the smartphone wars

Classical gas!

(Should somebody tell Windows this was all done and over with 2 years ago?)

Half this site's readers are from the US. What that means for this week is that they will be enjoying the last long weekend of summer, the last holiday until (as the Candians call it) American Thanksgiving.

So I better do my best to make sure this week's Phonies are out before we all pack into our cars, are easily digestible, since we're going to be grilling a tremendous amount of cow over the next 3 days, and go down as cold and smooth as a weak but beloved American pilsner.

Let's get started! But first, let me pour myself a cold one.

Big Bang award

iPod Touch

The entry point to the iOS ecosystem for children, teens, grandparents. The training ground for iTunes, Ping, FaceTime and the App Store. The first online payments platform for millions. The linchpin in Apple's strategy to take a cut of all paid content -- yes, all of it: books, games, software/apps, tv, movies, music, ads.

One more thing. This week, the iPod Touch got much better. Sleeker, lighter, more functional. While others continue to fight it out in the bloody smartphone wars, Apple, like the United States in 1940 is generating more wealth, enough for a sustained battle with even the toughest enemies.

Woolly Mammoth award

Blackberry

New numbers from Quantcast show that mobile web browsing via Android devices is growing, rapidly, while on iOS it is slightly declining. As any tech blogger excepting me will tell you this is proof that OMG APPLE IS REPEATING THE SAME *MISTAKE* BY NOT LICENSING ITS OPERATING SYSTEM.

Actually, no. For many reasons; all of which I have said already. The iPhone/iOS is optimized for many activities. The mobile web is just one, and not even the main one. Not so with the Android. However, rather than re-hash that iPhone vs Android nonsense, we should instead look at the numbers for the Blackberry. They are not moving. In the smartphone wars, stagnation = death. The Blackberry is optmized for corporate email. Corporate email is becoming less important every day. We demand real-time, social, hyperlocal; of which email is none of these. The poor mobile web browsing numbers posted by Blackberry is simply not good news. I love Blackberry. The global smartphone market is growing. However, if they don't do a radically better job of supporting accessing the mobile web and social media, they will perish.

Dinosaur Crossing award

Jobs

It's Labor Day weekend in America! So, where are all the jobs? Sure, we're in a Great Recession. Problem is, at the same time, demographics and technology are working against you. I use contractors from around the world. The ones I use in the United States could, in fact, be located elsewhere. Our most advanced personal devices, the smartphones, are made in China, by Taiwanese companies, with Korean branding. Time and space are being altered. Anyone can get anything from anybody anywhere anytime. What makes you -- or the United States -- so special?

You want to do something this holiday weekend? That you'll remember. That will be patriotic? Start a business.

(If she's gonna be that dull, she better sex it up a bit.)

Gray Powell award

Samsung

Samsung announced the launch of its Samsung Galaxy Tab, a 7-inch tablet computer that runs on Android. No, you didn't hear of it because anyone who would have cared was paying attention to Apple this week. No, Android isn't optimized for a 7-inch display. No, there aren't really any tablet-optimized apps in the Android Marketplace. Yes, if there were, you wouldn't be able to search and find them, anyway.

And one more thing...

The entire go-to-market strategy of the Tab is wrong. It is focused on the iPad, which has the benefit of the iOS ecosystem, iTunes, App Store and the money-printing Apple retail outlets. Meanwhile, millions of crap Windows-based netbooks and notebooks are out there, easy pickings for someone with a bomb to drop. In this case, Samsung has badly missed the target. I expect this will setback Android tablet sales a good 6-12 months, further aiding the iPad.

Magical & Revolutionary award

Virgins

Honestly, who doesn't love virgins? Even the word, virgin, sounds so soft, so delicate.

Oh, sorry. It's not 'virgins' it's Virgin. As in the Virgin MiFi 2200. A device about the size of the brand new Apple TV, available for $149 from Virgin Mobile. It uses the Sprint 3G (not 4G) network and lets you create a relatively secure WiFi hotspot that can support up to 5 devices at once! Yes, America, there is a Santa Claus, and he's bringing you no-contract WiFi for your car, camper, picnic; nearly anywhere.

I ordered mine last weekend and was told they were out of stock. Tried again yesterday, with much success. It is to arrive on Tuesday. While other carriers gouge us with $60 per month required every month for 2 years, the MiFi 2200 is only $40 a month. There is no contract. You can purchase your plan, or not, at any time.

The only downside? Somehow, Google is trying to push this signal to the back of the line!

In my TECHNOLOGY RANKINGS, Groupon scores a stellar '30'. That pretty much assures long-term success (at least during this decade of the smartphone wars).

Not that Groupon needs my affirmation. The company hit the sweet spot of business model meets instant tipping point of technology and need and desire and capability. So much so that probably the biggest effort facing Groupon now is building thesmelves fast enough to hold off all the counterfeiters.

Forbes profiles the company that is leveraging the real-time social mobile web as well as just about anybody:

Unlike so many dot-com rockets, Groupon is a real business. Occupying 85,000 square feet inside a rehabbed eight-story former Montgomery Ward warehouse in Chicago's River North neighborhood, the company is on track to pass $500 million in revenue this year, according to a report Morgan Stanley ( MS - news - people ) put together to win some underwriting business. No technology stalwart--including Ebay, Amazon.com ( AMZN - news - people ), Yahoo ( YHOO - news - people ), AOL and Google--grew that big that fast. At just 17 months old this April Groupon boasted a $1.35 billion valuation when it raised $135 million, the biggest chunk of it from Digital Sky Technologies, the curious Moscow investment fund behind Facebook and Zynga. (Mason will not disclose his stake, which he says is less than 50%.) The only company to reach a $1 billion valuation faster was YouTube (now part of Google), founded in 2005 and still waiting to turn its first profit. Groupon broke into the black just seven months after inception.

*Note: I'm considering abandoning my Technology Rankings and just basing the future success of a technology company based on whether or not some unnamed Russian oligarch is an early major investor. Opulence? I has it.

My children watch ESPN. I don't because near as I can tell, there are no actual sports. Just news reports on criminals. Still, I thought this number was pretty telling: half of the users of ESPN's mobile services do not use any ESPN PC-based services.

Half of the users of the sports network’s SMS alerts, mobile Web site and applications are unique to the mobile medium.

“About half of people who use our mobile products don’t use our PC products—the mobile device could be their only Internet connection or their primary Internet-connected device,” said John Zehr, senior vice president and general manager of ESPN Mobile, Bristol, CT. “Mobile is not cannibalistic—it’s an amplifier.

“Fans migrate toward best available screen, and while we’re still seeing the majority of consumption on TV, our mobile audience is growing at an astounding rate,” he said. “In 2008 for the first time, and again last year, our mobile traffic actually exceeded our PC traffic on weekends.

“On college football Saturday and NFL Sunday we get more traffic on our mobile Web site than our wired Web site, and now there’s no going back—if you deliver a good experience, people will consume the content on their mobile device when they’re out and about.”

(See also the PDF attachment)

I wanted to let readers know that I have also begun posting technology reviews and news at DeviceMag. Check out their site!

Here at DeviceMAG we take technology very serious, no matter if it’s a small gadget or a new device on the market. With a passion for everything that gets geeks high we’re here to feed you with the latest news.

A team of experienced tech writers that have been doing it for over four years now, got together to put DeviceMag.com up and to make sure, among others, it’s going to be one of the first things you need when you wake up, at the office or maybe late before bed.

Yes, I hate email. Yes, I use Gmail. Yes, I am loving their new Priority Inbox feature. So far, it works well. I confess, I am ruthless in assigning priority status. Very few make the grade.

Only problem to date is that this isn't available when I check my gmail on my iPhone. This makes for a disconnect. I scan the emails on my smartphone and it looks different than on my laptop. Google needs to make this work across all our devices.

Late last year, I used my TECHNOLOGY RANKINGS algorithm to score Twitter. This was when the general population was first beginning to really embrace Twitter and the tech bloggers were convinced it was a fad.

In my rankings, however, Twitter scored very well. With the exception of MONETIZATION of content, the service had done quite well. Since then, they have become more HYPERLOCAL and more MOBILE. Not surprisingly, they are one of my highest rated technologies.

Yesterday, their founder gave some numbers and once again, the rankings algorithm proved dead on correct. Just saying...

The world is changing completely, permanently. I am seeking to compile rules that will help entrepreneurs, businesses and individuals thrive during the smartphone wars.

Any you care to dispute, anything you wish to add please do so in the comments.

These laws will help you survive the global smartphone wars.

Content

• Brian's first law of content: information wants to be monetized
• Brian's second law of content: your cost structure will be destroyed
• Brian's third law of content: people want what they want when they want it where they want it on the device they want it on (deny them this at your own peril). Only old people can even comprehend when this is not so; the young view it as a (momentary) glitch in the matrix.

Scale

• Think locally scale globally
• Hyperlocal is Hyperglobal. Do not make market scale a deciding factor. Scale will be achieved, quickly, once a need is met amongst a single group or locality.

Profits

We can get anything anywhere anytime from anyone, therefore:

• your customers are your advocates -- or they will soon no longer be your customers
• values equal profits
• storytelling sells, and great storytelling sells much more
• The creators of wealth gain at least equivalent power. Smarphones are enabling equivalent access to funding, global markets, data, content, social media and other services to all peoples of the world. They will thus realize disproportionate gains in wealth and power relative to Ameirca, Europe and what was once called the 'Second World'.

Time and Space

• There is only one time: now
• There is only one place: here
• The spread of smartphones simultaneously decrease the impact of distance toward zero as they increase the impact of time toward infinite.
• As the real-time social mobile web destroys all traditional barriers inherent in time and space for the globe's population, they increase the importance of presence for the individual.
  

[More laws to follow...]