Mobiletribe » mobile content sales

Mind the gap: mobile consumers want more control over the mobile experience

pfhagermark — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:08:44 +0000

I just read an interesting study by Zogby at the Skype blog. It puts some numbers on one of the glaring anomalies with mobile media. The consumers is almost treated as an obstacle in the value chain. There is still work to be done when you read facts like these. Note: Study based on 3000 users in US, UK, Japan and Spain.

62% do not yet view their mobile device as an extension of their computer.
Only 23% feel that they have more or the same level of control over their mobile device as they have over their computer.
70% have never downloaded an application to their mobile device.
67% want to be able to choose their mobile applications for themselves, rather than have their carriers choose for them.

So basically the consumer says: I know what I want, let me choose and make it much easier to use and earn the trust for me to spend time and money with you/your service.

Trust is a big thing here. The carriers have been shocking numerous consumers with data charges, content providers off-deck have been ripping off customers with unstoppable subscriptions schemes etc. This is changing to the better though. We are getting transparency in pricing and the scamsters are being reigned in.

The play book going forward must be to offer choice, easy access and most of all “it”, the x-factor for the specific target groups. What can this service/product do for me?, is the question the consumer wants answers to. Fast. In about 3 seconds on your site/deck/ad they need to get what’s in it for them. There is no recipe for this part. Here the gap in conversion can be huge. My experience is that rapid prototyping and adjust as you is what works best.

Currently I am involved in launching Souldate (site in Swedish), a new mobile dating service with localisation. We are adjusting and tweaking the service daily. We started off with pretty scary conversion numbers. A few workdays later we have improved them substantially. In this case will market the service in multiple channels. TV is about all we are not using. Customer registration is done in any of three channels – SMS, wap and web. This means we have to constantly evaluate to see what we should focus on.

But all this work with constant improvements are lost if the hygiene factors trust and transparency are not in place. Here we all have to pull together to change, blow whistles and make sure we earn the trust of our customers. Without it we can pack up and go home.

About those 60 m AppStore downloads…

pfhagermark — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:25:50 +0000

How does the long tail of App Store look? More to the point how does the backlog of apps not yet tester and approved look? What is the cost on average to develop an iPhone app? How many developers have made a profit om their apps? You see where I am heading. Is the AppStore a huge success for a few or is it alright for most developers?

Alot of questions. Important ones though. Help me out here and share what you know. I will share everything I find out.

60 million downloads!

pfhagermark — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:10:31 +0000

How many downloads does Vodafone Live! have in a month? If the numbers coming out of the Apple PR machine are anywhere near reality there is something to say for on-device-portals for content and apps. It is a concept that has been around the industry for ever. No-one has cracked it. But maybe an extremely closed wall, exclusive approach was what was needed? Now Google, Microsoft and the others are stumbling over each other in the door to launch similar app stores. My hat is off though and I hope a good few developers out there have found a distribution channel that actually is sustainable.

Again, anyone knowing numbers from the big carrier portals drop me a line with the facts. 60 million in a month! wow!