The Data Evangelist

Tom Trineer: Mobile data promoter at AT&T Wireless for nine years. Left to pursue that cause at wildseed, a maker of handset skins for teens. Knows better than most what works and doesn't in wireless data. Now working the Hollywood scene, cutting data deals.

At AT&T, the wireless data division was like a well-funded start-up. I was always working on a niche. At Wildseed, the whole company is a niche. And the primary customers for Wildseed are wireless carriers, so having an understanding of how one works helps.

After years of watching the slow growth of wireless data, Wildseed was the first company that met the needs of the handset vendors, the media companies and the carriers at the same time. Many of those that came before us tended to step on other people's feet.

I used to work with a lot of vendors at AT&T. Now I'm working with the media companies. I used to spend a lot of time in New Jersey and the Bay Area. Now I spend most of my time in Hollywood, working with studios and agents, cutting deals.

We get surprised every day by the kids. We always assume we're too old to understand exactly what they want, so we do all sorts of focus groups. Our focus is on the handset and the form factor, not so much the content. We don't pretend to know about music, dating, chat and IM services. The people we're working with already know that.

Design differs by region. In Asia, the prevailing wisdom is a clamshell design with a metallic look or a metal skin. In the U.K., they want more muted colors. In the U.S. they tend to like more of the flashy, smart skins.

When we put out models of existing phones and those that might exist for kids, they always pick up our phone first. Last week an analyst came by for a briefing and brought his daughter and her friend to get their reactions to the product. The analyst's daughter said, “This is great — I hate it when my faceplate clashes with my outfit.”

I have a five-year-old and a two-year-old, so they are a little young to be our target. But my five-year-old is fairly enterprising. He made up signs that said, “Cool Wildseed phone for sale.” His plan was to make copies and put them in all the neighborhood mailboxes. He was not very happy when we told him he couldn't. — As told to Vince Vittore