Entries for month: February 2012
Mobile content is king, but billing is King Kong
27 February 2012 · By Dirk Barmscheidt
In 2005, I was at one of the earliest mobile conventions in Germany. Most of the people there were discussing the technical side of creating a mobile Web site. And how to find a cheap degradation-concept for the approximately 2,000 different handset models. Really not easy.
Another major topic of conversation at the convention was mobile content structure:
- How many articles? Not too many; never the whole online content.
- How many channels? Not too many; never the whole online offer.
- How many interactive features? Not too many; never the whole online feature set.
The last and least-visited lecture came from Zed, an international ringtone company. The product manager spent the first few minutes delivering the standard introduction, about the millions of ringtones they offered, the best technical set-up of their database, and the cool branding of Zed. His big finish: Content is king! Everyone in the room felt vindicated. They were right and had set their priorities perfectly.
But then the project manager added: “And billing is King Kong!”
Amazing, but true. Zed in those days was able to offer each partner a simple billing and reporting interface. Almost every customer of the mobile network operators (MNO) and service providers (SP) could be billed. Impressive.
...[more]Lessons for newsmedia companies from around the mobile industry
19 February 2012 · By Mark Challinor
Readers on mobile devices are generally more time-poor, specific-reason focused, and armed with a different viewing method (a small screen) — and many are ready to go away if not instantly engaged or informed.
And therein lies the challenge for newsmedia companies: capturing and holding your readers’ attention and presenting only the right content in the context of who the reader is, what they’re interested in, and where they are. (As an industry, we are generally poor at this, offering basically the same content regardless of platform, age, time of day and who the viewer is.)
Below are some observations based on successful mobile industry monetization strategies, which should be a focus for us all.
- Know your readership and how they use mobile with you. The minute they engage, readers expect mobile content to be automatically tailored to who they are and where they are. To deliver this user experience and make it effective, we should take the time to learn what our readers’ mobile content habits are: how they access our content online, what our brand is known for, and what they expect from us.
For example, if your content is financial, readers are most likely to want the latest breaking news in the financial world. How can you make this a more compelling and convenient experience for them? Alternatively, with sports coverage, readers most likely check in to see their favourite football team’s latest statistics. How can you provide something unique to differentiate this?
A look ahead at what's in store for Mobile World Congress
13 February 2012 · By Otto Sjöberg
My mother died recently. She was close to 82 years old and not very tech savvy. During the final eight months of her lifetime, when she got ill and became weaker, the mobile phone was her most treasured belonging.
Her phone was an old Nokia from back in the days before the iPhone — when Nokia phones were the equivalent of a Kalashnikov among firearms — durable and always reliable in the line of fire, so the battery practically lasted forever if you were not talking. That was hard to believe for her. She was very stubborn, my mother, and it took me some time and effort to convince her not to turn the phone off when she wasn't using it. “How am I gonna be able to check how you are if it's always off?” was the argument that finally changed her mind.
During the last eight months of her life the mobile was always on. It was always next to her bed. And up until the very last few days she always answered.
Of course, this is on my mind — even as we're approaching the Mobile World Congress with all the important news and trends that will soon be all over media. But I still think it is relevant to share some soft thoughts, far from software, on why the mobile phone is such an important platform for media companies. It is about that one simple thing: bringing personalised news directly to me faster and whenever I want and wherever I am. Bringing it the way it's most convenient: text, photos, video. Or voice. “How are you today, Mom?”
...[more]Treating mobile like the fourth, unique media channel it is
06 February 2012 · By Dirk BarmscheidtIt seems so obvious to create a mobile product, whether for editorial content or e-commerce.
The rules are simple:
- The mobile handset screen is smaller, the bandwidth lower, and the user is on his way. Therefore, the mobile product has to be less than the fixed-line offer (less articles/ products, less features, less channels).
- Digital is digital, ergo the content and feature structures on mobile and fixed-line have to be the same.
- Mobile text typing is inconvenient, ergo no commentary or feedback features.
These three steps are definitely your first steps in the wrong direction. Mobile is not only the fourth screen, it is the fourth media channel which needs to be interpreted individually by every brand and offer.
In 2002, when E-Plus started i-mode in Germany, everyone thought mobile would be used as a sports encyclopedia. But the opposite was reality; near-live news and sports live tracker were the killer features on the first mobile multimedia platform. No one wanted to search for the winner of the 1960 football national championship in Finland.
Ten years later, the mobile world is the same; users are surfing differently to the fixed-line Internet. The visits are shorter, the frequency is higher, and daytime usage in particular is fundamentally different.
