Tag Archives: Facebook

Facebook reinventing itself as a MVNO. Hahaha, remember Amp’d Mobile?

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It was about five years ago and the next big thing was mobile video, all times of mad deals were being done and I was sitting in an unbelievably plush office in Los Angeles.

As I waited with my delightfully named colleague Ari Honka for our meeting, I remarked to him that the office looked familiar somehow. Then the phone rang with that ringtone known to watchers of the TV series 24 and it all became clear… we were actually in the office where 24 was filmed. How cool was that?

Our meeting was with a MVNO called Amp’d Mobile. They’d raised an unbelievable $360 million from the likes of MTV and Universal and they were offering 3G and mobile content to that all-important young demographic. They were cool, they had 24’s offices ffs, they had money, they were hot. We at Player X, on the other hand, were also hot.

We had done a deal with Hollywood studio Paramount to make a series of ‘mobisodes’ based on Miami Vice and Knight Rider, we were going into that meeting to do a deal and when their ears definitely pricked up when we mentioned the assocaition with David Hasselhoff.

“Yes, Hasselhoff was been very successful for us. Only last week we sold six pictures of him from our decks.”

“Wow, that’s not bad, six thousand, what was the rev share for you guys?”

“No, not six thousand… six.”

They were getting excited about six downloads and at that moment we both knew that Amp’d Mobile was a crock. Three months later on 21, July, 2007 it was all over, Amp’d Mobile sent out this message, a third of a billion dollars down the pan:

“Your svc may be disconnected on 7.24 @ 12:01 am. Go to www.ampd.com or contact the location where you activated your service for further information.”

Ari and I got a cab back to the Mondrian to meet up with our CEO Tony Pearce and the three of us got plastered at Barney’s Beanery, laughing about this insane world we were and that some companies were even more unrealistic than we were, it was like being part of the tulip craze in Holland.

So, it was with great glee this week when I read a report saying that the only way Facebook will do anything with mobile was if it reinvented itself as a MVNO. With their so-called billion users and a default communication tool for young people who regard Facebook as *being* the internet, at first it seems almost sensible.

Presently customers buy data package from operators to access Facebook, but Facebook gets no dosh from this traffic, only a residual ad revenue from the small number of users who click on ads. If Facebook did a deal with an operator, it could change the whole way it gets money out of mobile such as offering mobile SIM cards, packages for social games.

Blah-blah-blah, that sounds as smart as going to IPO on the back of a billion dollar purchase of Instagram signed by the CEO and not presented to the board. If Facebook became a MVNO the operator that was stupid enough to offer spectrum would be finished.

Furthermore Facebook would spend so much money trying to make it work that its botched IPO would be nothing in comparison. It would rent offices such as Amp’d Mobile’s 24 office and show off that its new offering was successful, it would be hilarious to watch, it might even make some ex-Amp’d staff hires.

What it should do is just leave mobile well alone. Make the site subscription for a few dollars a year and just let operators be the channel to its existing business. Forget MVNOs and just remain a place for show-offs to give away their content for free.

But, anyway, it was great to be reminded of Amp’d and those two jokers who bragged about six downloads, where are they now, I wonder? Yahoo? Hahahaha…

Forget the Bristol (and Lewes) Pound, it’s Kind Currency that pays off

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Earlier this week, and with accompanying fanfare, the mayor of Bristol bought a loaf of bread with a box-fresh Bristol Pound, the city’s new currency.

The city follows other UK towns and areas such as Lewes, Totnes and certain Sarf Lahndan (that’s cockney, don’t you know) boroughs in setting up a local currency to drive people to High Streets and away from out-of-town parking nightmares.

My local town is Lewes and I know that the Lewes Pound didn’t work; people don’t use it, but Bristol may be different. Lewes is similar to Bristol in many loony leftfield ways but it is 99.9% white, unlike the ex-slave city that has a rich, multicultural heritage.

But the reason the Bristol Pound might work is because of the times we live in. When the Lewes Pound was launched in August 2008 the world was different. Even though the 15-year recession was only a month away it all seemed like a tourist ruse. It was easy to get money and this sounded like a bunch of hippies being clever.

But of course the hippies (damn them!) were right and four years on, any form of monetary innovation will get our very divided attention. Capitalism, as usual, totters but remains, but other forms of bottom-up capitalism are happening everywhere.

It was interesting to note that the Bristol Pound is going to be all about mobile and online payments, which is as it should be, but perhaps we are seeing the birth of something called Kind Currency, a form of labour and value exchange formerly known as bartering.

I don’t know about you lot, but I use it all the time. It started off when my network, through the use of the lunches, nights out, the web, conferences, recommendations and latterly social media, started to mature.

If I wanted a developer’s skills then Kind Currency meant I could use him/her for free if I promised to do some marketing for him/her. If somebody wanted an introduction I’d do it for a beer, not as insurance for when things went badly for me, but because it was a good (and Kind) thing to do.

Now that type of transaction is omnipresent in my life, it extends to my family. If I help my wife out with a document, she lets me have a big night out at the Century Club, if my son does the business at school he gets his pocket money, although the latter might be pure bribery.

I’m not saying we’ll be paying Easy Jet airfares with potatoes from the allotment, but you get my point. Kind Currency, like love, is all around us and it’s not difficult to see a New World where Kind Currency in the form of tokens or ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ mixed with mobile becomes widespread.

I’m just about to get a train to Ye Olde Londone Towne, but we might be on to something here. Kind Currency and mobile, you heard it hear first. Anybody got a business plan? I can raise the money, if you know what I mean.

President Obama is the world leader of technology… he’s even on Spotify

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This contribution is by Mike Johns, President of Digital Mind State

President Barack Obama is the most technology-savvy US politician ever, leveraging online, mobile, social networks and other media to build a vast volunteer and fundraising operation to become the nation’s 44th President.

He is the only world leader to have public accounts on nine separate platforms including Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, Flickr, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram and even Spotify.

He also has two accounts on Twitter @BarackObama and @Obama2012. On the mobile front he is the first-ever president to have his own mobile app, Obama for America, Obama’s Change mobile wallpaper and lest us forget his impromptu a cappella performance of Al Green’s hit Let’s Stay Together that has become a ringtone available on his official website.

President Obama has become the most tech savvy leader the world has ever seen with a huge lead over the leaders of China, UK, Japan, Germany, Russia… and Somaliland.

During the 2008 presidential race to the White House Obama was able to leverage social media sites and raised $55 million in less than 30 days. After winning the Presidential election he kept his Blackberry, becoming the first President to have access to email. Interestingly neither George W. Bush nor Bill Clinton used email during their terms in office.

In an era of extreme innovation and a society that is always connected, the key to Obama’s success is his understanding of real-time communication, key collaboration, connectivity and the ecosystems of communities.

Team Obama has mastered how to touch various communities and appeal to the mobile lifestyle. It is apparent that Team Obama realises people are no longer in the office or the home but out there in the environment, not tethered to one place.

The Obama marketing mix has simply been about delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. No other world leader has captured mobility as President Obama has.

John F.Kennedy took advantage of the television, Ronald Regan was labeled the great communicator, Mr. Bill Clinton was the first president to appeal to the MTV generation and now we have the nation’s first ‘tech-savvy’ president.

Obama’s broadband initiative is a clear illustration that his administration understands the importance digital technology plays in further advancing America into the 21st century. Under his watch we’ve witnessed the FBI move from a paper-based case management system to a digital system of records, using a modern web-based application.

Call it fate or perfect timing, but President Obama represents pop culture and technology. He used digital technology as a tool to get into office as well single-handedly changing the stereotype that Governments synonymous with bureaucracy move slowly.

He’s the opposite, he’s revolutionising the US Government services by using smartphones and tablets, Obama said “Americans deserve a government that works for them anytime, anywhere and on any device.”

Love him or hate him, other world leaders can take note to what he has accomplished using the power of digital technology… and a power that is likely to seem him re-elected in November.

If you have a strong social voice then your invoices will always be paid on time

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For those of you who are salaried and have worked for somebody else for most of your life then the content of this missive will probably be of little interest, but for the others, please read on.

Working for yourself is dangerous and a roller-coaster of success, fail, fail, fail, fail, success, fail, fail, fail, fail, success. It is an utter head-breaker, but it is worth it for the autonomy and the freedom and the spontaneous time you can spend with your family. Once you start it, you never go back… unless Bob Dylan calls offering you a job. Continue reading →