hi there,
as you can see from this rather long subject line we are among
the mobile application developers in germany who talk to kpn mobile/e-plus
on how and when to migrate our app to i-mode European style.
there is a couple of issues I would like you to discuss with me:
- handsets:
for a start, there will be 1 and only 1 flipstyle handset by NEC with a
coloured screen, polyphonic sounds, but NO java. is this enough
for the user to move to i-mode? sony ericsson's T68 also offers
a coloured screen, though it is smaller.
- subscribers:
kpn/e-plus would not say right now how many subscribers they are
aiming at within the first 12 months after launch and how many will be
migrating from their current customer base compared to the number they
can steal from the competition. so how many i-moders should there
be to make it worthwhile to migrate your app to the i-mode specs?
- revenue sharing or not -> official/unofficial partner on the national i-mode portal:
as in japan only quality content providers will be linked on
the portal and offered the chance to ask a premium subscription
fee from the user while billing it over the phone bill.
at the same time, there will be only small sums for
monthly subscription fees available: something
between 0,50 to 2,00 Euro of which the content provider
may get around 85% - figures to be confirmed.
this means that if my company can survive by gaining 85%
of 2,00 Euro from 10.000 or 50.000 or 100.000 active premium
subscribers per month, we will do fine. But how long will they
take to get this many people of my target group (BTW: singles
& more as we offer a matchmaking service)?
similar to japan I believe there is more revenue opportunity
if you enjoy the flexibility to ask for higher prices per month & user
and collect the money directly from the user
(credit card, premium phone numbers ...).
so what is your experience or know-how with traffic
of portals of unofficial sites and users ability to
type in directly the URLs of their preferred service,
or how important is the i-mode portal in terms of user
acquisition?
looking forward to your comments.
jansan.
______________________________________________________
Jan Michael Hess a.k.a. jansan
CEO, Mobile Economy | www.mobileeconomy.de
Editor-in-Chief, mobiliser.org | www.mobiliser.org
PR director, Initiative Mobiles Netz | www.i-m-n.de
Mobile Usability Report | www.businessvillage.de/mobileusability
m: +49.172.32 79 555
e: jansan@mobileeconomy.de | jansan@mobiliser.org
a: Mobile Economy GmbH & mobiliser.org
Ahornallee 20, D-14050 Berlin, Germany
Received on Mon Dec 17 23:12:27 2001