Last week, I commented on how Sony Ericsson’s Project Capuchin might help solve the problem of creating a great UI without resorting to writing your own UI layer on the Java ME canvas.

Well, Sun has also been working on a solution…

"Writing appealing cross device applications today in the Java™ ME platform is challenging. Due to implementation differences in fonts, layout, menus, etc. the same application may look and behave very differently on different devices. In addition much of the advanced UI functionality is not accessible in LCDUI and requires the developer to write very low level "paint" type code. Based on our real world experience with these issues in creating Java ME UI applications over the past 5 years we created the Lightweight UI Toolkit to address these issues. The Lightweight UI Toolkit makes it very easy to create compelling UI’’s that will look and behave the same on all devices using a programming paradigm similar to Swing"

The toolkit not only provides forms and the associated controls but also provides themes, transitions and animations. 

You can find out more about the Lightweight UI Toolkit on Java.net. It’s binary only at the moment but source code will be available soon.

Last night’s MoMo London, at Thomson Reuters, was on Monetisation through Advertising. There were presentations by Ray Anderson (Bango), Shan Henderson (Vodafone), Claire Valoti (Mindshare) and Russell Buckley (Admob).

Here are some points I took away from the event…

• From an advertising agency perspective, there are currently too many layers/parties needed to get things done.
• The current high click throughs are similar to what happened on the Internet’s early days and which declined later.
• What happens after the click/coupon etc. is just as important. e.g.. Vendors must know about coupons and clicks must be to compelling content.
• The end result needs to add value for the user.
• Measurement is currently not mature, not standardised nor aggregated or audited.
• Vodafone can now target adverts by age, gender, postcode and handset. Location, session length and behaviour coming soon. Can’t currently slice more otherwise number of people becomes too small to be usable.
• Even for successful campaigns, it’s difficult to get the end clients to reveal the results publicly.
• Admob is currently serving 2.5 billion ads/month.
• The availability of fixed rate data pricing reflects (mobile web) usage by country.
• Search position is complex to comprehend as it depends on many factors including network operator tweaks - need to get many parties to talk to ensure your adverts (in search) end up being shown.

I came away thinking that much of what was said was related to serving adverts in (mobile) web pages. I can’t help but think there might be too much emphasis on getting something that’s working on the ‘normal’ Internet, working on mobile web browsers that inherently provide a poor/slow user experience.

Maybe we should be starting to think differently. With the introduction of new technologies such as widgets and Android, in the future we might be more inclined to think about more tightly embedded advertisements that play on key uses of the phone. Some companies are already doing this on todays platforms, for example MyScreen Mobile who I am doing some work for at the moment.

Also, it’s sometimes possible to pre-select consumers rather than rely on filtering all users by criteria that are difficult to measure. For example, offering an application or service via just one network operator might ensure the phone has the correct settings/facilities to provide for something extra special ‘after the click’. Offering and promoting a service only within a defined geographic area or town might actually be more important to an advertiser than say their phone type, age or gender. The great thing about mobile is that a fraction of the very large market is still a large number.

Finally, at the other end of the scale, I think there’s still much more mileage left in coupons and SMS text based promotions that work well on today’s rather than tomorrow’s phones.

Related Articles:

• Forecasts Based on Consumer Attitudes
• M:Metrics Data
• November MoMo London: Ad Funded Mobile Services

News has just broken of a new $150 Million VC fund to invest in mobile applications and services for mobile platforms.

"…investing in the long term success of those that demonstrate market leadership and unique differentiation" 

Coincidentally (or not), this month’s Mobile Monday London is at Thomson Reuters so I expect we will get more details this evening.  

Want to experiment with 2 Way SMS free-of-charge with a chance to win £1000?

Esendex have a SMS developer challenge. All successful applicants will be provided with a free Esendex virtual mobile number and business SMS account with credit to use up to 250 outbound SMS to support their entry.

"By default the virtual mobile number will be a UK number. Esendex may, at its absolute discretion, be able to make virtual mobile numbers available from other countries."

Related Articles:

• SendSMS
• Trend: SMS Applications

The latest market statistics from iSuppli show "first quarter of 2008 appeared to be unaffected by the economic slowdown".

 

The press release is worth a read as it gives a great summary of the latest position of Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and Sony Ericsson. Interestingly, it also mentions China players are emerging…

"While the top handset brands are in neck-and-neck race, the industry is keeping an eye on emerging players in the market—particularly China’s Huawei and ZTE." 

Related Articles:

• Windows Mobile Trends
• Rise of the Chinese ODM

I came across Mob4Hire this week. A new site that provides "Crowd Sources Mobile Application Testing". The developer submits projects involving specific handsets and network operators. End users bid on projects and get paid via Paypal.

It’s often the case that an application is tested but fails in real-life use due to limitation of some random network operator. Mob4Hire can help reduce this problem by allowing developers to reach a greater breadth of network operators and phones. I also see it as a much more targeted solution than beta testing where typically only fraction of percent of users submit useful observations.

On the other hand, I can see some companies having problems with confidentiality and the inevitable variable quality of testers. Also, this site doesn’t solve the problem of ongoing support and testing - where the majority of problems surface. If you/your company didn’t test the particular variant then it may be difficult to fix.

The Mob4Hire site/process is still beta and a bit clunky and ambiguous in places. However, I think Mob4Hire may have something useful here if they evolve the service based on developer and tester feedback.

Related Articles:

• Perpetual Beta
• paca Mobile Center
• Testing Across Devices

I seem to be going through a phase where many people are emailing asking for specific market statistics. Most of the requests are very specialised and there certainly isn’t any existing information out there that I can point to.

The statistics I have been asked about are required for research papers or business plans. There’s a big problem here. Without statistics, research papers and new products are less likely to happen.

The network operators have access to the majority of the statistics but don’t make any of it public, presumably for reasons of business (and in some cases end-user) confidentiality. Also, I suspect the kind of specialised information that people want, isn’t even collected by network operators as it’s not part of their day-to-day operations.

On a more positive note, I guess the increase in the number of people asking me for this information is a measure of the increase in the number of people considering mobile related activities.