Editor’s Note: Welcome to Reality Check, a feature for RCR Wireless News’ new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile content industry to give their insights into the marketplace. In the coming weeks look for columns from Tom Huseby of SeaPoint Ventures, Laura Marriott of the Mobile Marketing Association and more.
At its Oct. 23 meeting in San Francisco, CTIA’s Board of Directors approved new initiatives of CTIA’s Wireless Internet Caucus (WIC) in the areas of mobile financial services and m-commerce and cameraphone code scanning. In each case, the new WIC Action Teams have set aggressive timelines for achieving key deliverables in an attempt to help organize fragmented industry landscapes and jumpstart the marketplace.
In keeping with the mission of CTIA’s WIC, the two new initiatives are intended to address perceived impediments to market adoption of wireless data products and services in these areas through the creation of conditions that will encourage market growth.
In both cases, the working teams will be exploring areas of inter-carrier cooperation that can help facilitate the development of new services that have been lagging as a result of a common approach among industry participants. With regard to mobile financial services and m-commerce, the initiative focuses on the cross-carrier collaboration that will be necessary to foster the development of new services that enable wireless subscribers to manage and spend money via their wireless devices; for cameraphone code scanning, the team will focus on the development of industry standards across a broad array of technologies and functions.
While the initiatives are related in the similarity of the issues faced by both markets, and will have overlap among team participants and similar timelines, the work of the teams will be distinct, and should be looked at separately.
The mobile financial services and m-commerce Action Team charter declares that most mobile financial applications fall into the broad categories of mobile financial services or mobile commerce. Mobile financial services is defined as a vertical that encompasses many personal money management functions via the mobile phone; Mobile commerce is defined as specifically targeted at using the mobile phone to manage purchasing activities made by the consumer either remotely or in proximity to a physical point of sale. The team charter calls mobile wallet a generic term that refers to the carrier deployed application that enables a MFS and m-commerce experience for the end user. The mobile financial services and m-commerce Action Team is charged with assessing opportunities for collaboration in these areas in order to facilitate the viability of this opportunity and to speed market adoption.
While the areas of mobile financial services and mobile commerce are widely believed by the WIC Leadership Council to be areas of potentially dramatic growth, the current industry landscape is highly fragmented with regards to technology and transaction methodologies. As a result, according to its charter, the mission of the MFSC Action Team is to “create a foundation for common functionality for mobile payments, and to address consumer and merchant needs for simple, secure and interoperable mobile payment choices. It is probable that this team would communicate guidance on technology standards that are available in the marketplace.”
The team’s purpose is to work together on two initiatives.
A. The first initiative is to enable a wireless cross-carrier industry alliance.
B. The second initiative is to focus specifically on Near Field Communication (NFC) technology that would enable mobile transactions at a merchant’s point of sale.
Within six months, the team will report its assessment of the collective opportunity to:
1. Build an interworking methodology between carriers for the enablement of mobile wallet applications, and with the financial industry, as appropriate.
2. Communicate a unified cross-carrier approach to mobile wallet applications enablement, including opportunities and implications, to other important members of the value chain and their respective governing bodies.
Faced with a similar fragmented industry landscape, the Code Scan Action Team, according to its charter, will “work together to enable unified communication to external stakeholders (such as consumer goods, media, and retailers) that need to hear of a unified approach (technologically and systemically) prior to committing to their initial capital expenditure, technology selection and marketing resources. These external investments are required to drive actual utilization of the cameraphone scanning technologies infrastructure.” While initially limited to U.S. wireless carriers, the team intends to propose a broader composition before June 30, 2008.
Specifically, the team intends to make recommendations in the following areas on or before June 30, 2008:
Symbologies – There are tens of scanning technologies ranging across code, character, and image recognition families. The Action Team will agree on symbologies they will jointly support in the U.S. context. Such action will support and nurture the emergence of a mass-market in codescanning. The Action Team will also sketch out logical priorities and plans for additional capabilities over time.
Code Resolution – The Action Team will articulate conventions for code resolution, either directly through the code or indirectly through server translation.
Priority Functions – The result of a scan could initiate a range of actions, including the launch of a browser, LBS functionality, access to PIM and SMS client launch. The Action Team will identify which of these functions are supported widely and prioritize work towards additional support.
Value-added services – Carriers will enable additional functions over time, including transaction capabilities, advertising targeting, detailed analytics or reporting. The Action Team will work to prioritize development of certain value added services.
Measurement and reporting – In order to support scan publishers, carriers will want to enable minimum levels of reporting, with enhanced reporting available over time. Doing so will help avoid fraud, enable accounting, and drive innovation throughout the value chain. The Action Team will also need to establish demarcation between widely published and privately held data.
In each of these cases, the wireless industry has significant demonstrable opportunity. But in each case, there is significant industry fragmentation that is impeding market adoption. It was for cases like these that the WIC was formed. Given the aggressive timelines of both teams, we should have a good idea by next July of its continued effectiveness in helping the industry reach win-win solutions.
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