Mobile 2.0 collections

Across the Read/WriteWeb Network

Written by Richard MacManus / October 15, 2007 / 0 comments

Mobile 2.0

Richard was at he Mobile 2.0 event today in San Francisco. Here are his posts:

- Mobile 2.0 - The 7th Mass Media & Business Opportunities

Rudy has been a guest author on Read/WriteWeb before and his Understanding Mobile 2.0 post from December is one of the best introductions to mobile 2.0 that you'll find. Also see: Mobile 2.0 Startup Ecosystem (Sept '07).

Next up is Tomi Ahonen, author and Mobile blogger. His latest book is called 'Digital Korea', about how South Korea established itself as a technology leader. His talk today is about mobile social networking and communities - in particular the business opportunities in Mobile 2.0.

(移动社会网络和社区，尤其是在移动2.0上的商业机会)

Tomi calls mobile "7th mass media", which he says "is as different from the Internet as television was to radio" - he's referring to things like user experience and business opportunities. His definitions of mass media: Radio was 4th, TV 5th, Internet 6th and Mobile 7th. He says mobile can do everything the previous 6 media can do, including interactivity and search of the Internet. But mobile is different from the previous 6 -- he says mobile is "the first personal mass media", it's always on, always carried, has built-in payment model, it's a creative tool at point of creative impulse and gets the most accurate audience info. He says mobile is "a far superior media experience" than the previous 6 mass medias.

（手机是第七媒体。在用户体验和商业机会上带来根本的不同。

大众媒体的定义：广播是第四代，电视第五代，互联网第六代，手机第七代，手机媒体拥有任何此前媒体的功能，包括交互性和互联网搜索。

同时，手机媒体的差异在于：手机是个人媒体。总是开机，总是携带，内置支付模块，作为创新工具，能提供最准确用户信息。）

He says mobile apps can be "magical" and discusses an example from Japan - a cameraphone OCR translator. It's from a Japanese company called MediaSeek; the product is called Kamera Jiten, and it allows cameraphone users to turn their device into a translator.

Business Opportunities in Mobile Web

Tomi then outlines some opportunities: e.g. mobile books (M-Books) are an $82M business in Japan. In Japan and South Korea, there are big opportunities for revenue - e.g. 54% of Japanese mobile phone users consume ads - and what's more 44% of them have clicked on interactive ads. Tomi says hat "advertising is becoming content", because it is relevant to mobile users. While he says this isn't a radical new idea (e.g. MTV videos in the early 80's were essentially advertisements of music products), it is something we need to adapt to more in the mobile Web era.

（Tomi概括出的机会：移动书、广告-己经变成内容。）

He talks of a new company called Blyk, which launched 24 Sept in the UK. Blyk is a new mobile network for 16 – 24s that's funded by advertising - according to the Blyk blog it's "an invitation-only mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that links young people with brands they like and gives them free texts and minutes every month." Tomi says Blyk is a company to watch and emulate.

（谈到UK的新公司：Blyk,面向16-24岁用户的广告支持移动网络.只接受邀请的平台,连接用户和他们喜欢的品牌,并且每月送免费的话时.是一家值得关注和仿效的公司.）

He says the big brands (Coca-Cola et al) will be present in the upcoming mobile social networks. Cyworld is an early example of this.

大品牌将出现在移动社交网络上,Cyworld上己经证明.

Flirtomatic, a UK flirting service from May '06, is another good example of a mobile/social service. It gets half its income from ads, and half from personalization and gifts. Indeed the company abandoned their original subscription fee business model because of those other models. Flirtomatic is now one of Britain's leading florists, according to Tomi.

Flirtomatic有一半收入来自广告,一半来自个性化和礼物.事实上,因此,它们放弃了原来收取服务费的模式.

In summary, an excellent talk by Tomi and I learned a lot about the opportunities in the Mobile Web world. His next book btw is on the topic of the 7th Mass Media - some of the content in his talk today was from that book.

- Mobile 2.0 Launch Pad Part 1

- Mobile 2.0 Launch Pad Part 2

- Taptu Launches New Type of Mobile Search