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Om Malik’s Broadband Blog – For mobile carriers, moblogs mean cash money

Posted on by charlie

Link: Om Malik’s Broadband Blog – For mobile carriers, moblogs mean cash money.

Business 2.0: While users seem to love the ability to post pix on the fly, the real beneficiaries will be carriers, who’ve been looking for ways to plump up their flat revenues-per-customer. Here’s why. Everyone expected camera phones to unleash a flood of photo sharing and, with it, growing demand for bandwidth. But that didn’t happen because sharing pictures with your cell phone is a real pain in the neck: Uploading them is awkward and often doesn’t work. But moblogging relies on technology that makes it a snap: Sign on with a moblog service like Flickr and start e-mailing photos from your phone to that account.

Thanks, Om, for stating this. Maybe now they will listen.

But, here’s an exercise: Go to the operators and talk about posting pics directly (over IP) from the phone. I bet you can’t find one who will not, at first, complain about MMS cannibalization. Fortunately, most of them come around (some sooner, some later) and are willing, reluctantly, to give it a try. Then their next comment is how to get money off each posting, not being satisfied with ‘just’ traffic. Then they try to figure out how to lock in their customers with their own (home-grown and weak) blog service.

Sheesh.

I tell them always:

  • You’ll get more traffic revenue than with MMS.
  • Be open and users will love you. Lock people in and you get nothing.
  • Ban other blog services with IP-blocking and users will complain and go elsewhere.
  • Try to charge per posting and you’ll kill the whole thing.
charlie

5 Comments

  1. Yup, you’re right on that….thing is, I’m complaining that I can’t post mobily (neither through email nor flickr) to my LiveJournal. You need to have a paid account for that kind of option…*sigh*

  2. Mobile operators and pic sharing

    Another post by Charlie Schick that I really, really loved. This is about the proliferation of camera phones, the associated need to be able to share pictures easily and how operators can capitalise on this. He writes:I tell them always

  3. You are right on target with a description of the mindset change required to shift towards a broadband charging model for mobile usage. The shift from the telecomms event-based, easily billed revenue is not easy: there are some expensive networks out there which need paying for, voice minute price is plummeting so operators need their data services to pull in revenue. MMS services are a good example: expensive, dedicated platforms have to earn their keep somehow. In an effort to cash in, operators built the often crass imitations of good blog sites you see adorning their tightly portalled walled gardens.
    Consumers are more demanding than they used to be, realistic competition is within sight. Data revenue is so vital that the these paradigm changes will have to come within the next few years, or some operators will simply run out of money.

  4. I’d have to diddo the charge per posting thing as it would stifle everyone in the rear. However, mobility is everywhere so this should not be a surprise to anyone with blue tooth and the like. Pretty soon everyone including someones 90 yr. old granny in naples will be moblogging.

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