When All Else Fails, Blame Data Costs

Some company launched a "free mobile Christian music service" last month that streams a religious radio station to certain mobile phones. But the company says that despite its press release being "picked up by over 500 publications worldwide", its service isn't popular -- and is blaming a lack of unlimited data plans in the US, saying it's just too expensive for people to use. While the high cost of streaming music on per-KB plans is undoubtedly high, it's hard to believe that's what's keeping people away from the service. The company's taking the "build it and they will come" attitude that's on display in far too many mobile data services. The harsher truth is that there's probably a very small number of people that are interested, and than an even smaller subset of people that can access the service, since it requires its own application that can only be installed on some Symbian and Windows Mobile devices. A streaming Christian radio station for mobile phones is aimed at a pretty niche market, and then that market's cut even smaller when the application's only available for certain devices. Just because something's available on a mobile device doesn't automatically mean people will care -- even if data traffic was free.

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