So how do you set good pricepoints? Mike Speiser at Sutter Hill Ventures has an interesting post about pricing here. So would the expensive outlier help charging for our content? In most markets mobile content is very narrowly priced. Why have we made it that way? If you believe in studies about human behaviour and decisions it seems a poor pricing strategy to price all services/content in one category at the same price point.

Then again, many go free ad-funded hoping to sell a bit of virtual goods or messages on top. But in the current mobile advertising market that is dangerous. Or at least not the optimal pricing strategy for the industry as a whole.

Then again we have the problem with the multiple layers of costs for consumers to buy mobile content and services. The carrier charge for the delivery – the data traffic. Even if it is in a flat fee package the cost is there.

So will the 10 bucks premium ringtone help sell ringtones at higher prices than the average today? I guess you could work with scarcity as a way to push up price. Only sell limited numbers of pieces of content. Then again the content market has gone 9.99 per month for a bundle of content. We finally have the consumer’s attention, we have to handle that with care in this world of fickle consumers.

Communities and other mobile sites are increasingly going free or freemium. That might be the way forward to get the volumes. Still there should be room for some premium pricing in this setting as well. I am curious to hear of any examples of good pricing in our industry that you might have.

A follow-on to my last post. Just read the extract for a new study from Strand Consult, the wireless industry consultants. Their study is funnily enough called App Stores, do they have a future?.

They have a somewhat blunt but still useful analogy. If the mobile VAS/content market was the bookmarket, the problem is not a lack of bookstores. The vast majority of the public is illiterate. We need to educate the users and offer stuff they actually can be bothered with. Hear hear!

They also claim that App Stores are nothing new. The only difference is that Apple executed far better on design and user experience on theirs. handango, Nokia and many other have had their platform/handset specific app stores running for many year. Success has escaped these efforts though.

Finally, I love the way they can put things in perspective. The mobile content market in Norway is bigger than Apple’s App Store. So sure 1 bn apps, sounds great. But it is not the greatest if you measure in real dollars.

On that short note I end this working week and hope you’ll have a great weekend!

Well in my mind,  we are finally seeing less hyperbole and more realistic estimates. There is a point in the Juniper report that is key though. The cost of mobile data. We are seeing flat rate “all you can eat” offers becoming the norm. This is great to drive consumer adaptation. However, there is a huge conflict brewing here with “all you can eat” packages and increased use of data from more data consuming services like video for instance. At some point the production cost will be more than the revenue. The operators have created a dilemma for themselves in a way. We should not stop at the mobile network operator though. The network infrstructure suppliers have a stake in this as well. As does creative network sharing deals among the operators.

Get me right here, I am a huge fan of consumer friendly business. Not only for the consumers sake, but for the sake of building profitable companies. It all starts with the consumer who pays the bill at the end of the day. We do need cheap data traffic with a high degree of transparency. But no ecosystem survives if one link fails. So here we need to find good suitable pricing models. Wholesale data traffic sold from operator to content provider who in his turn sets a price for the service that includes the data traffic. At CTIA these arguments were elaborated upon by Andrew Bud of mBlox in a very clear way. 

The long and short of it is that we will see growth in mobile entertainment through this recession and beyond. The rate of growth will very much depend on an orchestrated effort from all participants in the ecosystem to help lowering the production cost and allowing for transparent profitable models all the way so we together can deliver attractive services at price points were get mass adoption.

• 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.

The thing is though, you gotta have good stuff in them stores. And guess what, there are only that many different apps and derivatives of them you can market. In this great post  by Timothy Hay we see one side of that. The funds set up about a year ago to fuel the growth of apps have slowed down the investment pace. This makes perfect sense. Since these funds are normal VC funds and not government grants they will not fund any guy with an idea and the iPhone SDK downloaded to their laptop. Matt Murphy at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the other VC guys are still in the VC game. Finding the next Google or twitter. Not clogging the pipes in these various app stores with more of the same. 

What effects can we expect then? The loss of the near monopoly position in distribution that the mobile carriers have had is becoming more obvious. Just in the last few weeks more of my partners at the big mobile carriers content groups are talking about widgets, on-device-portals, preloaded app with attached flexible billing more than the portal. Off the record comments like \”I don\’t care about the portal anymore. It is all about getting stuff in front of the consumer in all possible ways\”, are on my record. 

App Store the new black? No, but a great catalyst for the next phase of the mobile content/app/web/expereince industry.

Then you pick up the Economist and find the opposite view. In the article Boom in the Bust a rosier picture is painted. Slightly simplified; the wireless industry is thriving thanks to it changing structure. 

This is a painfully strong reminder that we should not listen blindly to projections from gurs and analysts. Do your own homework, ask your colleagues, partners and competitors and weigh it all up. Then make sure you run a tight ship so you can pay salaries and bills. Can you chip away a bit on the debt side as well maybe? Well this is not a post on how to manage a business in a recession. It is, as always, my five cents on the mobile web and content industry.

To me much of the data and facts at hand support the view that mobile communications has become a must-have commodity in most markets. In many cases mobile content is a low value purchase. Pricing and total cost of use is becoming more and more transparent. This all works to our favour. Consumers are not that inclined to stop using the mobile services they are used to and like.

On the handset side it is different of course. This is the higher cost item. Prior years race to upgrade phones technically and market it hard to get consumers to upgrade, has made the installed base of handsets pretty high end overall. You do not really need the newest phone to be able to get the most of your mobile life. What you have in your pocket today will do just fine in most cases. Here the handset manufacturer’s success has become their own enemy.

Upgrading your phone today is seen as a pure luxury purchase. Staying in touch, participating in communities, tweeting away as usual, is part of what many consumers are today – a “homo mobilis”. That behaviour will take longer to change. 

Ending note to self: Keep offering great services and invent the next services to delight existing and new users.

In that environment it might get even tougher for some of the newcomers to the show. The media execs. Well, some have probably been there at least once. But for most media companies the mobile channel is virgin territory. This will change. Is changing. Has already changed. There are more than anectdotal evidence for this. Which media outlet with some self-respect has not a twitter account today? By the way you find my tweets here. Yes twitter is a hybrid web and mobile service, but very much a mobile service. Twitter also makes it possible to be a one man news agency/editorial crew. One example being Thomas Crampton with his blog, mobile videos and tweets.

But beyond that? What else? Since the mobile phone is the item that stays with us for most of the day it is _the_ screen to be at. It starts with the wakeup call, most likley coming from the mobile phone alarm. Then checking what texts, tweets and news have come in during the night. On to the day with phone calls, picture taking, texts, surfing and some tweets. It continues like that until we go to bed. 

In a recent report from Strand Reports there are some interesting facts. This should make good reading and solid base information for some important decisions at the media commpanies. Even though the time spent for media consumption on the phone is still measured in minutes versus TV-consumption in hours, the growth is in mobile. If we include social interaction when we talk with our friends about media and entertainment, the mobile becomes even more important already today.

Mobile also opens up for co-creation, dialogue and participation. All magic keywords for creating strong loyalty. After some experiences are gained I am sure we will see entirely new production methods and shorter cycles for some media properties. 

The key here is to strike the right balance between mobiel add-ons and create for mobile from the ground up. And manage to do that in a multi-channels scenario covering for instance TV, radio, event, web and mobile to take a fairly common set of channels that one media commpany might use.

There are very cool ideas and facts coming out of some of the experienced players like Tomi Ahonen and Alan Moore running Communities Dominate Brands blog. They are on top of the pyramid perhaps, but the pyramid is growing, the base is widening and there are new great talents added to the mobile media scene every day now. One proof of this is that the mobile content hall at MWC09 has grown substantially this year. And the porn companies are in minority. There’s hard work ahead but we _are_ on the fast track to become part of mainstream media. Oh happy days!

Dear Big Media Exec, did you get all that down with your Mont Blanc pen in your paper notepad?

1. Best networking opportunities, with over 46% C-Level attendees
   PF says: Yes, a lot them C-guys there, but the quality of the meetings can never be good in a setting like this and many meetings never happen since the agendas are re-shuffled several times a day. How many of your meetings and prior MWC’s have happened on time with enough time or at all?
2. On average over 18 new business leads for each attendee
   PF says: Eehh….and the quality of these leads? Often not much better than the expensive paper the business card is printed on. Target your prospects in more intelligent ways than trawling widely at the floor of MWC. 
3. Thousands of new products, and service announcements
   PF says: Exactly, and this vast information is much better digested and made sense of by searching and filtering information online. In addition it is pretty boring to listen to a all techno-marketing this industry has been stubborn enough to push the last decades. Nice, but what can this tech do for me and my customers in real plain non-corporate bullshit terms?
4. Over 2,700 press and media, generating thousands of articles
   PF says: Yes, about the same mainstream news that the large corporations manage to push out. I rather follow blogs and media in my niche. However, disclaimer here. I would go to MWC to blog and twitter about the more niche and smaller things. This is if I had the time and could afford it, but I got a few businesses to execute on and I can’t afford that luxury this year. 
5. Leading operators, and mobile companies are there.
   PF says: Yes, so what? Where are the consumers, test panels and other companies that can, are and should mobilise their business? 
6. Meet the finalists of the Global Mobile Awards, and the Mobile Innovation Global Award Competition
   PF says: Nice dinner on the stiff side my friends have told me. I konw, I have no first hand experence on this point, but I trust my friends. I get the winners list and motivations from the jury onine anyway. 
7. Learn the latest industry initiatives at FREE GSMA seminars
   PF says: If it’s free the risk is I already know it or can get the information easily elsewhere 
8. Network at the Mobile Money Pavilion, Innovation Zone, Green Power Pavilion, Mobile Media and Entertainment Zone, and GSMA Pavilion
   PF says: One reason to go. At least there is some segmentation so I can find some of the niches relevant to me. But still, my comments on points 1-3 applies. Reading the exhibitors list online gives me good info as well. 
9. Get a chance to see two-time Academy Award winning actor and film director Kevin Spacey as part of the MoFilm festival and MoFilm stand in the Media and Entertainment Hall
   PF says: The main reason I would go if time and money was not better spent on my business. As I have previously posted I beleive this is a sustainable niche for mobile entertainment. 
10. Enjoy the sights and sounds of the beautiful city of Barcelona
    PF says: Eeehh….No thanks! Great city I adore it, but MWC must be the worst possible time to explore Barcelona. Invaded by all the visitors, higher prices, not the best weather and locals who are fed up with us tourists.  

So if you care about your business and have things to do. And you should have things to do. If the execution list is not in place and pretty packed it is time to fear. In times like these execution count even more. So another sound way to “recession-proof” your business might very well be to stay away from Barcelona for MWC. Then you might have some success with your business and you can reward yourself with a well earned (but most likely short) vacation in Barcelona in May or June. That’s what I call a win-win.

It’s polling time!

By attaching real proven story tellers like Robert Redford and Kevin Spacey the focus on the content and story overtakes the tech focus. And rightly so. Since the technology itself in technology enabled services has nothing to offer. It is what the technology can deliver and distribute that is key. Sounds obvious, but as a veteran in the industry I plead guilty of having tried to flog things becuase it was technically possible to do it. Not because it was a great service worthy of a consumer’s attention. Are you blushing as well? I know I am not alone.

Great story telling in a short time and a small format creates some obvious demands. But if you crack them you are on to something. MoFilm is the only thing so far that I know I will miss by not going to Barcelona. Too much exciting things to execute on in other projects though so I will not have time for regrets. If you happen to know more about MoFilm or attend in Barcelona, let me know. Thanks!

Had some time over the holidays to walk through the AppStore with my iPhone. Found a few gems. This is not a “best iPhone apps of the year” post though.

My point is how smooth and easy the entire discovery and purchase experience is. There is second to none of all other channels for mobile apps that can compete. This makes me excited if we can get better discovery and shopping experiences for all mobile handsets. After all the iPhone ecosystem is a pretty closed system. Herein lies my skepticism. 10 m handsets is little in a world of 4 billion mobile users. How do we expand this to the “free mobile world”?

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