Day 1, Session2, COMMUNITY CONVERGENCE
Posted Live from MEX
Keynote: Frederick Ghahramani, Director and co-founder, AirG
Chairman: Marek Pawlowski, Editorial Director, PMN
Expert opinions from:
Mike Beeston, Managing Director, Fjord
Alexis Michaelides, Director and co-founder, UKStreetsounds.com
Gunnar Larsen, Director, EMEA, Real Networks
Jane Vincent, Visiting Fellow, Digital World Research Centre, University of Surrey
What is a community? It allows the building of connections between people beyond use of the application itself.
There are (at least) four building blocks. Every community has these and the combination of them creates a multiplier effect.
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Identity. How people see me. Persistence, profiles, blogs, photo albums.
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Presence. Location based, buddy lists, privacy controls.
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Interaction. applications, chat IM, lounges, 1-1 1-many content uploading.
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User Interface and Experience. WAP, Web, JAVA, SMS, AJAX.
The difference between services depends on which of the blocks (Presence vs identity vs interaction) each service concentrates on. Over time, applications tend to depend on one block and combine others with time.
These elements already exist in the form of Blogger, ICQ, MSN, AOL Compuserve. MySpace is a good example that includes all building blocks. MySpace is successful and addictive because of the multiplier effect as each block enhances the others.
The challenge is how to combine all building blocks on the small mobile screen size. Can a ‘consolidation play’ occur in the mobile space? Will mobile consolidation lead to the multiplier effect? How will consumers react?
Startups are currently creating the separate blocks. We need UI innovation to allow them to come together into one service. AirG’s experiences show that users exhibit greater takeup and have greater session lengths with community-based embedded applications.
User generated content has advantages over conventional (spoon fed) content delivery. When content hasn’t been screened it can be more exciting and immediate.
One risk for network operators is that consumers have not (yet) dis-associated content with the network operator. Copyright, IP infringements, privacy issues all become issues for the network operator. However, these risks are not new and already exist for existing media companies.
Adult verification is starting to be implemented by mobile operators. Signup is currently troublesome. Other operators are ignoring user generated content altogether in order to avoid the issues. Community moderation may provide one solution. Pragmatic approaches may allow third party providers and existing online communities move to mobile faster than some mobile operators.
Notes Posted Live from MEX – More detailed report, including panel discussion, will be available after the event.
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