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Mobi-economics: how do we charge? why do we charge?

Submitted by Metrocode on February 19, 2007 - 9:05pm.
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Greetings to all from LK and team metroCode.

As we head into the final stretch of phase II of Mobile MUSE we are being asked to evaluate our performance, synopsize our learning, and come up with at least some educated guesses and at best some solid models for creating a sustainable business from mobile cultural applications.

Back in early December metroCode's tech lead Nick Simon posted a blog entry entitled "Who do we charge?".

Hardware matters

Submitted by Metrocode on February 4, 2007 - 7:20pm.
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Greetings from the Silicon Valley...LK of team metroCode here, having just attended a conference entitled "Mobile Persuasion" (www.mobilepersuasion.org), hosted by Stanford's Perusasive Technologies Lab. I took copious notes and will blog on the proceedings in upcoming entries. In the meantime, it's worth mentioning that many of the challenges and barriers we at Mobile MUSE face are not dissimilar to those encountered by companies in the mobile space in the Bay Area. The carriers/barriers issues, the unearthing of design principles specific to mobile, strategies for leveraging and monetizing the new habits and behaviours spurred by mobile device penetration. 

But first...in the 'call and response' tradition (which just happens to be an interesting cell phone metaphor, but that's just a charming coincidence) I'm posting the following as a companion piece to Igor's insightful post about software matters.  Food for thought re moving away from the 'bundle' approach which provides consumers with a low cost or free device but at the same time limits/inhibits the individual's activities and places constraints on developers and content creators.



'Dell-style' phones to challenge mobile operators

02 February 2007


Notes from an American Road Trip: Web Junk, Mobile Junk, Carriers, and Barriers

Submitted by Metrocode on December 31, 2006 - 11:23am.
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Happy New Year's eve to all...writing from the road; have been in the US visiting friends and of course watching too much hotel room TV. One of the things that jumped out at me was a show on VH1 called "Web Junk", a television program dedicated to showcasing those weblinks so many of us are sent by a friend of a friend that end up becoming *the* thing everyone is forwarding to ten of their friends, and so on and so on. Truly self-replicating, truly viral.

While watching the the TV show Web Junk i noticed a promo for its mobile counterpart, Mobile Junk, offered via Sprint in the US.

Kicking & Dragging Wireless Operators

Submitted by Jim Udall on May 23, 2006 - 12:56pm.
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Imagine this sort of cyber-world if you will:

  1. A domain name costs $400/month.
  2. Before you are permitted to send and receive e-mail through your domain name, you have to submit an explanation to IANA explaining what sort of e-mail you'll be sending and receiving.
  3. If you hope to use your domain name to launch a commercial service, you'll be required to give 50% of your revenue to your ISP.
  4. Even after you get your domain name and e-mail address, only users in the same country as you can send you e-mail.  If you want users from other countries to send you e-mail, you'll have to register a new domain name in each of those other countries with similar restrictions.
  5. If as an end user, you decide to install some software to enable a new service, you'll first have to contact your ISP to let them know what that service was before it would work.
  6. Each user's browser is controlled by your ISP.  They will dictate what sites you can visit.

Now imagine where the Internet might be had it evolved under such a scenario.  Does this seem like a scenario ripe for innovation and opportunity?


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