The Risk of the Google phone and Android

I could have written how excited I am about the prospect of an open access phone where carriers can’t tell me what I can do. Because I am. Or how intriguing it is that phone bills could become much cheaper because a telephone will be subsidized through ads. Because it is. But instead I’m going to voice my concern about what this could devolve into. This could devolve into my PC. And that’s not necessarily a good thing. Because my PC crashes, and applications misbehave, and I have to spend hours fixing my wife’s or my parents computers. And that’s with a reasonably modern computer and my computer science engineering degree. Why does this happen? Because I say to myself, “Self, won’t it be cool to try out that application? But maybe its drivers will conflict with my other applications? Then I’ve got to ask myself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?”

I’ll give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt that they have lots of smart people working on this multi-tasking OS, and that it’s still really hard to keep it running well. And the thing is, when my wife calls me and says the computer is stuck, I can just tell her to reboot it. But nobody wants to have to reboot their phone. Just like Windows MCE hasn’t taken off as a means to watch TV because no one wants to risk re-booting during the Super Bowl.

Maybe the key to this is virtualization. Keep the phone running in its own virtualized partition. And then limit the number of applications that can be loaded on the phone until the application has proven to be safe and plays nicely with other apps. But don’t allow a free for all like my PC. The risk is too great. Please make something for my mom to use that won’t require her to call me for tech support. On the other hand, she won’t be able to call me…..hmmmm…………

Very Cool! But will Dash Navigation fulfill its promise?

I just learned about Dash Navigation. Dash is a GPS navigation system with a difference - It’s connected to the Internet. The big thing they promote is that this allows you to get real, and real-time traffic info that is anonymously sent to their servers by other users on the road at the same time. This is a really cool concept. I use Google Maps on my Blackberry Curve right now to give me an idea which road I should take home. Its hard to say what to make of the yellow line on the map which is what I usually see – sometimes I have a reasonable ride, sometimes I feel like I’m back in NYC on the Long Island Expressway on a Friday afternoon in the summer. So the prospect of finding out how fast someone was driving on the road ahead of me 5 minutes ago or less is compelling. Maybe its not just about getting to my destination quicker, but high confidence that I can stop for coffee, and still get to my destination on time.

The premise behind this exciting concept is that there will be adequate data from someone 5 minutes ahead of me any time of the day on all major roadways. That assumes of course that there are so many units out there, that there’s no problem getting that data. The challenge of course, is that Dash is a start-up, albeit a well-funded start-up, and they are entering a market with more than a couple of ‘standard’ GPS competitors, including Garmin, and TomTom who have received pretty good reviews for their products. But it also begs the question – how do I have an internet connection while I’m traveling on the highway? The answer – a WWAN connection, like my phone. I pay a monthly fee for my phone connectivity, will I have to pay a monthly fee for this service? Dash’s website doesn’t say, but if you do, this is probably a deal-breaker. Sure they’ll get people to pay, but it will dramatically slow their growth even if the product and service is great. Remember the stories for years about how long it was taking Tivo to get to one million customers? If it takes that long, Garmin and TomTom will catch up, unless they are figuratively asleep at the wheel.

So here is what I’m hoping for. They already have a partnership with Yahoo. Yahoo has a partnership with AT&T. I have a relationship with AT&T – I pay money to them (though I have always hated AT&T’s branding campaigns back when they were the old AT&T, and the new AT&T – is it possible that both incarnations used the same bad branding agency?). So can the Dash service be free for AT&T customers? What about if some form of advertising was on the Dash unit from Yahoo partners, and the advertisers subsidized my service fee? Better yet, what if Dash could demonstrate that people who used their product clicked on and physically visited the places promoted on the Dash unit? And that this model was so lucrative, that this advertising revenue subsidized the cost of the unit, making it cheaper than TomTom or Garmin. Could there be a new advertising model for local stores, gas stations, etc? Sure, Amazon will pay if someone clicks through to their virtual store, but what about the old fashioned physical store that no longer sees ROI in advertising on the radio? Wouldn’t they be willing to pay a pretty penny for people who visited their establishment because someone found it while out driving and walked in the door? The answer is of course yes.

Hopefully Dash is thinking this way. Not only building those advertising relationships, but also really getting drivers to frequent establishments, building the means and metrics to track actual consumer behavior and convince those advertisers that the data is real, engage in viral marketing to get as many units seeded as quickly as possible in a few key markets (Geoffrey Moore’s Bowling Alley – knock down a few pins first), and then intend to price below their competition. Only then will they have a chance at success. Otherwise they’ll just be another Tivo that we all love and wish they had become wildly successful.