Category: Social mobile long tail

The Social Mobile Long Tail 2.0

A few months ago I finally got round to diagramming what I thought mobile applications development in the not-for-profit space looked like. I came up with this, and called it “Social Mobile’s Long Tail“. It was based on the original Long Tail concept, first talked about by Chris Anderson in a Wired Magazine article, when he used it to describe consumer demographics in business (something quite different).

(A larger image is available via the kiwanja.net site here)

My thinking was this. Looking at the mobile applications space today we have a number of high-cost, well-publicised, large-scale mobile-related projects which tend to cover national (and sometimes international) needs. These “large” systems play a crucial role in helping larger bodies, sometimes as big as government departments, provide mobile services to their target audiences. They are generally aimed at the higher-end of the market, where only the larger or resource-rich NGOs reside. Way out there on price, complex to develop (assuming you wanted to) and near-on impossible to replicate, they’re almost completely out-of-reach of your average grassroots NGO. These applications and platforms sit in the red part of the Tail.

In the orange section we move into the more mid-range systems – solutions developed by individual NGOs for a specific need, campaign or project. These are generally less complex, which makes their chances of replicability slighter better, but still difficult for many grassroots non-profits with few technical resources or hardware at their disposal.

Finally, in the green section – the truly long part of the long tail – we have the low-end, simple, appropriate mobile technology solutions which are easy to obtain, require as little technical expertise as possible, and are easy to copy and replicate. From my own experiences the number of NGOs present in this space is by far the greatest, making it the area to focus on if we want to create the highest amount of mobile-enabled social change. Add up all the value here, and it easily outweighs the rest along the higher (more lucrative) parts of the tail.

I use this diagram in many of my conference talks and presentations, and it seems to go down very well. It was interesting to see some of the staff at Nokia Research, where I spoke last month while I was in Palo Alto, grabbing their camera phones to snap a picture of it. I’m always thinking about ways I can refine it though, and Jim Witkin – a colleague – suggested adding an extra axis. This is now the one on the right, representing the number of NGOs in each of the Long Tail segments.

There are probably better ways of depicting this, but for now I’m happy with this. Suggestions, however, are always welcome.

Mobile apps for the long tail

Even though I regularly blog about things which directly relate to my work, I rarely make use of any of them in my work. But then a few weeks ago I blogged about “Social mobile and the long tail“, an entry in which I tried to imagine what the non-profit/developing country/mobile applications landscape might look like. I had been toying with the idea of blogging about it for a few months, but just hadn’t come up with an image I was happy with. For a while I’d had the long tail in mind, so eventually I plumped for it even though it was originally conceived for something entirely different (consumer demographics in business, of all things).

During my recent presentation at the Texting4Health conference at Stanford, the graph caused quite a stir (you’d have to have been there to know the context), but it proved an incredibly useful visual for something which would have previously taken me a minute or two to explain. Since then it’s effectively got me an invite to another conference, this time in San Francisco, which has an interest in the focus areas for mobile applications in the developing country/NGO world. The fuller blog posting has also proved popular – a document I’ll be using later this week at a gathering in Washington D.C.

Reactions to the relevance of the long tail in the mobile applications space have been mixed. Some people just got it, some people debated and discussed it, while others just didn’t click. But that’s fine. The whole purpose of the graph was to try and generate awareness around something I see as extremely important. There’s a lot of energy, and increasing amounts of money, being funnelled into the social mobile space right now. If – in the context of grassroots NGOs in developing countries at least – mobiles are to live up to their full potential we need to make sure that all this time, money and effort are concentrated in the right place.

And for me, at least, that means putting most of it in the long tail.

Social mobile and the long tail

6 Comments

Erik Hersman at White African talked about it. The Economist also recently talked about it. And Tactical Tech are talking about it. Three commentators and a common theme, even if they don’t realise it. What am I talking about? Social mobile’s long tail, that’s what.

So, why the long tail? Well, it goes something like this. There’s no disputing that the mobile for good space is hotting up, with near-daily announcements extolling the virtue of mobile phones in promoting social and environmental good the world over. The problem is, despite the excitement we’re still struggling to scratch below the surface, meaning the majority of non-profits, particularly those in developing countries, can all but sit back in awe at the incredible things these little devices are doing. Solutions are tantalisingly close, but without the tools and a practical helping hand most of these NGOs remain passive observers. It’s these – the ones who aren’t yet able to do anything – that interest me the most. Let’s look at the graph.

We have three categories. Firstly, there are high-end high-cost solutions running SMS services across national or international borders, with little chance of replicability for your average grassroots NGO. These are represented by the red part of the curve and generally get the highest amount of exposure. Then we have lower-cost custom solutions, developed by individual (often mid-level) non-profits to solve a particular problem in a particular country or region, or to run a specific campaign. These have a slightly better chance of replicability for grassroots NGOs, are represented by the amber, and generally get a medium to high level of publicity.

Finally, we’re left with the simple, low-tech, appropriate technology solutions with great opportunities for rapid, hassle-free replicability among grassroots NGOs, represented in green (even better, take out the need to replicate altogether and actually give them the tools to do the work, a gap FrontlineSMS is working hard to fill). These projects generally get the lowest level of publicity, if any, since few have an international profile of any kind. Notoriously hard to communicate with, and with little or no money, it’s perhaps no surprise that most of the attention on the long tail is elsewhere.

In order for the mobile revolution to truly become a revolution, we need to be inviting infinitely more non-profits to the party. So much can be done, but so few are active. Going by my thinking, that means we need to be working on the green, because that’s where most grassroots NGOs sit, and that’s where help is needed the most.

As kiwanja’s nGOmobile competition seems to prove, social mobile is not about a lack of ideas or a lack of understanding, but a basic lack of tools…

(A fuller, expanded version of this Blog entry is available as a PDF here)