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Friday, February 17, 2006
Personal IM by GSM Association
At GSM World you can download a whitepaper about Personal IM. It's not very detailed, but explains the basics of the announced Personal IM concept.
There are a few very interesting things mentioned:
* It's focused on the mobile realm, not necessarily offering compatibility with existing Internet-based IM services. That in my mind leaves an open field for third party, which is good of course.
* It's not tied to any specific protocol or system. Seemingly Wireless Village and IMS will both work in this scenario. That though forces operators to transcode between networks.
Quote: The majority of services that exist today are examples of off-net Instant Messaging. What is being recommended here is that customers are offered the alternative of an on-net Instant Messaging service.
Note: Off-net as in Internet, and On-net as in operator-controlled network. Do you agree with the GSMA point-of-view?
Quote: Why is Personal IM a priority for operators versus new 3G multimedia services such as mobile TV or video calls?
My "operator internal" answer to this would be: Well, we invest a lot in services nobody cares about and that don't provide any revenue, while IM is low hanging fruit that doesn't require new terminals or protocols, and is sure to generate a lot of revenue.
GSM World - the website of the GSM Association
There are a few very interesting things mentioned:
* It's focused on the mobile realm, not necessarily offering compatibility with existing Internet-based IM services. That in my mind leaves an open field for third party, which is good of course.
* It's not tied to any specific protocol or system. Seemingly Wireless Village and IMS will both work in this scenario. That though forces operators to transcode between networks.
Quote: The majority of services that exist today are examples of off-net Instant Messaging. What is being recommended here is that customers are offered the alternative of an on-net Instant Messaging service.
Note: Off-net as in Internet, and On-net as in operator-controlled network. Do you agree with the GSMA point-of-view?
Quote: Why is Personal IM a priority for operators versus new 3G multimedia services such as mobile TV or video calls?
My "operator internal" answer to this would be: Well, we invest a lot in services nobody cares about and that don't provide any revenue, while IM is low hanging fruit that doesn't require new terminals or protocols, and is sure to generate a lot of revenue.
GSM World - the website of the GSM Association
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This initiative is driven by encroachment of MSN and Skype onto the handset, allowing such strong brands "on-net" as the default IM service dilutes brand value and reduces barriers to churn as if your favorite IM service suddenly partners with a new network you as a subsciber may move, or may feel compelled to move. In this model, favoured in the USA, operators deliver a significant proportion of the per message revenue to the IM partner.
The GSMA approach lets networks keep the majority of the revenue, ensures a pay per message model - something which SMS users are already comfortable with. At least that should keep SPIM to a minimum.
Interconnect between on-net services and to off-net services is already implemented.
A company called Followap (www.followap.com) has connected up the 3 french operators and done a Vodafone to MSN link. Google has opened its interface so can easily be connected to, however Google to Personal-IM is unlikley to happen in the near future as Google seems to be set against pay per message.
The GSMA approach lets networks keep the majority of the revenue, ensures a pay per message model - something which SMS users are already comfortable with. At least that should keep SPIM to a minimum.
Interconnect between on-net services and to off-net services is already implemented.
A company called Followap (www.followap.com) has connected up the 3 french operators and done a Vodafone to MSN link. Google has opened its interface so can easily be connected to, however Google to Personal-IM is unlikley to happen in the near future as Google seems to be set against pay per message.
I agree with what you say: It's all about finding ways to get more revenue from use of IM (not just air-time) and locking users to operator services.
Yet, it also creates opportunities for third-party, as long as operators don't hinder such "free" (free as in non operator controlled) data traffic.
Yet, it also creates opportunities for third-party, as long as operators don't hinder such "free" (free as in non operator controlled) data traffic.
Do you have any update on the Personal IM initiative from last year? Interesting to see they went very quiet on this and Followap was acquired in the mean time.
I haven't investigated this further, as even operators seem to ignore it (e.g. 3).
There's now more info on the Personal IM pages.
There's now more info on the Personal IM pages.
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