Outside Innovation

Apple vs. Google & the Next Battleground: Content or Intent?

I LOVE the Financial Times' Richard Waters' description of "Smartphone Hell"! To paraphrase: It's when the maps come from Apple, the social network from MySpace, the app store and browser comes from RIM, and the device design from the original Amazon Kindle team!

Richard Waters’ column, “Apple weighs joining content scramble” offers the thesis that the battle for mobile mindshare and walletshare in the smartphone world is about to move up the stack, from physical device design to content ecosystems.

Will Content be the Next Ecosystem Land Grab? Richard Waters describes the current mobile landscape as dominated by Apple and Google’s warring ecosystems. He says the next battle will be over content: “Anyone providing a key mobile service—such as maps, local information, music or pictures—is potentially in the line of fire.” Content providers will need to choose sides, aligning with the “hardening” ecosystems of Google, Apple, Microsoft, or Amazon. Each of these players (with the exception of Apple) currently has its own content plays. Amazon has introduced its own social games and platform. Microsoft has launched a video studio. Will Apple remain an innovator in hardware, Richard asks, or will they also innovate in content?

Personal Data, Context & Intent Is the Next Ecosystem Battleground
My take: there’s another important layer on the path to content integration and consumption. It’s the customer’s own data (personal profile, e-wallet, contact lists, etc.), their current context (what am I doing right now), and their intent (what do I want to do next?). Richard points out that capturing users’ intent is the critical rationale behind Apple’s insistence on using it own maps, rather than Google’s. “Keeping access to a user’s personal data is even more important: digital maps, for instance, are a place where users reveal both their location and intent, as they search for local services.” So the first ecosystem turf war (e.g., who can snatch up the most customer-critical players and services) will be focused on this layer of personal enablement: where am I, who do I want to reach, how will I pay/what will I earn, what do I want to do?

This “Customer Context & Intent” Layer of Services SHOULD Be Cross-Platform
Each of these sparring ecosystems (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft) wants to “own” as much of our context and intent as possible. But what if we (the customers/end-users) don’t actually want that? Why not insist instead on a cross-platform standard for maximum freedom and interoperability?

 

Patterns in Innovation: Bottoms Up Activism

Last week, I immersed myself in the wonderful Business Innovation Factory community by attending the BIF-8 conference in Providence, RI. I always find great case studies to pursue at this event, so stay tuned! For my overview “trip report,” I stepped back and squinted to discern the patterns and common themes that I took away from this rich tapestry of storytelling and conversations. A few things really pop out:

1. People of all ages are building networks (physical & virtual) to make a difference in their world. Despite the economic malaise (or because of it) there’s an abundance of grass roots social movements at the local community level and across the country tackling everything from building playgrounds, to reducing gang violence, to improving the lives of homeless children, to bringing peace of mind to the mentally ill.
   
   
2. New forms of institutions are turning up to take the place of the ones that no longer work—for diplomacy, for education, for healthcare, for citizen-led government, for city-planning.
   
   
3. Customer-led, customer-engaged, citizen-led movements and organizations are where most of the action is. We’re moving beyond social networking to social working.
   
   
4. We now know enough about how to create customer-engaged business models and how to support social movements that we’re entering a meta-model era. There are now “platforms for participation” with online tools and structures that can be used as a foundation and/or a model by business and social entrepreneurs.
   
   
5. The biggest boost to our economy will come from life sciences, as our next generation of programmers creates new bio-fuels and new healthy pathways and we tap the power of the human brain to overcome physical disabilities.
   
   
6. To increase our happiness quotient, we need to counter the seduction of our ever-present electronic gadgets by focusing on the present moment, indulging in physical face-time, and experiencing life as we do music.

Key Players in the Mobile E-Wallet War

While many people are focused on the tablet marketshare wars, we’re more interested in the mobile e-wallet battle that’s about to flare up in the U.S. In fact, we think the smoke will have cleared and the winner(s) will be evident by 2013.

Mobile e-wallets will let you pay for things, or pay other people from your mobile phone. You’ll be able to select what payment type you want to use (which bank account, credit or debit card, or stored value card) and make a secure, even anonymous transaction using your mobile phone.

Google, Microsoft, and Isis are betting on/waiting for NFC chips in our phones and on Point of Sale devices. But other players like PayPal and possibly Apple may be taking an approach that requires no additional hardware at the merchant: generate bar codes and/or matrix codes to convey the payment information at the point of sale. If successful, this barcode approach would enable these players to gain traction quickly and add NFC capabilities later. The e-wallet providers who wait for ubiquitous NFC chips may miss the e-wallet train as it leaves the station.

Whom Do You Trust as Your Mobile E-Wallet Provider?

Coming Soon: Pay for Everything Using Your Mobile Phone
By Patty Seybold

Starting this fall, e-wallets will become available for our mobile phones. When I use the term “e-wallet,” I’m talking about enabling consumers to pay for things using their mobile phones and to pay each other via mobile phone. No cash, no plastic credit cards, no checks needed. You carry your money, credit cards, debit cards, rewards points, and loyalty cards around with you digitally. At the point of sale, you choose which payment type you want to use: take cash from your checking account, use money you’ve pre-loaded on a stored value “card,” charge it to your phone bill, charge it on a credit card account and pay later, and so on. Like a physical wallet, you can put things into it and take things out of it. And you can carry it around with you wherever you go.

© 2012 Microsoft

Microsoft's Wallet Hub will debut with Windows 8