This post is sponsored by Nokia.
Mobile technology is spreading like wildfire in developing markets, and application developers often find themselves scrambling to keep up.
In Asia, mobile subscribers are growing at by 20 percent every year, and will total more than 3 billion by the end of this year.
Cue Nokia's Series 40 Web App platform, the company's bid to nail down emerging markets early in the game, while extending news, entertainment and information services to millions of new mobile users. Series 40 phones may look outmoded in Silicon Valley, but given their adoption in developing markets throughout Asia and Africa, they just might be the world's most relevant handheld device. Nokia certainly thinks so.
These markets in Asia, in particular, have embraced the platform's functionality. Developers across the continent are using Nokia's web tools to build diverse apps for the masses. Highlighting these success stories, Nokia has created a web video series featuring developers talking about how the Series 40 platform has extended their reach.
Listening to designers and entrepreneurs talk about how the platform has changed their workflow, several major themes emerge -- themes that have no doubt allowed Nokia to gobble up as much untapped market share as it has in Asia:
1) The miracle of data compression: The Series 40 platform's cloud-assisted architecture can compress data up to 90 percent -- 70 percent on average -- dramatically reducing bandwidth, time and costs, according to Houman Forood, senior product marketing manager at Nokia. This is perhaps the number one key to Nokia's popularity in this area. Emerging markets demand cost efficiency, especially because most data usage is prepaid. Nokia has been widely recognized for producing low-cost handsets, and is clearly applying that same philosophy to its web services, making them leaner and faster.
2) The power of "user-friendly": The number of software developers in emerging markets is exploding, but the bulk of them are still only well-versed in Javascript. Nokia's Series 40 platform seems to take this into account, providing tools so that limited programming knowledge isn't an insurmountable barrier. The browser-based platform has baked in a lot of programming know-how, including tools for interactivity and animation that create a richer user experience, and advanced simulation capabilities. Indonesian web portal KapanLagi was able to build its mobile app in just seven days, with zero prior mobile experience. "It's easy to do and really fast -- no difficult APIs to learn," he says. As Forood puts it, Nokia's goal is to attract developers with high quality content looking to reach a lot of people -- they shouldn't be limited by their skill sets.
3) Looks matter: Series 40 phones have never been praised for their slick design -- but Nokia's platform places surprising emphasis on the look and feel of applications. As almost every developer interviewed for the video series stated, millions of people are accessing the Internet for the first time in their lives from their mobile phones. In Indonesia, for example, four times as many people access the Internet from their phones than from computers. Strong and attractive mobile strategy will be vital to expanding the population of people connected to the Internet. Kompas, the most widely read newspaper in Indonesia, had this top of mind when it decided to design a mobile app to more widely distribute news.
Kompas is well-known for its clean, elegant design, says Business General Manager Edi Taslim. The paper wanted this brand image to be reflected in its mobile presence, and was happy with Nokia's execution -- particularly animations and transitions that gave the app extra polish. As Noaman Kazi, a product manager at Hungama -- an Indian entertainment site focused on Bollywood -- puts it, "[The platform] has the flexibility to present data exactly how I want my user to see it."
The video interviews below provide interesting case studies into what it takes to build flexible design tools that in turn can be used to create useful apps for million of people being exposed to the web for the first time. In general, given costs and available technology, Series 40 web apps seem to be the best way to get news and information to the most people who need it. Nokia is taking one approach, but there are millions more prospective mobile users yet to be tapped.
https://www.youtube.com/v/KlpJmtncDaU?fs=1&hl=en_US
Sina Wireless Vice President GaoFei Wang and Technical Manager Zheng Wei have been instrumental in building a real-time news distribution application for mobile devices. With the platform taking care of many user interface issues that may have presented a problem, Sina is pleased with how fast they can develop with Nokia. As Zheng notes, Nokia reduces data flow between servers and clients to such a degree that significant money and time are saved -- a boon that will be increasingly important as more and more mobile users enter the market.
https://www.youtube.com/v/01_Wc1ylQtM?fs=1&hl=en_US
Manish Malik and Noaman Kazi from Hungama talk about their Bollywood web application, which makes news, updates, videos and other rich content available for Bollywood fans who want to keep close tabs on their favorite celebrities. Admiring the platform's flexibility above all else, Kazi underscores the lack of porting issues and the cost effectiveness of Nokia's compression as major advantages. "Nokia is a dominant force in the Asian market," Kazi says. "Bollywood is a way of life."
https://www.youtube.com/v/jD2xE9JJyE4?fs=1&hl=en_US
Edi Taslim, business General Manager for Kompas, Indonesia's largest news outlet, speaks on the pros and cons of developing a major news distribution application for a large mobile consumer base. According to Taslim, 2011 may be the explosive year for mobile application development, making speedy and competitive action a must.
https://www.youtube.com/v/isbPVqnO7jw?fs=1&hl=en_US
Arthur Surya, director of web portal KapanLagi.com, also speaks to the rapid growth of mobile and mobile application use in Indonesia. Consumers are starting to expect high quality apps that can deliver useful functionality, and the Nokia Series 40 platform allows the company to innovate as fast as its customers acquire new tastes and demand new features.