My good friend Bubba Murarka recently started blogging over at bubba.vc. He’s now a Managing Director at DFJ and tweeting at @bubbam. Prior to DFJ, he headed up Facebook’s Android efforts, and is an expert on all things social and mobile. He wrote the blog post below on his blog, which I’ve cross-posted here. -Andrew

Bubba Murarka on Mobile:

We’ve been in “New Mobile” – a world of wireless broadband and mobile OS platforms enabling great end user experiences – for about 5 years. The improvement in the capabilities of devices has been astonishing. But in truth we are still in the first inning of New Mobile reshaping just about everything we do and everywhere we do it.

Since leaving Facebook, I’ve been asked more and more for my perspective on mobile ecosystem. Here are my current observations on why New Mobile is still in the earliest stages:

1. The move from feature phones – mobile phones without robust browsers or a compelling application ecosystem – to always-connected touchscreen computers in our pockets still has a long way to go. Smartphones are barely the majority of total mobile phone sales in the U.S., let alone globally.
2. The industry talks about smartphones and tablets as both being “mobile” devices instead of seeing them as two very different beasts. This is starting to change and I’m excited to see the wave of companies that are “tablet first” – but please don’t let that become a mindless mantra!
3. It’s no longer about iOS vs. Android. Now the hard question is whichAndroid versions (Gingerbread vs. Jelly Bean) and flavors (e.g. Samsung, Amazon, etc.) you are targeting and why. Said another way, Android fragmentation, and dominance, has just begun.
4. Completing transactions on mobile is still a big hassle (except for M-Pesa). App store and carrier billing fees are too expensive to be an option for anything other than high-margin digital goods. Whoever cracks this in a way that any 3rd party app can use is going to be very rich.
5. Content creation on mobile devices is horrible. Much of the content we consume on mobile today requires the capabilities of a PC to produce, including the keyboard, mouse and purpose-built apps. Products likePaper and Vine have shown that there is considerable demand for creation via the touchscreen.
6. True mobile multitasking hasn’t been invented yet. Smartphone screens are smaller and better suited to handle one app at a time with abstracted file access. But we’re used to working with multiple windows and applications our computers with a global file system. When will a new UX model emerge, especially on tablets, to enable multitasking?
7. There’s no “mobile native” ad unit to allow publishers to monetize their audiences and thus focus on building richer and more engaging experiences. Instead, startups have to spend a ton of time on business model innovation, which is another really hard problem to tackle. My money is on Facebook cracking this nut (full disclosure: I am still heavy on the stock, so my money is literally on them) though I think Yahoo could be a surprise contender.
8. Only two types of paid subscription services have gained traction on smartphones: Content licensing such as Rdio and Pandora One, and storage such as Evernote. What else are users willing to pay a subscription for on their smartphones?
9. There have been some billion dollar exits like Instagram and Waze, but we haven’t had a stand-alone, New Mobile company go from garage to an enduring multibillion-dollar independent company in the Americas or Europe yet (it has happened in China though).

There is a lot to be unpacked and everything above is up for debate as we refine our collective thinking through discussion. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m excited to learn about, identify and nurture the best mobile-focused companies out there.

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