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I recently attended the very boisterous and crowded Mobile Marketing Association Forum at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. Apparently everyone wants into mobile marketing these days. The term MMA, which on most days stands for “Mixed Martial Arts”, and trends around 1800 on twitter, shot to over 7000 on Monday, June 7^th, pre-con day. This number suggests some busy fingers at the “real MMA”, considering that only 600 people attended (they were ALL in line at Starbucks in the Waldorf lobby in the morning, by the way). But, that’s a very nice number for a niche show selling $1300 tickets. Geez. That was an ouchie. Martial arts indeed (Just a little joke for the blog, Brooke; totally worth every penny).

Unlike many past shows, with vendors bluffing each other and no one else paying much attention, there were lots of advertisers there. And let me tell ya . . . this is the year they are calling our bluff. Present company excepted on the bluffing thing, of course.

I have been going to these mobile shows, of one sort or another, since 1993. I almost never attend sessions. You can get the proceedings online, and anyway there are just so many times one can stand being told in scolding tones: “Listen up people, you can’t just duplicate on mobile what you’ve done on the web! That just ain’t . . . gonna . . . work!” Everyone of course says that, because it reduces the amount of time one needs to fill discussing what will work; which, of course, few really know; and if they did know, they surely aren’t going to tell YOU! Thankfully we no longer have to hear over and over again about the soft-drink vending machine purchase using SMS in Finland (actually, I told that one again last week; but it was to a little kid while explaining some really old stuff like Pong and Gunsmoke and making it home for your favorite TV show, so that’s fine). That vending machine story died for good about the time the first riding lawn mower was bought on a Smartphone. Did you hear about that one!?!

No, I go to the shows not for the sessions or exhibits, but for the same reason most people go: to challenge my physical stamina in all ways possible. First, you get on an airplane. ‘Nuff said on that (but for God’s sake, when will it end, my fellow business travelers?). Then, you start eating and drinking really badly. Caffeine and carbs and more carbs. Brownies must be really cheap, because they seem in unlimited supply at these mini conferences. Meanwhile, you are on your feet continuously, meeting and talking, all day. Did you know that you lose water at like three times the normal rate when you talk than when you remain silent? I totally made that up, but I’ll bet it’s a good guess. Lunch, maybe. A couple water bottles. Tiny ones. Some overly chlorinated water from the hotel fountain. More brownies. Then, around 5:30, the first batch of free liquor comes out. I am Catholic, we learn early in life that “free” plus “liquor” equals baaaaad. Then the fried squishy things with dipping sauce, pranced around from person-to-person by fried-squishy-thing people. Dipping sauce? Get real. I’ve never figured out really if you were supposed to dip, or scoop onto a plate (if there is a plate). I’m usually left just feeling confused and vaguely uncultured. Of course, after cocktails, the fancy dinner with clients awaits. Rolls and butter and appetizers and probably a big marbled steak with some obscene sauce. Token vegetables. And wine and dessert and coffee. Then back to the hotel bar, for more dehydrating conversation with whoever you may have missed during the day. Here’s a tip, aspiring entrepreneurs: be as sober as possible at this point in the evening. Drinks aren’t the only things spilled this time of night. Sometime around midnight, you head back to the hotel room and do email until 2am. Then, up at 6:30 to make a 7:30 breakfast appointment. Holy crap. Now that I’ve read this over, I am never doing it again.

And why do we all really subject ourselves to this trial (and never again I say!)? Because we are passionate about mobile technology? Because we love the smell of touchscreens in the morning? Because we love all of our LinkedIn buddies oh so very much? Maybe, maybe. But there was something more at the MMA Forum this year. You saw it in the easy smiles of the people late in the day. You saw it in how well groomed everyone seemed to be, even for New York. You saw it in the pace that everyone kept well into the evening. At least, I saw it and commented; as did others I was with. What did we see? Lots of people expecting to make money, a lot of money, for the first time in a long time. And those expectations were validated by the presence of many new faces, client faces, with a sense of urgency and purpose. I find it very poetic that, for NBA finals week, and for World Cup week, everyone attending the MMA Forum NY 2010 brought their A-game. Because everyone taking stock of mobile marketing right now senses astounding opportunity, and no one wants to miss. Not this year. Not this time.

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WDA is quite busy these days conquering the world of widgets, and as usual, we are running full speed ahead in multiple directions. Chaos is our friend, because chaos gives rise to the need for invention. And invention is how we at WDA butter our bread.

“Widgets” is one of those delightful subjects that creates endless debate over what the future holds, who will win, and who will lose. Has the solution to device fragmentation finally arrived, we all ask? Konny Zsigo has weighed in pretty firmly on this subject in general, but a question asked around the office recently made me think I might have a thing or two to say on the subject. The question was this: who will win, JIL, bondi? The question is important to developers, because a wrong bet on technology at the wrong time is expensive.

I can speak from some experience on this subject, based on watching the development of telecom standards in general that I have watched since 1993, first as an SMSC installation engineer, and now as a mobile marketer. For example, we have GSM, TDMA, and CDMA (air interface network standards) for reasons unrelated to optimal technical solutions; or even optimal user experience.

No, sadly, as developers can tell you, there are always big market forces at play, and serious politics, not just technical problem solving; and it is difficult to determine the impacts of these bigger forces (which generally control the way the products roll out), without deep involvement in both the standards setting process AND the systems supply and product development plans of the platforms. In the case of JIL and bondi, the controlling platform is the mobile device, along with its operating system. These market and political forces control the standards process, usually distilling down into what gets made a “mandatory” or “optional” feature. Then, after standards are set, these same forces control the implementation (or not) of the “optional” features. It is these optional feature that the big players love, for differentiation, but which wreak havoc with developers who try to lead the market.

Then there is the matter of regionalism. Generally speaking, there are definitely region-specific solutions pushed by one or more big players in these situations, and they fight and win most big battles in their markets; for reasons of market control, and a little bit of human territorial pride as well. Sometimes the Americans, or Europeans, or Japanese, for instance, go their own way . . . just, you know, because.

Getting back to JIL and bondi, two controlling standards for widgets: Many look to the browser wars of the 1990’s to predict the outcome here. The problem is, its apples and oranges; the lessons don’t apply. The biggest dynamic in the 1990 browser wars was this: the innovations were pushed by extra-standard implementations from the startups, but then the startups were muscled out based on the distribution strength of the bigger player(s). This dynamic is not available in mobile.

Think about it. In mobile, the first browsers were from OpenWave (remember HDML?); AT&T deployed it first; and then their efforts were rolled into the WAP standards effort; which then controlled things going forward. However, no big player materialized with strong distribution strength to beat them, so even today, OpenWave dominates in mobile phone browsers. In Smartphones, they will get killed (and are) based on distribution strength of other players.

How do these points apply to JIL and bondi? On the surface, these two efforts are industry-wide attempts to enable innovation. And on some level, certainly by the standards writers themselves, they almost certainly are. They are honest attempts. Further, the armistice created when they threw in with 3GPP raises hopes further that we will all sing kumbaya soon on widgets. However, in implementation, if history is any guide, with all points of the value chain with regard to the large players, each player will use these “standards” to differentiate their offerings, rather than fully standardize in order to scale the distribution channel for applications. Consequently, only the non-interesting things will scale, and the interesting things will fracture due to extra-standard innovations, reducing scale possibilities, and therefore investment; and therefore innovation.

So, which will win, JIL, or bondi? The answer is, unfortunately, neither and both. They both will capture significant share, because both have powerful backers who don’t really need the type of scale that developers truly hope for. The BETA/VHS analogies don’t apply, because those backers (Sony, etc.) needed maximum scale from their technology choice, not differentiation. JIL and bondi corporate backers, regardless of the intentions of the standards writers, will use these efforts for differentiation. True scale will only arrive when an investor with an extra-standards approach invests significantly enough to achieve scale; they will do the heavy lifting to get their unique approach ubiquitous; and then it will be absorbed by the appropriate standards processes going forward.

That brings me to Javascript. Why not just use Javascript? The answer is, Sun does not take enough leadership to make it work for all the stakeholders. It’s a perpetual 90% solution for everybody and everything; with no one to take the extra 10% the rest of the way in a standard way for a large swathe of the market. The PC world is spoiled by Microsoft having the distribution strength to level all playing fields very quickly, so Javascript works there, due to Microsoft’s market strength (not Sun’s). The cell phone market does not benefit from such a player. It means we get great product innovation from cell-phones themselves, but not a great platform for innovation from developers without big, extra-standards investments from well-funded innovators.

Bottom-line: the dirty little secret is that although standards are sold as the friend of the little guy to help them “be a player”, the truth is, they usually serve perversely as a way for the big players to dominate, which requires innovation. . . to be “paced”, shall we say. Innovation, and therefore market growth, by its very definition, happens outside the standards process, and then is absorbed into the standards process if it wins enough market share.

What’s a developer to do? The answer is always the same. In the immortal words of Sean Connery in the Untouchables, no matter what your situation: “Don’t wait for it to happen. Don’t even want it to happen. Just watch what does happen.” And keep coding.

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Listen up Mobile Industry: They’re calling our bluff

WDA is quite busy these days conquering the world of widgets