Blog: John Myers

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March 28, 2007

M-Commerce Revisited

When I was in grad school in the late 1990's, I co-wrote and interesting little research paper on how M-Commerce was going to put an end to the cash society. Using mobile phones to purchase everything from vending machine candy to movie tickets was going to be the future in America.

Now, while I'm not doubting that some day this will be the case, a recent article from the Economist shows that m-commerce is still searching for the traction to move into the mainstream.

BTW - I believe that the reason that m-commerce hasn't taken off in the US in the same way that it has in Japan and Europe is the same reason that Americans still have printed currency that looks like it did 50 years ago. Americans are inherently slow adoptors of "money" change.

Technorati Tags: M Commerce, Economist

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March 20, 2007

Rubbin' is Racing!

In one of the more interesting developments from the re-branding of Cingular to ATT, NASCAR has been dragged into a legal battle over paint jobs. Sprint Nextel claims that Cingular can either leave the #31 car of Jeff Burton as is or they can end their sponsorship.

In the end, I'm guessing that the #31 will be sporting new ATT colors next season, but not before Burton performs several donuts on the Sprint Nextel finish line logo at a prominent event like Dayton.

Technorati Tags: Sprint Nextel, Cingular, NASCAR, Jeff Burton

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March 15, 2007

Google is having it's cake and eating it too

A recent court ruling is giving Google the ability to have their cake and eat it too. In terms of Net Neutrality, Google likes the concept of the open Internet and not allowing ISPs to limit what is transferred over Internet "pipes". However in February, a federal judge decided that Google does not have to post anything they do not feel is appropriate.

Pointing this out is somewhat like pointing out discrepancies for "state's rights" federal court judges who make the occasional vote to override the ability of a state to govern as they see fit. However, Google likes to paint itself as the "do no evil" defender of the little guy on the Internet and I do not necessarily see how their position on advertising matches with their Net Neutrality position.

Technorati Tags: Google, Net Neutrality

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March 14, 2007

Live from the Big Easy

This week the TeleStrategies Revenue and Fraud Management conference is taking place in the New Orleans. This is the first event for the addition of fraud management to the twice yearly revenue assurance conference and I think it is for the better.

Long have revenue assurance and fraud management been separated by responsibility, but VERY closely related by function and the data (xDRs) used by each function. It is good to see that the walls between these two disciplines have are starting to come down and that the practitioners of fraud management and revenue assurance have the opportunity to share ideas and experiences.

Let's hope that TeleStrategies continues the move toward innovative and value-added programs for education and networking in these areas.

NOTE - MONSTER PROPS.... errr.... High praise goes to TeleStrategies for returning to New Orleans with their annual spring conference. The City of New Orleans has done a good job of recovering from Katrina, but they still have a lot of work to do. One of the best things to do for New Orleans is follow the example of TeleStrategies and Anheuser Busch, who are also here this week, and bring an event to and/or attend a conference in the Crescent City. Building the economy via tourism is a great way to have a great time and rebuild one of the nation's great cities.

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March 13, 2007

Close but No Cigar

Personally, I liked Steve Hargreaves article about the concept of charging extra for electrical power at peak hours of the day. Anyone who has see rolling blackouts during the summer in California or New York can appreciate the efforts to "help people" understand how much their decisions can impact the greater electrical grid.

However, his analogy about this rating scheme being like current wireless call rating seems a little out of date. I have no knowledge of Hargreaves wireless bill, but my wireless plan hasn't charged me more for using my cell during peak hours for several years. Roaming during peak? Yes. International calls during peak? Yep. However in network calling during peak hours just costs me the price of $0.0x per minute from my "all you can eat" calling bucket. This is just like my current electrical billing. Perhaps Hargreaves is hoping to go "back to the future..." :)

Technorati Tags: Utility Billing, Wireless Billing

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March 12, 2007

Past Performance or Future Results

On Friday there was an interesting note about Craig McCaw's Clearwire LLC's IPO. While most telecom news organizations noted the Thursday positive performance of Clearwire's IPO. However, on Friday, the Clearwire shares were off by 9.42% and Dan Jones from Unstrung was the only major telecom news outlet to make mention of the disappointing performance.

While I am not in position to criticize the historical or future performance of Craig McCaw's business acumen, it appears that the Thursday's performance of the stock and the telecom news about the IPO were riding on McCaw's past. Friday's stock performance may be a pull back from the McCaw name.... Then again it could just be the "re-adjustment" of the stock price after the initial surge and McCaw will have a better outing with Clearwire than he did with his initial wireless effort.

Note - Remember I am the guy who said that there's never any excitement during the first kickoff at the Super Bowl... And that statement was waaaay off... :)

Technorati Tags: Clearwire, Craig McCaw, Unstrung

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March 6, 2007

Telecoms at the "Hot Gates"

If you haven't heard about the 300, a film adaptation of the Frank Miller graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae then you probably aren't paying attention to the media blitz.... Warner Bros via my Tivo...errr.... DirecTv DVR provided a preview of the movie and associated mobile phone and console/PC video games.

While I was making my plans on which "date movie" I may need to trade for a Friday night at 300, I starting thinking about how little revenue my telecom service providers would be getting from my "interaction" from the content relating to 300. DirecTv got some "ad dollars" for the preview and may get part of the pay per view. Qwest and Cingular will get some added value from my added usage of their services, but not much considering I already subscribe to "all you can eat" plans.

Could it be that "walled garden" content business plans from some telecom service providers are facing the same odds as the Spartans against Xerxes? Only time will tell if the millions of content providers at the "Hot Gates" of the last mile will break through to the consumer.... :)

Technorati Tags: 300, Frank Miller, Walled Garden

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March 2, 2007

It's deja vu all over again

Today, I was reading an article by Tara Seals in regards to the continuing situation of revenue leakage and how some telecom service providers are looking to the revenue operations center (ROC) as a solution. I thought that this was interesting since I described a similar concept in my recent b-eye-network article.

The concept that I found particularly interesting was Tara's point that with tightening margins, telecom service providers run the risk of simply becoming a "pipe" for content providers and other value-added services to consumers. And with that potential of being just a pipe, telecom service providers are much more susceptible to those revenue leakage situations.

Technorati Tags: Revenue Leakage, ROC, Sarbanes-Oxley

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