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Why does mobile content have to be so hard?
On 25, Oct 2006 | In Mobile | By Marcia K
At the Symbian Smartphone Show in London this week, representatives from such Internet notables as Google say developing mobile applications has multiple roadblocks, which serve to stunt the market’s growth. The complaints aren’t entirely new–too many partners and too many handsets with different software. On one hand, the wireless industry could do much better streamlining operations to make it easier to do business here. On the other hand, the mobile Internet space will never be as easy as the PC Internet experience, so just deal with it already and move on. Sources As reported on Fierce Wireless Content October 24, 2006 Based on an article that appeared in All Headline News
Since when is waiting a strategy?
On 23, Oct 2006 | In Marketing Strategy, Mobile | By Marcia K
In the US market over 200M mobile phones are sold each year. While the majority of the phones sold come with the ability to access the Internet, very few consumers bother to subscribe to the data service needed to access the “wireless web”. This problem is not going away, despite an explosion in all forms of mobile content. This is an issue for carriers and operators who have invested billions of dollars in 2.5, 3.0, and 4.0G networks and have yet to see a return on these investment dollars. Analysts and pundits who almost never agree on anything agree on one thing. The industry continues to be plagued by a stunning lack of compelling content. …
Either / Or is becoming Both / And
On 20, Oct 2006 | In Marketing Strategy | By Marcia K
Robyn Waters, who was vice president for trend, design and product development at Target Corporation until she formed her own consulting firm RW Trend, is author of the snappy and smart new book “The Hummer and the Mini: Navigating the Contradictions of the New Trend Landscape.” She says, “Paradoxes are powerful tools that can help you discover the opposing realities of the customer and the contradictory aspects of the market place. Too many businesses try to make a black-and-white proposition. Either/or. I believe that within the paradox lies an opportunity to get out of the black and white box and step into a world of colorful possibilities.” She notes that Target’s achievement was to become, …
The killer app is … information
On 18, Oct 2006 | In Mobile | By Marcia K
It may not be as sexy as mobile video but it turns out to be what people actually want while mobile. A survey of more than 1,000 early adopters and business users of mobile phones by the market research firm In-Stat found only lukewarm enthusiasm for mobile video, long touted as a killer application, but it did find surprising interest in using cell phones as navigational tools. “There’s been some disappointment with consumer uptake of value-added 3G services,” said In-Stat analyst David Chamberlain. Customers just haven’t been all that eager to pay extra to watch clips from yesterday’s ballgame on their phones’ tiny screens. Chamberlain found that only about 15 percent of the people surveyed …
Design thinking meets business model
On 16, Oct 2006 | In Business Models | By Marcia K
To attract more users to its Firefox browser, Mozilla’s business development team turned to Stanford University. Not the business school, but the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. A B-school class would have focused on market size and used financial analysis to understand it. This D-school class used “design thinking” instead. They began with consumers and used ethnography, the latest management tool, to learn about them. The power of this new approach to promote innovation and open up business opportunities is attracting the attention of leading corporations. Design has evolved from a narrow discipline dealing with the form and function of products into a major new approach to developing business models. As BusinessWeek recently put it, …
Confessions of a mobile phone addict
Expect 12-step groups to start breaking out all over for mobile phone addicts Recently, C|NET interviewed one 27-year old male who spent $2,000+ in the last 18 months alone in his quest to find the perfect mobile phone. The particular addict profiled lives in New York and calls himself “Jeffrey Gordon” … but that could be a pseudonym. What we do know is this. His girlfriend is fed up with his “pure lust” for phones. “Gordon” has gone through 3 carriers in 18 months … dumping Sprint in favor of Cingular just so he could get his hands on an Audiovox SMT 5600 phone running the Windows Mobile operating system. Gordon’s relationship with the Cingular …
Duh. Compelling Content Drives Advertising Dollars
On 06, Oct 2006 | In Marketing Models, ROI marketing | By Marcia K
Recently, Yahoo announced that it’s sales in Q4 were going soft and reduced revenue and profit guidance for the year. The internet advertising category that Yahoo competes in had been growing by leaps and bounds. Thus, Yahoo’s announcement ended up punishing its stock and the sector in general. A lot has been written about what’s going on at Yahoo. Company officials blamed its shortfall in earnings on a downturn in the automobile and housing sectors and – predictably – sidestepped the issue of whether execution problems getting their new search product out the door could be a contributing problem. Meanwhile, we’ve been waiting and waiting for someone to pick up on the obvious. Sure, Detroit …
Mobile information … more important than some would think
On 05, Oct 2006 | In Mobile | By Marcia K
According to recent data published on eMarketer.com, carriers are going through a fundamental shift from depending on voice revenues for the lion’s share of their revenue to a mixed model where voice service is a commodity and most of the growth in revenue and profitability comes from the data side of the house. The NY-based research firm divides the consumer market into three major segments: entertainment, communications, and information. Things like mobile games, ringtones and other entertainment are currently running second as revenue drivers to texting and other mobile messaging. However, a new report from the New York-based research company projects that mobile entertainment will have the highest growth rate of any non-voice service in …
