Index Guide to TelNotes if you are new to this blog
InfoStack Topics:
1) Horizontalization:
a) tracking Dean Bubley’s “Disruptive Wireless” blog underscores my belief in the coming horizontalization. IP and the app world WILL change the voice model.
b) Telco 2.0 is same old telco model; they don’t see new wave coming.
2) Upper Layers:
a) good description of what the GoogleVoice-Sprint product does. However, what does it do for S in terms of cost/capex/churn, or marketshare/ARPU increase? Does this increase the pace of disintermediation of the carriers? I’ll let you know.
b) Om profiles what credit card cos are doing in mobile payments. The ultimate winner will be the one that disrupts egregious and analog based transaction fee price structure.
3) Middle Layers:
a) How Yahoo ads get inserted; would this get built at a BellCo?
b) Magnet enterprise WIN social application development platform for team collaboration for CRM, HR, marketing, prod dev, recruiting, sales, training. Their URL tagline: “Deal Collaboration Mgmt Software Sales WIN by Magnet”
c) Viewdle, facial recognition app, starts small and has users build directory of images
4) Lower Layers:
a) Ericsson’s report of strong earnings shows where carriers are spending their dollars; namely capacity to support the wave of smartphone data demand. But is the model long-term profitable for the carriers?
b) AT&T in spat with SanFran over their wiring units for U-verse. One thing comm monopolies have never cared about is aesthetics be they poles, towers or boxes. It’s just the short-term thinking of American’s in general, I guess.
c) AT&T CTO says Femto cells might create more interference than gain.
d) gotta love Tom Evslin positing a WiFi overlay to all wireless digital protocols. Another example supporting centralized hierarchical networks (CHN™).
Market and General Interest Topics:
5) Industry Statistics and Events:
a) Informative article on pricing trends in wireless for voice, messaging and data. Price adjustments and restructurings coming due to smartphones and app ecosystems.
b) separate article detailing voice ARPU dropping faster than data ARPU and how to offset that. Overall it underscores the question in 4.a above. Is there ROI here?
c) chart of download speeds for T, T-mobile, S and VZW; S is best, but no one knows!
6) Business Strategy:
a) WSJ underscores potential conflicts between very large players over mobile payments.
b) Don’t see how vertical integration of Savvis/Centurylink helps either the network or the datacenters. Deal’s value lies in growing Savvis’ datacenter footprint by 50% & increasing Century’s enterprise business to 50% of revenue; hence 10x trailing multiple.
c) Tivo (failure) vs iPod (success); a comparison. The 3 reasons for different outcomes were: ecosystems, software interfaces, and directory value.
d) great expose on how Apple approached and handled the iPhone location issue; also insights into what they want to do with the data. Apple, a great company.
d) Ticketmaster introducing pricing of events based on demand. Will all commerce go this way with mobile phones?
e) I competed with YouTube in raising money for the FeedRoom in 2003, envisioning them as what YouTube did. So I’d put money on the founders figuring out how to solve our information overload problem. Here’s a history of Delicious.
f) Russ McGuire highlights Sprint’s approach to unlimited vs metered from T and VZW. That’s great, but why doesn’t the market care? Is it marketing? Where’s the hook?
7) Financial:
a) Nokia cutting 7k jobs and outsourcing Symbian is the right way to go. Company should incorporate Android and RIM/QPX if it wants to be pre-eminent handset supplier.
8) Other:
a) Leadership can be learned; it’s about how you view and communicate with others.
b) checking your email/phone every 5 minutes, or know someone? Read this. Amen.
c) Gagein, a tool worth checking out for social media content aggregation and discourse.
