in the U.S., New Zealand, and India. He has been a member of government committees in telecom and IT, and he is the co-editor of the International Journal of Business Data Communications and Networking. He has a PhD from the University of Iowa. Website: www.vsridhar.info Dr. Stefan Stieglitz is assistant professor of communication and collaboration management at the University of Muenster. He is founder and academic director of the Competence Centre for Smarter Work at the European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS). His research focuses on economic, social, and technological aspects of collaboration software and mobile applications. Of particular interest is his work in analysis of the usage of social media and unified communication in business contexts. Dr. Stieglitz studied business economics at the universities of Cologne, Paderborn, and Potsdam. He has published more than 50 articles in reputable international journals and on IS conferences. Twitter: @wikuk Website: www.wi.uni-muenster.de/kuk Dr. Karim Taga is the global leader of Arthur D. Little’s TIME practice and managing director of the Vienna office. His focus is on business strategies and marketing concepts, corporate finance, and business planning. He played a leading role in 100+ strategy, organisation, and technology projects with telecom operators and suppliers, media players, and financial investors. He received a Masters in Science from the Ecole Supérieure de l’Energie et des Matériaux, Orléans France as well as a PhD and an MBA from Webster University. Website: www.adlittle.com/time.html

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Jari Tammisto is the CEO and president of Mobile Monday. His career in mobile technology, with more than 20 years of strategic entrepreneurial leadership, was the drive behind Mobile Monday. Tammisto has been a founder, CEO, and chairman of 11 start-up companies. He has also been honoured with the World Brand Leadership award in 2009 in India and with the special Internationalisation Award from Finland’s president, Tarja Halonen. Tammisto has been voted by the readers of Finnish business media (Taloussanomat) as one of the three most influential business entrepreneurs in Finland. Website: www.mobilemonday.net Sanjay Uppal is president of OnMobile Global. He runs OnMobiles’ product and customer groups that provide consumer applications to mobile carriers worldwide. Prior to OnMobile, Uppal joined Citrix through the acquisition of Caymas, where he was CEO. At Webvan, he was vice president of engineering and business development and launched the shopping experience from mobiles. While at Hewlett-Packard, Uppal initiated internet infrastructure as a successful business. When he is not tinkering with gadgets, he enjoys bicycling, running, cult movies, and gardening with his family. He lives in Los Altos Hills, California. Email: [email protected] Janine Warner’s experience as an internet strategist, media executive, and author have earned her speaking and consulting engagements around the world. Warner is the creator of DigitalFamily.com, and the author of more than 25 books, including Web Sites for Dummies and Mobile Web Design for Dummies. Her experience includes serving as director of new media for the Miami Herald, developing a strategic plan for one of Russia’s largest publishing companies, and serving as a judge in the Arroba de Oro Latin American Internet Awards. She is fluent in English and Spanish. Twitter: @janinewarner Website: www.janinewarner.com Xu Xiaoge is assistant professor in journalism and publishing at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He graduated from NTU, Kansas State University, China School of Journalism, and Hangzhou University. He has also been associate professor in Beijing, senior research associate in Hong Kong, and lecturer in Singapore. He has published two books, six book chapters, and 19 journal articles. Xiaoge is also the creator and coordinator of share2shine.com, a portal for media studies and services. His current research projects include comparing media systems in Asia, the internet and elections, and development journalism studies.

About the Editors Peter A. Bruck, PhD, is a researcher, manager, professor, and entrepreneur in media, communications, and ICTs. He is chairman of the World Summit Award (www.wsis-award.org) and holds a volunteer position supporting the United Nations (UN) World Summit on the Information Society follow-up process. As CEO and chief researcher of Research Studios Austria (www.researchstudio.at), he heads seven units in applied information and communication technology (ICT) research and manages innovations from universities into markets. He is honorary president of the International Center for New Media (www.icnm.net), which for more than 15 years has pioneered and organised national, European, and global contests promoting best practices in the use of ICTs for value added content and high quality applications. Bruck studied law, economics, sociology, and communications at the Universities of Vienna, Iowa, and McGill, and has taught in Canada, the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. He has founded research centres in communication, cultural studies, and IT, and served on the board of a leading telco as chief content officer. He has been an advisor to national governments, the European Commission, and the UN. He recently founded a mobile microlearning start-up in Europe and California (www.knowledgefox.net). Madanmohan Rao, PhD, is an author and consultant based in Bangalore, India, and editor of five book series: The Asia-Pacific Internet Handbook, The Knowledge Management Chronicles, World of Proverbs, Global Citizen, and AfricaDotEdu. He is research projects director of Mobile Monday (www.mobilemonday.net), for which he produces annual mobile innovation reports for the regions of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. Rao has been communications director at the UN Inter Press Service in New York, vice president of IndiaWorld Communications in Mumbai, and research director for the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) in Singapore. 591

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Rao is the author of more than a dozen books from leading international publishers and has spoken at conferences and seminars in more than 80 countries. He is also a DJ and editor for world music and jazz at World Music Central and Jazzuality. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology at Bombay and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, with an MS in computer science and a PhD in communications. Read book reviews by Rao at www.techsparks.com and follow him on Twitter at @MadanRao.

Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate figures and tables.

1seg digital broadcast standard, 134, 135 2SMs (two-sided markets), 569–570, 575, 577 2-year “burn-and-churn” contract period, 123 3.9G services in Japan, 135, 136 3C convergence, 505–506 3G infrastructure forecasts about, 29 investment in, 396 Japan and, 125, 126 policymakers and regulators as impeding, 403–404 4G infrastructure in Japan, 125, 136 m-government and, 441 8 Cs of mobile information society, 9, 10 60-second periods, digital activities in, 514 802.11 standards, 162

A ABCD (astrology, Bollywood, cricket, devotion) content, 265, 485, 508 access to apps, 544–545 to bank accounts in developing countries, 363–364 in China, 447 to distribution platforms for content providers to, 552 to economic and social opportunities, 416, 418 to Facebook, 294, 296 to internet content control over, 543–545

593

to internet service, 47–48, 540–541 to markets, and partnerships, 571–572 to mobile devices, 47–48, 214, 401 to mobile telephony in Peru, 413–414, 420–421 in rural areas, 162, 164, 165–166, 424 to short message service, 545 to spectrum, community benefits of, 166–167 to Twitter, 294 to web-based social networks, 298–299 accessible websites, creating, 155–157 accuracy in measuring audience, mobile and, 40–41 activism, mobile in China, 456–458, 461 as cultural reclamation, 8–9 Gen Y and, 60 adaptive web design, 145–146 addresses of mobile sites, 150–151 adoption of mobile media evolution of, 99–100 by media companies, 224–225 research on, 80 theories of, 74 adoption of technology, 53 Advanced Distributed Learning, 198 advertising in China, 451–452 direct to customers, 336–338 Google and, 541 history of, 32 in-call, 257–258 instant gratification, 333 interactive billboards, 253 in Japan, 130, 131 missed-call alerts, 267

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advertising (cont.) mobile platform and, 330 MSM and, 302 push marketing, 271, 330 QR codes, 337–338 revenues from, 214 self-referentialism in, 335–336 social media, 340–341 tools for, 333–336 trends, 516 Africa. See also specific countries, such as Kenya access to financial services in, 363, 364 ICT4D in, 347–352, 349 Mobile Monday in, 478–479, 480 mobile phones in, 10–11, 364 P2G payments in, 366, 374–375 Afrigadget.com, 351 Agar, John, 1 age and access to mobile telephony in Peru, 413–414, 420–421 agency, impact of technologies on, 55 aggregators, social media, 325 airlines check-in and boarding passes, 38 online reservation system, 141, 142, 143, 144, 144 Airtel Money service, 266 outsourcing contract, 573 white-label services, 258 Aka Aki, 299 alcohol use, 185 Alliance for Financial Inclusion, 380 alliances. See collaboration; partnering Allvoices site, 229, 232 Alpert, Jed, 8 alternative (alt) text, 156 always carried, mobile as, 38–39 Amazon Kindle devices, 250 Mechanical Turk, 61 recommendation algorithm, 41 ambient awareness, 295 American Airlines online reservation system, 141, 142, 143, 144, 144 Amish and mobile phones, 52–53 analytics services, 8

Android acceptance of, 570 Google Play, 509, 570 Market, 509 success of, 124 voice recognition technology, 331–332 Angie’s List, 313 Angry Birds, 251 antenna sites and local government, 167–168 Apigee, 265 apparatgeist theory, 51 appcessories, 515 Apple. See also iPhone App Store, 141, 509, 570 AT&T Wireless and, 571, 575–576 as computer maker, 31 developer ecosystem of, 270 iOS platform, 246, 304, 548 iPad, 153, 331, 569 iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, 544 iStore, 570 Nokia compared to, 113 OTT messaging service, 528 Siri, 331 smartphone focus of, 44 applications. See apps app news, 229 appropriate-technology movement, 355 apps. See also specific apps access to, 544–545 Android, 332 annual downloads of, 332 in China, 451 combining web and native, 142–143 concept of, 295–296 connected, 261, 263–265, 271 for developing countries, 168–169 freemium services, 254, 455, 509 Grace App for iPhone and iPad, 204 mobile healthcare in China, 453–454 mobile learning, 200 recommendations for developers of, 578 for reporting, 222–224 sales of, 570 3 C’s framework for, 266

Index 595

usage of, 317–318 web compared to native, 140–142 AR. See augmented reality (AR) Arab Spring, 6, 42, 230 architectures of mobile social media, 299–300 ARPU (average revenue per user) metric, 113, 125 Asillo, Peru, 411 asthma, 185 Asthma Signals, 314 AT&T Apple and, 571, 575–576 Cingular and, 572 developer acquisition, 270 Digital Locker, 269 attachment theory, 54–55 auctions of spectrum, 164–165, 167–168, 169 audience measurement of, 40–41 for news, 217 passive audience assumption, 48–49 augmented reality (AR) advertising and, 302 as disruptive technology, 252 hype cycle, 515 learning and, 83 location-based services, 316–317 m-government and, 439 mobile as enabling, 42 trends, 515 Australia, indigenous communities of, 205 Australian Flexible Learning Framework, 206 autism, Grace App for, 204 Autonomy, 323 availability at point of inspiration, 40 avatars, 253 average revenue per user (ARPU) metric, 113, 125 Axtell, Carolyn, 279

B Back buttons, 149 backhaul, 162

balance of work and life, 279–280, 289–290 bandwidth Net Neutrality and, 546–548 optimising website for low, 147–148 “tragedy of the commons” principle and, 578 Bangladesh Banglalink international mobile remittance service, 376 Dutch Bangla Bank, 366 penetration rate in, 403 use in, 484 banking, access to in developing countries, 363–364. See also financial inclusion; payments via mobile barriers to implementation of mHealth interventions initial stages of project, 187–188 reducing, 189–192 scaling up and commercialisation, 188–189 battery charge service, 422 BBC. See British Broadcasting Corporation behavioural usability, 234 belonging hypothesis, 52 Beniger, James, 93, 95–96, 97–98 Bharti Airtel. See Airtel Big Data m-government and, 440–441 platform and software advances and, 322 solutions, 325–326 billboards, interactive, 253 BitTorrent P2P application, 546 BlackBerry, 304, 528 black digitisation of world, 105 bluejacking, 54 Bluetooth devices and unlicensed spectrum, 162 Bluetooth marketing, 336–337, 343 bookmarking, mobile social app, 253 books on mobile, 249–250 Boston Globe website, 146 brand play option, 533 Brazil, MAPFRE Seguros, 377 breadcrumbs, 148–149 BRICS countries, innovators in, 11. See also China; India

596 Global Mobile

bring your own device (BYOD) policies, 203, 276, 282, 288 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Janala, 204 Net Neutrality and, 546 as pioneer of mobile journalism, 215 “publish first, ask questions later” approach of, 221–222 user-generated content hub, 219–220 broadband availability. See also spectrum in Australia, 205 community benefits, 166–167 national competitiveness and, 116–117 policy to encourage, 164–166 subscribers, 394,395 broadcast content, 31 B2C, 302–303 B2E, 300–301 bundling, 576 businesses. See also business models; enterprises and mobile social media; organisations benefits of smartphones to, 331–332 finding and marketing direct to customers, 336–338 m-commerce and, 338–340 m-government and, 436–437 mobile platform and, 341–343 mobile solutions by industry, 342 social media marketing and, 340–341 in South Asia, awards for, 494–495, 500 technologies for, 333–336 business models. See also freemium services growth of mobile and, 402 internet access, 541 market power and, 552 mobile content, 254 mobile news, 222 mobile operators/telecoms, 263, 533–535, 534 mobile payment in China, 456 BYOD (bring your own device) policies, 203, 276, 282, 288

C Call Me services, 351 camera and photography businesses, 33–34 cameras in mobile journalism, 214, 222–225 security of enterprises and, 561 social media use, 252 user-generated content, 268 cancer, 185 cardiovascular diseases, 186 carriers. See mobile operators; telecom operators cartoons and comics, 252 cash, elimination of, 32, 33. See also payments via mobile Cathay Pacific, 321, 322 centralised MSM systems, 299–300 centralised systems, 353 “checking in,” 316 chief information officers (CIOs), 295, 307 ChildCount+ system, 184 child health, 184 child mortality, 177 China access in, 447 activism in, 456–458, 461 advertising in, 451–452 change and opportunity in, 460–461 eschoolbag project in, 201 gaming market in, 454–455 healthcare in, 452–454 mobile industry in, 447–448 mobile money in, 455–456 mobile news in, 229 mobile operators in, 448 mobile phones in, 364 mobile reading in, 230 news in, 450–451 regulation in, 116, 459–460 rural mobile in, 458 social media in, 448–450 telecom market in, 114, 115 China Mobile, 448, 453, 458 churn for content VAS, 267 defined, 248

Index 597

CIOs (chief information officers), 295, 307 Cisco, 572, 573 citizen journalism in China, 451 news organisations and, 219 platforms for, 229–230 citizens, impacts of m-government on, 436, 441 Citizenside site, 223, 230 civic and political involvement, 75, 78. See also activism, mobile; m-government services clickeys, 306 cloning of phones, 559 cloud computing mobile phone to access, 43 mobile workers and, 276–277 personal cloud services, 268–269 trends, 200, 516 The Cluetrain Manifesto, 340, 343 collaboration in ICT4D, 354–355 trends, 518 collaborative competition, 567–568 collaborative innovation, 570–571 collective action, 60–62 collective intelligence, 61 commerce. See also m-commerce; shopping in China, 451–452 MSM to support, 302 social, 244–245, 246–247 use of phone as part of, 415–419 commerce VAS, 266–267 commercial company control over access to internet content, 543–545 common off-the-shelf (COTS) components, 260 common short code (CSC), 333 communal versus associative society, 94–95 communicable disease and mHealth, 186 communication. See mobile communication communication devices, defined, 557 communications models, change in, 48–49 communications VAS, 267–269

community engagement and mHealth interventions, 192 community layer of VAS, 267, 269 competition. See also competition and evolution of markets collaborative, 567–568 in developing countries, 403 ICT4D and, 355 mobile revenues and, 522 competition and evolution of markets future of, 117–119 global telecom markets, 114–116, 115 Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, 112–113, 114 national dimension, 116–117 overview of, 109–110 Rule of Three, 111–112, 112 computing devices, evolution of, 6 confidentiality in India, 561–563 mHealth implementation and, 188, 190–191 in U.S., 564 in workplace, 564–565 connected apps, 261, 263–265, 271 connected cars, 510 connectivity policy, 161 consumers. See also customers behaviours of and analytics services, 8 dialogues with, 335, 336 financial education of, 372 mobile revenues and, 522 as stakeholders, 506 consumption, social context of, 41 content ABCD, 265, 485, 508 internet, control over access to, 543–545 in Japan, 130, 131 next wave of, 508–510 on-deck, 245 purchases of, 246–247 recommendations for developers of, 578 restrictions on, 549–550 user-generated, in mobile journalism, 219–220 content-based approach to user experience, 235–236

598 Global Mobile

content-based services, 258. See also mobile value-added services (MVAS) content categories for mobile, 31–33 content providers, 245, 246 content VAS, 265–266, 267 context layer of VAS, 267 control revolution, 93, 95–98 convergence across screens, 507–508 in m-education, 205–206 mobile value chain and, 567–568, 568 strategic options for, 534–535 conversational video on packet, 268 Cooper, Martin, 126 core beliefs of Generation Y, 59–60 corporate data theft, 560–561 COTS (common off-the-shelf) components, 260 counterfeit drugs, 179 coupons AR and, 252 Groupon, 249 mobile, 333 NFC “Flash,” 253 text message, 302 cracking, 558 credit cards fraud, 560 purchases with, 246 virtual, 32–33 credit scoring, 379 crime, categories of, 558–560 crisis management, 78–79 critical mass, perception of, 103 crop micro-insurance, 379 cross-side network effect, 569–570, 570 crowdsourcing, 61–62 CSC (common short code), 333 CSS3, 154–155 CTIA, 254 cultural reclamation, 8–9 culture-oriented studies of user experience, 235 current fashion TV, 250 customer engagement, 290, 333 customer relations mobile operators and, 532 mobile platform and, 330 MSM to support, 303

customers. See also consumers finding and marketing direct to, 336–338 value of digital signals to, 312–313 cyberbullying, 54, 208 cyber defamation, 558–559 cyberstalking, 54, 559

D data collection, remote, 181 data plans, flat-rate, 248 DataSift, 319 data theft, 560–561 data traffic, growth of, 569 Davies, Simon, 548 DecoMail, 253 defamation laws, 221, 556, 558–559 democratisation of mobile services, 260 denial-of-service attacks, 559 Dentsu advertising agency, 33, 253 design-focused studies of user experience, 235 developed countries mobile revenues in, 523–524, 525 public applications in, 433–434, 434–435 developer acquisition, 270 developers, recommendations for, 578 developing countries. See also barriers to implementation of mHealth interventions; financial inclusion; ICT for development (ICT4D); mobile for development (M4D); rural areas access to financial services in, 363–366 government fear of SMS in, 542 impact of technologies on, 56, 79, 159–160 innovation in, 518 m-government services in, 443–444, 444, 445 mHealth solutions in, 178–179, 181–183, 182 mobile communication in, 9–11 mobile phone penetration in, 364 mobile revenues in, 524, 525 spectrum in, 161

Index 599

technologies and apps for, 168–169 Wi-Fi in, 162, 163–164 diabetes, 185 diagnostic and treatment support, 181–182 Dialog Tradenet, 492 diary studies, 79 diffusion of innovation theory, 74 digital divide dimensions of, 395 m-government and, 437 multiple types of, 386 in South Asia, 486–487 types of handsets and, 539–540 Digital Empowerment Foundation, 487, 488, 490 digital gemeinschaft, 94, 98–101 digital interface to real world, mobile as providing, 42 digitalisation, as trend, 505–506 digital natives, usage behaviour of, 248–249 digital signals challenges of analysis, 322–324 in earned media, 312–313 social media aggregators, 325 from SoLoMo, 319–321, 320 sources of, 324 digital technologies, defined, 198 disabilities and accessible websites, 155–157 disaster events, 135 discount apps, 249 disease surveillance, 178–179, 182 disruptive play option, 535 disruptive technology, 197, 248–252 distracted surfers, design for, 149–150 distribution platforms, access for content providers to, 552 DOCOMO. See also FeliCa disaster reporting, 135 FeliCa chips and, 133 4G technology, 135–136 i-mode model, 124, 127, 128 mobile internet and, 31–32 mobile money and, 32–33 as model, 506 origins and name of, 126 Doerr, John, 311 domestication approach, 74, 75–76

Drona platform, 204 drugs, coordination of supply chain management for, 179 DTV transition, 162, 165–166 D2 Communications, 130 Dubai eGovernment, 375 dumb pipe, fear of being, 261 Durkheim, Emile, 95, 102 dynamic discounting schemes, 512 dystopian view of technology, 50

E Eagle, Nathan, 351 earned media, 312–313 Easterly, William, 345 Easypaisa, 372–373 eBay, location-based companies of, 316 eco-friendly solutions, 511 economics. See competition and evolution of markets economies of scale and scope, and partnerships, 572–573 e-democracy and e-government, 431, 431–432 editorial staff, 217–218 education. See m-education education and awareness campaigns, 181 egocentric social platforms, 269–270 e-government m-government compared to, 433, 441 paradigm shift in, 431, 431–432 Egypt, internet and SMS shut down in, 541–542 eHealth, 176 8 Cs of mobile information society, 9, 10 802.11 standards, 162 Ek, Daniel, 250–251 elearning, 199, 209 electricity and mobile phones, 43 email in Japan, 130 emergency calls in Peru, 421–422 emerging markets. See developing countries empathy and global visibility, 63 employment agreements and security issues, 564–565

600 Global Mobile

empowerment in China, 449–450 mHealth interventions and, 192 enterprises and mobile social media background, 295–297 future of, 305–307 overview of, 293–295, 307–308 privacy and legal issues, 303–305 recommendations for CIOs, 307 types of MSM, 298–300 user types, 297–298 value of MSM, 300–303, 301 entertainment awards for in South Asia, 493–494, 499–500 as disruptive technology, 248–252 in Peru, 419–420 “screenagers” and, 243–244 social commerce, 244–245 social media, 244 staples of, 253 transformation in, 244–247, 253–254 environmental sensors, smartphones as, 272 environment in South Asia, awards for, 495, 501 equilibrium population, 103 eschoolbag projects, 200–201 ethical issues in mobile journalism, 221–222 Ethiopia, SMS ban in, 542 E3 (Everything Everywhere Embedded), 518 Europe i-mode model in, 124 investigation of mobile operators in, 547 mobile revenues in, 522–523, 523, 524, 525 Net Neutrality in, 578 2-year “burn-and-churn” contract period in, 123 Evernet, defined, 1 Everything Everywhere Embedded (E3), 518 evolutionary advantage of social connection, 52 exercise of mobile workers, 278

expectations and social mediation technologies, 101–103, 104

F Facebook access to, 294, 296 brand equity of, 516 geotag updates, 316 Instagram and, 252, 573 over-the-top services and, 260 families communication with, 415–416 impact of technologies on, 55–56 Parent-Teen Cell Phone Survey, 82 teen emancipation from, 77 usage of mobile technologies within, 105 fans, keeping in touch with, 78–79 featurephones ICT4D and future of, 357–359 low-cost, 160 smartphones compared to, 261 Federal Communications Commission (U.S.), 163, 166, 551, 577 FeliCa, 33, 126, 128, 132–133. See also DOCOMO field observations, 80 filtering of internet, 549 financial exclusion, 365–366 financial inclusion. See also payments via mobile case studies, 373–378 challenges, 370–373 in China, 458 defined, 364 framework and operating model, 367–370 recommendations, 379–381 services and products, 366–367 in South Asia, awards for, 492–493, 497–498 trends, 378–379 financial planning tools, 378 Finland and Mobile Monday, 467–468, 470–471, 478 Fiore, Mark, 544

Index 601

flat-rate data plans, move toward, 248 fonts in web design, 154–155 Food Sense website, 146, 147 Ford B-MAX, 510 Forward buttons, 149 4G infrastructure in Japan, 125, 136 m-government and, 441 Foursquare, 58, 299, 316 fragmentation in market, 237 Free, 260 freedom of information, 237 freemium services, 254, 455, 509 FrontlineSMS, 347–350, 349, 352, 354, 377–378 functionality of Finland, 470–471

G games innovations in field of, 206 market in China, 454–455 marketing and, 334 Rovio, 251 video, 31 Zynga, 251 gamification to seed produce and brand interest, 321–322 trends, 517 Gannett, 225 Gartner Technology Hype Cycle, 513, 513 gatekeepers, mobile operators and mobile OS companies as, 543–545 GCASH mobile money service, 373–374 gemeinschaft defined, 94 digital, 98–101 Genachowski, Julius, 551 gender and access to mobile telephony in Peru, 413 Generation Y, 59–60 geotagging, 316–317 gesellschaft, 94–95, 96, 97–98 gesellschaftliche, 105 Ghana, MTN Ghana insurance company, 376–377

Gilder, George, 6–7 Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), 159 Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) Emerging Market Handset, 512 OneAPI, 264 one-click initiative of, 251 rich communication suite, 268 as trade industry, 246, 254 global telecom markets, analysis of, 114–116, 115 Global Voices site, 229–230 Google Android, 124, 331–332 brand equity of, 516 developer ecosystem of, 270 Drive, 271 market power of, 541 Motorola and, 573, 575 Google Play, 509, 570 government. See also m-government services; regulation evolution from e-gov to m-gov, 429–432, 430, 431 filtering of internet by, 549 local, and broadband networks, 167–168 mHealth implementation and, 188–189 power to shut down SMS and internet, 541–543, 552 government-to-business (G2B) services, 432, 435 government-to-citizen (G2C) services, 432, 434 government-to-employee (G2E) services, 432, 435 government-to-government (G2G) services, 432, 434 government-to-person (G2P) payments, 366, 373–374 Grace App for iPhone and iPad, 204 grief management, 78–79 Groupme, 58 Groupon, 249 Grulke, Wolfgang, 518 G2B (government-to-business) services, 432, 435

602 Global Mobile

G2C (government-to-citizen) services, 432, 434 G2E (government-to-employee) services, 432, 435 G2G (government-to-government) services, 432, 434 G2P (government-to-person) payments, 366, 373–374 Gupta, Anil, 512

H hacking, 558 handset makers and entertainment, 245 handsets. See also featurephones; smartphones falling prices of, 400–401 in Japan, 122, 123, 127–130, 133 types of, 539–540 haptic feedback, 516 HCI (human-computer interaction), 510 health micro-insurance, 379 health services, 177–178. See also mHealth Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), 112–113, 114 hierarchy of needs, 51, 52 Highlight, 58 Hillebrand, Friedhelm, 8 HIV epidemic, 178, 186, 191 home, boundary between work and, 279, 289–290 Horan, Jeanette, 282 horizontal scaling, 354 HTML5, 154, 261, 455 Huawei, 577 Hulu, 250 Human Communication Research (journal), 80 human-computer interaction (HCI), 510 human resource shortages in health systems, 179 hyper-connectivity of mobile workers, 277–278, 289–290 hyper-coordination, 76

I IBM, 282, 341 ICT for development (ICT4D) best practices, 353–357, 360 FrontlineSMS story, 348–350, 349 future of SMS and featurephones, 357–359 locally inspired innovation, 350–352 origins of, 160 overview of, 346 recommendations for, 359–361 social mobile’s “long tail,” 346–348, 347 ICTs. See information and communication technologies (ICTs) ID documents and KYC, 370 identity theft, 304, 559 IKEA, augmented-reality-based furniture tester, 42 illiteracy, levels of, 405 immunisation of authority, 421 i-mode service in Japan, 122–123, 124, 126, 127, 128 impact of technology on behaviours, 62 on families, 55–56 on individuals, 53–55 on societies, 56, 79 incentive auctions, 169 India Aamne-Saamne, 510 Baazee.com case, 560 Drona platform, 204 Framework for Mobile Governance, 444 Information Technology Act of 2000, 557, 559, 561 Information Technology (Amendment) Act of 2008, 557, 562 Many to One SMS application, 491 mobile law, 561–563 MVAS in, 265–266 Netcore Solutions, MyToday, 516 penetration rates, 405 rural transformations, 512–513, 517 SMS service and government of, 542, 543 social networking in, 577 telecom market, 114, 115–116

Index 603

individuals. See also personalisation drift towards gesellschaft and, 97–98 gesellschaft and, 94–95 impact of technologies on, 53–55 as mobile creatures, 6 industry, mobile devices as, 9 Influenza A Epidemic Prevention, 453 information and communication technologies (ICTs). See also ICT for development (ICT4D); spectrum in BRICS countries, 11 comparison of and trends, 29–30 domestication approach and, 75–76 economic impact of, 387–388, 388 for educational purposes, 209 growth of, 430 history of, 198–199 impact studies of, 12 as industry, 9–10, 29–30 in industry, 510–511 origins of term, 160 resources on, 84–85 role of, 386–387 status of adoption of, 386, 387,389 subscriber totals and penetration rates, 393 UN Millennium Development Goals and, 22–23, 23 information services and financial inclusion, 367 information sharing within enterprises, 300–301 information system, use of phone as part of, 416–417 information technology (IT) and mobile landscape, 284, 285–286, 288–289 infrastructure 3G, 29, 125, 126, 396, 403–404 4G, 125, 136, 441 mHealth interventions and, 191 network, roll-out of, 400 in South Asia, awards for, 498–499 infrastructure-based innovations, 511–512 infrastructure play option, 533–534 in-group identity and SMS, 78 inhibition, loss of with phone use, 420–421 innovation. See also mBillionth Award South Asia collaborative, 570–571

locally inspired, and ICT4D, 350–352 Mobile Monday and, 470–475, 473, 474 network-based, 511–512 in SMS, 44 by telecom operators, 372, 381 in video gaming, 206 in wireless organisational networking, 1–2 in wireless technologies, 5–6 inquiry-based learning, 203 inspiration, availability at point of, 40 Instagram, 223, 252, 299, 573 instruments, mobile devices as, 9 interactivity, 510 intermediaries, 562–563 international development funding, 359 International Finance Corporation, 359 International Telecommunication Union, 84, 136 Internet of Things, 206, 511 internet service. See also mobile internet access to, 47–48, 540–541 commercial terms of entry, 543–545 filtering of, 549 government power to shut down, 541–543, 552 mobile internet compared to, 540–541 in South Asia, 485 interoperability mHealth interventions and, 191 mobile banking and, 371, 380 interspace, 56 interview methodology, 80 investment in mobile banking, 372, 381 iPad, 153–154, 331, 569 iPhone development of, 331 as gaming platform, 31 Japan and, 124 in mobile journalism, 215–216, 224–225, 226 web design strategies for, 154 iPhone Film Festival, 224 Iran, filtering of internet by, 549 ISDB digital broadcast standard, 134 IT (information technology) and mobile landscape, 284, 285–286

604 Global Mobile

J Jackson, Michael, death of, 79 Jaokar, Ajit, 296 Japan content and services, 130 handsets, 122, 123, 127–130, 133 i-mode service in, 122–123, 124, 126, 127, 128 major disaster events, 135 messaging, 130, 131, 132 mobile content, 245–246 music, 132, 133 next-generation networks, 135–137 payments, 132–134 regulatory model, 116 structure and scale, 124–125 success of business in, 121–122, 123, 124, 125, 137 technology and service rollouts, 122–123 telecom operators, 126–127 television, 134 Jhunjhunwala, Ashok, 512 Jobs, Steve, 261, 321 journalism, newsgathering tools for, 213–214. See also mobile journalism (mojo) journals, research published in, 80–81 J-Phone, 126–127 “just in time” production, 97

K Kahn Academy, 169 kaizen philosophy, 122 Kaku, Michio, 2, 3 Katana, Pascal, 351 Katz, James, 3, 80, 81, 102 KDDI, 126, 135, 136 Kenya. See also M-Pesa payment system crop micro-insurance in, 379 FrontlineSMS in, 378 hate messages in, 542–543, 550 Safaricom, 247 SMS service and government of, 542 unsolicited text messages in, 548

Kickstarter, 61 Kiva.org, 61 knowledge management, 217 knowledge workers, 8, 11, 13 know your customer (KYC) method, 368, 370 Kobia, David, 543 Kohler, Thomas, 269 KPN, 528 Kubatana.net, 348 Kudzu, 313 Kurzweil, Ray, 518 KYC (know your customer) method, 368, 370

L LAA (location-aware advertising), 337 Lam, Monica, 269–270 Lanyrd, 58 Latin America, coverage in, 409–410. See also Peru LBS. See location-based services (LBS) leadership of Mobile Monday, 469 Leap Telecom, 248 learning. See also m-education elearning, 199, 209 inquiry-based, 203 location-based services and, 58–59 opportunities and issues, 82–83 in South Asia, awards for, 493, 499 technology adoption and, 53 in workplace, 203–204, 206 legal issues. See also mobile law; privacy issues in India, 561–563 liability in mobile workspace, 282–286 mobile crime, 557–560 mobile journalism, 221–222 mobile social media, 303–305 overview of, 555–556 piracy, 254, 560 legitimation structures, 103 Lessig, Lawrence, 22 liability in mobile workspace, 282–286 licensed spectrum, 122, 161–162 Ling, Rich, 54, 57, 74, 76, 77, 80, 81

Index 605

links, design and number of, 148–149 LIRNEasia, 85 literature on mobile, 80–82 locally relevant social mobile media (LoSoMo), 244 location-aware advertising (LAA), 337 location-based services (LBS). See also augmented reality advertising, 333 for businesses, 336 in China, 448 marketing, 316–317 m-government, 439 privacy issues, 303–304 psychology of, 57–59 research on, 83–84 uniqueness of, 36 location databases and privacy issues, 548 long-term evolution (LTE) in licensed spectrum, 161 m-government and, 439 partnerships and, 569 as standard, 305–306 LoSoMo (locally relevant social mobile media), 244 low bandwidth, optimising for, 147–148 low-cost phones, 358–359. See also featurephones LTE. See long-term evolution (LTE) Lugano, Giuseppe, 296

M magazines on mobile, 249–250 mainstreaming ICT4D and M4D, 360–361 major disaster events, 135 malaria, 178, 186 Malaysia, 403 Mamakiba financial planning tool, 378 MANETS (mobile ad hoc networks), 299, 300, 306–307 Manobi Development Foundation, 56 Manthan Award South Asia, 487, 502, 503 Many to One SMS application, 491 MAPFRE Seguros, 377 marketing. See advertising

markets. See also competition and evolution of markets access to, and partnerships, 571–572 diffusion of, 20 expansion of and mobile telephony, 418 fragmentation in, 237 global telecom, analysis of, 114–116, 115 liberalisation of, 400 for smartphones, 261, 262 telecom, in U.S., 111, 116 two-sided markets, 569–570 wireless, growth of, 468 Marx, Karl, 95 Mashery, 265 Maslow, Abraham, 51, 52 mass media channel, mobile as, 32 mass medium, mobile as, 34–35 maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH), 177, 183–184 Maya Declaration, 380 Mbetsa, Morris, 351 mBillionth Award South Asia categories, 487 challenges and recommendations, 501–503 context, 484–486 described, 483–484 digital divide, 486–487 inspiration for, 487–488 nominations and awards, 488–489 spin-offs, 489, 489–490 2010 highlights, 490–496, 491 2011 highlights, 496–501, 497 vision, 484 McCain, Tom, 156 m-commerce categories of, 339, 339–340 challenges and responses, 318 origins of, 338–339 in South Asia, awards for, 494–495, 500 measurement of audience, 40–41 of success of Mobile Monday projects, 477–478 media diffusion, 6, 7 media technologies, impact of, 48 medical emergencies, 418 medium, defined, 102

606 Global Mobile

m-education in Australia, 205 benefits of, 199 in colleges and universities, 202–203 convergence of physical with virtual in, 205–206 defined, 209 drivers of, 199–200 educators and, 207–208 in elementary schools, 200–201 in high schools, 201–202 historical context of, 198–199 key points of, 204–205 MOBIlearn and MobiMOOC, 206–207 in preschools, 200 school leaders and, 208–209 in South Asia, awards for, 493, 499 in workplaces, 203–204 World Summit Awards for, 204 MEF Mobile, 254 mental health, 186 mental models, 49 Meporter app, 223–224 mergers, 572, 578 merge without merge option, 534 messaging. See short message service (SMS) messaging OTT, 528 metadata, as missing in digital signals, 323–324 Metcalfe’s Law, 6, 166 methodology and research, 79–80 m-etiquette, 57 M4D. See mobile for development (M4D) m-government services design and best practices, 432–434, 434–435 digital divide and, 437 growth of, 430–432 impacts of, 435–437 implementing in developing countries, 443–444, 444, 445 models of, 432, 433 recommendations for, 441–443 security and risk management, 437–438 in South Asia, awards for, 491–492, 496–497 trends and issues, 439–441

mHealth barriers to implementation and gaps in knowledge, 187–189 in China, 452–454 communicable disease and, 186 defined, 176–177 in developing world, 178–179, 181–183, 182 expansion and commercialisation of, 192–193 global initiatives, 179–180 historical evolution of, 175–176 lessons learned, 190 maternal, newborn, and child health, 183–184 MDGs and, 178 non-communicable disease and, 184–185 outcome-based studies, 183–186 pilot projects, 180, 193 principles and recommendations for, 189–193 in South Asia, awards for, 495, 501–502 trends, 516–517 Michels, Oren, 332 microblogging sites, 333, 459. See also Twitter micro-coordination, 76, 100, 418–419 micro-credit, 367, 377–378, 379 microfinance, defined, 364 micro-insurance, 367, 376–377 Microsoft Natal (Kinect), 510 Nokia, 571–572 Skype, 573 Tellme service, 331 Windows Mobile 7.5, 304 migration and impact of technologies, 55–56 Millennium Development Goals, 347 m-inclusion. See financial inclusion Mistry, Pranav, 510 MIT Center for Civic Media, 169 m-learning, defined, 197, 209 MMS (multimedia message service), 334 MMS (multimedia message service) news, 228 MNCH (maternal, newborn, and child health), 183–184

Index 607

.mobi domain, 150–151 MobileActive.org, 85 mobile ad hoc networks (MANETS), 299, 300, 306–307 Mobile Application Developers Community, 489 mobile app news, 229 MOBIlearn, 206–207 Mobile Code Consortium, 338 mobile communication. See also mobile telephony benefits and dangers of, 20–21, 22 classification of societies, 21 data on use of, 2, 7–8 diffusion of markets and industries, 20 in emerging economies, 9–11 framework of analysis, 9–13 future of, 2, 3,4, 21–23, 30, 42–44 growth of, 29–30, 43–44, 429, 430 as mass medium, 34–35 media content categories, 31–33 MSM and, 301 quality of life and, 3, 4 social change and, 8–9 study of, 1 trends, 3, 4, 62–63 unique abilities of, 35–42 user experience design, 7 mobile crime categories of, 558–560 data theft, 560–561 defined, 557 mobile devices. See also iPhone; smartphones; tablet devices; unique abilities of mobile access to, 47–48, 214, 401 advantages of, 296–297 capabilities of, 200 company provision of, 280–281, 283, 286 featurephones, 160, 261, 357–359 growth in, 522 impact of, 386–388, 387 as industry and instruments, 9 interaction and content acquisition through, 246 motivation to use, 75 in schools, 208–209

as strategic learning tools, 201–202 subscriptions, 392, 438 as surveillance and preying devices, 564–565 time management and, 76 mobile education, 197–198. See also m-education Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF), 254 mobile health. See mHealth mobile internet. See also internet service access to, 540–541 economic and social dividends of, 551–552 growth of, 569 history of, 31–32 mobile journalism (mojo) apps for, 222–224 business models, 222 in China, 451 digital newsrooms, 217–219 ethical and legal issues, 221–222 pioneers, 214–216 recommendations for, 225–226 technical issues, 216 telling stories, 216 trends and issues, 224–225 user-generated content, 219–220, 221–222 mobile law defined, 556 growth in, 566 in India, 561–563 need for, 557 in U.S., 564 Mobile Media and Communication (journal), 81 mobile media research academic literature on, 80–82 aspects of, 73 converging theories in, 73–76 methodology, 79–80 resources on, 84–85 trends and challenges in, 83–84 units of analysis of usage and impacts, 76–79 Mobile Monday (MoMo) in Africa, 478–479, 480 challenges, 476–478

608 Global Mobile

Mobile Monday (cont.) chapter dynamics, 474, 475–476, 481 community model of innovation, 471–473, 473 context for, 468 core values of community, 468–469 history of, 467–468 hyperlocal and super-global innovation, 470–471 strategies for sustainable innovation, 473–475, 474 mobile money. See payments via mobile mobile news, defined, 228. See also news services mobile operators. See also partnering; telecom operators access to internet and, 540–541 business models, 533–535, 534 as cash strapped, 529, 529–530, 530 in China, 114, 115, 448 as content providers, 544 from dumb pipes to smart enablers, 506 entertainment and, 245 pressures for, 521–522, 536–537 recommendations for, 535–536, 577–578 revenue of, 522–524, 523 trends, 506 value chain and, 530–532, 533 voice services, decline in, 525–528, 526, 527 mobile payment service providers (MPSPs), 368, 369, 456 mobile for development (M4D) best practices, 353–357 challenges, 405–406 history of, 348 “long tail” of social mobile, 346, 347 mainstreaming, 360–361 Mobiles for Good prize, 490 mobile site news, 228–229 mobile social media (MSM). See also social media defined, 296 in enterprise contexts, 305–307 overview of, 293–295 privacy and legal issues, 303–305 types of, 298–300

user types, 297, 298 value of for enterprises, 300–303, 301 mobile social media news, 229 mobile stack, 285, 286 Mobile Telephone Network (MTN) Mobile Money platform, 366, 374 mobile telephony alternative strategies of access, 421–422 cultural and social uses, 419–421 drivers of growth, 399, 399–402 impact of in productive activities, 415–419 myths and fears about, 422 in Peru, 412–415, 423–424 in rural areas, 409–410 mobile value-added services (MVAS) connected apps, 261, 263–265 evolution of, 258–261, 262 examples of, 257–258 future of, 271–272 recommendations for, 272 regulatory environment, 271 3 C’s framework for, 266 types of, 265–270 user acquisition and retention, 270–271 volume and velocity, 259 Mobile Voices site, 232 mobilocracy, 275–276, 290–291 MobiMOOC, 207 MoMo. See Mobile Monday (MoMo) monopolistic environments, 110 Moore’s Law, 6 motivation for content creation, 58 of mobile users, 228 to use mobile devices, 75 Motorola, 573, 575 movie derivatives, 253 Movistar Colombia, Futbol Alert service, 257 M-Pesa payment system described, 366 history of, 351 for person-to-person remittances, 375–376 Safaricom and, 368 success of, 247, 266, 372 mPower Forum, 489–490

Index 609

MPSPs (mobile payment service providers), 368, 369, 456 MSM. See mobile social media (MSM) MTN Ghana, 376–377 MTN (Mobile Telephone Network) Mobile Money platform, 366, 374 multimedia in mobile journalism, 218–219 in mobile websites, 152–153, 157 multimedia message service (MMS), 334 in China, 450, 451 in India, 543 multimedia message service (MMS) news, 228 multimodal input and output, 515 multiscreen convergence, 507–508 municipal broadband networks, 164 Murdoch, Rupert, 518 music dance and electronic, 251 in Japan, 132, 133 Spotify, 250–251 subscription services, 31 MVAS. See mobile value-added services (MVAS) Mwai, James, 479

N Narian Technologies, 317 nations, crimes against, 558 native apps, 140–143 navigation and maps, 249 navigation design, 148–149, 156–157 near field communication (NFC) Flash coupons, 253 in Japan, 132 m-government and, 440 mobile money and, 44 mobile wallet and, 33 MSM and, 306 querying tagged objects, 317 Nesbit, Josh, 347 Netcore Solutions, MyToday, 516 Netherlands, KPN, 528 Net Neutrality European Union and, 578

OTT industry and, 526 overview of, 546–548 recommendations for, 536 telecoms and, 575, 576–577 network abstraction, 532 network address book, 267 network-based innovations, 511–512 network effects phenomenon, 166 network infrastructure, roll-out of, 400 networking, B2C, 303 network phone book, 268 networks. See also social networks mobile ad hoc, 299, 300, 306–307 municipal broadband, 164 next-generation, in Japan, 135–137 peer-to-peer, 48–49, 50, 63 self-organising, 50 shared operated, 531 wireless, 175–176, 191 wireless metropolitan-area, 166 newsgathering, tools for, 213–214. See also mobile journalism (mojo) News Is Coming, 232–233 newsrooms, management structure of, 217–219 news services categories, 228–229 in China, 450–451 enhancing user experience, 238 experience of, 233–236 freedom of information and, 237 history of, 32 as integrated and interactive, 232 measuring user experience, 236–237 in South Asia, awards for, 493 speed of, 230 technologies, 231–233 usage, 229 user-generated content, 229–230 next-generation networks (NGNs) in Japan, 135–137 NFC. See near field communication (NFC) NFC4All platform, 317 NGOs (non-governmental organisations), 346–348 niche, metaphor of, 103–104 Nintendo Wii platform, 206, 510

610 Global Mobile

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) DOCOMO. See DOCOMO Nissan, 314 Nissan Canada, 321 No Emission Monday, 477 Nokia Apple compared to, 113 as computer maker, 31 Microsoft and, 571–572 Mobile Monday in Africa and, 478 Navteq, 34 Reuters news agency and, 214 non-communicable disease and mHealth, 184–185, 452–453 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), 346–348 Nortel, 575 Norway, mobile journalism in, 220 NTT DOCOMO. See DOCOMO Nyíri, Kristóf, 81

O Obama iPhone app, 41 Obopay, 365 OECD Security Guidelines (2002), 438 Ofcom, 170 off-deck platforms, 245 off-deck traffic, 118 Omnicom, 32 on-deck content, 245 on-deck traffic, 118 on demand concept, 290 1seg digital broadcast standard, 134, 135 one-click-to-purchase capability, 246–247, 251 online emulators, 150 Open Handset Alliance, 124 open source movement, 570–571 operators. See mobile operators; telecom operators organic development hubs of Mobile Monday, 469 organisations. See also businesses; enterprises and mobile social media culture of mobility, creating, 290–291 liability issues, 282–286

recommendations for, 286–288 security and risk management, 280–282, 288–289 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in Japan, 128, 129 O2 Litmus, 264, 265 outsourcing, 531 over-the-top (OTT) players, 516 over-the-top (OTT) services democratisation and, 260 mobile operators and, 521, 535 telecom operators and, 264–265 voice, 525–528, 527

P Paananen, Vesku, 467 Pakistan, 366, 372–373 Panasonic, 129 Parent-Teen Cell Phone Survey, 82 partnering examples of, 574 motivation for, 571–573, 575, 576 recommendations for, 578 trends, 531, 531–532 passive audience assumption, 48–49 patents, 573, 575, 576, 577 pay-as-you-go cell phones and content purchases, 246–247 payments via mobile in Africa, 351 challenges to implementing, 370–373 in China, 455–456 “click-to-buy” buttons, 39 as commerce VAS, 265–266 history of, 32–33 in Japan, 132–134 models for, 368–369, 369 NFC and, 44 social commerce, 246–247 PC industry, 31 peer relationships in Mobile Monday, 469 peer-to-peer communication networks, 48–49, 50, 63 perfect competition, 109–110 permanently connected, mobile as, 37–38, 39, 54–55

Index 611

personal assistants, smartphones as, 272, 330, 331 personal cloud services, 268–269 personalisation of environments, 62–63 of news feeds, 232 of shopping experience, 314, 340 personal mass medium, mobile as, 36–37, 54 personal mobility, trends, 517–518 persons, crimes against, 558 person-to-government (P2G) payments, 366–367, 374–375 person-to-person (P2P) remittance payments, 367, 375–376 persuasion, 58 Peru access and use among traders, 414–415 alternative strategies of access, 421–422 characteristics of users, 412–414 cultural and social uses, 419–421 department of Puno, 410–411 fairs in, 410, 411, 414–415, 422, 423 impact of mobile telephony in productive activities, 415–419 mobile telephony, 423–424 myths and fears about phones, 422 types of users, 412–415 Pew Research Center, 82, 85 Philippines, GCASH mobile money service, 373–374 phishing, 560 Piganeau, Thierry, 264–265 pilot projects impacts of, 11 mHealth, 180, 193 Pinterest, 270 piracy, 254, 560 platforms Apple iOS, 246, 304, 548 Big Data and, 322 citizen journalism, 229–230 distribution, content provider access to, 552 Drona, 204 egocentric social, 269–270 mHealth, 191 Mobile Telephone Network Mobile Money, 366

NFC4All, 317 Nintendo Wii, 206, 510 off-deck, 245 open and proprietary, 570–571 Qualcomm, 126 RapidSMSmHealth, 183 service delivery, 259, 532 two-sided markets and, 569–570 Ushahidi, 62 policy issues. See also Net Neutrality; privacy issues bring your own device policies, 203 connectivity, 161 encouraging broadband availability, 164–166 gatekeeping by commercial companies, 543–545 mobile devices in education, 208–209 recommendations, 536, 551–552, 578 trade secrets, 564, 565 pornography, 559 postage stamps, phone-based, 38–39 pregnancy monitoring, 183 Prensky, Marc, 59, 60 prepaid subscriptions level of, 401 in Peru, 413 trends, 511–512 presence, 56–57 price of services, 403, 424 print-based publications, 217–218 privacy issues Bluetooth marketing, 337, 343 connected apps, 271 in India, 561–562 location-based services, 83 mHealth implementation, 188, 190–191 mobile journalism, 221 mobile platform, 341 mobile social media, 303–305 personalised shopping experiences, 340 protection of privacy, 552 records of phone locations, 548 sharing and, 59 productivity of mobile workers, 277, 281 promotion of ICT4D solutions, 355, 357 property, crimes against, 558

612 Global Mobile

proximity marketing, 336–337 psychology of mobile technologies changing communications models, 48–49 family impact, 55–56 Generation Y and, 59–60 individual impact, 53–55 location-based connectivity and activities, 57–59 overview of, 47–48 privacy, trust, and exposure, 59 real-time connectivity, 56–57 smart mobs and collective action, 60–62 societal impact, 56 technological impact, 50–53 unique qualities of mobile, 49–50 P2G (person-to-government) payments, 366–367, 374–375 P2P (person-to-person) remittance payments, 367, 375–376 public interest service requirements, 552 public-private partnerships in mHealth, 193 public spaces mobile journalism in, 221 norms for interaction in, 57 pull services, 544 Puno, Peru. See Peru purchases of content, 246–247 push marketing, 271, 330 push services, 334, 544, 547–548

Q Qatar, eschoolbag project in, 201 QoE (quality of experience), 507, 517, 568 QR codes on cars, 314 described, 334 marketing and, 337–338 posting comments and reviews, 313 shopping, 317 Qualcomm, 126, 252 qualitative studies of user experience, 234 quality of experience (QoE), 507, 517, 568 quantitative studies of user experience, 234 quick timers, 297, 298

R radio durability and persistence of, 198–199 mobile satellite, 250 regulation of, 550 RapidSMSmHealth platform, 183 rationalisation of world, 104–105 Rau, Bobby, 267 RCS (rich communication suite), 268 reachability, 37 real-name registration in China, 459 real-time connectivity, 56–57 real world, mobile as interface to, 42 Red Cross, 60 Reed’s Law, 6 regulation application to different media, 550–551 of banking, 368, 371 in China, 459–460 competition and, 110 of content, 549–550 future of, 117–118 government power to shut down SMS and internet, 541–543 innovation, independence, and cooperation in, 169–170 in Japan, 122 mobile revenues and, 522 MVAS and, 271 national competitiveness and security and, 116–117 recommendations for, 536, 551–552, 578 self-regulation, 551 of spectrum, 161–162, 163 stable and enabled environments, 400 of telecom markets, 114 “test and learn” approach to reform, 379–380 of 3G infrastructure, 403–404 of white spaces in spectrum, 166 relevance, contextual and local, and social media, 244 remote data collection, 181 remote monitoring, 181 replication issues in ICT4D, 353–354 reporters, 217–218 reporting. See mobile journalism (mojo)

Index 613

research. See mobile media research research methodology, 79–80 responsive web design, 139–140, 140, 145–146, 147 retention of users and MVAS, 270–271 Reuters news agency, 214 reviews in social media, 312–313, 315–316 Rheingold, Howard, 5–6, 20–21, 52, 61 rich communication suite (RCS), 268 rimino mobile experience, 235 ringtones, 30, 35, 253, 267 risk management m-government, 437–438 organisations, 280–282 Rogers, Everett, 74 Rogers Communication, One Number service, 258 Rosenberger, Frank, 270–271 Rovio, 44, 251 Rubin, Andy, 331, 332 Rule of Three, 111–112, 112 rural areas. See also Peru access in, 162, 164, 165–166, 424 in China, 458 demographics and psychographics, 393–394, 394, 395, 396 in India, 266 issues in mature and developing economies, 399, 399–402, 401 mobile telephony in, 409–410 national teledensity, 388–390, 390, 391 needs assessment and service alignment, 394, 396, 397, 398, 398–399 overview of, 385–388, 387, 388, 389 potential in, 390–393, 392 recommendations for, 404–407, 406 trends and challenges, 402–404, 405, 512–513, 517 video in, 510

S Safaricom. See M-Pesa payment system Saffo, Paul, 317 Samsung, 577 Sandberg, Sheryl, 276 SAP StreamWork app, 301

Sarnoff’s Law, 6 scalability issues in ICT4D, 353–354 scheduling medical appointments, 179 Schibsted Company, 220 schools, mobile devices in, 208–209 Schumacher, E. F., 345–346 scope, economies of, 572–573 SDPs (service delivery platforms), 259, 532 search in China, 452 disruption in, 249 as tool for business, 334 security issues. See also mobile crime cameras in phones, 561 employment agreements, 564–565 know your customer method, 368 m-government, 437–438 mobile platform, 341 in organisations, 280–282, 288–289 patents, 577 self-efficacy, impact of technologies on, 53–55 self-organising networks, 50 self-presentation and self-disclosure, concept of, 295 service delivery platforms (SDPs), 259, 532 shared operated networks, 531 shared shopping, 302 Sheth, Jagdish, 512 shopping. See also coupons commerce VAS and, 266–267 personalised experience, 314, 340 social and shared, 302 SoLoMo, 315 virtual shopping assistants, 339–340 ShopSavvy, 315 short-form TV, 248, 250 short message service (SMS) access to, 545 charges for, 547–548 in China, 450, 451 described, 334 government power to shut down, 541–543, 552 growth of, 252 GSM and, 159 ICT4D and future of, 357–359 impact of on relationships, 78

614 Global Mobile

short message service (cont.) innovations in, 44 in Japan, 130, 132 mobile apps for, 336 as national alert system, 38 for NGOs, 347 origin of, 8 OTT messaging and, 528 as remote control, 42 unsolicited text messages, 548 usage of, 30 short message service (SMS) news, 228 Sierra Leone, top-up cards in, 402 simplexity, 507–508 Singapore, M-Government Program, 444 site news, 228–229 sixth-sense concept, 510 60-second periods, digital activities in, 514 Skype, 573, 575–576 slactivism, 60 sleep of mobile workers, 278 Slim, Carlos, 44 slow timers, 297, 298 smart government, move to, 441–443 smart mobs, 61 SmartPay, 456 smartphones. See also iPhone business benefits, 331–332 as environmental sensors, 272 featurephones compared to, 261 history of, 31 liability associated with ownership, 283–284 market, 261, 262 migration to in Japan, 129 of mobile workers, 278 MSM and, 296–297 sales, 507 trends, 569 usage of, 160 Smart Society e-Government Model, 439, 440 smart urban homes, 510 SMILE (Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment), 202–203, 208 smoking cessation, 185

SMS. See short message service (SMS) SMS (short message service) news, 228 SNS (social networking service) features and m-government, 439 social, location, and mobile (SoLoMo) digital signals and, 312–313, 319–321, 320 drivers of, 313 innovators and startups, 324–326 internet as pocket, 317–318 location-based marketing, 316–317 m-commerce, 318 overview of, 311–312, 312, 326 players and potential, 314–315, 315 reviews and, 315–316 spread of ideas, 321–322 text mining and data processing, 322–324 social change, mobile media used for, 78 social commerce, 244–245, 246–247 social connection biological drive for, 51–53, 63 mobile phone as proxy for, 100 social constructivism, 51 social context of consumption, mobile as capturing, 41 social contracts, violation of, 59 social facts, 102 social identities theories, 53–54 social media. See also Facebook; mobile social media (MSM); social, location, and mobile (SoLoMo); Twitter Arab Spring and, 6, 42, 230 behaviour change, neural activity, and, 58 businesses and, 334 challenges, 205 in China, 448–450, 451, 457–458, 460 classes of, 294 defined, 295 demand for, 244 future of, 42–43 in India, 577 marketing on, 340–341 mobile journalism and, 220 usage, 227–228 social media news, 229, 231–232

Index 615

social mediation technology approaches to, 94 characteristics of, 103–104 communal versus associative society, 94–95 control revolution and drift towards gesellschaft, 95–98 defined, 102 digital gemeinschaft, 98–101 dual character of, 104–106 as providing utility to group, 101–104 social networking and patents, 575 social networking service (SNS) features and m-government, 439 social networks for access to economic and social opportunities, 416, 418 information asymmetry and, 424 native, 299 web-based, 298–299 social shaping, 51 social shopping, 302 societies communal versus associative, 94–95 impact of technologies on, 56 Society for the Social Study of Mobile Communication, 85 socioeconomic development in China, 449 impact of mobiles on, 386–388, 387 impact of on growth of mobile, 402, 403 SoftBank Mobile, 124, 126–127, 135 software piracy, 250, 560 SoLoMo. See social, location, and mobile (SoLoMo) Sonar, 58 Songkick, 314–315 Sony augmented reality, 252 FeliCa system, 33, 126, 128, 132–133 South Asia. See Bangladesh; India; mBillionth Award South Asia; Pakistan South Korea E-Campus Vision in, 202 eschoolbag project in, 201 regulatory model in, 116 space locators, 297, 298

space timers, 297, 298 spectrum. See also broadband availability community benefits of expanded access to, 166–167 licenses for in Japan, 122 as natural resource, 160–162 policy approaches to, 164–166 regulation of, 163, 169–170 technologies for, 162–163 white spaces in, 161, 162–164, 165–166, 169 speech recognition technology, 331 Spotify, 250–251 Sri Lanka, Dialog Tradenet, 492 Stampt, 319 standards 802.11 standards, 162 ISDB digital broadcast, 134 mHealth interventions and, 191–192 1seg digital broadcast, 134, 135 WiMAX, 161, 165 Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE), 202–203, 208 sticky feature, defined, 258 stocks, dividend yields of, 529–530, 530 strategic learning tools, mobile devices as, 201–202 streaming data, analysis of, 323 subscriptions level of, 401 mobile devices, 392, 438 music, 31 in Peru, 413 trends, 511–512 subsidy strategy in Japan, 130 suburbanisation, 98–99 success of Mobile Monday projects, measuring, 477–478 Super 3G in Japan, 136 supply chain management in health systems, 179, 183 for small, micro, and medium enterprises, 378–379 Supranet, defined, 1 sustainable solutions, 511 symbolic devices, phones as, 421 Syria, mobile journalism in, 220, 230 Sysomos, 323, 325

616 Global Mobile

T Tab key for navigation, 156–157 tablet devices. See also iPad growth of, 508, 569 usage of, 160, 286 web design strategies for, 153–155 taken for granted, mobile phones as, 101–102 TAM (technology acceptance model), 74–75 Taraco, Peru, 411 technological determinism, 50–51 technology. See also impact of technology; information and communication technologies (ICTs); psychology of mobile technologies; social mediation technology; wireless technologies control of, and partnerships, 573 digital, 198 disruptive, 197, 248–252 dystopian view of, 50 ICT4D choice of, 360 interoperability of, 191, 371 media, impact of, 48 for mobile workers, 276–277 telephony, 540 for unlicensed spectrum, 162–163 utopian view of, 50–51 voice recognition, 331–332 Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access, 126 in workplace, 276 technology acceptance model (TAM), 74–75 technology-centric approach to user experience, 235 Telco 2.0, 263, 267–268 telcos. See telecom operators telecom operators. See also mobile operators; partnering aggregate revenue stream, 263, 263 banking and, 371–372 connected apps and, 264, 264 developer acquisition, 270 investment and innovation by, 372, 381 in Japan, 126–127

MVAS and, 259–260 network speed and, 288 organisations and, 287–288 over-the-top services and, 260, 264–265 telecosm, 6–7 teledensity, national, 388–390, 390, 391, 486 telehealth, 177. See also mHealth telemedicine, 176–177 telenurses, 179 telephony technology, 540 television in China, 452 in Japan, 134 regulation of, 550 self-referentialism in advertising on, 335–336 short-form, 248, 250 texting, growth of, 252. See also short message service (SMS) text mining, 322–324, 325 The-Latest.com, 223 theories overview of, 73–76 units of analysis of mobile usage and impacts, 76–79 third-party brand management, 532 third place, 49 Thompson, Mark, 546 threats, as opportunities, 33–34 3C convergence, 505–506 3G infrastructure forecasts about, 29 investment in, 396 Japan and, 125, 126 policymakers and regulators as impeding, 403–404 3.9G services in Japan, 135, 136 time management and mobile devices, 76 time-shifted message propagation, 300 T-Mobile, 572 Tönnies, Ferdinand, 94–95, 98 top-up cards, 401–402 TotalTab app, 314 total user and product experience (TUPE), 507–508 tracking disease outbreaks, 182 trade secrets policy, 564, 565

Index 617

training for health workers, 181 for journalists, 225–226 in mobile experience, 238 transactions, financial, cost of, 380–381 transaction services and financial inclusion, 367–368 translation and m-government, 440 travel and tourism in South Asia, awards for, 494, 500 trends connected world, 510–513 content and apps, 508–510 digitalisation, 505–506 financial inclusion, 378–379 ICTs, 29–30 innovation paths, 513, 513, 514, 515, 515–518 m-government services, 439–441 mobile communication, 3, 4, 62–63 mobile journalism, 224–225 mobile media research, 83–84 mobile operators, 506 multiscreen convergence, 507–508 overview of, 518 partnering, 531, 531–532 smartphones, 569 workforce, 288–290 TripAdvisor, 315, 317 trivialisation of place, 289 Trojan horses, 304 tropical diseases, 178 Trunkbow-UnionPay mobile payment applet, 456 trust and social contracts, 59 tuberculosis, 178, 186 TUPE (total user and product experience), 507–508 Turkcell, TonlaKazan service, 257–258, 267 Turntable.fm, 251 TV band devices (TVBDs), 163 Twitter access to, 294 BBC and, 220 breaking news and, 231 reactions to death of Jobs, 321 2-year “burn-and-churn” contract period, 123

two-sided markets (2SMs), 569–570, 575, 577

U ubiquitous campus service, 202 Uganda Mobile Telephone Network Mobile Money platform, 366 pension payments in, 374 SMS shut down in, 542 taxes in, 403, 404 UGC. See user-generated content (UGC) U.K. See United Kingdom (U.K.) Ultrawideband (UWB) technology, 162 unique abilities of mobile accurate in measuring audience, 40–41 always carried, 38–39 available at point of inspiration, 40 built-in payment mechanism, 39 captures social context of consumption, 41 enables augmented reality, 42 overview of, 35–36 permanently connected, 37–38, 39 personal mass medium, 36–37 provided digital interface to real world, 42 United Arab Emirates, mobile payments in, 375 United Kingdom (U.K.). See also British Broadcasting Corporation August 2011 riots in, 223 m-government in, 439 Ofcom, 170 telecom market in, 116 United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 437, 442 Millennium Development Goals, 22–23, 23, 177–178, 347 World Summit Award, 283 United States (U.S.) consumer spending in, 118 Federal Communications Commission, 163, 166, 551, 577

618 Global Mobile

United States (cont.) Making Mobile Government project, 439, 444, 444 mobile law in, 564 spectrum policy, 163, 164 telecom market, 111, 116 2-year “burn-and-churn” contract period, 123 Uniform Trade Secrets Act, 564 units of analysis of mobile usage and impacts, 76–79 unlicensed spectrum in developing countries, 161 technologies for, 162–163 unstructured data, analysis of, 322–323 upgrading phones in Japan, 123 urban areas, teledensity in, 389–390, 391 urbanisation, 22 URLs of mobile sites, 150–151 usability, 234 usage behaviour in South Asia, 484–485 of teens and tweens, 248–249 U.S. share of time spent online, 262 user acquisition content-based services, 258 MVAS and, 270–271 user experience design of, 7 enhancing, 238 measuring, 236–237 patents and, 575 studies of, 233–236 user-generated content (UGC) communications VAS and, 267–268 growth in, 508 in mobile journalism, 219–220, 221–222 in mobile news, 229–230 social media and, 294 user interface and m-government, 441 users. See also user acquisition; user experience bottom-of-the-pyramid, 266 of MSM, types of, 297, 298 types of, in Peru, 412–415 uses and gratification approach, 74, 75 Ushahidi platform, 62, 233

utopian view of technology, 50–51 UWB (Ultrawideband) technology, 162

V value-added services (VAS). See also mobile value-added services (MVAS) challenges to use and development of, 404–406, 406 mobile operators and, 541 in South Asia, 486 trends, 510–511 value-added taxes, 403 value chain convergence and, 567–568, 568 mobile operator role in, 530–532, 533 value-expressive products, 421 VAS. See value-added services (VAS) VeriCorder software, 215–216, 224–225, 226 Verizon, 572 Vesterbacka, Peter, 467 veterinarian support, 418 Vevo, 250 video adding to mobile websites, 152–153 in mobile journalism, 214, 222–225 quality of, 225 trends, 509–510 user-generated, 268 videocasting, 334 video gaming, 31 viral marketing, 335 virtual shopping assistants, 339–340 virtual worlds, 335 virus dissemination, 560 visualisations, dynamic, 325 Vodafone, 270, 358, 572 Vodafone India, 257, 258 Vodafone India Foundation, 490 Voddio software, 216 voice over internet protocol (VoIP), 526 voice recognition technology, 331, 335 voice services, decline in, 525–528, 526,527 Voices of Africa, 233 VoIP (voice over internet protocol), 526 VoIP Drupal, 169 volunteerism and Mobile Monday, 469, 476

Index 619

W walled gardens bundling, 576 content providers and, 544 early content efforts as, 540 evolution of, 567, 568 2SM and, 575, 578 wallet-type services. See also payments via mobile in China, 455–456 “click-to-buy” buttons, 39 as commerce VAS, 265–266 history of, 32–33 in Japan, 132–133 Walmart, 314 WAP (wireless access protocol), 260–261 water service providers, 374 WCDMA (Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access) technology, 126 Web 2.0, 295 web apps, 140–143 web-based social networks, access to, 298–299 web design strategies accessibility, 155–157 comparison of, 144–145 considerations for, 146 for distracted visitors, 149–150 multimedia, 152–153 navigation, 148–149, 156–157 optimize for low bandwidth, 147–148 overview of, 139–140 for phone numbers and maps, 151 responsive, 139–140, 140, 145–146, 147 set up addresses, 150–151 surf site on multiple devices, 150 for tablet devices, 153–155 typing and clicking, 151–152 Weber, Max, 95, 103 Weigend, Andreas, 313 Weiss, Scott, 322 wellness, trends, 516–517 Western Union, 376, 380–381 white-label services, 258–259 white spaces in spectrum, 161, 162–164, 165–166, 169 Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) technology, 126

Wi-Fi in developing countries, 161, 162, 163–164 in rural areas, 165 Wilson, Fred, 316 WiMANs (wireless metropolitan-area networks), 166 WiMAX standard, 161, 165 Windows Mobile 7.5, 304 wireless access protocol (WAP), 260–261 wireless metropolitan-area networks (WiMANs), 166 wireless networks coverage by, 175–176 mHealth and, 191 wireless organisational networking, innovation in, 1–2 wireless technologies challenges for regulators, 13 innovation in, 5–6 knowledge mobilisation and, 11, 13 obstacles to, 20 transformation and, 11, 13 Women and Innovation for Mobile Awards, 490 work. See also workforce bring your own device policies, 203, 276, 282, 288 B2C, 302–303 B2E, 300–301 confidentiality of trade secrets, 564–565 liability in mobile workspace, 282–286 use of mobile technologies within, 105 workforce culture of mobility for, 290–291 as hyper-connected, 277–278, 289–290 knowledge workers, 8, 11, 13 liability issues, 282–286 mobilocracy and, 275–276 MSM and, 305 productivity of, 277, 281 recommendations for organisations, 286–288 security and risk management issues, 280–282 smartphones of, 278 technology for, 276–277

620 Global Mobile

workforce (cont.) trends, 288–290 work-life balance, 279–280 workplace learning, 203–204, 206 work shifting, 276, 279 WorldCom, 572–573 World Health Organization (WHO) Global Observatory for eHealth, 179–180 World Summit Award (WSA) process, 283, 487–488 World Telecommunication Standardisation Assembly, 136

Y Yahoo!, 127, 260, 322, 516 Yelp, 313, 317 youth and connected world, 511 YouTube, 225, 250

Z Zynga, 251