September 23, 2008, New York City. This morning, the first Android based mobile device is being rolled out. Based on Google's operating platform, the Android G1 is aiming to assimilate users who might otherwise look to the iPhone.

To view the press conference, visit: Andriod Press Conference

For more information about development, see: Android - Open Handset Alliance Project

For more information about HTC, Visit: HTC Press Release

HTC Specs on G1, visit G1 Specs

Additional Coverage about Android at BBC News

I'd like to see the metrics on how many streams are being delivered today for this press release as I've seen a lot of congestion, this from one of their edge providers: edgeboss.net

The G1 seems on paper, and video to be the first real challenge to the iPhone with the added benefit of a full qwerty keyboard for those of us who have been hooked on the Blackberry.

According to Cole Brodman. Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at T-Mobile, the G1 will see its commercial launch on October 22nd.

Some other important information to know about a T-Mobile contract:

The unit will retail for $179.00
The company will offer two tiered plans for data and messaging
$25.00 per month for unlimited web with some messaging
$35.00 per month for unlimited web and messaging

When I spoke to a company rep however, I was told the G1 would fall into the same category as other HTC units, namely $19.99 for what they call Total Internet.

You have 30-days to try the phone or return it
You have 20-days to accept the contract

Some other questions on the technical side include how well the 3G network will work as there are 21 planned cities and two regions. Metropolitan areas with T-Mobile's 3G - coverage by October 22, 2008:

Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Long Island, NY, Los Angeles,
Miami, Minneapolis, New England, New York City, Northern New Jersey, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle

T-Mobile has had a reputation of offering lower cost at the expense of voice and reception quality, this from the people I know who have had their service over the past two years. While I would expect an improvement over that time, working in the canyons of New York City I can attest to call quality issues with both Verizon and AT&T who have more robust networks.

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Rod Serling, producer of "The Twilight Zone" television series once commented, "It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is incisive and probing when every twelve minutes is interrupted by 12 dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper". Although we may not like advertising, the reality is that a variety of the most successful video delivery platforms, from television to the internet to mobile, have reached their success when pricing was reduced through advertising. The upcoming national launch of WiMax (the next generation of mobile broadband) in the United States presents an opportunity for content owners to reach audiences on any device, anywhere. Low pricing, supported through advertising, can help spur the adoption of WiMax.

WiMax is often called "Wi-Fi on steroids". While Wi-Fi is a short-range system that uses unlicensed spectrum and does not assure Quality of Service, WiMAX is long-range, covering many kilometers, uses licensed spectrum and provides guaranteed Quality of Service. That can be at 60mph in your car, your laptop, your phone or any other device with an Internet connection.

Wiggle your toe if you heard this "all content, all the time" song-and-dance before. In spite of the deluge of press releases from the wireless carriers over the last few years, the present 3G network is still like "sipping through a straw", says Tim Sweeney, Director of Mobile WiMax at Intel. "Consumers should not have to distinguish between the mobile Internet and the Internet". Intel, together with Motorola, literally drove that point home this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The press was regaled with YouTube clips in a car, delivered via WiMax, while driving at 45mph. "More powerful microprocessors and high-speed WiMAX wireless networks will bring a new era of the full Internet on mobile devices".

Sprint Nextel plans to allocate 200 Megahertz toward a nationwide WiMax joint venture with Clearwire that values the entity at USD 15 billion. Sprint has 51 percent ownership, Clearwire 27 percent with Intel, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Google holding the rest. For once agreeing with the press, Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast, cited his experience of watching a broadband-delivered video clip at 50 mph in Portland as a reason for choosing to invest.

The initial metropolitan launch will be in Baltimore in September, followed by Chicago and Washington, DC. According to Barry Davis, Executive Director of Product Planning at Clearwire, "next year the service will cover a population of 60-80 million people, then 120-140 million in 2010". According to John Butler, CFO of Clearwire, the company estimates it will have 30.7 million subscribers by 2017, with coverage of 220 million people. Today, the company has 450,000 subscribers.

Of course, previous joint ventures among the media titans have not exactly scorched the heavens. "The difference this time", promises Davis, "is that our partners own their own customers. Nobody cares more about a Comcast customer than Comcast". Similarly, Mike Roudi, Head of Wireless at Time Warner Cable, told CNET "with Clearwire, we will control the customer relationship including the service and phones. We will handle pricing, marketing, customer care, and billing."

The only major roll-out to date has been in Korea, where consumer adoption has been slower than expected. Back in 2006, Korea Telecom and SK Telecom launched their own version, called WiBro, using Intel's WiMax standard. Because of technical hurdles, rights issues, limited marketing, limited dual band devices and costly subscriptions, as of 1Q Korea Telecom has achieved only 145,000 WiBro subscribers. Consumers have shown far more interest in free services like multi-user gaming and high-speed internet than a-la-carte video services. According to HJ Ahn, CEO of Synergy Holdings in Seoul and formerly head of IPTV for Korea Telecom, "its not enough to just be a pipeline on top of the network. You need truly unique content that is reasonably priced. The regulatory environment does not permit extensive advertising".

Dave Poltrack, EVP & Chief Research Officer of CBS Corporation, espouses an advertising-supported model for CBS's broadband video content, includng WiMax. "Ad-supported works. CBS can reach a larger audience and get a better return by using advertising". Clearwire and its wholsalee partners have not yet publicly announced pricing for the WiMax service. However, video is potentially an important component of that offering. In addition to video, entertainment might also include localizied, personalized, and location-based content. Other services will include residential voice and residential broadband, mobile voice and mobile broadband. that can complement the living room with devices such as PCs, portable media players and car systems. However, entertainment is potentially the most lucrative of these services. US households spend nearly five times the amount for entertainment than they do for broadband and telco. Moreover, the cable companies are deeply immersed in a no-holds barred war with the telcos to capture quad-play (video, broadband, mobile, voice) customers. In markets where telcos offer IPTV, there has been significantly greater consumer take-up than cable companies' VOIP voice offerings.

Communications services available on WiMax already available include Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Talk applications. As a "preferred vendor", YouTube may ultimately come preloaded on relevant devices. Google invested because it desperately needs a mobile internet running on an open operating system and requiring lots of searches. Google has championed an open-source, mobile operating system called Android. Verizon and AT&T use their own proprietary operating systems and have been reluctant to adopt handsets that run on Android. WiMax would finally provide Android with a large addressable universe of mobile broadband users. Google engineer Dan Morill wrote on the Android Internals discussion board, "Android has two goals: First, to be an excellent mobile platform on its merits, and second, to be open and open source". Google's $500 million investment (a pittance compared to the USD 4.6 billion they bid for spectrum earlier this year) ensures the Android operating system software, which still lacks a US wireless carrier partner, will be available to those 30 million WiMax subscribers. Ka-Ching!!

What is less clear is how content owners will monetize in this new environment. Rick Robinson, VP Business Development and Planning for Sprint's XOHM division, does not pretend to know which services will resonate with WiMax subscribers. "We can set the stage but the best thing is to make it easy for consumers and then follow. In an un-tethered environment, we may see a fundamental shift in the form of video content, for both creating and consuming content. Already we are seeing new devices, at a variety of price points and in various form factors, enabling the evolution". He suggests "producers immerse themselves in the mobile experience - one that comes with the new element of 'location' - and create content and apps directly targeted at associated and anticipated use cases and supported by advertising"

Video on non-traditional platforms without an ad-supported model has failed to reach mass audiences. For example, Sirius presently offers only three in-vehicle video channels but charges a subscription fee of $20. Similarly, mobile television in the United States has reached a plateau of 5% penetration (Nielsen Mobile), in part because of the expensive subscription. Art Spivy, Director of Content and Community for Sprint XOHM, advocates "an environment like the web, an ad-supported model to watch any show when you want. Advertising could be more relevant and valuable by knowing the viewers current location, which is built into the XOHM network". Barry Davis at Clearwire also encourages studios, networks and content owners to consider revenue models based on advertising. One example is the television series "Smallville" from Warner Brothers, which ran short 3 minute episodes on Sprint's mobile network that were ad-supported and generated high user engagement. Barry Davis recommends content owners "consider all the ways you can touch end users with this big pipe. The web brought the advent of the short episode in an ad-based model. There will be new ways to build a business around WiMax. One place to begin is the portal. We have different needs on a portable device then we do at our desk".

Beginning with WiMax this year and followed with a competing technology called LTE which Verizon will test launch next year, content owners now have another distribution platform for story-telling. The long-term opportunity lies in weaving the characteristics of mobile broadband- mobility, interactivity and location- within storytelling. What ever WiMax TV ends up being, you can be sure that it will include those dancing bunnies.

By: Levi Shapiro

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Cuban-American mommy-to-be Gloria Dobal "loved everything" about online pregnancy site Baby Center. However, she had difficulty sharing the experience with family members who prefer Spanish. "My mother is from Cuba and I wanted her to enjoy this with me," she said. After two days, Gloria switched to Baby Center En Espanol (www.babycenterenespanol.com) and its mobile version. Although the sector is still nascent, some brands and agencies are beginning to target Hispanics with mobile tools and campaigns.

The numbers suggest an attractive demographic for mobile marketing. Nielsen's Q2 Mobile Advertising Report cites Hispanic data users as more likely (41% compared with 30%) to recall seeing ads on mobile phones and more likely (22% vs. 13%) to have responded. Moreover, according to ComScore m:metrics, Hispanics significantly over-index on mobile content consumption (71%) compared with the market average (48%). Brian Colbert, VP of mobile sales at ESPN, comments that in "all things mobile, the Hispanic audience over-indexes quite a bit."

Ansible Mobile President Larry Harris (who previously ran multi-cultural advertising at Bank of America) advises "the most important best practice is to consider what's in it for the consumer. The focus has to be on great content, integrated within an existing strategy and traditional DM at the local level." Ansible worked with a variety of agencies on J&J's mobile Spanish version of Baby Center (before there was even an English version) and attracted 4,000 active users, including Gloria Dobal. "Content is king," says Larry. "Just offering a short-code is not enough." The mobile program achieved opt-in retention of 93% last year and 85% this year.

Alberto Benbunan, of the Mobile Dream Factory, also emphasizes the consumer benefit. "Latinos like to be connected with their friends. Johnnie Walker wanted to drive more traffic to the point of sale in Salamanca, Spain for their loyal customers. We used the existing CRM system to encourage people with coupons to visit their local bar, where there was a machine installed that already knew your preference." During the three-month period, more than 40% of those in the CRM system were active users, purchasing more than six drinks. Benbunan notes, "There is no cheap and expensive advertising, only effective advertising. This was a way to build loyalty with consumers who already knew the brand."

Coors has leveraged mobile as a compliment to live events. During the campaign, they observed the importance of integrating mobile call-to-action with on the ground street teams. In a series of small venue bar/restaurant events in Hispanic target cities, attendees were asked to text and MMS to a screen, as well as to insert their own pictures on a green-screen background. These events were facilitated by the "Coors Chicas," attractive and enthusiastic young women encouraging audience participation. In Denver (which is near Coors' Golden, Colo., headquarters) participation results were 5 times greater than a similar event in New York City with significantly less "Coors Chicas" involvement.

Unlike other categories, brands that are indigenous to mobile, such as the network carriers and handset manufacturers, have an opportunity to upsell content usage. As a result, these companies have been among the most innovative in Hispanic mobile marketing. Chicago-based mobile marketing firm Vibes Media encourages a variety of mobile entertainment usage for client AT&T during the Inter-Liga events of Major League Soccer. David Gale, VP of business development for Vibes, emphasizes that "we see huge usage spikes with more repetition. In an intimate venue with nothing else to look at, we might see participation near 20%. That number will fall in the larger venues with 40,000 people to 1-2%. So it is important to condition adoption through repetition."

Nokia proved their interest in demographic and geographic targeting with the purchase of Enpocket last year for a reported $150 million. David Kohl, head of U.S. sales at Nokia, notes that "our partner Sprint gives Nokia the richest, deepest targeting capabilities for on-deck advertising right now. We are already providing Hispanic-targeted ads." The next wave of targeted mobile marketing may be upselling unique content. For its part, Sprint is "looking at advertising across the phone that would enhance customer experience and lower or eliminate the cost for additional content," said Aaron Radelet, Sprint's communications manager. Radelet cited original, exclusive content available during the Live Earth concert last year. "There was a short ad from Pepsi at the beginning of each free clip. This allowed us to show more content but at no extra charge."

Univision is the largest media brand among U.S. Hispanics. According to Chris Brunner, VP of mobile content and services at Univision Movil, "each campaign must have a compelling call to action for the consumer, be promoted across all media (utilize all media impressions) and ultimately the program must be contextually relevant to the product or service being sold."

Integrated cross-platform campaigns are packaged with demographically-relevant content like the award shows (Premio lo Nuestro, Latin Grammy, Premios Juventud, Nuestra Belleza Latina), Sports (Fútbol Liga Mexicana, SuperLiga) and Cinco de Mayo. Brunner tells advertisers, "we can maximize our television networks (Univision, TeleFutura and Galavision), as well as our radio and online properties."

In addition to great content with a compelling benefit for the consumer, others recommend keeping it simple. Andres Arias, Commercial Director for Latcel suggests targeting both English and Spanish speakers with "very basic words that are familiar even if you don't speak fluently. Consumers will recognize words like 'viva,' 'cerveza,' 'free' and 'sale.'"

Roberto Siewczynski, group account director at Dieste, the largest U.S. Hispanic direct marketing advertising agency, reminds practitioners to remember the importance of "pass-along and word of mouth in the Hispanic community. Latinos have an information gap relative to the general population because we are exposed to fewer informational resources." Brad Vettese, managing director of Omincom Group's specialist mobile agency Ipsh, agrees. "The Hispanic market is very influenced by word of mouth. However, we are still dealing with very small numbers here -- a subset of a subset." Vettese encourages brands to "take a long-term approach."

That is exactly the approach of Doug Neil, SVP of new media at Universal Pictures. "We have targeted Hispanics through mobile marketing campaigns. Overall, the response rate tends to be higher than the Web but it is hard to make a generalization because this is a small segment and a very small buy. As that grows, we will probably see lower response rates."

Targeted mobile marketing is still in its infancy. Slowly we are beginning to see the emergence of best practices. Jose Villa, president of multicultural interactive agency Sensis, advises "to start simple before investing more significant resources." Perhaps the sector is best summed by Emilio Castellanos, head of new business initiatives at Impre Media, "there is no magic formula that will work across the board."

By Levi Shapiro

Jim Messer started Transverse last year in New York with a cadre of wireless industry veterans. This year, the company relocated to Austin. "We found everything we need in Austin-- at happy-hour prices. My commute is 10 minutes and I get double the house I had in San Diego for half the price". The combination of technical talent, creative culture and low costs has made Austin the newest hotbed in the wireless industry.

Take a walk down 6th Street and in addition to live music at The Dizzy Rooster, "Kinky Friedman for Governor" posters and fried pickle spears at Katz's Deli, you will probably see signs saying "Keep Austin Weird". Austin's development owes as much to its vibrant, bohemian culture as the concentration of tech companies like Dell, Qualcomm, Siemens, Intel, AT&T, IBM, Motorola, Apple, AMD, ARM, Marvel, Borland, Google, PayPal, Vignette, Texas Instruments, SD Micro, Silicon Labs, Broadcom, Freescale, nVidia, Trilogy, etc. In his groundbreaking book "The Rise of the Creative Class" (Basic Books, 2002), Professor Richard L. Florida correlated the density of "Bohemian Clusters" with a city's economic development. Austin has attracted wireless entrepreneurs by offering an eclectic, tolerant alternative to the sterility of Silicon Valley- which author Joel Kotkin calls "Nerdistan".

This is particularly true in the gaming sector. Paul Trowe, a 24 year veteran of the game industry, left the Bay Area to start Pulse Interactive. "I have never felt more at home. Regardless of where I go in the city, I feel well-received by the community". Paul also serves on the Advisory Board for the Gaming Program at Austin Community College. Beginning with 10 students in 2005, the program now has 100 students enrolled. Similarly, Mark Pierce left a posh role at Atari to start Super Happy Fun Fun, a developer of mobile games and applications. "Austin has an adequate number of developers... probably more than 1000. And they all WANT to be here".

One stimulant for the Austin wireless community is the University of Texas. Fundamental research from UT's Wireless Networking and Communications Group, started by Dr. Ted Rappaport and led by Professor Jeff Andrews, has contributed to Austin's wireless expertise. Moreover, the Austin Technology Incubator, housed at UT, maintains several wireless companies within its portfolio. According to Bart Bohn, ATI's Assistant Director, "we align companies with resources, domain experts, mentors, MBA teams and industry contacts". Recent ATI companies in the wireless sector include Affinegy, Vumasco (www.vumasco.com ) andeZee Inc. The Founder of eZee, Enrique Ortiz, also serves as the Director of the Austin Chapter of Mobile Monday, the global forum for independent wireless application developers.

The Austin Wireless Alliance, created by Randy Baker in 2004 and now Chaired by Erin DeFosse, has large corporate sponsors and focuses on enterprise mobility. AWA's premier event will be held October 14-16 and includes the Texas Wireless Summit and the Seed Stage Forum.

The biggest complaint among the Austin wireless entrepreneurial community is the limited access to capital. Trey Ikard, President of wireless start-up MobiTX jokes "Austin start-ups have lower burn rates for a good reason- we have less money." In fact, the only major Austin-based, early-stage investor is Austin Ventures, which is near closing its 10th fund for $900 million. As a result, Angel investors play a dominant role. The Central Texas Angel Network cites mentoring as a core objective. One Angel investor, former CEO of Austin-based wireless services provider Solomio Richard Schwartz (funded by Austin Ventures and acquired by OpenWave) tries "to speak with the CEO every day. That makes a big difference at an early stage company". Other institutional resources include the state's $200 million Texas Emerging Technology Fund (http://www.texasone.us/site/PageServer?pagename=tetf_homepage) as well as Gefinor (www.limestonevc.com), G51 (www.g51.com), S3 (www.s3vc.com) and Hunt Ventures (www.huntventures.com), which has an office in Austin. Two Austin mobile companies in the location aware space currently raising money are Moximity and Bones In Motion.

Larry Upton, CEO of Edioma, which makes mobile applications for Hispanics, believes that limited access to capital "made us a better company. Before raising a Series A, we secured distribution with two major carriers and advertising partnerships with two category leaders". Similarly, David Sikora, President of mobile commerce applications developer Digby agrees, "The most important task is to make great products that customers want. We have enabled Godiva and 1-800 FLOWERS with private branded stores and will continue to grow organically".

Unlike most municipalities, Austin's city government has a full-time Emerging Technologies Coordinator, Eve Richter. According to Eve, "the position was created last year. My role is to serve as a connector". Eve works in concert with Tony Schum, the Director of Economic Development for the Austin Chamber of Commerce. Says lifetime Austin resident Dave Gill, Senior Director for Nielsen Mobile, "I don't know too many places where the government, universities, and private sector collaborate. It's one of the reasons why I won't ever leave this place...unless my Boss doubles my salary". Keep Austin Weird.