WEEKLY WRAP: Off-Deck On The Rise; Mobile Social Avatars Get Animated; Find A Spouse On Your Mobile; SurfKitchen & Qualcomm Join Up To Boost Content Discovery
MOBILE CONTENT: Off-deck mobile content revenues are expected to exceed $2 billion by 2011 according to a new report from Frost & Sullivan entitled U.S. Mobile Connection Aggregation Markets. This dramatic increase in value will boost the market for connection aggregators who provide the critical link between operators and an increasingly disparate content market. The aggregators sit behind the scenes giving content providers connectivity and enable off-deck content distribution and billing to a wide variety of operators. It’s a win-win value chain as operators don’t have to manage relationships with a multitude of content providers and the content providers themselves can reach operators more easily by partnering with ‘approved’ connection aggregators. Flat rate data pricing will aid growth in content consumption and operators will relinquish more rev share as the mainstream comes on board. The aggregation market will heat up in 2008 – expect some big plays soon.
MOBILE AVATARS: Users will now be able to export animated avatars to their social networks and send them to family and friends using their mobile phone, following the launch of mixibodz. The offering – produced by Mixipix – has been described as an animated avatar builder with attitude and offers increased personalisation alongside mobile usability with major social networking sites – a must for anyone creating content in the current market. How much will people pay for this? That remains to be seen, but the fickle nature of today’s social networker suggests customised, multiple personas, that can be edited and uploaded with just a few clicks, will be right up their street.
MOBILE DATING: Nokia continues to stockpile content – this time in India. The handset maker turned experience provider have announced a partnership with BharatMatrimony in India. The hook-up will enable Nokia device users in India to access BharatMatrimony’s match making service via the ‘ Nokia Catalogs’ mobile shopping mall which offers a range of content, applications and services. Mobile dating has the potential to be a real money spinner if executed correctly and BharatMatrimony’s service will soon offer videos, images, voice introduction, and a click-to-call facility on Nokia devices as well as the current service offerings.
ON-DEVICE PORTALS: Add BREW to the mix. Qualcomm have joined forces with SurfKitchen to enable the delivery of highly personalised On-Device Portals (
