Recently in Startups to Watch Category
The Key Revolution (TKR) has brought together the innovations of cloud computing and 'chip and pin' security technology to create a unique answer to the problem of secure remote working and collaboration with Mobiu. The service backs up data to a secure encrypted online MobiVault; enables collaboration and file sharing in MobiRooms; and uses a SIM (chip used in mobile phones) equipped USB drive for secure two factor authentication and to provide portable applications, e.g. secure anonymous web browsing. Mobiu is based on technology created and patented by Vodafone, with a platform hosted by NTT and powered by Sun Microsystems.
Mobiu uses the secure 'chip and pin' (Personal Identification Number) technology, which banks use to reduce online banking fraud in the UK by 67 percent during the first half of 2007. Single factor authentication of 'username and password' has been proven time and again as inadequate; its not how many bits are devoted to encryption, it's the human link in the security chain that is weakest.
A study by digital communications agency @www, reveals that 61% of web users use the same password for all their online accounts. According to RSA, the need for end-users to memorize passwords results in less secure management, with 25% of respondents storing a password spreadsheet or document on the PC, 22% said they record passwords on a PDA or other handheld device and 15% keeping a paper password record in an office/workspace. People need easy to remember passwords and those passwords often prove easy to guess or are easily found, hence the need for another factor in the authentication process.
Chip and PIN provides two-factor authentication, that is a simple easy to remember PIN and a Chip module (SIM equipped USB), only when you physically have the Chip and you enter the correct PIN can access be granted, which enables Mobiu to provide secure access to your data. Secure and encrypted online storage and back-up with MobiVault provides virtually unlimited storage, and can only be read by the Mobiu owner of that data and those Mobiu customers authorized by the owner of that data. Should the Mobiu be lost, data is easily recovered from the MobiVault and the Mobiu can be immediately deactivated.
The Secure Remote Working Landscape breaks down into three broad technology segments shown in this diagram.
It's not a matter of if; it's a matter of when one of your company's laptop will be stolen. So Mobiu gives companies the option to either avoid carrying laptops yet still work remotely, or if they do carry laptops store company data with a secure two factor authentication USB.
Mobiu uses the secure 'chip and pin' (Personal Identification Number) technology, which banks use to reduce online banking fraud in the UK by 67 percent during the first half of 2007. Single factor authentication of 'username and password' has been proven time and again as inadequate; its not how many bits are devoted to encryption, it's the human link in the security chain that is weakest.
A study by digital communications agency @www, reveals that 61% of web users use the same password for all their online accounts. According to RSA, the need for end-users to memorize passwords results in less secure management, with 25% of respondents storing a password spreadsheet or document on the PC, 22% said they record passwords on a PDA or other handheld device and 15% keeping a paper password record in an office/workspace. People need easy to remember passwords and those passwords often prove easy to guess or are easily found, hence the need for another factor in the authentication process.
Chip and PIN provides two-factor authentication, that is a simple easy to remember PIN and a Chip module (SIM equipped USB), only when you physically have the Chip and you enter the correct PIN can access be granted, which enables Mobiu to provide secure access to your data. Secure and encrypted online storage and back-up with MobiVault provides virtually unlimited storage, and can only be read by the Mobiu owner of that data and those Mobiu customers authorized by the owner of that data. Should the Mobiu be lost, data is easily recovered from the MobiVault and the Mobiu can be immediately deactivated.
The Secure Remote Working Landscape breaks down into three broad technology segments shown in this diagram.
- Browser based. Secure remote access services that use the web browser on any PC, generally taking advantage of the SSL VPN (Secure Socket Layer Virtual Private Network) capability provided by the browser. The main weaknesses are it requires the browser have the latest secure updates, no malware (malicious software) present, and it generally only uses single factor authentication.
- Client based. Secure remote access applications installed on the laptop. The main weaknesses are it requires the user to carry around a laptop, but more importantly the data is stored on the laptop, so when the laptop is stolen the company's data is at risk, and it generally relies upon single factor authentication.
- Secure USB drive based. These are USBs with software and/or hardware modifications to enable them to securely store data, however, most rely upon single factor authentication, rather than the more secure 'chip and PIN' technology, and do not offer the supported remote working and collaboration service package provided by Mobiu.
It's not a matter of if; it's a matter of when one of your company's laptop will be stolen. So Mobiu gives companies the option to either avoid carrying laptops yet still work remotely, or if they do carry laptops store company data with a secure two factor authentication USB.
While at the Voice Peering Forum I met an innovative 'Voice 2.0' start-up called Fonolo.
If you need to call your bank, airline, operator, car rental agency, travel service, or one of those many other companies that waste your time by making you wait on the phone; this service does all the IVR (Interactive Voice Response) navigation and waiting for you, then once connected to an agent calls you back. Its one of those applications that immediately reminds you of the frustrations of waiting on the phone for 30 minutes to then go through the same conversation you've had for the past 3 months about a billing error that keeps recurring.
It also keeps track of your calls, logging everything including the conversation, so for those companies that "may record your conversation for training and quality purposes;" you can now let them know you're recording the conversation for your records to be used later if required. I've used the service a couple of times, and it "does what it says on the tin." You can select where you want to go for a range of companies' IVR menus, and it calls you once connected to an agent.
Currently it's a free stand-alone application, set-up takes less than a minute and it works on any phone, you simply click on the webpage, get on with your life, and when the agent is connected you receive a call. This does lead to the potential of missing the agent as you're on another call, buy you can always 'fonolo' the company again.
It could be offered by operators as a per-use or subscription based VAS (Value Added Service) to help their customers manage the frustrations with IVRs. From a call center manager perspective this could lower their agent's efficiency while they wait the few seconds to be connected. However, given the person using the Fonolo service will be in a more pleasant mood, the calls could be completed much faster, so overall it could be a gain. It's one of those issues that only the market can decide.
One difficulty I see in mass-market adoption is I'm not sure people use call centers often enough to make this a subscription service, if it's a per-use model then awareness is a problem, and of course we have the background that on-line/web self-care is becoming increasingly common. However, there will be a segment of power-users, to which this is a compelling time-saver and aligned to the way they conduct their lives.
This issue of mass market adoption got me thinking about how the contact list on my phone suggests people's names as I type in 'U,' then 'N' from the keyboard. Having this as a suggestion, e.g. 'Fonolo: United 1K international reservations' would make the use case a mass-market 'no-brainer.' Just like when you start typing a URL (Uniform Resource Locater) on your browser and a number of suggestions pop-up. The contact list / browser of the mobile phone is definitely emerging as a vital link in how operators can make it easy for customers to add cool little applications to their communications experience as part of their Telco API plans.
If you need to call your bank, airline, operator, car rental agency, travel service, or one of those many other companies that waste your time by making you wait on the phone; this service does all the IVR (Interactive Voice Response) navigation and waiting for you, then once connected to an agent calls you back. Its one of those applications that immediately reminds you of the frustrations of waiting on the phone for 30 minutes to then go through the same conversation you've had for the past 3 months about a billing error that keeps recurring.
It also keeps track of your calls, logging everything including the conversation, so for those companies that "may record your conversation for training and quality purposes;" you can now let them know you're recording the conversation for your records to be used later if required. I've used the service a couple of times, and it "does what it says on the tin." You can select where you want to go for a range of companies' IVR menus, and it calls you once connected to an agent.
Currently it's a free stand-alone application, set-up takes less than a minute and it works on any phone, you simply click on the webpage, get on with your life, and when the agent is connected you receive a call. This does lead to the potential of missing the agent as you're on another call, buy you can always 'fonolo' the company again.
It could be offered by operators as a per-use or subscription based VAS (Value Added Service) to help their customers manage the frustrations with IVRs. From a call center manager perspective this could lower their agent's efficiency while they wait the few seconds to be connected. However, given the person using the Fonolo service will be in a more pleasant mood, the calls could be completed much faster, so overall it could be a gain. It's one of those issues that only the market can decide.
One difficulty I see in mass-market adoption is I'm not sure people use call centers often enough to make this a subscription service, if it's a per-use model then awareness is a problem, and of course we have the background that on-line/web self-care is becoming increasingly common. However, there will be a segment of power-users, to which this is a compelling time-saver and aligned to the way they conduct their lives.
This issue of mass market adoption got me thinking about how the contact list on my phone suggests people's names as I type in 'U,' then 'N' from the keyboard. Having this as a suggestion, e.g. 'Fonolo: United 1K international reservations' would make the use case a mass-market 'no-brainer.' Just like when you start typing a URL (Uniform Resource Locater) on your browser and a number of suggestions pop-up. The contact list / browser of the mobile phone is definitely emerging as a vital link in how operators can make it easy for customers to add cool little applications to their communications experience as part of their Telco API plans.
The title is a bit of an oxymoron, how can a 'start-up' also be the largest inter-operator mobile community in the World? I'm being a little loose in the definition of 'start-up' as airG is really a profitable, established business. However, they still have the entrepreneurial zeal of a fresh-face start-up, and being secreted in Vancouver has enabled them to achieve something quite remarkable with little fanfare.
While Bay Area mobile community start-ups struggle with triple digit churn, struggle to break passed the 1M customer mark, and raise tens of millions in VC cash due to the perceived value of the passing 'eyeballs'. airG's mobile community has more than 20 million unique users worldwide and is interconnected to more than 100 mobile operators and media companies globally including Sprint Nextel, AT&T, Rogers, TELUS, Virgin Mobile, Orange, Boost Mobile, Vodafone and MTV Asia. And most importantly is making a profit. Yes! a Mobile 2.0 community that's making a profit rather than burning investor cash in the hope that advertisers do not wake up to the fact that they're being used by the rest of the value chain, i.e. some social networks are seeing click-through rates of 2-4 per 10,000 impressions; that's not an advertising campaign, that's an accident!
airG was founded in 2000 by Frederick Ghahramani, Vincent Yen and Bryce Pasechnik, originally called AirGames, they focused upon WAP games. They quickly discovered that game-play on WAP isn't much fun. However, they had a lobby and chat function, then soon discovered that people didn't logon to AirGames to play WAP games, rather to chat. Hence the name change and focus on community services.
airG highlights an important point that I touched upon when I reviewed Miniweb, just as Miniweb is not putting the web on a TV, its creating interactive TV. airG is not putting a web-based community on the phone, its enabling a mobile community. The user experience is different. In North America and Western Europe, broadband internet access has a high penetration, most people access their web services (e.g. communities) through a PC, and some treat the mobile as an 'always-on' connection to their communities when they're not in front on the PC. This clouds the perception of most in the industry as the vast majority of people in the world do not access the internet through a PC, they access it through a mobile phone. For example, there is over 20 times the number of mobile customers to broadband customers in India, here community is accessed through the mobile. airG has demonstrated the use case is significantly different, even in countries with high broadband internet penetration.
A critical issue with mobile communities is interoperability across network 'islands'. We'll be discussing in the panel session "Telco 2.0 and Web 2.0: Making Money Together?" at the The Voice Peering Forum (June 23-24th, San Francisco). airG has shown the power of enabling inter-operator mobile communities, and built a profitable business. Its good to see a Mobile 2.0 business being built on sound commercial principles, rather than the usual Bay Area process of "burn the VC cash giving stuff away for free to get as many eye-balls to your site/application as possible, create a monetization story, find a buyer, and exit on an inflated multiple before the business model needs to be really proven out."
While Bay Area mobile community start-ups struggle with triple digit churn, struggle to break passed the 1M customer mark, and raise tens of millions in VC cash due to the perceived value of the passing 'eyeballs'. airG's mobile community has more than 20 million unique users worldwide and is interconnected to more than 100 mobile operators and media companies globally including Sprint Nextel, AT&T, Rogers, TELUS, Virgin Mobile, Orange, Boost Mobile, Vodafone and MTV Asia. And most importantly is making a profit. Yes! a Mobile 2.0 community that's making a profit rather than burning investor cash in the hope that advertisers do not wake up to the fact that they're being used by the rest of the value chain, i.e. some social networks are seeing click-through rates of 2-4 per 10,000 impressions; that's not an advertising campaign, that's an accident!
airG was founded in 2000 by Frederick Ghahramani, Vincent Yen and Bryce Pasechnik, originally called AirGames, they focused upon WAP games. They quickly discovered that game-play on WAP isn't much fun. However, they had a lobby and chat function, then soon discovered that people didn't logon to AirGames to play WAP games, rather to chat. Hence the name change and focus on community services.
airG highlights an important point that I touched upon when I reviewed Miniweb, just as Miniweb is not putting the web on a TV, its creating interactive TV. airG is not putting a web-based community on the phone, its enabling a mobile community. The user experience is different. In North America and Western Europe, broadband internet access has a high penetration, most people access their web services (e.g. communities) through a PC, and some treat the mobile as an 'always-on' connection to their communities when they're not in front on the PC. This clouds the perception of most in the industry as the vast majority of people in the world do not access the internet through a PC, they access it through a mobile phone. For example, there is over 20 times the number of mobile customers to broadband customers in India, here community is accessed through the mobile. airG has demonstrated the use case is significantly different, even in countries with high broadband internet penetration.
A critical issue with mobile communities is interoperability across network 'islands'. We'll be discussing in the panel session "Telco 2.0 and Web 2.0: Making Money Together?" at the The Voice Peering Forum (June 23-24th, San Francisco). airG has shown the power of enabling inter-operator mobile communities, and built a profitable business. Its good to see a Mobile 2.0 business being built on sound commercial principles, rather than the usual Bay Area process of "burn the VC cash giving stuff away for free to get as many eye-balls to your site/application as possible, create a monetization story, find a buyer, and exit on an inflated multiple before the business model needs to be really proven out."
HomeCamera enables people to securely see what's going on at home without being an expert in geeky stuff like DDNS (Dynamic Domain Name System), NAT (Network Address Translation) and port forwarding, which are generally required for the home surveillance solutions on the market today. HomeCamera aims to be an easy-to-use home surveillance system, with any webcam, any PC, and any Internet connection; targeting the average PC user. The service is live and currently free because its in beta. Once launched it will remain free with ad-support, there will also be subscription models that add capabilities and remove the advertising. When I talk to operators about this simple proposition the common refrain is, "We thought about doing just that, we just never had the time." HomeCamera is a spin-out from M1 (Singaporean mobile operator).
Google averages between 100k-200k relevant search terms per week on home security and monitoring, so there's definite customer demand. The estimated number of global broadband homes with webcams in '06 was 60m according to Logitech. IDC estimates 21m webcams will be sold in 2008 alone; average annual worldwide growth rate of 9%. More importantly to the HomeCamera proposition there were roughly 600k network cameras sold to homes in 2006. A network camera is a standalone unit that is used for surveillance not web chat. For example, D-Link has added HomeCamera support into its 2120 WiFi network camera.
The use cases include monitoring one's home, kids, the elderly, pets, and domestic help. I also think HomeCamera provides a great example of how third party applications can use the Telco API. Take this use case as a simple example: Jim recently hired a nanny to look after his two young sons. When he's on the road he can check-in from his mobile phone, just to make sure everything is OK. He also shares access with his parents so they can check in from their TV. The operator could expose capabilities such as Single Sign On (from Jim's mobile phone or his parent's STB (Set Top Box) they can access the camera directly without the hassle of entering usernames and passwords), service provisioning (Jim can set up the service for his parents, all they need to do it press the widget button on their remote), IPTV and mobile video streaming capabilities (to ensure quality delivery of video to both his mobile and parent's TV without HomeCamera dealing with the hassle of video clients and QoS (Quality of Service)).
As discussed in the article on the Telco API, the operator could use this service either own-branded, co-branded or as a third party application. You could imagine a scenario where it's an option on the operator's Family Plan. The more challenging part is the business model, but as discussed in the Telco API article there are a number of options which generally will be dependent upon the customer and how the operator chooses to charge for use of its network capabilities. My recommendation is the model must be simple, common across many applications, and at this point in the commercialization of the Telco API its more important to get out there and experiment commercially (continuous beta) rather than spend time crafting complex models and agreements.
Google averages between 100k-200k relevant search terms per week on home security and monitoring, so there's definite customer demand. The estimated number of global broadband homes with webcams in '06 was 60m according to Logitech. IDC estimates 21m webcams will be sold in 2008 alone; average annual worldwide growth rate of 9%. More importantly to the HomeCamera proposition there were roughly 600k network cameras sold to homes in 2006. A network camera is a standalone unit that is used for surveillance not web chat. For example, D-Link has added HomeCamera support into its 2120 WiFi network camera.
The use cases include monitoring one's home, kids, the elderly, pets, and domestic help. I also think HomeCamera provides a great example of how third party applications can use the Telco API. Take this use case as a simple example: Jim recently hired a nanny to look after his two young sons. When he's on the road he can check-in from his mobile phone, just to make sure everything is OK. He also shares access with his parents so they can check in from their TV. The operator could expose capabilities such as Single Sign On (from Jim's mobile phone or his parent's STB (Set Top Box) they can access the camera directly without the hassle of entering usernames and passwords), service provisioning (Jim can set up the service for his parents, all they need to do it press the widget button on their remote), IPTV and mobile video streaming capabilities (to ensure quality delivery of video to both his mobile and parent's TV without HomeCamera dealing with the hassle of video clients and QoS (Quality of Service)).
As discussed in the article on the Telco API, the operator could use this service either own-branded, co-branded or as a third party application. You could imagine a scenario where it's an option on the operator's Family Plan. The more challenging part is the business model, but as discussed in the Telco API article there are a number of options which generally will be dependent upon the customer and how the operator chooses to charge for use of its network capabilities. My recommendation is the model must be simple, common across many applications, and at this point in the commercialization of the Telco API its more important to get out there and experiment commercially (continuous beta) rather than spend time crafting complex models and agreements.
We've all experienced it: you're on a call, not moving around, just talking and the call drops, you check the signal level on the phone and it's gone only to return to near full strength as you check. Does the operator even know what's just happened? And then when you're on the move, for example on the Gatwick Express (between London Gatwick Airport and Victoria Station), there are several points on the train ride where you see most people who are on the phone either start shouting at it or removing it from their ear to look at what's going on. The phone is an invaluable source of information on the status of the operator's network, yet it remains an under-utilized asset in the fight to improve service levels on the most basic service.
This is the problem Wadaro addresses, monitoring network and service performance from the phone. It's embedded software on the phone, from a simple SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) application to a sophisticated OS (Operating System) application. At the lowest end it just monitors the phone state when a call terminates, so its impact on the phone is not perceptible to the user, and it enables an operator to make its existing phone portfolio become part of the network, service and usage monitoring. Network quality is important to customers, after price is the next decision criteria.
Operators in the US focus upon network quality as their core differentiation where they spend billions of dollars in building the brand and embedded their bylines in the public's subconscious, e.g. for Verizon their byline is "the nation's most reliable wireless network," whilst AT&T's is "the network with the fewest dropped calls." We're also seeing operators such as O2 allow their business customers to see the status of their network, with services such as Network Manager GSM and Network Manager GPRS. Extending that to the status and usage of the services their employees are receiving on their phones provides that last step which moves a 'nice to have' into a 'must have' differentiator.
Their application can also improve customer service. For example, most customers have no idea what model their phone is. So when they call customer support, the first few minutes are a frustrating dialog of finding out who the customer is and what equipment they have. With Wadaro when the customer calls the support team, the CSR (Customer Service Representative) can know the phone model without asking the customer. Even if the customer has purchased their own unlocked phone elsewhere, the operator can still know the make, model and its performance history. Next, the operator can proactively identify and remedy errors. If the Wadaro app is showing that the customer can't connect to her email server or collect her MMS, the operator can stimulate device management to correctly configure her device.
The main challenge is getting the Wadaro application onto devices. For new devices the software can be bundled on the SIM and/or phone. For existing devices it's a little more complex and will be dependent upon the operator's OTA (Over The Air) capabilities and how aggressively the operator promotes the application and its benefits to customers. Its one of those areas, where you'd think operators would already be using the phones on their network to let me know how things are working from a customer's perspective.
This is the problem Wadaro addresses, monitoring network and service performance from the phone. It's embedded software on the phone, from a simple SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) application to a sophisticated OS (Operating System) application. At the lowest end it just monitors the phone state when a call terminates, so its impact on the phone is not perceptible to the user, and it enables an operator to make its existing phone portfolio become part of the network, service and usage monitoring. Network quality is important to customers, after price is the next decision criteria.
Operators in the US focus upon network quality as their core differentiation where they spend billions of dollars in building the brand and embedded their bylines in the public's subconscious, e.g. for Verizon their byline is "the nation's most reliable wireless network," whilst AT&T's is "the network with the fewest dropped calls." We're also seeing operators such as O2 allow their business customers to see the status of their network, with services such as Network Manager GSM and Network Manager GPRS. Extending that to the status and usage of the services their employees are receiving on their phones provides that last step which moves a 'nice to have' into a 'must have' differentiator.
Their application can also improve customer service. For example, most customers have no idea what model their phone is. So when they call customer support, the first few minutes are a frustrating dialog of finding out who the customer is and what equipment they have. With Wadaro when the customer calls the support team, the CSR (Customer Service Representative) can know the phone model without asking the customer. Even if the customer has purchased their own unlocked phone elsewhere, the operator can still know the make, model and its performance history. Next, the operator can proactively identify and remedy errors. If the Wadaro app is showing that the customer can't connect to her email server or collect her MMS, the operator can stimulate device management to correctly configure her device.
The main challenge is getting the Wadaro application onto devices. For new devices the software can be bundled on the SIM and/or phone. For existing devices it's a little more complex and will be dependent upon the operator's OTA (Over The Air) capabilities and how aggressively the operator promotes the application and its benefits to customers. Its one of those areas, where you'd think operators would already be using the phones on their network to let me know how things are working from a customer's perspective.
With the launch of services such as FiOS from Verizon and U-Verse from AT&T, TV services in the US are finally entering the 21st Century, where widgets are now available on the TV such as local weather and traffic; it's slowly becoming interactive. As anyone from the UK will attest Sky, a satellite TV service provider, has been offering interactive programming since 2001 with the launch of the "Red Button." That is a simple red button on the TV remote that launches a mico-browser on the STB, which communicates over the dial-up telephone line for voting and getting more information on a topic (e.g. Sky News). This concept was then extended to the Sky Key, a short-code that advertisers could use so people could go directly to the advertiser's site. Over dial-up, in my experience, anything more that voting was not an ideal user experience. But with STBs (Set Top Box) finally going broadband, things have got interesting, and Miniweb is ideally positioned to create a new category in interactive TV.
Miniweb is a spin-out from Sky, they created the microbrowser and the TV Key platforms, and have now created a broadband interactive TV platform and standard based (WTVML) browser that can run on most set-top boxes. This potentially makes the viewing experience of 382 million TV households worldwide, as rich as the internet, but with the ease of use of the TV. Miniweb's proposition is to create a new digital entertainment experience through the TV by enabling an Interactive TV experience that combines TV viewing, on-line services and interactive advertising. This generates revenue by connecting TV eyeballs through their products, relevant advertising, contextual links to content and broadcaster driven enhanced TV. It's a business model analogous to that of Google. What Google does for Internet advertisers, Miniweb wants to do on the TV.
The immediate question that comes to mind is to point out that the Wii and PS3 both include web browsers, so why won't customers just use the existing web browsers on their TVs, especially given the growth of HDTV. Here is where it's important to examine the user experience. When someone is watching TV it's an engaging experience. As an analogy, when I'm watching TV and the phone rings it's an inconvenience, whilst when I'm at my PC surfing the web I do not think twice about checking CID (Caller ID) and answering. This is a critical point, TV viewing is engaging, so a context-switch is a significant disruption to the user experience; hence why Miniweb subtly overlays their browser and integrates it with the TV channel and its content.
I've accessed the web using both the Wii and PS3 browsers, and though it's nice to see on a HDTV, the PC it still a much easier user experience. I've experienced the Miniweb platform and it's not the web, its interactive TV, it's a different and new experience that enables me to find out what song is being played on the program I'm watching, find-out the actors name while watching the show, see local traffic reports, find out more about the current news report, book a test-drive from the advert I've just seen, rate programs and share new discoveries with friends, and yes even order a pizza with the press of a couple of buttons on the remote. It's really just making an appropriate experience to the TV and the context in which people watch TV, rather than force-fitting the internet model. Regardless of its commercial success Miniweb is an important experiment for the industry in creating new and innovative interactive experiences to understand how the TV/web experience is going to evolve.
Miniweb is a spin-out from Sky, they created the microbrowser and the TV Key platforms, and have now created a broadband interactive TV platform and standard based (WTVML) browser that can run on most set-top boxes. This potentially makes the viewing experience of 382 million TV households worldwide, as rich as the internet, but with the ease of use of the TV. Miniweb's proposition is to create a new digital entertainment experience through the TV by enabling an Interactive TV experience that combines TV viewing, on-line services and interactive advertising. This generates revenue by connecting TV eyeballs through their products, relevant advertising, contextual links to content and broadcaster driven enhanced TV. It's a business model analogous to that of Google. What Google does for Internet advertisers, Miniweb wants to do on the TV.
The immediate question that comes to mind is to point out that the Wii and PS3 both include web browsers, so why won't customers just use the existing web browsers on their TVs, especially given the growth of HDTV. Here is where it's important to examine the user experience. When someone is watching TV it's an engaging experience. As an analogy, when I'm watching TV and the phone rings it's an inconvenience, whilst when I'm at my PC surfing the web I do not think twice about checking CID (Caller ID) and answering. This is a critical point, TV viewing is engaging, so a context-switch is a significant disruption to the user experience; hence why Miniweb subtly overlays their browser and integrates it with the TV channel and its content.
I've accessed the web using both the Wii and PS3 browsers, and though it's nice to see on a HDTV, the PC it still a much easier user experience. I've experienced the Miniweb platform and it's not the web, its interactive TV, it's a different and new experience that enables me to find out what song is being played on the program I'm watching, find-out the actors name while watching the show, see local traffic reports, find out more about the current news report, book a test-drive from the advert I've just seen, rate programs and share new discoveries with friends, and yes even order a pizza with the press of a couple of buttons on the remote. It's really just making an appropriate experience to the TV and the context in which people watch TV, rather than force-fitting the internet model. Regardless of its commercial success Miniweb is an important experiment for the industry in creating new and innovative interactive experiences to understand how the TV/web experience is going to evolve.
