IN THIS ISSUE:

* LiveMind Will Enable ‘The Mobile Consumer’

* Nokia Cuts a WAP Deal with Spyglass

*TalkCity Is the Leader in Community-Based Marketing

* Yahoo Is not Going Away

* Second-Generation Internet Company: Triple the Speed, Please

I spent the week in SFO enjoying the sun and the fact that I am collecting lots of new ideas for people returning (eventually) from their vacations.

LIVEMIND WILL ENABLE “THE MOBILE CONSUMER”

LiveMind (http://www.yais.net) has some characteristics of becoming a winner in the mobile e-commerce space. Think of a Palm pilot which is running a software called WishPad. It enables you to scribble in purchase ideas, react to gift reminders, do web searches and other “pre-purchase action items” on the Palm. You go home and synchronize the device  with the web and the WishPad goes out and prepares the e-commerce deals for you. In the future service providers will be able to push direct marketing and personalized shopping profiles into the WishPad, enhanced with shopper’s purchase history, price comparisons, collaborative filtering and other agent-based recommendations. A pervasive wireless connection will enable continuous synchronization.

Also, think of a WishPad as an impulse shopping device used when listening to commercial radio broadcast. Through local clock or network clock synchronization, purchase decisions related to radio ads can be registered for later review and final decision (this was my idea, how do you make a patent application? ;-)).

The business models include 5-7 % transaction fees, bounties and OEM fees. A service portal for device users is under development. On top of Palm, LiveMind has built a prototype for some CE devices, including the Ninot from Philips (shipping late September 99). Contacts with HandSpring have also been established. LiveMind has an impressive list of some 150 confirmed content affiliates. Discussions with major portal companies are also underway, most notably with Excite and AOL.

Who will call me tomorrow and tell me how to sign a deal with them before the week is over?

NOKIA CUTS A WAP DEAL WITH SPYGLASS

Nokia Wireless Software Solutions announced that it has executed a worldwide distribution agreement with Spyglass Inc. that is intended to accelerate the acceptance and implementation of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) standard. The agreement empowers Spyglass to license the Nokia WAP Browser to manufacturers of mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDA), and other devices that rely on wireless communications. Spyglass will also provide engineering services to manufacturers for the customization and integration of the Nokia WAP Browser with the manufacturer’s platform. http://wwwdb.nokia.com/pressrel/webpr.nsf

Nokia needs to match the commercial reach of Phone.com through a strong distribution strategy. Deals like this don’t “grow in trees”, Ericsson should hurry!

TALK CITY IS THE LEADER IN COMMUNITY-BASED MARKETING

It’s all about communication between people… Talk City, a leading online community site, has added more than 1 Million new home pages in just 180 days. They claim to be the fastest growing community site on the Net and is ranked in the top 10 by Media Metrix for time spent on site per visit. They have over two million core users, defined as people who visit the site more than four times per month. NBC, Hearst, Cox Interactive and Starbucks have invested in Talk City and chosen it for their online community. Over 700 moderators make sure the chats are more “civilized” and kid-friendly than most services you find on the Internet today.

The question is: Shouldn’t Ericsson invest in a major online community partnership to support the “make yourself heard” and other branding campaigns? I think yes, and TalkCity would be a good candidate. For example, it would be a good platform to teach Americans SMS and WAP based chatting.  http://www.talkcity.com

YAHOO IS NOT GOING AWAY

Market research reports the popularity of the mainstream portals decreasing as users jump directly onto specialized sites. Does this mean you should sell your stock in Yahoo!? I think the speed of innovation will still be a major differentiator and there Yahoo is extremely strong. Just look at this:

Yahoo! is working on a plan to create a personalized multimedia portal for Net users, one that combines user-created content and communities from GeoCities with the audio and video streaming aggregation skills and technology of Broadcast.com. … Twenty of the 26 analysts following the stock rate it either a “buy” or “strong buy.”

Looks like Yahoo is very efficient in integrating their acquisitions, something where for example Netscape systematically failed.

SECOND-GENERATION INTERNET COMPANY: TRIPLE THE SPEED, PLEASE

In the coming months, a crop of well-financed, second-generation Net start-ups backed by major talent - including former employees of Yahoo, Netscape, and @Home - will hit the Net running. Their stock option plans have vested and they are ready to build a startup from scratch, reportedly in 12 weeks. These top people have already done it once, they are extremely well-connected and they are driven by the fear and excitement you get when you leave a successful Internet company to take on bigger risks with a higher upside (potential reward).

Some of the bravest second-generation startups begin to hit the market, even before the stock options expire. For example, Epinions.com, a shopping guide powered by word-of-mouth recommendations, hired an employee from Yahoo who left $10 million worth of stock options on the table. Would you do it? (New York Times article - free registration required). http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/19990711mag-tech-startup.html

The future winners will be able to plan and execute with an ever-increasing pace. Networked learning will enable the “ready-shoot-aim” new economy companies to attack the global powerhouses and dismantle their competitive edge. How long will the Ericsson global presence carry enough differentiating competitive value?

QUICK TAKES - Read more about the SoftBANK/News Corp global business development alliance, Ericsson should join… Webraska cuts a partnership deal with Alcatel, involving the latter’s HomeTop instant online service platform - sounds dangerous… An Israeli company is transforming mobile phone and service manuals into interactive guides that look and behave just like the real thing… Another technology useful for wireless ISPs would be the traffic measurement and data mining capability of Web Side Story … Inktomi Directory Engine 1.0 is the Web’s first scalable, automated solution for the creation and maintenance of Web directories… You might take a look at the newly established IPv6 Forum where Ericsson is one of the founders (strange that we did not issue a press release on it - Nokia did)… A new bill payment service Paymybills.com will launch on July 19th… Do you know the newly announced Directory Services Markup Language (DSML)? You should, it will revolutionize e-commerce… Siemens is “revolutionizing industrial innovation” with a unit at Berkeley, sounds like a copy of CyberLab… - (To view the embedded hyperlinks, view this section online at http://webacademy.ericsson.se.)

SELECTED THOUGHTFUL READING - Upside Magazine presents the 20 most inflated tech stocks, highly educative… Read the NY Times article on AOL which made the AOL stock surge 6 % (free registration required)… “Office employees have cubicles, so the brass does also. Workers can’t eat on the assembly line, so white-collar personnel can’t bring food or drink to their desks. Line employees wear blue, static-reducing smocks to avoid shorting out product components, so all the other personnel must wear the uniform, too.” Which company? Nokia at Fort Worth, TX… Read a story on how are deals done in the Internet industry: a Lycos exec attends a high-level CEO conference, runs into a suitable company, does the deal on the spot and calls people back in the office to put out a press release…(go to http://webacademy.ericsson.se for links to stories)

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This is a weekly newsletter describing the non-confidential part of my work during the past week and how I see market evolution affecting Ericsson (as interpreted my me in my role working for LME/DMA in San Francisco as a business developer with a focus on Internet applications and enablers). The report will be published every Monday. For subscriptions go to http://webacademy.ericsson.se/elists.