Ready Player oksusu Social VR?

Introduced at the 2018 Mobile World Congress, and launched two weeks ago, oksusu Social VR provides, as the name suggests, social interactions in virtual environments by leveraging SK Telecom's 10M-subscriber-strong OTT platform oksusu. The service works with Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream headsets, and video quality is equivalent to 80-inch full HD, with potential upgrades to 8K (7,680 x 4,320) and 360-degree IMAX screens on 5G.

Of course, Social VR has a role to play to promote 5G, which SKT is expected to launch this December. From day one, the experience ticks all the boxes to fill bigger pipes: higher definition, enhanced interactivity for key verticals (music, movies, sports, games...), new mass entertainment, (social) network effect,...

Catch me if you can

What's interesting is the angle SKT used to market the new service in their PR release "From virtual reality to cinema dating reality" ("가상현실에서 영화관 데이트 현실로" - 20181011): almost a dating or date-enhancing app, for young Koreans to escape a distressing everyday life, and to become successful avatars in exciting virtual worlds.

'Second Life', meet Spielberg's 'Ready Player One'.

Granted, there are technical constraints, you'll have to wait for that sensitive suit, and for the moment, 'interactions' are basically what audiences are allowed to do IRL: discuss with their neighbors, change seats, throw popcorn at the screen. And to avoid inaudibility, only up to eight people can chat together while watching the same video contents in one of the 5 kinds of virtual spaces already available: living room, movie theater, performance hall, sports venue, and e-sports room. 

So couch potato goes VR, but that's the only the beginning. You can already watch NBA games on VR, and judging how GAFA joined the sports rights battle, more platforms will emerge. Including for amateur virtual space designers - think MySpace in the age of Google Sketchup and Google Tilt. I'm pretty sure Korea will soon have its fair share of the VR addicts I envisioned in my 1980s short story 'Lautriv'.

A couple of years ago, I was dragged to a hologram K-pop musical in Seoul, and most fans came in pairs or small groups of friends, enjoying the show almost as if it were the same thing. But you wouldn't have Beatlemania-level screams, which I think may happen in a soundproof environment many are used to: the noraebang or karaoke room they book for a couple of hours to let it go full throttle. I bet many of these facilities will add the VR experience, to spice up the karaoke (on stage with your idol), or simply for sessions of oksusu Social VR (or their likes) between friends. PC-bang may evolve differently, with smaller cells, and a focus on VR games and e-sports.

Anyway, you won't know what hits you until it's too late.

mot-bile 2018

Facebook's Initial Privacy Offering

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

My Wall and Wall Street are about to become an item: we're all going public, and you'll have to issue a profit warning each time I unlike you nth kitten picture.

Yet Facebook Initial Public Offering remains a non-event: Facebook has been milking our relationship from the beginning, and even with his 11M+ friends, Mark Zuckerberg has never been much of a philanthropist. The question was "when", and the answer is "now".

Now the other question remains: until when?

It doesn't have to come from the next big thing (a 4D, 5G meshroom cloud? the SOPAtriot Act?): remaining at the top happens to be difficult, even for a free, pervasive platform. And even a 800 pound gorilla can get off your back (I recently mentioned the potential Tripodization of Facebook: "Cloud Portability"). Furthermore, money won't do you much good without a vision. Look at Rupert Murdoch, who after losing over half a billion bucks on MySpace, delivers his pearls of conservative wisdom* for free over Twitter. And speaking of doing good: Google started being evil after its IPO...

... Come to think of it: Zuck started as a bad guy.

mot-bile 2012

*if such a thing exists.

Cloud Portability

You is everywhere. Ubiquitous, yet with different levels of thickness depending on platforms and contexts. A change of temperature, and parts of your cloud precipitate into big drops for everyone to look and feel.

You is the marrow of the backbone. The bread earner for a Google or a Facebook, maybe a former unwilling employee of a Yahoo! or a MySpace.

You is stuck in a net, hooked, dependent. You has the mother of all monkeys on you's back. You can't kick the habit. You can't see a future without the virtual past you amassed over the years.

You probably doesn't remember Tripod, the killer app of yore. Picture this: a customized homepage, featuring whatever you fancy about you...

You, online.

Tripod joined Lycos (yeah, go-get-it Lycos, a star of the silent internet times - limited colors, dial-up, only background track the faxlike connection), and followed its master to Germany (Bertelsmann), Spain (Telefonica), and Korea (Daum). Now both brands belong to Ybrant Digital (India). Tripod fetches domain names for the digital marketing group. Unlike most internet ventures, Tripod took some time to deserve its brand: is still walking around, but with a cane. At least, they're making a few bucks with the brand. Yahoo! totally euthanized Geocities.

I'm not digressing. Lycos was the first netco to make a decent living. And the most disruptive moment I remember about Tripod is when they announced the portability of homepages. Competition remained one click away, but you could switch with all your belongings.

Social network portability is much more complex. Friendships and synapses reach beyond simple pages or links. But we'll have to get there some day.

And who knows, 20 years from now, some South Sudanese venture shall sell capacity under the brand Facebook.

mot-bile 2012

KT-NTT Venture Forum

Announced last May, the first KT-NTT Venture Forum took place yesterday in Palo Alto, CA.

What's in a name ? This is a forum, it features Venture issues, and is led by KT and NTT, the fixed counterparts to KTF and NTT DoCoMo, whose partnership has been already blooming for a while. The brand KT appears first in this new venture, but NTT is a much bigger player.

What's in a location ? Initially planned to host the premiere, Seoul will organize the next round this September. How "neutral" can the Sillicon Valley be ? Both NTT America, Inc. (nttamerica.com) and NTT DoCoMo USA, Inc. (docomo-usa.com) are based in NYC, while KT America's HQ are in L.A. (ktamerica.com). But Palo Alto is home to DoCoMo Communications Laboratories USA, Inc. (docomolabs-usa.com), and NTT serves customers in the US far beyond the national expat community (ie Verio).

What's in a program ? 12 start-ups showed up and off at the Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley. 76 avid investors (VCs, Qualcomm, Sony, Samsung, Cisco, Intel & co) attended speeches by CTOs CHOI Doo-wan and Noritaka UJI. Each operator came with staff from 15 BUs. This was obviously meant to go beyond name-card trading and to let the Sillicon Valley take notice : we may not be the new sheriff in town, but we are no small fish either. And we are willing to invest, to make new things happen.

A few days earlier, SK Telecom confirmed the sale of Helio to Virgin*. To go to Hollywood from Palo Alto, you do have to go South...

Both Korean heavyweights are intensifying the competition at home, where KT and KTF will unite and where SKT purchases his way into the home broadband market. The former PTT is becoming more customer oriented and considering bundles (broadband at home with Megapass, IPTV with MegaTV, VoIP with KT, broadband on the go with KT Wibro...).

On the mobile turf, there seems to be a cultural shift these days :

- KTF found its mojo and developped a taste for marketing entertainment**.
- SKT keeps the overall lead (50%+ market share), but seems to be losing some of its cool factor. It is lagging behind his rival in the WCDMA frenzy : 27.4% of the market have been converted at the end of June 2008 and despite a better month by SKT, KTF holds 51.1% of these 12.3M subs.

SHOW succeeded the old SKT way : massive advertising, devoted shops, an aura of fun and buzz. "T" did enjoy the same treatment but with a rather "Deutsche Telecom" flavor : somehow less fun and less buzz. Actually, this zero-affect-non-brand sounds too techno-oriented and not very sexy, while the Show brand is clearly a hit : just compare "show-time" with "T-time" and it jumps at your face.

The leader is putting all its weight on the new USIM-based solutions (that's "T" and "USIM", not a new brand) including contactless payments. The loyalty strategy lies at the core of mobility, in a tiny little fortress of technology, at the very moment the competitor is embracing a more pervasive kind of ambition.


* see "Helio lands on Virgin island" (20080509)
** ditto Voda : Vodafone Music Reporter is to rock and roll with MySpace

Helio lands on Virgin island

Brand with prepaid subs would seek added value services king with cool devices.

Virgin Mobile USA and fellow Sprint M-VNO Helio may tie the knot after SK Telecom failed to get Nextel for $5 bn (and cyworld to outperform MySpace).

A marketing wizzard, Korea's mobile leader is good at launching brands on the national market but building an international vehicle is a tremendous task. And investing in an ailing MNO on a huge / consolidating market would have been a waste of time and money.

Now SKT has both*, and it should focus on a relevant partner to give its platforms the global reach they deserve. And quick : Korea's new and US friendly president LEE Myung-bak just met with his new IT advisor : Bill Gates... Microsoft's dark period seems over in the country.

* even if it may lose after China Unicom sells its CDMA network to China Telecom - another blow abroad for SKT, which owns a little bit more than 6% of the MNO.

Social networking for social networks

With Yahoo!'s oneConnect, mobile users will enjoy one interface to synchronise all their social networking services (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace).

Except for the "contacts" part of the services.

What a shame. Imagine Steve Balmer wants to become your friend while you're on the go...

Talking about Stevie Nowonder : he's daring to buy Danger. So Microsoft's idea of innovation is to purchase a netco that used to be hype in the mid 90s and a small manufacturer that happened to make one hype device in the early 2000s ? Danger is my middle name, but I just use the initial : D as in "Dfence"... at least SonyEricsson is joining the Windows Mobile wagon.

Social networking again : Orange and T-Mobile will launch mobile TV in the UK using TDtv technology from NextWave Wireless (formerly known as IP Wireless). No spectrum hassles here, unlike with DVB-H. And as we recently saw*, Orange will soon be able to put satellite on the top of it.

Qualcomm is fuming : no one wants its MediaFLO, nor its UMB, nor its 4G (key CDMA players, including Verizon Wireless, are going for LTE).

Maybe Qualcomm should have tried social networking instead of asocial pervasive licensing.

* see "Orange has its rights, Orange has it right" (20080210)

Microsoft outpervasived by Facebook and RIM

1.6%.

That's the best Microsoft could get from Facebook. In the news section, the integration of Facebook on Blackberry sounded much more disruptive. The king of pervasiveness is being "outpervasived".

The fact is it's getting more and more difficult to resist to FB's platform (I haven't been very faithful to LinkedIn lately).

Microsoft tried to avoid losing face but didn't win Facebook either.

FB got $240M from Redmond, WA. Without selling its soul to the Devil. Actually, the said Devil is not as scary as it used to be. Commoditized. Still dominant on his home turf but as clumsy in new environments as it used to be more than a decade ago with the internet.

Internet Explorer killed Netscape, but I don't think MSN will wolf that one down that easily.

While Microsoft is neither losing face, nor winning Facebook, Google and Murdoch try to explain why MySpace is not part of the virtual estate bubble.

MySpace, My Yahoo!, My Sun

It didn't take long for Vulture Capitalists to start hovering above semelless Yahoo!*

For 25% to 30% of the bride, Ruppert Murdoch offers paper, and boy doesn't he have a lot of the toilet kind (tabloids, MySpace shares...) ?

Yahoo! may follow another lead, but this clearly reminds us the maverick netco has become a media among others, struggling to adapt to the times and spaces. And cheaper** than Dow Jones / WSJ... traditional papers with flesh on 'em.


* see "Near Failed Communications" (20060619)
** people are mentioning $9-12 bn (based on Y!'s valuation), but Sir Ruppert would have spent about half a billion overall.

Helio to hit 100k subs, and to be hit by Earthlink's 10K

According to Helio / Helio powered by SK Telecom, the Hollywood MVNO is "on the path to surpass 100,000 subscribers by early in the second quarter of 2007" (NB : 10 month after launch) and claims an "ARPU of over $100 per month", 25% of which from data services. The proof of concept for their device driven innovation strategy reads in some interesting figures :
- a WAP penetration of over 85%, an average 400 SMS per customer (merry Xmas - those were the stats for December 2006 so you won't get any data regarding the recent launch of Helio Music) - over 70% of Helio members use MySpace Mobile
- over 80% of Helio Drift members have downloaded GPS-enabled Google Maps™ for mobile and about 70% have downloaded Buddy Beacon


According to Earthlink's 10-K, Helio Inc as well as Helio LLC (the opco) are Delaware corporations. This isn't Tinsel Town and the balance sheets are not unleaded. Up to now, each partner has spent $214M in cash and non cash assets ($40M for Earthlink's 27,000 wireless subscribers transferred in 2005, along with equipments and other assets). Each partner will spend 6 more millions in August but beyond that, there is a big question mark.

One thing is sure : the company will keep losing money for a while. Big time, because this is cellular business and even for a M-VNO with a low CAPEX, S curves tend to develop fat bellies. FYI, 2006 revenues reached $46.58M with a full launch in July (68.7% service, 31.2% equipments and other) and accumulated deficit stood at $233.7M. Provided ARPU remains at the same high-usage-low-hanging-early-adopter level, 100,000 subs would mean $120M, and an average customer base of 150,000 over the year would barely match 2006 OPEX ($186.5M). Not only does EY have "substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern", but even a massive success of HELIO would only make things worse in the short term (acquisition costs).

SK Telecom and Earthlink own each 47.8% of the operation. Earthlink can't afford losing money at this pace for long, and SK Telecom could seize the opportunity to take a clearer lead. Or to bring in one ov'em "potential outside investors" (up to now, "outside investors" represented "approximately $8.0 million of funding").

At this stage and especially after the recent US-Korean FTA, I don't see SKT pulling the plug that early. Even with such a fierce competition, it wants HELIO to "achieve or maintain adequate market share or revenue or compete effectively". One one hand, we should see more "Helio powered by SK Telecom" (MySpace's exclusivity is over and the Cyworld brand could blossom beyond the platform). On the other, SKT won't wait 25 years to welcome HELIO's 3 millionth customer.

The fun is just about to start.

3GSM 2007 - A brave new World ? A new and improved Vodafone ?

This week, Vodafone decided to send a few messages to the market :
- Purchase of Hutchison Essar ($11.7bn for a 67% controlling stake... provided Essar doesn't launch a counterattack tainted with economic patriotism*) : I intend to remain in the World's top 3 operators for subscribers and I'm gonna post exciting growth rates for the years to come. Certainly not for ARPU but I'm investing for the long term. And by the way : I'm still able to invest for higher purposes than the loyalty of my shareholders.
- Another deal with Orange on 3G network sharing : I prefer to invest on CAPEX in India where it will make a difference. I'm bracing for a fiercer competition in mature markets, where I will focus on service.
- An impressive collection of old and new partnerships with almost all major web players (Google for mapping, Yahoo! and Microsoft for IM, YouTube, eBay, MySpace...) : you think these newcomers are smarter and swifter, and you believe they will get the bulk of the value but look ! everybody wants to work with me and I'm certainly not begging for partners. They know who's ruling the game and you don't want to miss this train or else...

At last the big red machine decides to move. But I cannot see much disruption out there. It actually looks like their last smart move in Turkey, only at a bigger scale. I'd like to have more movements in the home / office spheres. Beyond WCDMA900, that is (Nokia providing UMTS900 for SFR after Portugal and Finland). To be continued...

Otherwise, 2007 doesn't look like a year for new paradygms :
- Qualcomm still wants to be the King of the Universe, but its Universal Broadcast Modem (UBM) combines MediaFLO technology, DVB-H and 1seg / ISDB-T without caring much for DMB... a slap on the wrist for those naughty koreans who want to kick it out of their country.
- Quadplays are getting mainstream. The Virgin-NTL combo, Virgin Media, charges £20 for 2, £30 for 3 and £40 for the first no-frills quads (the 125 pound gorilla offers unlimited calls in the fixed arena and 500 mn of mobile babbling plus a monthly data package including £60 in airtime and 1,000 SMS, along with the hardware - handset and PVR). Virgin Mobile will also strengthten its controlled distribution.
- Either terrified by Viviane Reding or cornered by an ever tougher competition, O2 extends My Europe to 31 countries. For £10 per month or £60 per year, business subscribers to My Europe Extra won't be charged for incoming calls whatever the network on which they are roaming. Intraeuropean calls will cost 25p per mn flat.

That could be the best news for 2007 (but for MNO shareholders) : the landline / mobile gap in calling rates is bound to decrease even before VoIP gets fully mobile. The competition goes beyond mobility and furthermore, from the customer's point of view, that's the minimum you could expect from convergence in a broadband world.


* Voda downsizes its participation in Bharti but still keeps a few toes in the venture.

MySpace France : dial fr for Murdoch

MySpace France opened their beta version on the web*. Un-translated US banners feebly try to animate an almost empty shell but you can count on Fox Interactive Media for tying a few knots with local media partners.
In France, Murdoch's blog machine cannot leverage on a strong News Corp presence and worse, it will face a strong leader with a rather newscorpish look and feel : Skyblog sounds like a Sky branch and succesfully targets the illiterate. Yes, the global deal with Google can bring audience, but not substance... and especially not MySpace's trademark podcastable broadband-broadchested-six-pack-daily-mirrorish substance.
MySpace France must be finalizing some partnerships with a cellco / M-VNO, and certainly with TV / radio channels. I don't expect Arte / France Culture executives to be shortening their holidays.


* dial http://fr.myspace.com/ for Murdoch ; myspace.fr seems to be auctioned by its opportunist owner.

Cyworld vs MySpace... SKT has it both ways

Is it the sky falling over MySpace and Ruppert Chicken Little Murdoch or just acorns from his new Korean partner in the mobile arena* ? A few weeks after Helio, SK Telecom are about to launch Cyworld in the US.
Right now, the beta version** only hosts 364 clubs but totoris are already up for grabs and unlike in Korea, there is a clear focus on the younger generations. Besides, there is more (Mini)room for actual pictures and actual goods for your totoris vs the usual virtual Minimes and virtual goods... which should mean a more direct broadband war to News Corp's podcasting giant. The question is : how long before cyworld gets mobile in the US too ?
Next stops for the cyworld train : Europe, South America and India.



* about the Helio-MySpace deal, see "MySpace Mobile On Helio with Hero and Kickflip" (20060220)
** http://us.cyworld.com/

Another good fairy over Helio's cradle

After the 65+ million MySpace members*, Helio LLC adds the half billion Yahoo! users to his wishlist.
Among the key features included in the partnership : Yahoo! Search (dedicated button), Yahoo! Shortcuts, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messengers and all Yahoo! content channels, plus cross-marketing operations.
More partnerships should follow, but the not-yet-born M-VNO already presents a healthy face. Technical witchcraft plus marketing know-how... SK Telecom's DNA starts showing.



* see "MySpace Mobile On Helio with Hero and Kickflip" (20060220)

Digital rights and sports wrongs

Netcos, telcos, cellcos, ISPs... Look at them fight for the rights to broadcast the 2006 FIFA World Cup and other major sports events. Did they only read the labels beforehand ? Did they even check what came in the package under the nice wraps ?
Partners and official sponsors are associated to the successes and failures, the world records as well as the criminal ones. Eventjackings by terrorists ? I'll take it. A Julifest project by German and Polish neo-Nazis ? On the house. Athletes on steroïds ? Don't mention it (official MLB broadcasters ESPN don't : actually, they will even air a 10-part series on the rise and rise of pristine Barry Bonds...).
Much food for thought, a lot of trash for sewers, but as an accomplice, you cannot join the bashing crew.
Sir Ruppert found the right angle. As usual, it's not the moral one : after joining News Corp, the MySpace community kind of turned into a web tabloïd for the masses by the masses. Because bashing became the new National Pastime, here's your DYI O'Reilly Factor, your own ultimate real-TV-over-you-name-it.
MySpace Mobile will be launched at about the same time as ESPN mobile*. On the same Sprint 3G EV-DO network. Expect a full coverage of the World Series.

* see "MySpace Mobile On Helio with Hero and Kickflip" (20060220) and "SK-Earthlink - postponing and smartcasting" (20051021)

MySpace Mobile On Helio with Hero and Kickflip

This isn't the latest George Lucas flick but a series of announcements made last week by Helio LLC (SK - Earthlink's Haryuwood M-VNO aimed at the younger generation)*.
We knew SK Telecom planned a rather ambitious fun-based strategy to succeed in this year's highly competitive draft (Virgin & co). They seem to be delivering the goods : a key partnership with MySpace, and two exciting 3G EV-DO handsets :
. the Hero by Pantech & Curitel : processing power optimized for music & video plus stereo speakers (MelOn anyone ?), a 2 megapixel cam with digital zoom & flash (straight from your mobile to your MySpace blog), a superb luminescent screen and even a removable memory...
. the Kickflip by VK Mobile : a swivel handset with the Hero capabilities, said to be addictively ergonomic.
The surprise comes from the deal with Murdoch's MySpace, a competitor to SK Telecom's Cyworld (even if the latter's popularity mustn't go far beyond LA's Koreatown this side of the Pacific Ocean).
To me, this proves how determined Helio are to succeed. Size matters, as well as Time To Market : the MySpace community claims 5M new members every month and must be reaching the 50M mark...
How long will this exclusivity last ? Even if it's for a few months, that's definitely good news for the marketing and sales teams : other partnerships should follow soon.
And who knows... Why not an even bigger deal with Sir Rupert ?


* See "Hello Helio - here comes the sun" (20051118 + the previous posts related to Helio / SK-Earthlink).