News comes from London Calling friend Ajit Jaokar about the first ever Mobile Application Stores Conference at CTIA. From a quick scan of the release, it has a great lineup of speakers. More information is presented below:

The Mobile Application Stores, Strategy and Deployment conference http://www.mobileappevent.com/ is proud to announce its all-star speaker lineup for this unique event. Mobile Application Stores is a partner seminar of International CTIA WIRELESS I.T. and Entertainment October 8th in San Diego.

Mobile Application Stores is the only conference to focus exclusively on the business of mobile applications and will focus on the
tremendous opportunities in the mobile apps stores ecosystem. The event is designed to give a complete understanding of how to capitalize on this dynamic market.

Featured speakers for the event include:

• Dr. Jin-Sung Choi Ph.D, Senior Vice President, Head MC Global Product Planning Team, LG Electronics Korea
• George Linardos Vice President, Product Management, Media, Nokia
• Ilja Laurs Founder & CEO, GetJar
• Tim Haysom, Chief Marketing Officer,OMTP
• Mike Merril, CEO, Smart Phone Technologies
• Ajit Jaokar, President Futuretext
• Chetan Sharma, CEO, Chetan Sharma Consulting
• Jouko Ahvenainen, Founder, Grow VC International
• William Volk, CEO, PlayScreen
• Sena Gbeckor-Kove, Chief Technology Officer, imKon

The timing is perfect for an event like this.  The Apple Appstore announced its billionth download in less than 9 months after opening and the recent launch of LG’s Applications Store and Windows Marketplace for Mobile as well as Android and the Blackberry App World are making tremendous impact in the mobile marketplace.

The Mobile Application Stores event s co-located with the largest wireless event in the U.S., International CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment.  Registration is only $295 at http://www.mobileappevent.com/

About Mobile Application Stores: The Mobile Application Stores event is produced by futuretext, a London based research, consulting and publishing company. For additional information, please contact Larry Lockhart at NextVision Media at 727-388-9849 or Larry@nextvisionmedia.com or Ajit Jaokar Ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com

The web site again for registration is: http://www.mobileappevent.com/

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At what point does an application store from Apple, Nokia or a mobile operator simply become another walled garden?

Let’s check for the signs that app stores are really just a new type of walled garden:

- app store owner gets to choose which applications are allowed into the store
- app store owner has to “approve” applications before they are listed in the store
- own brand applications more likely to be promoted than competing applications
- app store owner decides how the apps are promoted and which ones get precedence
- the only way applications can be loaded onto the device is via the app store (true for Apple)

Haven’t we as an industry learnt anything from the failed attempts at “operator decks” and walled gardens from earlier this decade?

In the age of Facebook, Twitter and blogging, consumers are demanding choice.  The right to choose what they watch, listen, consume and where they do it.  App stores are great for discovery of great new content and applications, but I am fearful that they may just become another closed ecosystem that stifles development and creativity.

The iPhone App store has been excellent at showing “normob” (normal mobile users) that applications can be easily bought and installed – something that Nokia have been trying to master with their download offering for some time now – and are yet to master.  The photo on the left was a full page advertisement in a London weekend paper – promoting the Apple app store on O2 and the type of applications available. It has also been supported by prime time TV commercials showing how easy it is to install iPhone applications.

We’re way beyond needing to offer only “on portal” alternatives – most of the mobile internet browsing at the moment is actually off-deck.   The GSMA survey of mobile browsing habits released at mobile world congress showed (not surprisingly when you roll up ALL operator data) that the number 1 website destination was an operator site. 

Now I’ve studied statistics and know that stats can be misleading.  Every other site in the GSMA’s top 10 was a NON operator site.  I’ll hazard a guess that if you broke down the destinations of all the “top” operator sites, none of them on their own would match any of the off-deck sites.  What does this prove?  Consumers want freedom to browse.  They should be offered the same freedom to visit any site via their mobile and download, purchase and install applications of their choice.

I’ve been downloading and installing applications on my mobile device for years.  A couple of my favourite sites are epocware.mobi and mobisystems.com/mobile.  Each site has a range of  excellent and useful applications for my Nokia handset.  None of these applications are available from my operator portal – so why would I decide to limit myself to the operator sponsored destination?

Now I’m not saying that operator portals are a bad idea – we just need to make sure they remain open and flexible and don’t go down the same disastrous walled garden route.

Do you agree with me?  I look forward to your comments below.

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