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Contextual Age: A case against Facebook.

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Facebook finds itself in a midst of discomforting news all around. But, I have been very confident about Facebook doing at least one more revolution after having conquered social. It knows more about me than any other computing company/system in the world which inherently gives it a leverage over others in building the first layer of intelligence into my phone, PC and change my life forever. Or so I thought until now. But Gimbal changes this equation. In fact it destroys Facebook’s leverage completely.

Gimbal is a contextual awareness platform developed by Qualcomm. It reads data from all the sensors on your phone, almost 22 of them in latest devices. Like Barometer, temperature and light sensors, accelerometer, gyroscope GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-fi RF signatures etc. These data are made available to developers through their SDK. Watch the video above to get a fair idea how it works and affects you.

Facebook is a slow learner. It learns about me when I “like” or post something. On the other hand, Gimbal is going to move with me like a shadow. It is going to read my actions- where I am, what I am eating, how is the weather to anticipate what I am going to do next. Moreover, not many people “like” stuff on Facebook as I do. As, a matter of fact, I have liked many things that I do not necessarily care about anymore. For instance, I liked KFC on Facebook long back. I don’t go to KFCs anymore. Facebook has no clue about my interest-cycles. On the other hand if I were using Gimbal, it could tell the Food apps or maps that I am really into steaks these days. Or what I am going to do at 5 p.m on a Saturday. The more I think about what Gimbal could do, the more I am enchanted by it’s power.

To make phones intelligent Facebook has to do things primarily to serve me better:

A. It has to know what I like.
B. It has to learn to read patterns.

I agree that right now Gimbal knows nothing about me. But isn’t that a matter of days, only? Facebook knows a lot about me, it doesn’t know all about me. Like I have stopped following Formula 1; and I am too tired to go and unlike from hundreds or thousands of pages that I have liked. I don’t think Facebook is going to have a large role to play in the contextual age. Which is kind of a bad news for Facebook and it’s shareholders. Now, you may argue that Facebook doesn’t have to be a contextual company, it’s a social company. But, I doubt whether leverage over social can be maintained for a long, long period. Primarily for two reasons:

A. Constant threats from the likes of Google+ and new startups. (Orkut, MySpace eh?)
B. The contextual age is going to bring new kinds of context-aware ads which is going to badly impact Facebook revenues.

I am sure Mark knows all about it and planning his move already. I wish him and his team all the best because I really, really love and care their company.

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Tablets for education.

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After Apple launched iPad and the Samsungs who copied it, things haven’t been the same again. The personal computer market has been redefined; sort of re-invented. However, these waves of gadgety-excellence broke long before they reached the Indian shores.  Or have they? After HCL launched ME U1, now Micromax has brought to market an Android 4.0 ICS based 7-inch tablet acknowledging the presence of a large market in India – the school goers! The Indian middle-class family having recently bought a laptop is still wondering whether they need a tablet, if at all they are considering buying one. Turns out these tablets are really not meant for them, but for their kids.

Normally, a personal computer means a personal computer! Something you buy for yourself. But the Micromax Funtab – that’s what they’re calling it, you buy it for your CBSE-school going child. For an additional price of 800 bucks, you get a 4GB memory card pre-loaded with interactive course material meant for CBSE students just like you’d get in “HCL My Edu Tab K12” and “HCL My Edu Tab HE”. Along with the school tuition fees, so long you have been paying additional charges for interactive classroom-boards, audio-visual content etc. that the school used to teach your children. But then again were they interactive enough or personal?

Funtab has a price tag of Rs. 6499/- which is about Rs 1500 cheaper than the recently launch HCL ME U1 tab. It has a slightly faster processor- 1.2 GHz and twice in RAM memory- 1GB.  While a Funtab user can get access to the 600 movies, 6000 songs and 400 Video clips and the latest games, apps and TV shows, HCL boasts of a 10,000-app strong ME app store. Only if the comparison were that simple!

HCL has a large presence in the school-education market. Apart from IT services, they’re also in the business of selling smart-boards, projectors, school ERP and customised educational content to the schools. They’re giving a fierce competition to the likes of Tata Interactive Systems, Educomp and NIIT who are also in the similar business. If you’re buying it for your child then why not buy it from the ones who are experienced in education? Although, it is hard to believe that the HCL would have this advantage over Micromax or other competitors in the long run.

Just like developers helped Apple grow like it has, Indian developers, especially the ones who are building interactive courseware or other educational apps is going to play a huge role in the personal-computing-in-education industry. The content that is played on the smart boards would now be played in your child’s hands. It will be more interactive and more fun. So, Micromax need not really worry about developing educational content. If encouraged, the developers will jump right into this opportunity.

Overall, it is good news for the parents who can’t afford iPads or Playbooks for their children. Now, they have a few options to choose from because until now the tablet market has been like an automobile industry with only BMWs (iPads) and Tata Nano (Akash Tablet) to offer! That didn’t work.