Vaguely related to the last post and comments, Tim Bray has a six point plan for a cellular carrier to create an explosion in the mobile data space. It involves radically opening up the network though, so you can be sure no one is going to take his advice any time soon. I'm confident it would work though. Number 5 is especially smart: Don't ask developers for any money. But sell the use of your billing system at a really attractive rate, so people can sign up for apps and have it billed to their phone plan. Do it at a scale that an app can charge a dime a month and still make money on scale. That would change everything. It could provide a real business model for (to use the overplayed and under defined term) Web 2.0.
People just don't want to pay (even small amounts) for content on the web. But for some reason I think they would pay small amounts for the same content from the same web if they are receiving it on their mobile and the billing is totally seamless. I think a lot of the friction we see now in terms of getting people to pay is just that people are reluctant to break out their credit card or to make yet another account somewhere like PayPal. But if your mobile device *was* your credit card I think the situation would change.
In Finland people can buy stuff out of vending machines with their cell phones (so I've heard). We've got a long way to go.
We used to make that joke about java programmers: they were always trying to use a vending machine with their cell phones.
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People just don't want to pay (even small amounts) for content on the web. But for some reason I think they would pay small amounts for the same content from the same web if they are receiving it on their mobile and the billing is totally seamless. I think a lot of the friction we see now in terms of getting people to pay is just that people are reluctant to break out their credit card or to make yet another account somewhere like PayPal. But if your mobile device *was* your credit card I think the situation would change.
- jim 9-24-2007 6:24 pm
In Finland people can buy stuff out of vending machines with their cell phones (so I've heard). We've got a long way to go.
- mark 9-24-2007 9:03 pm
We used to make that joke about java programmers: they were always trying to use a vending machine with their cell phones.
- L.M. 9-24-2007 9:20 pm