After today´s news of the Microsoft My Phone service, here comes immediately Google with its Sync. 

To summarize:

• Microsoft My Phone  (supports Microsoft devices)
• Google Sync (supports iPhone, BlackBerry,Nokia S60,Nokia standard,Sony Ericsson, Windows Mobile)
• Nokia Sync (supports Nokia devices)
• Apple Mobile Me (supports Apple devices)

Google that is not generating its revenues from HW or software installed in the devices has all the interests in supporting the widest range of devices. Synching in itself does not have any networks effect but if you want to build services that let users share content or collaborate, you want to benefit of the widest possible base of users. This is what Google is clearly aiming at and it is a very powerful value proposition.

Network effect: the value of connecting to a network depends on the number of other people already connected to it. (If we are in the same computer network we can exchange files). With the network effect comes another concept, the positive feedback that makes the strong grow stronger. (See the growth of Facebook, or the success of Microsoft Office). For more info on the topic see Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy. By the way,  Hal Varian is Google Chief Economist.

Our applications are migrating to the Cloud. The recent news is Microsoft My Phone, a service that will allow anyone with a Windows Mobile phone to automatically have their photos, contacts, calendar items, favorite websites and other data backed-up on a web-site hosted by Microsoft. Apple has its own Mobile Me, and Nokia has sync and files under the umbrella of OVI.

Further in the cloud are applications like Google with its Google Docs, Gmail, etc. Microsoft Live with its Office Live, SkyDrive, etc. And Amazon various services in the cloud.

Are these data centers centers becoming a commodity as the electric grid? This is the thesis supported by the latest provocative book by Nicholas Carr, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google. An interesting book.

too many times ideas are killed by the following questions, where is the business ? How do I make money with this?

While it is worthwhile to consider the business model, it is far important  the question, does this idea help people doing their work, having fun in their lives? if the answer is yes, then we can continue with the other questions. The first objective for a company or a business is satisfying people and customers, all the rest follows.

A must read in this context is Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things, by Clayton M. Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman, and Willy C. Shih. (Note, it might require access to HBR).

• TEDTalks : How I’m trying to change the world now – Bill Gates
• Google Latitude, John Battelle
• Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye, Google Blog
• Market Algorithms and Optimization Meeting, Google Research Blog
• MySpace Begins Monetizing Music Videos With Impressive Results, Techcrunch
• Need to Find a Job? Stop Looking So Hard, HBR Blog

After Twitter & Jaiku (check what your friend say), the latest trend (in the web and mobile convergence), is Google latitude and Nokia FriendView (check where your friends are).

These concepts are not really new, we had some early prototypes in 2004-2005, a paper I co-authored shows some of the ideas and screenshots of the early applications: Creating next generation applications and services for mobile devices: challenges and opportunities.

But it is good to see that now times are mature for the creation of very interesting applications in the digital convergence world. The barriers to entry are lower and new ideas can be put into practice thanks to the web and mobile platforms.

The forecast of the next trends:

• check what your friends do
• check their surrounding, outdoor temperature, atmospheric pressure,  images, etc.
• check what your  friends think and feel (e.g. heartbeat)

Marketing and advertising are not the same thing and Seth Godin puts nicely in his blog post “Which comes first, the product or the marketing?”

The reference book on Marketing is Kotler Marketing Management

For advertising, a great book is Sergio Zyman The End of Advertising as We Know it

As described in the NYT “In Motorola Earnings, Signs of Industry in Change” the mobile industry is going through an industry restructure and the growth experienced in the past is not going to come from the sales of mobile phones. It is not just the downturn affecting the market but it is something more fundamental,  mobile phone penetration is high and people do not replace phones every year.

Of course, the growth is possible but it is somewhere else, as Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo (OPK), Nokia’s chief executive, said recently in a conference call with investors to discuss the earnings “Internet-centric phones and mobile services would drive a new generation of growth.”  ”This will drive the next wave of industry growth, and innovation will not stand still”.

For example, App store Hits 500 Million Downloads

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