O2 Litmus
O2 launched Litmus today. I attended the launch this morning. We were told Litmus was thought up about a year ago. It’s aim is to address the challenge developers have in engaging network operators such as O2. It also aims to get end users involved with testing and assessing pre-release applications. Release applications can also be sold on the Litmus store where the developer gets 70% of any revenues. Users who test the pre-release application get it for free. Developers get paid direct into their bank accounts every five weeks. Top applications on Litmus will get assessed as to whether they are suitable for O2 main channels such as O2 Active. All good stuff.
However, the really good and bad parts became apparent when I dug a bit deeper. First the bad part. I asked how Litmus would be promoted. How would end users learn about the application store? I was told that in January, O2 will target between 25,000 and 50,000 O2 customers who are considered to be early adopters. O2 expects these to spread the word virally and well as extra people having learnt about Litmus via other channels (such as this blog I suppose). Unfortunately, there’s not going to be any link to Litmus on the O2 portal that end-users see on their phone.
I find this strange and in my opinion it severely limits the potential of the Litmus store. It’s as though Litmus is a separate entity within O2 and has nothing to do with the rest of the content that O2 offers. In some ways, apart from the access to end user testers, Litmus might be thought of as yet another stand-alone Handango-esque store… but with the problem it probably won’t be discovered.
On the positive side, Litmus will allow free applications. There’s no special conditions and applications can be ad-supported, demos or whatever. O2 doesn’t want to restrict the business model at all and wants to encourage innovation in this area.
Today, I tried uploading a Java ME version of my Android UK Traffic application as a Litmus test application. Apart from the laborious process of having to select every individual phone you want to support, the whole process was painless. Unlike the Android Market, publishing isn’t instantaneous and I will have to wait for my application to be approved by O2. Along the way, I discovered more great things that weren’t mentioned in the launch today. Registering as a developer and publishing an application allows you to use some O2 specific server APIs such as the network connection status (3G or GSM), location and payment.
However, the location API is strange as it requires the developer to send the MSISDN (telephone number). Unfortunately, a phone application doesn’t necessarily know it’s own MSISDN (some platforms don’t provide this and those that do, it’s not necessarily reliably correct because it depends on the way the SIM has been set up during manufacture). For this reason, it’s more usual to use IMEIs rather than MSISDNs in applications. Looking at the documents for the example use of the APIs, I think these APIs were originally for use from the web (where the user enters their telephone number) rather than from a mobile application. The use of bloated SOAP web service APIs also backs up this guess.
Ironically, one of the presenters at the launch this morning, Paul Golding, spoke to us (developers) about solving the ‘whole product design’ when launching a new application. I believe the O2 Litmus team needs to heed this advice and resolve its differences with the rest of O2 to solve the discovery problem. If they do so, I can see developers having a go at creating applications for Litmus.
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