Tzah 2.0

Com.Vention event took place yesterday in Airport city next Tel-Aviv. Participants in the event were amongst who’s who in Israeli Internet industry including Yossi Vardi, Amos Shapira (CEO of Cellcom, a major Israeli telecommunication company), Ron Eilon (CEO of Yes, Israel sole satellite television provider) and other distinguished guests from Israel and abroad.

During the day, Pelephone, another Israeli-based telecommunications company, had a booth which aimed to create buzz around the company’s new High-speed GSM services. The booth had 3 positions to play Wii game where every 1.5 hours, a was given to the high-point winner at that time.

Well, it so happen that JAJAH’s very own Jasmine Aharon actually won (which is  actually remarkable given the fact she failed miserably playing Tennis Wii in the office)! Excited, Jasmine came to the booth to collect her prize, eager to hold the advanced WM 6.1 phone, try its features, twitter away using its qwerty keyboard and 3.5G high speed network, marvel at its beauty, well, you get the point. Only that the marketing guy at the booth had to brush away her dreams and return Jasmine to the hard, cold reality of Pelephone marketing logic. “you have to pay 70 NIS (about 17$) a month for 18 months if you wish to get the phone”. All of Jasmine’s attempts to get the phone for free (again, she WON that phone) or even for a discount were to a vain. Pelephone was insistent that Jasmine, which is a Pelephone subscriber by the way, will pay for her prize. Reluctantly and disappointed, Jasmine had to give up her prize and go home empty-handed. The same thing happen to other winners that day. Pelephone was not going to give the prize for free and so, many other winners decided to give up the phone. True, Pelephone did mention that the winner would have to join a subscriber program for that amount of money. Somehow, most of the people competing at the booth didn’t notice it. Even so, its simply short-sighting

This is a great example on how to create negative marketing buzz. After giving so much effort (and money) in putting the booths to gain attention, it’s really disappointing to see how, at the end of the day, Pelephone treats existing and potential customers. One of the winners, wondered what is the attitude of Pelephone towards her subscribers if that’s the way they treat the event participants which included CEOs, journalists, bloggers and other technology-eager participants. I truly hope Pelephone will come to their senses and give its prizes for free.

I can’t believe I didn’t mention it in my last post. Google Voice is really great but it looks to me like it’s more focused on getting incoming calls than placing outbound calls (even though they’re free for now). A Google Voice user has : making a callback from his on-line account, calling back people who left a voicemail or manually typing the desired number.

Let’s have a closer look. The first way is simple and intuitive. Google Voice on-line page is based on Google’s famous UI principles thus making it easy to make the call. However, it still requires going on-line with your computer which is somewhat limiting. I didn’t hear about a mobile web version for the service like JAJAH’s mobile web, but I’m sure Google is working on it right now. The second way to make calls  is to callback a person back from a voicemail but that’s more a by-product for the voicemail service than a “legitimate” way to place calls.

The third way is to call your Google Voice number, press 2 and then manually type the destination number . That’s a big problem. Most of the mobile calls we make are from the phone’s address book or call log. Typing the number requires memorizing the number and the entire process takes time. The solution is either to have a number mapped to the destination, like JAJAH Direct service, or install a mobile plug-in. A mobile plug-in can be installed on most phones today and use the phone’s capabilities. On smart phones devices like iPhone/iPod, Symbian, Windows Mobile and Android, Mobile VoIP calls can made thus saving you the cost of local call to your operator. In addition, the applications can intercept outgoing calls and route them through Google Voice. The advantage here is that the user doesn’t have to learn new tricks to make calls. She’ll still dial like she used to and the application will make the decision how to route the call. On features phone, which are still the majority of phones today, a J2ME plug-in can be installed to make calls. The plug-in could interface with the phone’s address book, allowing the user to choose a contact to dial to rather than typing the number manually. My guess is that Google will soon launch applications for mobile phones.

Hi there! My name is Tzahi Efrati and I’m manager of mobile & tools development here at JAJAH. The mobile market has changed dramatically over the last years and continues to present new functionality every so often.

Over the last 6 month, two major events happened concerning the mobile industry. The first is of course the release of Apple’s iPhone. What I like most about this phone, besides its functionality is the one-touch-screen-fits-all approach. The user is not constrained to physical keypad and buttons. The phone enable the application to present the user interaction of their choice. I’d imagine that somewhere in the near future, iPhone 2.0 will enable the user itself to choose the UI he/she wishes to use. For example, left-handed people could choose the layout of game controls according to their needs.

The second major event is Google’s announcement of of the Android, the open software stack for mobile devices. The announcement, although not backed-up by actual phone models had already caused fundamental change of hearts with major operators like Verizon and AT&T. These two giants has declared their intention to open up their cell phone network.

Although it still remains to be seen the concrete implications of these announcements, one thing is clear. Mobile phones are becoming more and more a “one size fits all” machines. It already started with the introduction of camera and music players to the phones. The iPhone and android present a notion of having a device that can do almost everything. Want to hear your favorite song? Go to the iPod on your device and finger-scroll your way. Interested in checking how much your stock did lat night? open up the stock widget. Care to change the layout of the phone software? use your mobile browser to find and download the latest calling application.

Still, a couple of questions rise from this “all-you-can-swallow” wonder machines. “Can we handle it?” and “do we really care?”. Talk to your parents and your friends and I’m sure most of them will tell you that all they want is a simple device to make calls and send SMS. Anything else just complicates. Let’s face it, even technophiles, who take their cereals with a GigaOm.com on the side don’t master the entire functionality of their gadgets or the latest cool addition to their Firefox browser (so 2006).

I’m not sure that even teenagers who has more virtual friends on facebook than actual homosapien could master so much technology in one device or even care to use it. What do you think? is it just the beginning? should we expect mobile devices in the near future to be even more featured-pack? Or perhaps, this will cause the exact opposite. People will become so antagonized that they’ll stick to their old mint-condition 2G phones?