Yesterday night, I did a presentation at Mobile Monday Dakar on what I have learnt in six years in the mobile industry in France.
The big themes were:
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Technological transformations and their impact on our business
In six years, we saw: the iPhone, unlimited data plans, Android, iPad, HTML5, etc. Those technological changes also brought a lot of changes in the way mobile services are built: from finding the perfect way to say something in 160 characters (SMS) to designing gorgeous interface that combine beautiful artwork with finely tuned user-experience.
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How the ecosystem evolved
While it sometimes can look very stable and rigid from the perspective of a small startup, the mobile ecosystem is a living being that has evolved a lot. In 2006 carriers were the big monsters that everyone feared but with whom everyone had to deal with, in 2012 the new pilars are the device manufacturers and content owners have taken a well-deserved place in between them.
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The notion of mobile strategy
A few years ago, the options were very limited and jumping on the mobile wagon was pretty straightforward: J2ME or mobile websites were the only options until 2008. Between 2008 and 2012, the number of options has quickly increased and now a company has to decide between going native, html5 or hybrid; building for one phone or all the platforms and whether they should address tablets. Making the right choice requires a well defined target audience and a careful look at the features that are being built.
A big thank you to the Mobile Monday Dakar team for inviting me! And thanks everyone for showing up - this was a very interesting evening!
Slides available after the break (in french).