I’ve been looking at operator portals and ‘off-portals’ lately. T-Mobile’s Web’n’Walk services is basically a nice portal for more advanced phones. Many writers have been pointing out that this is part of a trend where the walls in the gardens are falling.
In the course of my reading, I saw this and had to respond.
Link: T-Mobile Web’n’Walk – Is Google Behind It? – Digital-Lifestyles.info.
The question to ask is: if Web’n’Walk is all T-Mobile’s doing, why is Google the Home Page of the new service?
Nikesh Arora is VP of Europe Operations for Google. He used to head T-Online and was a big poobah at T-Mobile. I think that’s the connection. Good score for Google and T-Mobile.
Did you know that DoCoMo only makes about 9% of their revenue from on-site and partner traffic (source: Informa). About 60% of their page impressions from from outside their portal (or to use a buzz word that is new to me: ‘off-portal’). Did you know that the operators are starting to finally realize the potential of revenue from off-portal content? More on this later. Maybe. 🙂
