Let's chat, lessons from WeChat

If you are a smartphone user then you most certainly use an Instant Messaging application almost on a daily basis. However have you ever stopped to consider how messaging applications are able to achieve such mainstream acceptance despite having spent almost nothing on marketing? WhatsApp’s growth was purely organic, in a market that is as mature as Instant Messaging, this is definitely a phenomenon.

About a year ago WeChat was splashing out what I can only imagine were millions of Rands on marketing. I’ll admit they got me to download the app. And so did a fair amount of my contacts. But that was that. It ended there.

What can we learn about ourselves from this? WhatsApp did not do anything revolutionary, they did something so basic that we couldn’t help falling in-love with it. Thereby revolutionising the way we communicate.

The need to communicate is an ongoing and well understood need among all people; regardless of age, gender or occupation. With WhatsApp, for the first time we had a reliable, cost-effective, and frictionless medium to communicate. The very reason why some lambasted it, was the reason that the platform was so successful. By removing the friction which, (with reasonable thought) had been added to other IM applications.

Now WeChat seems to be positioning it’s self as a platform rather than just another application. Whereby other app developers will be able to launch their offerings. The said value proposition I imagine is that users need a single App to replace all their Apps, also that the developers can leverage off WeChat’s existing user base. I once again foresee some challenges with this.

1. Phone manufactures understand themselves as building platforms rather than full solutions, part of the reason why major OSes have an App-Store. By positioning themselves this way they are taking on markets like Google Play, a position that I think might quickly prove even harder to sustain.
2. Although WeChat may have achieved significant downloads as a result of their marketing campaigns, they do not seem to have managed to convert a decent portion of those into active users. So without a sizable amount of active users (who understand the value of the platform), the developers are once again left to wrestle with the challenge of Discoverability.

With that said, if WeChat did manage to gain market share as a Platform, one definite positive could be an easing of the native vs hybrid debate for the development community. But this can only been seen as a value add if indeed the WeChat market place was understood and accepted by a sizable share of users and developers.

In closing we have learnt about ourselves that we are driven firstly and mostly by function. Despite the on-going myth that consumers are driven by trends and “what is cool”. The rate at which both WhatsApp and WeChat have been downloaded, could be seen as a strong indicator that Network Effects, as they have previously been understood, are less significant for the modern user.

Don't get thrown out the window!

Living in the technology arena, you are very likely to find yourself suffering from an identity crisis. And sure enough at its core this is not a new problem, however I felt it was worth highlighting. There is a fallacy among many in this arena that the latest frameworks are always the greatest. Maybe what is needed here is the discipline of knowing how to separate the immediate requirement of delivering a solution from your always eager curiosity.

Knowing that I am an “IT-guy” friends and associates often approach me asking for a website, or my favourite an APP. If I had a dollar for every time I was approached by someone who had an idea for an app, I surely would have managed to pay for a couple of fancy dinners by now. The issues with this are:

1. An app is not a business, before commissioning the development of an app it is important to make sure that you have clarified your business model.

2. Just because there is a valid business case, it does not always follow that it is best delivered with the latest technology.

As an example USSD is a powerful tool (which I am looking into quite keenly), that is used extensively in developing markets, but often taken in contempt. Some great illustrations for application of this technology in solving real issues are Wikipedia over USSD, and AskMama. Oh, and your mobile banking you did this morning.

Now sure enough there are some exceptions to the above, but if you think that you are an exception chances are you’re not. So what can the average South African do to help build this nation even if you do not have the required technical aptitude? Well before approaching a developer asking for an app (and also to avoid getting thrown out the window), try this: 

1.  Do some basic testing to prove the validity of the need that you seek to address. Some tools for this are the Business Model Canvas and Effectuation.  
2. When you do approach your Technologist, say to them “I have noticed that there is a Problem/Need…I know this because…I would like your help to build a solution.

You know, in the same way that you go to a GP and describe the symptoms and leave it up to them to prescribe a remedy.

It takes a whole nation to build an economy. So don’t be shy to apply yourself.

The Soft Method

It’s as though I tell this story too many times and to be honest it’s not the most exciting of nostalgias. However I do have a very vivid memory of sitting at the back row of an Information Systems first year lecture; the lecturer was working hard at explaining the differences between cohesion and coupling when it comes to software development. Now as scientific/English terms they seem to be quite obvious as to their implications.

I was intrigued that the lecturer would spend this amount of the course time on the subject and even go as far as to give an assignment through which we were expected to demonstrate our understanding of these software development terms.

But that is not where we are going to camp out for today, what I really want to get across was how this very simple principle of cohesion-and-coupling was to be the gravity that dropped the penny for me once I entered the working world. You see I now believe that, reason than the lecturer had spent that much time in ensuring that we understand this principle was that one needed to work quite hard at applying this in “real-world” software development. Eventually you develop a feel for it, but there was no set formula for determining compliance to such important principles.

So just a few years into the working world and this is what I have made out. Much Like that first lecture, developing and delivering software solutions for organisations is a soft-science as opposed to a hard science. In as much as there has been a great deal of literature over the past two decades discussing how organisations are increasingly needing to search for technology managers that understand not only the engineering but also the business and financial principles that apply.

Imagine that you are working as an independent contractor to a retail store and you have been tasked with ensuring that their latest in-house POS goes through the SDLC and onto the check-out isles of its couple dozen chain stores. You have been given very strict deadlines as the executive are driving to have the systems rolled out in time for the silly-season.

Now, you know that you’re engineering abilities are quite sound and you are feeling quite confident that you can deliver a robust solution. But how are you going to ensure that you get continuous feedback from the project sponsor. How are you going to ensure that your modules are “acceptance” tested by the user and the business community? For any developer that is in touch with current trends the answer might seem obvious. You will very likely have to apply some kind of “agile methodology”. And herewith lays my argument.

The methodology selected has a great bearing on when and what you are able to deliver, so much so that in today’s world where many solutions are available for developers on the WWW and today’s developers are much less concerned about memory and network constraints as the developers two decades ago. If we were to draw a graph where x is time and y is the level of significance for “critical success factors”. I argue that we would see a trend where the hard science that is engineering ability has gradually began to drop over time and is slowly approaching its terminal. On the other hand the soft-science that is methodology and technique has begun to increase in significance very rapidly. In conclusion we are living in an age where software companies are forced to act under a soft-science. In my next piece I will look more into the implications of moving from the hard world to the soft world.

Why stand in-Line when you can do it on-Line?

It would seem that the number of South Africans that are now opting to shop online has increased, or be it that the number of players in this market has increased. What I find interesting is how long it has taken for South Africans to catch on to this lifestyle. Some of the more obvious factors that may be driving this wave include the fact that high speed, affordable internet is still relatively new to this country.

South Africans have also shown themselves to be great innovators with their “maak a plan” attitude that saw the development of many South African products through the 20^th century.

What has happened is that the large retailers have been very slow in filling this gap. This has allowed local aspirant internet-entrepreneurs to rise to the challenge.

What will shape the market going forward? Naturally, as with all emerging sectors there will be somewhat of a natural selection. I would like to propose that the market will be shaped strongly by a combination of these factors.

The availability of a well functional mobile shopping alternative; mobile shopping will be a great driver, if for no other reason but its shear convenience. This would ultimately mean the mobile payments also opens up for vigorous players.

One of the few interesting notes I remember about e-commerce from a first year varsity lecturer paraphrased was that “e-commerce is a powerful tool, in context” he argued that people might be more willing to purchase non-perishable groceries and capital goods such as TVs and computers than they might be comfortable buying clothes on-line (for some walking in and out of the fitting room is an important part of the shopping experience). Though, I wonder if this proves to be close to the reality that we see today.

That brings me to the next issue, the grouping of products. Many online shopping sites sell themselves as the buy-anything/sell-anything store. However there might be some advantage to be gain from a speciality store, such as a more purpose fit designed store.

No retailer could ever underplay the importance of after sales support. This is going to be big. Can I propose that this might be the ace-card; this could prove to be a greater determinant than the actual shopping experience; i.e. the pretties of the website (barring that it still has minimum levels of aesthetic appeal and guarantees security).

One question I wish to have answered is whether online shopping results in true savings for the consumer. Let’s investigate this somewhat. Firstly online shopping allows the consumer to compare prices among several retailers at almost no cost and in a matter of minutes. Online-stores can avoid the high costs of rentals and shop-fitting which are associated with shopping malls. The trick though is that both the online store and the retailer compete in the same market for the same customer. They would not be faulted for seeking to take advantage of the arbitrage. And with the convenience that online shopping brings forth as its value proposition, economics might tell us that the consumer would be willing to pay a premium. The conclusion, I do not see any great savings resulting on the side of the consumer.

Though there might be value in just being present, there is no doubt that if chain retail stores wish to compete in this segment they will have to act fast. The ability to decouple their online business from their stores will prove to be crucial in ensuring that they can compete with more agility and thus retain the customer.

I for one will be watching this segment with a keen interest, if we are lucky we could see this spin off into even more great South African internet entrepreneurship, maybe something like what we have witnessed with amazon and its evolution over the past years.

Current Currencies

From those days long gone by of traders depositing gold in exchange for a certificate to the more modern Visa and Mastercard payment systems; it is clear that banking and payment systems have come a long way. No doubt as with most any technology that continues to be relevant innovation is inevitable especially with growing competition and changing markets as online technologies evolve and consumers demand more seamless alternatives for making payments and trading.

Electronic currencies are not all that new, though it would seem that we continue to see more of them being introduced into the market. In South Africa the number of electronic currencies is somewhere between 15-20. I do believe that it is time we started asking more questions about these currencies. How much is being done to protect the consumer? One of the challenges that faces this industry in South Africa is that there is currently no standard, so we find each of the various banks developing their own service in order to remain competitive, but often these currencies can not be used across the various systems. And it is not only the banks that are developing these services, other telecoms and internet companies such as BlueLabel are also producing these products.

My knowledge of this particular industry is very limited, and to be quite honest I'm not so sure that I always understand the relevance and the need for such products. It is true that in African markets where you have large numbers of unbanked people, that electronic currency can play a major role in helping to improve the lives of many individuals and families. By offering a means for a labourer who is in a mining town 200km away from his family to send money home as electronic currency in real time from his cell-phone that can be redeemed for real currency at a general dealer such as a franchise supermarket you invariably change peoples lives.

I have many questions about these products that I wish to put out there.

Since most of these are not interoperable and are generally not accepted among all merchants. How are consumers being protected from being locked in to products much like we saw people being locked into cellphone networks for the fear of loosing their phone numbers?

How secure are these currencies, as a consumer how certain can I be that the level of security around the computers that manage these currencies is matched by those that the banks would use for all their customers trading in real currency?

What governance levels are there around these technologies and how much is being done to develop a set of standards?

Do these systems not open up a gap for criminal activity and anonymous (or pseudonym)  payments of large sums of money?

I think that if anybody has answers it would be helpful for those of us who may already be using some kind of electronic currency or those of us that may consider doing so in future.

Social networks and society

The world has been taken over by the sticky web, no not the world wide web that has been around for a while now. The web of social media/social networks.

In recent months articles from all around the tech world and even the mainstream news channels all praised the role that Facebook, Twitter and the like have played in the movements that we have seen in the Arab nations of northern Africa.

On Saturday 9 July 2010 we saw the introduction of a new state the 54^th member of the African continent. South Sudan clearly faces many challenges amongst them are the splitting of revenue from the southern oilfields, poor health care and education.

So I ask the question what role can social media play in meeting the challenges that face a new born nation. Think back to South Africa 17 years ago. Had there been such well established social media platforms how would the transition been better informed or possibly hampered (considering that any one is free to publish their opinion even those that are sceptics or resistant to the change).

No doubt, these platforms are only as strong as the infrastructure that they are built upon. On a continent like Africa where broadband costs are said to be amongst the highest in the world, and where many rely on cellphones to access the internet we can clearly see that if South Sudan is to benefit from social media it will need mobile operators that can not only offer the promise of stable and affordable voice services but the same must be said of the data service.

As the democracy is established the boarders are likely to open up to volunteer and humanitarian aid groups that might have previously been disallowed or even the philanthropist that might have feared to work in a more turbulent pre-democracy Sudan.

All these groups I believe would benefit from a structured system to which they can affiliate and have access to real time information about where the greatest needs are at any point in time. The benefit of social media is that it also removes elements of bias or propaganda that might be found in your traditional news sources.

Of-course all this requires time and hard capital. Mobile operators will want to be sure that if they invest their money towards building and supporting this infrastructure they will get returns as they need to account to their shareholders. Facebook and Twitter are wonderful resources but I believe that a more dedicated platform is needed. Even with Opensource software it would require time to set up dedicated social networks, these networks can not promise to give the same relative yields as mainstream networks. There is a need for the “digital philanthropist”.

Coming Soon!

Watch this space for my weekly blog and commentary on the South African I.C.T. industry, social networking scene as well as mobile connectivity. How do all these changes affect commerce, education as well as our social lives.