MMetrics released a while back some stats on some of the larger mobile portals. I think it sets an upper limit anyone can expect when launching a mobile service.
Look at the number of folks visiting Yahoo. Do you think you can do better?
But there are some other interesting tid-bits in the number. Only 33% have sent or received a text message. What? How come? Yet, 10% have received info via browser. Heck, relative to SMS, I think that speaks well of browsing. It suggests to me that it is not cost or UI that keep people from using SMS, but habit.
So, going back to the portal numbers, if this is just browsing, what would happen if we brought in communication and sharing, something like WINKsite? Maybe tapping into the browsing habit and then modifying that to include sharing and communication would be the way to grow, rather than dumping SMS as a separate thing. Then, you might be able to grow a good-sized service.
Hmm.
Link: M:Metrics News.
M:Metrics, the mobile market authority, has found that Yahoo! is the most popular mobile content brand. During the quarter ended December 2005 12.8 million U.S. mobile subscribers accessed Yahoo’s services in an average month – 4 million more than second-place AOL. MSN and Google follow, with about 7 million subscribers accessing their mobile offerings each month during the fourth quarter.
