Dec

5 reasons mobile services are dying

: Image by new-york-city via Flickr

What factors determine if the mobile is the right channel for a service at that particular point for that particular customer. Read this and you will learn.

Do you want to watch CNN on your mobile? Few does.

Imagine watching the latest news collected from all channels around the globe prioritized to start with the most important piece for you, with no commercial breaks. With maximized quality for your device and access to skip forward, find similar, pause and slow motion functions to aid you since you are on the move. You have access to a full week time shifting, everything instantly accessible. You quickly send a referrer to a friend, with a personal comment, who can watch and comment back to you.

Do you want to watch this news TV in your mobile?

Mobile services must be designed for consumption in the mobile, following a mobile way of thinking that is different from the way of thinking designing an Internet service. Your mobile is an extension of your personality. A mobile service should aid you in your mobile life.

In Sweden the penetration of mobile devices is more than 100% and the coverage of the 2 national 3G networks are close to 100%. But the number of users using mobile services is really low.

Apple has done us all a great favor by starting the App store and keeping it fairly open. This means that developers with the right skills can make mobile services truly mobile. IPhone users use data services a lot more than the general user, leading a mobile multimedia trend. But while Iphone is a natural and longed for choice for a selected few it will never be the natural choice for the majority of us. Why are we not using more mobile services?

It used to be possible to put the blame on device manufacturers like Nokia and Motorola. Devices had poor software, small screens, slow hardware and so on. This is no longer true.

You could put the blame on mobile operators that has a history of locking their customers safely away in a walled garden way of thinking. This is no longer true.

Devices are good and users can access whatever Internet service they want for a fixed rate. Why doesn’t the usage explode, when the number of mobile services are growing so rapidly? I will explain five factors that mobile services has to take seriously to succeed.

1. Mobile service adaptation to your phone
2. Services you want to experience
3. Mobile services that read your mind
4. Mobile nice services
5. Position and activity

Unfortunately few mobile service providers use mobile thinking when designing, resulting in poor mobile experience for the user.
While operators have been busy creating walled gardens and services primarily aiming to create smart looking marketing campaigns, users and usability have been suffering.

Now when the technology starts to mature, operators are becoming bit pipes and turning their backs to the content services, trusting big Internet brands to successfully port into the mobile environment. But creating a good Internet service is very different to creating a good mobile service. Building a mobile service has a wide range of technical challenges that needs to be addressed using a mobile way of thinking.

The mobile is personal and is always at hand, this does NOT mean that people automatically use the mobile for a specific service. You use the BEST channel at a specific time and location for the service. The opportunity is that the mobile is always near the user and CAN become the best channel, almost every time.

We are following and creating the mobile trends and will point out to you where the mobile future is.