if connected

This post was originally published on my Forrester blog.

Vodafone has just launched a major new initiative called Vodafone 360 (release, with the new 360.com website to follow). Key points:

• Integration with social networks for an online address book and content sharing.
• Combination mobile handset + 360.com cloud service strategy.
• Single sign-on for customers or non-Vodafone customers. 360.com website available to both.
• Deep handset integration: two new Linux LIMO handsets with “full fat” experience (made by Samsung). Lesser version pre-loaded onto a number of Symbian Series 60 handsets, downloads and other versions available for around 100 handsets.
• Also includes an App store, new mobile web portal, music service, and maps service.

I’m working on a quicktake report. But this is such a major initiative with wide ranging scope, that I’m extremely curious in what others think? Specifically:

• How well positioned are operators to implement a social strategy with such deep handset integration, compared with handset makers, or the Internet social networks themselves?
• Was Nokia’s OVI initiative a lightning rod that distracted many from other handset maker initiatives in this space? (Like Motorola’s Motoblur, HTC Sense, Google & Android, Microsoft Myphone, or Apple’s MobileMe?)
• Is 360 a better umbrella name than “Vodafone Live!” ?
• Thoughts on how well 360 fits with Vodafone’s new corporate tag line, “Power to you” ?

Comment below! I’m here and will reply as appropriate.

Why do I blog so much more here compared with other blogs? Simple: It’s much more convenient as the WordPress mobile tools are superior.

Take the respective platform’s iPhone support as an example: All three blogging platforms offer iPhone apps. But only the WordPress app allows editing of published posts, comment moderation, and the creation or editing of static pages.

Typepad, only offers post creation as does the iPhone Livejournal app. I find that I often wish to amend or add to published posts. I’ve also discovered that on mobile phones it’s easier to hit ‘publish’ by mistake. Or, to be unsure if a post has published successfully due to the vagaries of mobile phone networks. In both situations, being able to edit published posts overcomes the issue. On any important blog I find that lack of ability to edit published posts unacceptable as it leads to error-ridden mobile blog posts staying live until I am back near a PC and able to fix them.

WordPress also has richer post creation options: It has full support for category selection and tags; draft posts can be stored online as well as locally. Storing a draft on the phone enables offline support, and allows the quick storage of posts with large photo attachments, that can be later published when there’s a fast 3G connection or WiFi available. Typepad only has limited local draft support and doesn’t work with the categories in my experience.

On other platforms, WordPress also seems better supported. I’ve found a competent, although unofficial, app for Android in wpToGo, but nothing good for the others.

WordPress:

Typepad:

Livejournal:

It’s Thursday, four days after European clocks changed to what others call daylight saving and I’m still finding clocks stuck on GMT.

I’ll forgive those without an Internet connection like the wall clock in the kitchen, but way too many devices should know better. Windows Mobile still seems awkward, probably because I’m still running 6.0. The brand new Blackberry Bold hooked up to my company’s Blackberry Enterprise Server really should have updated itself. Two years ago I wouldn’t have cared.

But iPhone has changed everything. It just worked.

A former colleague wrote recently that ‘save file’ should have no place in this day. Everything should be saved automatically all of the time. I think manually changing the clocks twice a year should follow it into extinction.

Sidenote – This is the first post I’ve written on the new version of WordPress for iPhone. It’s a big improvement and worth returning to if you’ve tried and rejected it in the past. It means I can post more easily from wherever I happen to be:

Earlier today Gmail stopped working, for most people, for about four hours.

It’s not the end of everything, as numerous things I’ve read today argue. It doesn’t blow apart ‘cloud computing’ or putting faith in other companies or other people. Computers break. Parts of the Internet fail. Even phones seem less reliable now. There’s nothing new here. Anyone that relies upon just one digital service, or device, will enjoy painful cold turkey sometime soon.

But what is different now, is how many ways we all have to do something. If our main phone goes down, we reach for our mobile. If twitter dies, then it’s back to Facebook, email, IM or the best option yet: Friendfeed. If one email address stops working, most people reach for another: The main pain with email failing is that incoming messages sent to the broken account can’t be read until that system — Gmail here — comes back up.

I use Gmail as a fallback to my work email because it is so versatile, Gmail has many alternative ways of access: I had few problems during the outage earlier as I access Gmail via IMAP on my PC, and on my iPhone, as well as using the web browser interface. So, I could read stored messages fine. Unlike Hotmail and Yahoo! mail, Google makes access to Gmail easy from regular Internet-standard PC/Mac/handheld/phone email software, complete with full folder management.

But, to take advantage people need to set up their phone or PC email software, and ideally in advance before panic has hit.

Thinking about the so-called cloud services, all the best ones work this way: remote access via a browser plus local sync for speed, fallback when the cloud rains, and for offline use, when the Internet isn’t available like on a plane.

What is it that makes one app outstanding? What is it that deliver a better experience than clicking a link to a mobile website? It’s not the home screen icon as it’s easy to place bookmarks onto an iPhone home screen and in fact half of the icons on my first page are indeed web bookmarks.

• Offer an offline experience. Too often I’m in an area with a 2g signal or no signal at all. Bookmarks are useless. But an application that stores information locally on the phone and so just works truly anywhere anytime — even without coverage — is outstanding. Automatic sync is the ideal experience, but it has to work completely reliably: Sync that mangles data is worse than useless.
• Are fast to respond to screen taps. Jumping from one web page to another always results in a delay. On the desktop clever use of plug-ins and javascript combine with low broadband ping times to overcome this issue. On a mobile, network responsiveness is much slower and even the iPhone’s Safari browser is lacking. Storing content locally enables both a really speedy experience as well as offline working.
• Tie into handset hardware functions like GPS or speedy 3D graphics. Native apps still have close handset integration to themselves.
• Make me smile. Seriously. So many iPhone apps have a real sense of fun about them, even dull utilities. It doesn’t have to be the app itself, other updates from an apps’ developer may write to me with a human voice.
• Are designed for use on the move. Apps need to remember state without the user needing to hit ‘save’ or navigating to a particular point in the UI. A phone call could come in at any time. The app needs to be able to be interrupted on an instant’s notice. Fast app loading must be a given.
• Works with my other websites and existing data on day one. Apps that force me instantly to switch everything just don’t get tested out. They need to work with what I’m already committed too. Over time, I may be prepared to take the time to migrate data.
• Are free or have free trial/lite versions. I don’t care how good the reviews are. Unless there’s some free way of trying something out I’m unlikely to play with an app. For me, even a 59 pence charge is an extra barrier too far for testing something out on top of the time to download and install.
• Are loved. Apps that are regularly updated and improved tend to endear themselves to me. I love the feeling of enjoying improvements for free.

So, what characteristics am I missing?

After yesterday’s post, Recession reliability of the cloud, I’ve realised I was too narrow in my fears. Today Google, has closed or ceased further development on a number of its products, including: Jaiku, Google Notebook, Google video and a number of others.

It’s not just failing firms closing cloud services that we need to worry about. We need to spot which firms will retrench and cut back on the number of experimental and free offerings.

It’s the recession resilience of individual products that matters.

We’re all becoming more dependent on free websites: for storing photos, webmail, social networking, blogging, calendars, contacts, notes, sync, everything. But as the downturn shifts towards a recession more of these free sites will be at risk of sudden closure if last time is any indication.

Today, logging in to wordpress I was struck by the shrewd opportunistic net thrown towards livejournal users as wordpress promoted ease of import with a tagline on the wordpress dashboard. Livejournal has apparently just laid off a large part of its staff and is moving more of its operations to Russia…

I’m pondering how to have early warning of the risk to avoid last minute panics to back up content, or, sites folding during a two week holiday so I miss the chance to retrieve my stuff. Yes, I could spend time researching the viability of every firm that runs a service that I’m using, but it takes time and the reason to use most of these sites is time-saving and convenience. Anyone feel like starting a ‘failing firm watch’ website? I’m thinking a community effort could cover the ground much more effectively.

Perhaps it’s time to focus more on self-hosting and remote access to my home network, rather than leaving stuff in the cloud on someone else’s kit.