Operator Perspective: Dealing with Issues & Relationships in a changing eco-system Edin Bektesevic Senior Technology Strategist Vodafone Group Services

Overview n Background n WS, REST, mash-ups? n Why is user data important? n What user data? n An illustrative case at point – mobile advertising

Background n A lot of talk and promise when it comes to new integration technologies and concepts in the Telecom world n It is all good, but… How mature are they? How much consideration do they take to real world, practical problems? n The landscape is continuously changing

WS, REST, mash-ups? n No more acronyms and buzzwords, please! n WS – made to ease the integration, but is it sufficient? n REST, the usual Telecom world concerns n Mash-ups, how realistic is it?

User data, why is it important? n In the world of different kinds of spam, service penetration, reach and efficiency is key! n Personalisation hence becomes crucial in addressing the ordinary people’s needs n The grade of amount and quality varies a lot across the industry

User data, a classic telecom perspective n The modern mobile telecoms is built upon the authentication – the tie between the GSM and the SIM is clear n Historically seen as more of a liability, rather than an asset l Legal responsibility l Customer relations l Cost/fraud…

User data, a contemporary telecom perspective n Clearly an asset! n Main advantages: l Billing relationship, enabling digital and physical PoS payment l “Always on, always there” (location, presence, etc) l User behaviour and history knowledge l Mobile is well and broadly accepted, providing for a well established, solid communications platform l However, the “pre-paid”/”post-paid” usually normally tipped towards the former, meaning less data, of lesser quality. Improving though, through marketing initiatives

What user data? n Of course, still to be shared and used responsibly – presents new challenges n Kinds of user data: l The basic (name, age, address…) l The financially relevant (bank account or credit card number…) l The profiling (age group, gender, interests, previous history…) n However, operators more and more prone to share and use anonymous and general profile data, describing the user as someone belonging to a category

Why this approach? n The responsibility towards the law and the customer still there n Contracts not sufficient, as they can be costly and practically difficult to enforce n More and more business scenarios demographics category orientated, i.e. personalisation becoming a crucial bit of more and more online services n Ensures a degree of anonimity, as well as helps the operator maintain their role as “data owners”

A case at point – mobile advertising n “Hot” in the mobile operator community n Promise of significant, new cash flows n A good case of services where personalisation is crucial, as to improve targetting and facilitate better user response n A growing market n Aligned with the multi-service market tendencies

Mobile advertising infrastructure Mobile advertising server User device AdEngine Ad-consuming application User device AdEngine Ad-consuming application User device AdEngine Ad-consuming application User device AdEngine Ad-consuming application User device AdEngine Ad-consuming application User device AdEngine Ad-consuming application User device AdEngine Ad-consuming application User device AdEngine Ad-consuming application User device AdEngine Ad-consuming application Mobile advertising network application User and demographics databases Mobile advertising network application Mobile advertising network application

Mobile advertising information flows n The mobile advertising server serves personalised ads to a number of user devices, plus network applications embedding ad content (e.g. WAP portals, SMSCs, etc) n The server personalised relevant ads based on the user information (targetting category) and send them to different users’ AdEngines or different network applications n The result is quality-wise very sensitive to the amount and quality of data that the operator possesses, hence building the data stores is key

Conclusions n User information and personalisation increasingly important – now an asset, rather than a liability n The challenges are growing as well, though – more players (“partners”), more complexity n Metaidentifiers > metadata n Demographics categories > user attributes n Building up user data stores as important as actually using them