Reality Check

Up until very recently, proprietary handset platforms, walled gardens and expensive data tariffs have served well as the foundation for operator and vendor business models. However, this “old” mobile math has become very ... Read More »

While it was good to see some retailers reporting stronger than expected sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the reality is that these two shopping “holidays” are a U.S. phenomenon. ... Read More »

On Nov. 4, the Federal Communications Commission issued a decision that few have thus far given very much notice, but which is noteworthy for two reasons. ... Read More »

Try searching the Internet for “WAP is dead” and you will see 328,000 matches. Scroll through a few pages of the search results and among the recent links only a week old, you will also see articles, blog posts and rants dating ... Read More »

Sixteen months ago, George Washington University convened Web strategists from leading Presidential campaigns and social networking sites to discuss how technology was revolutionizing political campaigning. ... Read More »

Having just returned from the Rutberg Wireless Influencers conference this past week, the top question on everyone’s mind was, “what impact will the economic crisis have on your business?” And while there is no question that ... Read More »

The news from the heartland of America is that rural wireless carriers are as technologically savvy as their urban cousins, and in many ways more agile. ... Read More »

It is time to get real about the communications needs of the men and women who assure the public’s safety. Our challenges have expanded, but our vision has not. We continue to fixate on 20th century technology as the solution to ... Read More »

The mobile ecosystem is expanding. ... Read More »

Where are the best positions in information and communications technology? ... Read More »

By far and away, the most popular question I was asked at CTIA earlier this month by media, analysts, developers, big companies, small companies, etc. ... Read More »

The wireless ecosystem has come to a fascinating stage of its development. The past couple of years have produced plenty of industry fanfare about LTE and mobile WiMAX debuting as 4G technologies. ... Read More »

I have a good vantage point of the mobile social networking opportunity: The largest social networking providers, wireless carriers, content providers and OEMs are using my company’s Anthem platform as the backbone of their ... Read More »

Cuban-American mommy-to-be Gloria Dobal “loved everything” about online pregnancy site Baby Center. However, she had difficulty sharing the experience with family members who prefer Spanish. “My mother is from Cuba and I wanted ... Read More »

Two seemingly unrelated facts are converging to define our future. The first is the unprecedented growth in wireless communications with over 3.5 billion people connected. The second is the realization that the Web is only 5,000 ... Read More »

My teen daughter complains that I treat her like my own private marketing lab. Over the years, when a new cellphone comes in with apps to review, I learned to toss the black slab at her and say, “here, play with this and tell me ... Read More »

It feels like every day we are seeing articles about the “operating system wars” and who the winners and losers will be. The questions and analysis seem endless. ... Read More »

The mobile communications industry is turning the page on its history of proprietary, closed development. Today, mobile is writing its next chapter, and here’s where open development is moving the story: ... Read More »

The rollout and consumer uptake of mobile video has been slower than expected for wireless carriers. But watch out, assembling just over the horizon is a new mobile video technology that promises to shake up this already ... Read More »

Along with every one of my friends in this industry, from entrepreneurs to product managers at carriers, I have been lamenting the state of our industry’s service model for several years: You can have the best product with ... Read More »

Patrick Maurer is no techie. “I can barely work my toaster,” says the lanky 29-year-old sales rep with the self-described “tennis player” hairstyle. But Patrick may represent the most promising aspect of mobile marketing and ... Read More »

With the launch of the 3G iPhone, there has been an incredible amount of media attention on Apple, the device, the App Store, the costs, 3G networks, etc., but not much focus on what impact it will have on the broader smartphone ... Read More »

A race is underway, and the whole world is watching — even though the winners have already been determined. ... Read More »

Mobile penetration in Latin America was around 66% in early 2008, well above the world average of 46%. And, over 375 million people own a mobile device in LATAM — almost 12% of the world’s mobile population of 3.1 billion. ... Read More »

"How can I help you, and where would you like to go?" In this simple greeting, there's a huge question: Are the greeting and the experience that follows marketing or service or both? ... Read More »

For those in mobile, the topic that still causes our colleagues to giggle is the topic of adult content. ... Read More »

With the clock winding down on my tenure as a “guest” (read: uncompensated) columnist on mobile content for RCR Wireless News, I thought my last column might be a good time — heck, the only time — to throw up a “Hail Mary” for ... Read More »

One of the biggest questions about mobile advertising today is a very basic one: Where are we on the market development curve? A recent JupiterResearch report predicted that mobile marketing in the U.S. alone will grow to $2.2 ... Read More »

Recently RCR Wireless News ran an interesting article about how the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have adopted text messaging as a campaign tool. ... Read More »

Six months into 2008, it is time we did a gut check on the appetite and state of the mobile marketing industry. ... Read More »

While it is relatively simple for me to make a straightforward case that a slowdown in the U.S. economy will adversely impact U.S. ... Read More »

For the entirety of my career in the wireless space, I have always worked for a small company selling something to or through wireless network operators. As such, I have made a good number of friends who work at these various ... Read More »

The potential of ad-funded mobile entertainment (AFME) has been a hotly discussed topic for the past two years, and the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) has been leading the way. ... Read More »

As those of us who have had the pleasure of listening to him speak might attest, Sprint Nextel’s Barry West does have a way with words and one cannot but marvel at the elegant manner in which he strings them together. ... Read More »

Readers of this column will recall that my “ah-ha” moment of the future structure of the cable industry occurred in the wake of Comcast’s failure to buy Disney when I realized that in order to meet the “any time, any where, any ... Read More »

After the CTIA Wireless 2008 show there can be no question that AT&T, the largest carrier in the U.S., is also leading the industry in the embrace of multi-touch technology. ... Read More »

Mobile TV—it could have 210 million viewers and global earnings of $11.7 billion by 2011. ... Read More »

Next week in Las Vegas, prior to the CTIA Wireless 2008 show, CTIA’s Wireless Internet Caucus (WIC) will hold the first of its bi-annual, face-to-face open meetings (Monday, March 31, LVCC Rm. N260, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.). ... Read More »

Heresy seemed to be in the air at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Vodaphone CEO Arun Sarin appeared to be opening himself to a new Spanish Inquisition by suggesting that some of the mobile spectrum currently ... Read More »

“Dumb pipe” and “bulk transport” pejoratives recently re-surfaced in response to Sprint Nextel’s $99.99 per month voice and data “Simply Everything” plan and the chorus of voice-only similarly priced responses from AT&T Mobility ... Read More »

Over the past few months, we can not help but hear the rising cry from content providers, marketers and agencies: “Sort yourselves out mobile industry and make it easy for us to buy mobile.” Some comments which echo this theme ... Read More »

It was four years or so ago, at a cable marketing event, that I had my “ah-ha!” moment regarding the future structure of the wireless, wireline, cable and ISP industries. ... Read More »

The term "smartphone" has come under fire for excluding highly functional phones that lack a standard operating system, one that enables native third-party development. ... Read More »

The mobile entertainment industry is currently plagued with a wide variance of proprietary formats in reporting mobile content sales, their associated metadata and consumer activity. ... Read More »

Early in the New Year, it is time to assess the state of the industry and get the industry leaders commentaries on what the year holds. For this column, I touched base with a few of the leaders in the agency space to get their ... Read More »

If, as Scott Fitzgerald so famously put it, there are no second acts in American lives, what are we to make of metro-wide Wi-Fi? ... Read More »

It is no secret in our industry that mobile Web presents limitless potential. It can be both a great source of revenue, and also an enjoyable, useful consumer resource. ... Read More »

Venture-backed wireless companies often depend on deals with carriers and telecom equipment manufacturers for their success. ... Read More »

A new year is here, and I got so tired of reading all of the banal lists of predictions from virtually everyone that I wrote my own. ... Read More »

I am not a real member of the Seattle Operator Originals. Occasionally I am invited to join the gang and even act as a kind of venture-capitalist consigliere to various members who have failed to launch their latest venture with ... Read More »

There has long been a debate about mobile commerce. ... Read More »

Yes, I have seen the future of digital content distribution, and it is convoluted. ... Read More »

Over the past (almost) four years, I was lucky enough to be in a position at Verizon Wireless, and as chairman of the MMA Consumer Best Practice committee, to see a new industry grow from virtually zero revenue to one that is ... Read More »

The Mobile Entertainment Forum recognizes the mobile platform as the fastest growing and most highly personalized medium for the delivery of entertainment, including music, movies, television shows and games. ... Read More »

At almost every event I attend, whether for mobile specifically, digital, advertising, etc., dialogue almost always shifts to a discussion around Common Short Code (CSC) mobile campaigns. ... Read More »

At its Oct. 23 meeting in San Francisco, CTIA’s Board of Directors approved new initiatives of CTIA’s Wireless Internet Caucus (WIC) in the areas of mobile financial services and m-commerce and cameraphone code scanning. ... Read More »

Editor’s Note: Welcome to a special CTIA I.T. Show Daily edition of our weekly online feature, Analyst Angle. Every Monday at www.RCRNews.com you can find columns from the industry’s leading analysts, including Current Analysis’ ... Read More »

There’s been much talk of the disappointing merger of Sprint and Nextel. In the two years since the deal closed in mid-2005, the $35 billion value attributed to Nextel at the time of the merger has eroded rapidly as customers ... Read More »

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Reality Check, a feature for RCR Wireless News’ new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile content industry to give their ... Read More »

Some may find it unseemly that I would use this space to write about a subject in which I have a vested interest, but to them I paraphrase what Winston Churchill said to his critics: Tough. ... Read More »

So social networking is hot—or so you may have already heard. Well, you heard right. Social networking is becoming the de facto communication method of choice for more and more people. ... Read More »

“Monte Python and the Holy Grail” has made me laugh every time I’ve seen it. But recently it has provided an uncomfortable metaphor for the plight of startups that dare to try and sell to, or through, the ever-larger wireless ... Read More »

When the MMA first started publicly speaking about mobile advertising more than two years ago, some of the backlash I immediately received from consumers was extreme: “I don’t want that on MY device, my highly personal device, my ... Read More »

There was an interesting front page story in last Friday’s Washington Post regarding Comcast subscribers who had their Internet service discontinued by Comcast because they were considered to be “excessive downloaders” that were ... Read More »

JupiterResearch broadly defines social marketing as the generation of (or forwarding of, or engagement with) content associated with a brand and its attributes by consumers. ... Read More »

There have always been rumblings about poor user experiences for mobile entertainment services. If you have ever tried to download a video clip, buy a ringtone, play a game or watch mobile TV, you’ll know what I mean. A bad first ... Read More »

When you hear the term “wild west,” the images that are normally conjured might be of John Wayne or Clint Eastwood riding horseback across the frontier, or at least the Hollywood frontier. ... Read More »

With the doldrums of August upon us, I thought we might forego any heavy lifting this month and take a look back at a subject that continues to hang over the future of mobile content: content rating. ... Read More »

The ancient Romans spoke of the “Dog Days” of summer as a time "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid.” If you’ve been following mobile news only for the past few weeks, you might ... Read More »

Whoever said that change is the only constant must have worked at a startup. Because there is only one thing you can be sure of in startup life: The business model will change. The most brilliant ideas still require refinement ... Read More »

My phone rings, it’s Alec Baldwin from “30 Rock.” He’s calling to tell me to watch his new show, but the message contains personal information about me—my interests, where I live—all delivered from Mr. Baldwin himself. ... Read More »

If wireless communications are what God wrought, digitizing a physical good may be the devil’s due. ... Read More »

The 2006 buzz around paid mobile search has carried over into 2007 with search continuing to be one of the hottest topics in the wireless industry. The market is rapidly evolving despite the absence of significant spend by ... Read More »

Back in 2003 I counted and realized that in the past six months I had seen over 100 business plans describing opportunities to invest in unlicensed spectrum operators. ... Read More »

It all started with “American Idol,” the program that set the standard for participation TV (formerly referred to as interactive TV) in the U.S. and educated the U.S. consumer on the basics of participation TV and mobile device ... Read More »

Editor’s Note: Welcome to the first edition of Reality Check, a feature for RCR Wireless News’ new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile content ... Read More »