Opinionated comments on mobile phone industry news
|
All entries are written by Anders Borg, CEO and Consultant of Abiro, that has a long experience in strategic planning, developing embedded and Java software, usability aspects, and the mobile phone industry in general. You can also read the latest Mobile News entries on your phone via wap.abiro.com, and we provide many News Feeds from popular news services. For advertising and contribution queries, please use the feedback form. News feed (local) FeedBurner Feed
|
|
Friday, June 08, 2007
Anecdote: (Not) understanding customer needs
Please note that I try to be as objective as possible about the following scenario. My point is to show how easy it is to think erratically in this industry, based on a lack of communication with and information about the potential users. I'm certainly not bashing cellity. I think they are doing the right thing here. Rather I bash myself for not thinking straight.
The whole point with releasing a Twitter client (Abiro Jitter) was to build brand and awareness of Abiro in general, and because I could, in a very short time. As it was a labor of love I'm not bitter (maybe just a little...) about the lack of results, but I realize I could have spent my time on better things.
I had mistakenly assumed that lots of people would download Jitter, as Twitter is supposedly so popular and sending tweets 'at the spur of the moment' from a mobile phone seems ideal.
Not so. In this case it's not only because my application might be crappy, which it's not in my opinion, as a 'competitor' has the exact same issue and very similar features.
If you search for 'twitter' at GetJar you only get two hits: Abiro Jitter and cellity tweeter. Given that, it seems either one of these applications should be downloaded like crazy, but that's not the case. Interestingly though cellity freeSMS is downloaded way more. That it at all shows up when searching for 'twitter' is because cellity cleverly uses that word in the freeSMS description. When I checked other 'free SMS' type applications they are all downloaded a lot, even some of those that require a subscription.
cellity freeSMS doesn't use Canvas anywhere (similar to tweeter and Jitter), so there's no nice look-n-feel, making the application look the way MIDlets tend to do when using the high-level UI. Of course users don't know that until they've downloaded it, and the animated pictures shown at GetJar are faked to look good. As similar pictures are used for tweeter, this is though clearly not driving the decision to at all download either application. The reason I mention it is that many MIDlet developers think using only Canvas is a requirement for user satisfaction. I agree the logic is limping, as a lot of downloads doesn't necessarily mean users are happy with it.
Also, tweeter and freeSMS are designed for the lowest common denominator level of CLDC and MIDP. They are of course not tested on all phones. Rather by using this subset they inherently are compatible with most phones. I also use this approach for free applications. It's when I release commercial software I'm careful about this, as customers don't want to buy a product that might not work on their specific phone.
To make an attempt at a reverse market analysis based on this (I might be completely wrong again; maybe I should actually talk to some people): Young people don't have money, so they don't want to pay for anything, and as they need to send a lot of messages on a daily basis to stay on top in their social lives they need free SMS, and the main point with mobile telephony (and possibly IT in general) for them is person-to-person communication, hence they need an application/service that provides free SMS much more than a way more esoteric thing like a Twitter client. Of course communicating over the data link also costs money, so calling it free is not really true, but way less costly than normal SMSs.
cellity doesn't get any money from neither tweeter nor freeSMS, but they register phone numbers (not really needed for tweeter) which potentially is an asset, and cellity is an MVNO, so that's where the long term money is. Hence they use tweeter and freeSMS as door openers. That's similar to how Skype uses its free client to lure in customers to paid services.
One other thing I noted was how technical terms stick like brands. Telecom folks know that SMS is a very specific technology, clearly specified by 3GPP, but of course most people don't have a clue how it works, and don't care how it works, so anything that transfers short messages could be considered SMS.
So, should I develop a free SMS solution? Technically I of course could, and quickly too (also the server side), but then there has to be an underlying commercial service that would generate revenue. Just releasing a free solution wouldn't make sense. That would be like advertizing for a commercial product that doesn't exist, unless (as always) acquisition would be an option.
The whole point with releasing a Twitter client (Abiro Jitter) was to build brand and awareness of Abiro in general, and because I could, in a very short time. As it was a labor of love I'm not bitter (maybe just a little...) about the lack of results, but I realize I could have spent my time on better things.
I had mistakenly assumed that lots of people would download Jitter, as Twitter is supposedly so popular and sending tweets 'at the spur of the moment' from a mobile phone seems ideal.
Not so. In this case it's not only because my application might be crappy, which it's not in my opinion, as a 'competitor' has the exact same issue and very similar features.
If you search for 'twitter' at GetJar you only get two hits: Abiro Jitter and cellity tweeter. Given that, it seems either one of these applications should be downloaded like crazy, but that's not the case. Interestingly though cellity freeSMS is downloaded way more. That it at all shows up when searching for 'twitter' is because cellity cleverly uses that word in the freeSMS description. When I checked other 'free SMS' type applications they are all downloaded a lot, even some of those that require a subscription.
cellity freeSMS doesn't use Canvas anywhere (similar to tweeter and Jitter), so there's no nice look-n-feel, making the application look the way MIDlets tend to do when using the high-level UI. Of course users don't know that until they've downloaded it, and the animated pictures shown at GetJar are faked to look good. As similar pictures are used for tweeter, this is though clearly not driving the decision to at all download either application. The reason I mention it is that many MIDlet developers think using only Canvas is a requirement for user satisfaction. I agree the logic is limping, as a lot of downloads doesn't necessarily mean users are happy with it.
Also, tweeter and freeSMS are designed for the lowest common denominator level of CLDC and MIDP. They are of course not tested on all phones. Rather by using this subset they inherently are compatible with most phones. I also use this approach for free applications. It's when I release commercial software I'm careful about this, as customers don't want to buy a product that might not work on their specific phone.
To make an attempt at a reverse market analysis based on this (I might be completely wrong again; maybe I should actually talk to some people): Young people don't have money, so they don't want to pay for anything, and as they need to send a lot of messages on a daily basis to stay on top in their social lives they need free SMS, and the main point with mobile telephony (and possibly IT in general) for them is person-to-person communication, hence they need an application/service that provides free SMS much more than a way more esoteric thing like a Twitter client. Of course communicating over the data link also costs money, so calling it free is not really true, but way less costly than normal SMSs.
cellity doesn't get any money from neither tweeter nor freeSMS, but they register phone numbers (not really needed for tweeter) which potentially is an asset, and cellity is an MVNO, so that's where the long term money is. Hence they use tweeter and freeSMS as door openers. That's similar to how Skype uses its free client to lure in customers to paid services.
One other thing I noted was how technical terms stick like brands. Telecom folks know that SMS is a very specific technology, clearly specified by 3GPP, but of course most people don't have a clue how it works, and don't care how it works, so anything that transfers short messages could be considered SMS.
So, should I develop a free SMS solution? Technically I of course could, and quickly too (also the server side), but then there has to be an underlying commercial service that would generate revenue. Just releasing a free solution wouldn't make sense. That would be like advertizing for a commercial product that doesn't exist, unless (as always) acquisition would be an option.
