I’ve just thoroughly enjoyed watching the movie 4-3-2-1. What grabbed my attention was that two of the (rather gorgeous) girls had an international video call on their iPhones – faked, not real. Was this Apple product placement – or technical ignorance by the producer?
Perhaps all will be revealed at Apple’s Developer Conference starting tomorrow…
I have no interest in football, but I did want to test out the video capture experience on my shiny new Motorola Milestone. Chelsea FC’s victory parade today ran right past my window – good for video testing opportunity, bad news for my road being shut (again) and not being allowed to leave my garage.
In summary:
Results:
We’re patting ourselves on our backs here at Orca Digital HQ this morning. At last night’s GP Bullhound Media Momentum Awards 2010 we were ranked as the 15th fastest growing media company across Europe. Woohoo!
We were treated to a great dinner at Sketch in London – the food was so good that Justin Pearce (Editor, NMA - sitting next to me) stole my macaroons. carefully wrapped them in a napkin and stuffed them in his bag.
It’s a testament to the hard work from our brilliant team and clients over the past 12 months – here’s to doing even better next year!
After considerable investment Adobe has been forced to stop further work on the iPhone platform. The world cries foul at Jobs’ controlling approach. And I agree with all that. However Job’s latest jab is spot on – Adobe is just as bad Apple.
Their Flash platform is closed and restrictive. For example, for years developers of Flash based conferencing and video chat applications – Orca Digital included – have been crying out for absolutely critical and basic features including echo cancellation (so that users don’t have to use headsets) and h.264 video encoding support (to provide better quality web cam capture). These should have been implemented years ago, but Adobe maintains its silence.
Adobe now knows how it feels to depend on a third party platform which doesn’t play ball. There are millions of businesses and developers out there depending on Flash – features for which may/not be added/removed at Adobe’s whim.
Apple has gone to war with Adobe. Adobe has invested heavily in it’s new Creative Suite 5, providing a great platform for developing cross-device mobile apps. Except Steve Jobs has just killed it, by refusing iPhone apps which are built using the Adobe tools. Ouch, ouch and ouch.
There’s a learning here. No balanced business should depend on one or two clients – though many do – and the same goes for depending on third party platforms. A business simply cannot afford to bet the farm on platforms that are controlled by others – they can wipe you out with the click of a mouse:
Apple rips 5,000 ‘girly’ apps from the app store – apps containing bikinis, skin are banned. Businesses die overnight.The Valley is creating new funds daily focussed on specific platforms – iPhone, iPad, Facebook. A risky strategy.
I don’t disagree with Apple’s stance on Adobe – I am in two minds on this and respect Jobs’ decision. And I hold no pity for Adobe – they wield similar power through their Flash platform (eg. they refuse to provide echo cancellation to third party developers of Flash-based chat apps, requiring all users to wear headsets).
It’s not the rules that are lethal, it’s the changing of the rules. If Apple chooses not to allow bikinis or Adobe CS5 apps then we won’t build businesses based on this. But when Apple allows bikinis or Adobe CS5 apps and then changes its mind, trouble arises.
Don’t let your business’ success/failure be controlled by another business/individual – it’s will probably end in tears.
Update: The war of words heats up – Adobe’s evangelist tells Apple to ‘go screw yourself‘. What’s next?
Mashable reports that Apple has removed 5,000 ‘babe’ apps from their store – on top of the controversial booting out of Wobble iBoobs. These were apps that were previously allowed – but they’ve just changed their mind. Let’s be clear – these are not adult apps: even bikinis are now banned.
It’s outrageous enough that Apple dictates to the world what content is ‘appropriate’ – but what’s more outrageous is the lack of clear guidelines… and the constant mind changing. Certainty is the most important thing – developers / brands cannot invest thousands in developing applications based on one set of guidelines, only for Apple to change its mind a few weeks later. It’s just too expensive – businesses can’t be successful with that level of risk and uncertainty.
It’s much like the UK tax system – with certainty we can make informed decisions and invest / plan for the future (regardless of whether we like the policies), but when they constantly meddle it’s time to get out.
Who needs film censors, laws, ethics or parents when we’ve got Apple? Why are R-rated movies and violent games like Grand Theft Auto acceptable, but girls in bikinis aren’t?
It’s a principle thing. Apple is getting dangerous – they can’t be allowed to get away with it.
I spotted over on Mobile Crunch that RIM’s CEO – Mike Lazaridis – “started horking about conserving bandwidth, just like AT&T’s CEO“:
“Manufacturers had better start building more efficient applications and more efficient services. There is no real way to get around this.”
“If we don’t start conserving that bandwidth, in the next few years we are going to run into a capacity crunch. You are already experiencing the capacity crunch in the United States.”
“That is pretty fundamental to a carrier as that means you can have three paying Blackberry browsing customers for every one other customer.”
“That has a huge advantage for the carriers if you think about the many billions of dollars the carriers have invested over the last five years in spectrum auctions and infrastructure rollouts.”
What a strange thing to say – what’s he thinking? Why…
Let the networks worry about bandwidth requirements – because no one else will.
We’ve returned from an exhausting Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Despite all the hype around the ‘App Zone’ in Hall 7 – MWC is just not cool. It doesn’t get it. MWC is a load of hungover men in their 50s in suits talking about UGC and social networking – having never used either. The show should stick to what it understands – handsets, infrastructure, billing systems, spectrum, mobile operators, backhaul etc.
The App Zone saw almost no disruptive, funky start-ups revolutionising mobile through augmented reality, social networking or similar. Why? Largely because it’s prohibitively expensive. Entrance is 600 euros (though most blag passes from exhibitors), hotels are a fortune, flights are a fortune – and if you want to exhibit, a small stand (3m x3m) starts at about £9k from memory (we exhibited for two years before deciding it was not worthwhile). Money that a start-up is probably better spending on more focussed PR / marketing / servers / salaries / whatever.
Other observations / highlights from MWC:
MWC is good for a bit of networking and meeting everyone in one place – but it’s not what it was, and it’s totally failing to position itself at the forefront of today’s innovative mobile space. If you were there, what did you think?
Emirates Stadium entrance
I went along to the M-Football event on Thursday 21 Jan @ Arsenal’s impressive Emirates Stadium. Jonathan MacDonald, the MC for the day, was particularly entertaining.
Despite being involved in the inception of Premium TV (now Perform Group) back in the dot com era, I have no interest in football and little understanding of it – and as an outsider it strikes me that the mobile opportunity is hugely under exploited.
The opportunity is clearly HUGE. Real Madrid look to be doing a good job – with some insightful figures. They exploit their mobile rights themselves in Spain – and license them elsewhere in the world. In Spain:
Growing the grass
Mark Curtis of Flirtomatic – always an interesting speaker who’s great at sharing stats – also talked about his attempt a few years ago to launch a reality TV show based on empowering fans to participate in their club’s key decisions – such as voting on who is playing in each match and who should be substituted during the match. A brilliant concept. Mark got as far as persuading a (minor) club to participate, Channel 4 commissioned the programme and the first episode was filmed – before resistance from every angle of the football world and a legal challenge killed it prior to screening. A great shame – increasing fans’ involvement in the decisions and success of their club has to be interesting.
If you’re a football fan do you feel that your club is offering you a compelling mobile experience?
Welcome and hello world! Orca Digital’s blog will include musings on all things that we touch as a business. Orca was formerly D2see – the London-based provider of mobile rich media services to the media and entertainment industry (more about what we do here).
Our previous stab at running a blog – mobilevideoinsider.com – faded into obscurity through lack of attention… please help us to avoid repeating this demise by subscribing to blog.orcadigital.com and keep us motivated with comments and feedback! In return we promise exciting and relevant posts from the coalface…
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