Are People Buying From Their Mobile Phones?
Okay, I’ve read this announcement from Bango at least ten times and I’m still not sure what they’re really saying. The announcement seems to indicate that people are making “multiple purchases” of content via their mobile phone. Even that’s not entirely clear. It does say “multiple purchases” but doesn’t clearly say of what. Most of the article focuses on “content” but doesn’t really define what they mean by content. Too many studies seem to confuse content with services – and people are much more likely to pay for services than they are for content. Also, even if it does just refer to content, there is a wide range of items that can be considered content – so just saying that people are purchasing content on their mobile phone doesn’t reveal much of anything. Besides, simply selling content on a mobile phone is a risky long term strategy. Mobile phones can increasingly access the entire internet, where so much content is free – so expecting people to pay extra for content they can get for free elsewhere is going to become increasingly difficult. That doesn’t, however, mean that you can’t get people to pay for services – such as quick alerts for useful information that people want on a timely basis. Understanding the difference is going to be a key factor in what mobile business survive. Unfortunately, it’s tough to tell from this news release what area Bango is really concentrating on.
Filed Under: mcommerce
