Rants And Ramblings About Mobile Technology
Anders Borg writing about the fun and crazy world of mobile and Internet service technologies.
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Friday, May 26, 2006
Instant messaging to replace SMS
It should not be surprising, as it's mainly young people that use SMS, but what they really want is IM. Hooking up to communities (that you might already have access to from a PC) instead of doing just point-to-point messaging is an obvious step to take also on the mobile side. Just the fact that you can't look people up easily and based on interests etc via SMS is a good reason to abandon it long term.
IM is the fear of the century for operators. As I've pointed out earlier, it's a completely irrational fear. Operators should provide what users want and hence make them happy and stay with the current operator. That will generate revenue so also the operators become happy. Simple, right? If they don't provide IM then a lot of other providers will. As IM over mobile radio is very inexpensive for the consumer there's nothing holding back third-party providers from giving customers what they want.
Oddly, operators are putting a lot of efforts into data-intensive services like streaming video etc, that completely drain their networks, and are of very arguable value to consumers. IM on the other hand doesn't load the network nearly as much (if at all), and don't require new network technology, even when sending a few photos and files now and then.
As mentioned before, that a proprietary and closed service like mobispine can get very popular in a short time indicates the market is there for the taking.
Telcos could lose out on mobile IM - Communications - News - ZDNet Asia
Mobile IM held back by 'traditional' operators - Mobile & Wireless - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com
IM is the fear of the century for operators. As I've pointed out earlier, it's a completely irrational fear. Operators should provide what users want and hence make them happy and stay with the current operator. That will generate revenue so also the operators become happy. Simple, right? If they don't provide IM then a lot of other providers will. As IM over mobile radio is very inexpensive for the consumer there's nothing holding back third-party providers from giving customers what they want.
Oddly, operators are putting a lot of efforts into data-intensive services like streaming video etc, that completely drain their networks, and are of very arguable value to consumers. IM on the other hand doesn't load the network nearly as much (if at all), and don't require new network technology, even when sending a few photos and files now and then.
As mentioned before, that a proprietary and closed service like mobispine can get very popular in a short time indicates the market is there for the taking.
Telcos could lose out on mobile IM - Communications - News - ZDNet Asia
Mobile IM held back by 'traditional' operators - Mobile & Wireless - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com
