Almost a year ago, the little firefly hit the wireless scene with its lively glow and child accessibility. It’s a phone for kids. It makes it really easy to call mom and dad, and for mom and dad to call their kid. It’s got only a few buttons to keep things simple and provides complete parental control. As a wireless geek, I have to comment on what I think is one of the cutest gadgets I’ve seen. It’s got to be one of the coolest toys in Toys R Us now. And with any first generation device, there are a lot of other things this phone could do in the future. While I don’t have kids today, I was one and remember how my over protective mom always wanted to know how I was. Having lived in two households, I also know how valuable it is to the kid to have a way to reach both parents whenever they want. Below outlines my initial thoughts on the current product and ideas for Firefly Mobile’s future.
Safety
The 911 button is a great start. Add a GPS to the phone so that you can offer the e911 service that allows our 911 centers to better determine the callers position without requiring their input, and you’re really set. As I see it, with kids there are a million possibly scenarios of them getting themselves into trouble or it finding them. I’d go beyond 911 & e911 and add an alarm function that blasts a high pitched alarm sound when activated. This could be used for those situations where they’re stuck in something or even worse, someone is trying to take them somewhere they don’t want to go. None of these measures handles all situations a kid could find themselves in, but the more mitigated the better.
Location
Presence has become a popular term and concept with the advent of instant messaging. Most versions now even show when the person is on their computer versus a mobile phone and some are getting smart enough to tell the difference between someone at home and at work. But, what about true presence? This is a valuable concept when it comes to parents. Knowing where your kids are can be invaluable to a little comfort while at work. The next generation firefly needs to better integrate the GPS technology available today. The firefly should not only let parents call their kids, but should let them know where they are and notify them if they leave a predefined safe zone. Learn more. This is the key feature of the Wherifone by Wherify Wireless.
Communication
As our wireless infrastructure and technology advances, so will our abilities to communicate. It seems to me that mom or dad would much rather see their little ones face then simply hear their voice. My bet is that we’ll see versions of these kids phones in the short future that allow video to be sent and received. Imagine what a parent would pay to see their kids smiling face at lunch time. Thankfully, these aren’t for teens! Imagine having your mom trying to see what you’re up to…
Additional Ideas

• Quick Messages or Alerts – provide parents the capability to send a text message to their child reminding them of something they need to do or where they’re suppose to be; could be SMS or email
• Calendar Function – kids schedules are almost as crazy as a business executive; keeping track of it all could be easy with a web based calendar that sych’d with the phone similar to Danger’s Hiptop
• Games – can’t we let them have snakes at least! make them cherish it so it doesn’t get lost easily
• Lights, Camera, Action! – why can’t they have a way to take pictures and send them with little messages to mom, dad and the grandparents

…more as I think of them.

Mobile Virtual Network Operator, or more simply MVNO. It seems the buzz would have you believe that within a few years we’ll all be carrying Captain Crunch, Corona or Pepsi mobile phones. Maybe we well. Seems kind of fun to me. As our global society continues to be obsessed with promoting the hottest brands on everything we own from our feet to our ears, why not have a branded cell phone that goes beyond just the case! I have two thoughts on this subject. One, I think the carriers need to take control of this more or they’re going to loose out on more revenue then they need to and two, big brand companies out there like Louis Vuitton and Disney could take the experience much further.
Let’s start with the carriers. The infrastructure costs related not only to the networks themselves but also the customer management and billing systems is enormous. It seems a waste to make the MVNO build out this infrastructure or worse yet give up this potential outsourcing revenue to a third party such as Visage Mobile, who will provide these systems for the MVNO to integrate with whatever carrier they’d like. The carriers themselves should setup their systems to be flexible enough to manage these MVNOs and take a large cut of the revenue rather then just the whole sale rates of the network usage. Additionally, economies of scale can be created by leveraging large call centers to support multiple MVNOs keeping the costs down for everyone.
Regarding the MVNO’s themselves I think the big opportunity is integration. Let’s take the Louis Vuitton brand for example. If they were to create an MVNO that was super high end, they could not only drive customers to their stores and product lines, but create a need for increased purchases. For example, if LV setup the service to be high-touch customers would be coming in to their store every time they had a problem or wanted to change their plan. Now, given the market, I’d jack up the price of those cell phones to the point that they were disposable so that when that customer walks in with a problem the store person just gives them a new phone and sends them on their way. Not to mention make sure they have the latest mobile holder that came out this week. Big brands becoming MVNO’s open up lot’s of opportunities to better integrate themselves with their customers. They can immediately increase customer insight on buying habits, etc. by monitoring their calls and or web sites visited from their mobile phone (all in aggregate of course to protect privacy). Additionally, they have a way not to directly contact their customer based on their preferences. For example, Disney could do everything from send SMS coupons for Disney Land to the latest program guide for ABC’s lineup.
I’m still looking forward to Apple coming out with a mobile phone and possibly an MVNO play too, but I’m even more curious about when The Quaker Oats Co. is going to have Captain Crunch cell phones for kids!

Having worked in the wireless industry for some time, it’s always amazed me by how painful and expensive a process it is to change plans and features for your mobile phone service. There is a lot of missed revenue on the table and some that just doesn’t see a profit because of the way it was turned on. Here’s an example, you have a new customer activation that does not include SMS (text messaging). This customer later has a friend trying to text them, but can’t get through. They then decide they want this service. Now, this service may bring in anywhere from $36/year to $1200 a year, but more likely it’s going to be on the lower end until the customer gets into it. So, why use an expensive call center transaction or even more expensive an in-store transaction when the phones themselves have the capability to perform these transactions. Why doesn’t the customer just receive that text message, but for them to read it, require them to sign up for a SMS plan. They could do this all from responding to text messages on their mobile phone, or accessing a secure web site. Want to upgrade your minute plan? Simple, just send a text to “upgrade” and follow the prompts.

At first glance of this opportunity to provide a metropolitan WiFi network for San Francisco, one assumes that the provider would pay for it by either advertising or additional services (like a faster connection). But, after thinking about it longer, I believe Google wants to provide free (monitored) access to the Internet in order to improve their PageRank system.
Page Rank Explained – http://www.google.com/technology/

“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”
Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don’t match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page’s content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it’s a good match for your query.”

Now, imagine if Google had access to millions of peoples Internet traffic and an ability to monitor every site everyone visits. This would allow them to determine which sites are truly popular, trends on when a site might be more popular (time focus like during an event), and what sites may naturally link to other sites (following a users surfing rather then a robot?s). Let?s use a BLOG as an example. If you had a link to a specific BLOG off of CNN.com, you may think that the BLOG is quite important (let?s assume it?s a non CNN property). However, if you can ?see? that 30% of visitors to CNN.com click through to this BLOG, you can likely assume it?s an important site and thus the PageRank should be high. Let?s take it a step further since you know everything that user is doing. On the one hand, if after those 30% of people click through to this BLOG, 99% of them are off it in less then a minute, then it?s probably not that good. Thus, you?d decrease the PageRank. But, if a large percentage of people that click through linger on that site for a significant amount of time (because they?re reading all of it and enjoying it), then you can really assume that this is a hot site and that you should increase it?s PageRank.
With this level of ?visibility? into the Internet and interests of all of us, Google?s search engine would provide even more relevant and popular results for your query.
By the way, SBC and Yahoo! Provide broadband together.

Looks like muni wifi is getting serious. I don’t agree that a city should compete against the private sector with a service like this though. They don’t offer free electricity to the poor or heat or phone or any other utility. It will be interesting how it all plays out. Philly announced Earthlink as their provider. They were the first city with the idea (was stuck in court forever).
Let me expand on how I think cities offering WiFi is a.) a new paradigm for government and b.) bad for business.
a.) There are no other examples out there that I know of where a government entity is providing a utility service to people for free
– Television stations are private entities providing a service to customers. While this service is free (over air broadcast), it is paid for by advertisers. However, the government has no involvement or subsidization in this business venture.
– Since WiFi does not include “content” it acts more as a utility such as electricity, water, sewage, or phone service. None of which are provided free by municipalities.
– With respect to the telephone company, there again you have no competition from any municipalities. Now, this is an obvious monopoly within any given area and to counter that the FCC has required telephone companies to a.) provide plain old telephone service (POTS) to all rural areas at a reasonable price (federal law; costs of which are subsidized by urban areas), b.) rates have been regulated and monitored to not abuse this power. (In 1996 the FCC went further and forced all incumbent telephone providers to provide access to their switches/networks in order for competition to be created (Competitive Local Exchange Carriers or CLECs)). A somewhat similar paradigm to this offering would be SF asking Google to build a telephone network wired to every home and provide service for free.
– Telephone companies can leverage their channel more though as they can provide additional services over the same lines (e.g., broadband, TV (coming soon from SBC))
– Electricity companies are still trying to get the technology to provide broadband over their lines. Yet, it looks like broadband over electric lines is ready to go per a press release today
b.) Providing free broadband competes directly against telephone, cable, TV, satellite, cellular and electricity companies.
Telephone – I pay about $20 a month to SBC for my DSL. I would not if this service was launched.
Cable – many folks get broadband from their cable company. guessing they wouldn’t pay for it when this was launched (this eliminates revenue…jobs…)
TV – television stations are required to make the leap to digital broadcasting by the end of this year. the spectrum allocated for this and the technology would allow them to send data along with the video signals. new business models they haven’t quite dreamed up yet would be impacted
Satellite – also provides broadband access
Cellular – carriers world-wide have made significant investments in 3G networks (billions). they would likely never achieve a return with a free competitor as you wouldn’t need the cellular companies to provide this if it was free. not to mention, when it was available you’d get Skype and use it as a phone too, so now you’re not paying for your mobile phone or broadband (eliminates revenue…jobs…)
Electricity companies – well, they’re old. but if they ever really get into convergence (lot’s of wires that could do lot’s of things). they won’t be able to compete if there is already a free channel
Would I like to have free WiFi? Yes! But, I see way too many businesses that could be dramatically impacted by this paradigm change in our local governments, which I think would ultimately affect jobs, which will create even more people that can’t afford the digital world. But hey, I guess they’d still have WiFi!

The race continues, but is still not won (nor may it ever be). The Treo 650 now has some additional competition. As I?ve been considering a new mobile phone (currently have the Treo 600), I haven?t crossed paths with anything that beats the Treo yet. But today, I ran across the Samsung SCH-i730 on Microsoft?s Windows Mobile site. I played with it a bit in the store and found the keyboard to be clumsy with the lip edge. Overall, I didn’t think it typed as well as the Treo or have has easy to operate menus.
My focus for now is getting a phone with over-the-air integration with Exchange Server so that I can easily check email and figure out what building my next meeting is in, without opening the laptop. I had looked at the upcoming Nokia 9300, which happened to be available to play with at a mall booth. However, while it?s web browser was beautiful with the wide view, it?s keyboard was a pain as the keys were designed to cover the full length of the phone when folded open, which made it difficult to quickly reach all with my thumbs. Additionally, it doesn?t look like it?s going to have ActiveSync (to Exchange) in the upcoming version, so it?s off my list.
Watching the consumer gadget masters such as Apple, Sony, Samsung, Palm, RIM, etc. try to come up with that perfect all in one, is exciting. Unfortunately, I still feel like we?re a few steps away. Yet, given this new offering from Samsung, we are getting closer. Apple, RIM, Palm look out! I think you?re going to be passed by soon with the new Windows Mobile and these latest devices from Samsung and Nokia. I just wish Apple, RIM and Palm would merge. Now, that would be a cool phone.
?The Samsung SCH-i730 manages a pretty impressive feat: It shrinks a Windows Mobile-based smart phone into a form factor that actually fits comfortably in your pants pocket and includes broadband wireless, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a built-in keyboard, and a speedy processor. Despite some irritating quirks in its wireless support, the Samsung i730 stays in the running for the “Treo killer” title.? ? CNET
Note: Edited since playing with the device in a store (opinion went down).