Seamless Integration: The Next Frontier

A concept so familiar to most people, but simultaneously not available in the market today. At this point I expect every Apple fan boy and every Androidiac to stand up and start throwing claims such as “iCloud integrates my Apple devices together wonderfully”, or “With Google I can take my information with me everywhere”… and you know what? You are right! You are absolutely, 100% right; despite the occasional glitches in both of those platforms, you are right nonetheless.

Today the two most compelling platforms are iCloud and Google services. You can have your contacts, calendar events, reminders, as well as third-party data available on all your devices, granted that you know how to set it up properly. Personally, I have Apple products but I am already sold to Google as far as services are concerned. Therefore, I have my Apple devices connected to my Google services, along with having iCloud cover some minor features that still don’t exist on the Google platform.

Yes! But!

This is all called synchronization, not integration! For everyone one of you out there, your devices are all synchronized with one another. Whether it is through some form of push technology, or polling service, those are all details that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. I hate to break it to you, but all you have is synchronization, and possibly some minor integration, at best (see Google Now). Now if you know me personally, or if we’ve ever had a tech-infested conversation, then you probably heard these words come out of my mouth: “if you want to have a successful product/service, then you have to make it integrate seamlessly into people’s lives”. When the “cost” (not necessarily monetary, but more so by effort) of adopting a new technology, is low, then people adopt it a lot faster, they internalize it, and they grow dependent on it. This was a key factor in the success of the iPhone, when it first hit the market; it was so simple to pick up and start using, and the learning curve was so shallow, that it spread like wildfire. Everything about interacting with iOS, from a user experience point of view, was so intuitive that we began to see YouTube videos of newborns playing around on an iPad. Why did this happen? Because by adopting this product, people could easily integrate it into their lives. It wasn’t an added burden to learn how to use this new device, especially considering what was available in the market at the time.

Where do we go now?

As I mentioned earlier, today we have these huge massive infrastructures of ecosystems set up by the tech tyrants. Google and Apple definitely have a lead in this arena, but this is not enough. Imagine a scenario where you have terabytes and petabytes worth of data that was collected from sensors from a certain system, but it’s all just sitting there, and you aren’t really doing anything about it. It’s like running a science experiment, performing the data collection, but never getting around to the data analysis part (the part that really matters). You may have recently heard of this new up and coming trend of “Big Data”… that is exactly what it is, big, huge, enormous amounts of data. Now, what do we do with this data?

ANALYZE IT!!!

The closest a company has come to start implementing such a thing is Google, with their new Google Now product. It really is a very fancy new application that begins to integrate your data… you know, the data that you’re so happy synchronizing in their cloud infrastructure. It’s all about taking all your data to the next level. Remember those sci-fi stories of “the future”, where your fridge sends you a message if you’re low on milk, or you’re on an important call, but you also have to leave the office so you don’t miss another meeting across town, so your phones just transfer your call automatically. Better yet, when you’re at the airport, and your phone automagically brings up a view of your e-ticket so you show it to the check-in counter. Or my all-time favorite, when you get into your car, and it already knows where you’re heading because of an event stored in your calendar, so then it just drives off with you, without you having to do a single thing.

This is the concept of seamless integration; to integrate people’s lives with the elements that surround them, where the world is always catered to your needs. Granted I’ve gone off on a bit of a 100-year stretch (or maybe less), it is most important to start noticing these trends and these visions today, so that companies can begin to build towards them.

And you know what the greatest part is? Some companies already have begun to see this, and have already begun to build it… more details coming in my next post.

Global Internet User Survey Reveals Attitudes, Usage, and Behavior [reblogged]

Came across this post from the Internet Society, and found their findings very interesting and insightful given the world’s general views of the internet. The results of this report go to show how important the internet has become nowadays, and how reliant we’ve become on it to deliver. Feel free to read through it and give your thoughts at the bottom.

 

26 November 2012

[WASHINGTON, DC and GENEVA, Switzerland – 26 November 2012] – A worldwide survey of more than 10,000 Internet users in 20 countries conducted by the Internet Society revealed attitudes towards the Internet and user behavior online. The Global Internet User Survey is one of the broadest surveys of Internet user attitudes on key issues facing the Internet. This year’s survey covered areas such as how users manage personal information online, attitudes toward the Internet and human rights, censorship, and the potential for the Internet to address issues such as economic development and education.

“Today’s online users have high expectations for the Internet and its impact on our lives and society, while also expressing concerns over censorship and excessive governmental controls,” said Lynn St. Amour, President and CEO of the Internet Society. “As part of realizing the Internet Society’s vision of an Internet that is for everyone, this survey uniquely focuses on users and their experiences, attitudes, and opinions on how to meet the challenges and opportunities facing the Internet and society in general. We are committed to the Internet’s continued open growth and evolution, not only for those who enjoy the Internet today, but until everyone is able to access and benefit from an open Internet.”

Key Findings

Key findings from this year’s survey cover a broad range of topics.

The Internet and Human Rights:

• Eighty-three percent of respondents agreed or agreed strongly that access to the Internet should be considered a basic human right.
• Eighty-nine percent agreed or agreed strongly that Internet access allows freedom of expression on all subjects, and 86 percent agreed or agreed strongly that freedom of expression should be guaranteed.
• Sixty percent of respondents agreed or agreed strongly that Internet access has contributed significantly to civil action and political awareness in their country.

Internet censorship:

• Thirty percent of users agreed strongly that censorship currently exists on the Internet.
• Sixty-six percent of respondents agreed or agreed strongly that governments in countries with no Internet censorship have a responsibility to keep the Internet free of censorship in countries where the Internet is being censored/controlled/shut down.
• More than 70 percent of users agreed or agreed strongly that more government involvement would make the Internet too controlled or would limit content they can access.
• More than two-thirds agreed or agreed strongly that increased government control would inhibit the growth of the Internet and/or stifle innovation.

Online privacy and identity:

• Even when users know they are sharing personal data with a site or service, most users (80 percent) do not always read privacy policies and a significant fraction (12 percent) of respondents admitted that they never read privacy policies.
• Of users who logged into online services, only half reported that they logged out.
• Nineteen percent of respondents were aware of circumstances in which personal data was used in a way they did not expect. The most commonly reported consequences were: unsolicited communications, stolen personal data, private data becoming public, impersonation, and financial loss.

The Internet and economic and societal issues:

• Nearly two-thirds of respondents agreed or agreed strongly that the Internet would play a significant role in solving global problems, including reducing child mortality (63 percent), improving maternal health (65 percent), eliminating extreme poverty and hunger (61 percent), and preventing the trafficking of women and children (69 percent).
• An even higher percentage of respondents agreed or agreed strongly that the Internet would increase global trade and economic relationships (81 percent), improve the quality of education (80 percent), and improve emergency response during a natural disaster (77 percent).
• A majority of respondents felt strongly that the Internet plays a significant role in making improvements to business, science, and technology in areas such as: expanding the availability of goods and services (66 percent), allowing entrepreneurs to conduct business across all countries (65 percent), and advancing science and technology and creating a technologically recognized workforce (61 percent).

Attitudes towards the Internet:

• Ninety-eight percent of users agreed or strongly agreed the Internet is essential for their access to knowledge and education.
• More than 80 percent agreed or agreed strongly that the Internet plays a positive role for their individual lives as well as society at large.
• Nearly 75 percent of users strongly agreed that access to the Internet allows them to seek any information that interests them.

General Internet usage:

• Internet users nearly universally (96 percent) indicated they accessed the Internet at least once a day.
• More than 90 percent of Internet users surveyed globally indicated they use social media, with a majority (60 percent) using it daily, an increase of 10 percent over 2011.
• Connection speed (73 percent) and reliability (69 percent) ranked slightly above more affordable monthly fees (68 percent) among factors that would increase usage. Other factors included more content in their local language (50 percent) and more online availability of government and/or community services (49 percent)

The Internet Society’s Global Internet User Survey (GIUS) provides reliable information relevant to issues important to the Internet’s future. As an ongoing effort, the survey provides information, informs and supports the activities of the global Internet Society community, and makes the data it collects openly available for all. While other ICT surveys focus on economic, infrastructure, or other Internet use indicators, the GIUS focuses on users, which are the source of innovation that has driven the Internet’s development, evolution, and dramatic growth over the past four decades. The first GIUS in 2011 gathered the responses of 6,088 Internet users in 11 countries.

This year, the GIUS was conducted on behalf of the Internet Society from July to August 2012 by Redshift Research, a leading business market research firm. The survey questionnaire engaged 10,789 Internet users in 20 countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, UAE, and the United States. Of the respondents, 53 percent were male and 47 percent were female. Results from the survey varied across countries; future reports will provide additional insight into these variations.

The complete questionnaire, full results—including results by country—and more information on survey methodology are available at: http://www.internetsociety.org/survey

About the Internet Society

The Internet Society is the trusted independent source for Internet information and thought leadership from around the world. With its principled vision and substantial technological foundation, the Internet Society promotes open dialogue on Internet policy, technology, and future development among users, companies, governments, and other organizations. Working with its members and Chapters around the world, the Internet Society enables the continued evolution and growth of the Internet for everyone. For more information, visit our website: www.internetsociety.org

Media contact: Wende Cover, cover@isoc.org, +1-703-439-2773

2012 for TechNode Digest in Review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 7,200 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 12 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

If You Can’t Beat Them Join Them: How Operators Can Take on the OTT “Threat”

Today we are seeing a paradigm shift in the way that consumers, as well as businesses and entrepreneurs, are taking utilizing technology, the internet and the mobile world. When provided with an open and extensive platform such as the Internet, which has literally made its way into almost every household in the world today (as well as people’s pockets), and that it affects how the world works today more than ever before, business people, entrepreneurs and visionaries begin formulating opportunities for revenue generation. We have seen start-ups take off and take over the world more virally than the outbreak of the H1N1 pandemic of 2009. The most common products of these virally infectious start-ups, with their cutting-edge products, has been the emergence of Over-The-Top content (OTT) in the delivery of online audio and video services, as well as similar services pertaining to messaging and online communications.

Other more traditional companies have begun to suffer in response to these products and services, due to the fact that the engines of their revenue generating business models have been deprecated, and outdated by these up and coming services. US Telco provider AT&T has recently rolled out a restriction of running Apple’s FaceTime video calling service on their network, except under certain restrictions, due to its foreseen deficit resulting from such a service (read more here). Back in January 2011, research firm TeleGeography reports that Skype accounts for about 25% of international call minutes, and that the trend is increasing; naturally this hinders the revenues generated by local telephone operators worldwide.

Net Increase in ILD and Skype Traffic, 2005-2010 (Source: TeleGeography)

More such studies and statistics by TeleGeography can be found here. Other examples of such disruptive innovations are growing and emerging by the day, with recent services such as Viber, WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage, and their respective popularity wars. So the question lies herein, how are these large Telco companies going to survive this new wave of emerging OTT technologies?

Operators Should Adapt and Adopt Rather than Oppose and Suppress

A traditional business sense, which coincides with our primal human nature, is to “defend” ourselves against our “enemies”. And such may be the best option in certain scenarios, however in the fast-paced technology sector my take is, don’t waste time with petty arguments, because after this big wave is going to be a bigger stronger wave. What am I getting at? Well it’s simple really. We’ve seen from the examples given that Telco’s are very resistant to these new emerging technologies and are even attempting to suppress them in certain cases. It makes sense; these new technologies are competing and thus “threatening” their revenues and so they must be stopped… NO!!!

Telco’s should be smarter, not stronger. For the sake of the economy, encouraging entrepreneurial endeavors, as well as providing their customers with new and improved services at lower costs, it would be very unwise to “fight” this so-called competition that Telco’s are facing and instead should embrace it and collaborate by adopting new technologies and services into their already-existing portfolios. Some of the currently emerging and future upcoming services and technologies are inevitable and will drive the market sooner than later and hereby I propose that it is more expensive to fight your allies, than to work together in order to create more advanced and better services for your customers (not to mention that you kinda owe it to them).

Anish Shivdasani reinforces this notion in in his blog post Mobile VoIP: operators and OTT players get down and dirty, pertaining to the mobile VoIP field where he states that “the shift to mobile VoIP is inevitable — operators should proactively commence the migration towards VoIP whilst managing the impact on traditional voice revenues”.

What’s the Point?

Simple! The sooner that these already-existing firms begin to realize that they will be better off embracing these new technologies, by adopting new enhanced business models and developing new and evolved services, the greater their market shares will grow, in less given time. Consumers want to take advantage of better services, especially if they’re being provided at same or similar prices with better functionality.

How can they do this?

The methods are endless, the sky’s the limit and your only barriers are the extents of your creativity as a technical professional. I will not delve too deep into this; otherwise I would be providing a free online consultation service for the whole world to see. But some of the very simple techniques that I can think of, off the top of my head, are techniques such as deploying local Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) for enhancement of certain services (especially for media rich content-delivery), or applying specific Quality-of-Service (QoS) techniques to prioritize certain traffic that pertains to these network services to provide better quality to the consumers, or even provide some sort of a strategically priced package for such services to the customers so they may leverage the use of these cheaper services.

Wise words!

The bottom line is that by creating strategic alliances with specific OTT service providers, the current traditional service providers can actually leverage their positions in the market by adapting and adopting, rather than hurting themselves by opposing and rebelling new emerging services… it is a new age and a new of thinking to survival, hand-in-hand with technological advancement.

Myopic Microsoft Marketing

First and foremost, I would just like to note that this is not a post to come out and bash Microsoft, but rather to make a statement about one of their most recent marketing campaigns, which I personally find to be rather ineffective and a waste of a lot of good money spent.

I will admit that I am a fan of the Apple family of products; I actually like the level of simplicity that they push with their products. Granted I’ve heard pretty much all the arguments about how their platform is not open enough, and all that, but then again, when I’m buying a device such as an iPhone or an iPad, I’m buying it because I actually want a device that is set to work in a certain manner, end of story. When I feel the need to go for a product that is a little more “open”, then I would definitely consider switching over to Android. As a matter of fact I am planning on getting a Google Nexus 7, as soon as I can get my hands on one. But in my own personal and professional opinion, the iPhone is a perfect product for a certain target market. Likewise the Google Galaxy Nexus is also a perfect product for its own target market, and these two target markets overlap slightly, with people like me stuck in the middle. Unfortunately these groups of people spend half their time defending the product that they ended up buying, which I still believe is pretty useless.

A Choice of Voice

Just came across this while going over some notifications on one of the pages that I administer on Facebook. If you navigate over to a page that you administer, assuming that you have it set to post as yourself and not as the page, you will see a new tab option appear labeled “Voice” in the top right corner of the window, between your name and the “Home” tab. Also a drop bar will come up, alerting you that you are interacting with the page as yourself, with your own “voice” versus that of the page itself.

Now you’re reminded in case you forgot that you are posting as yourself and not the page.

It seems like Facebook has recently been working hard on providing page administrators with some new tools to improve their productivity and workflow when using their pages. Examples of these enhancements include the new page insights, the Facebook Pages Manager iOS app, and now this mysterious “Voice” feature… I wonder where they’re going next.

Always the Best (at Being the Worst of Course)

Just over a year ago, it came to the nation’s attention that we were rated as the country with the absolute worst internet speeds worldwide (Link). However, we also came to see some significant increases and developments in the telecom sector that bumped us up that chart (supposedly). But today, in the year 2012 we came to learn that we already previously managed to break yet another record all the way back in 2006, making us the international champions once again. Therefore, I would like to declare us as the number one, the ultimate, the undefeated worldwide champions of electrical outages… behold!

It looks like we might as well be commuting on camel-back, I mean our stats don’t put us that far ahead such a form of vehicular technology.

Source: NationMaster.com