> On Thu, Nov 15, 2001 at 11:12:54PM +0000, Daniel Helmer wrote:
> <snip>
> > I think the notion that there is massive incremental revenue in Mobile
> > Commerce (eg. monetary transactions from people actually buying goods
> > using their mobile terminal) is basically wrong. Companies who see the
> > mobile as a new point of sale (say a retailer or etailer - or bank...) are
> > likely to be very disappointed with the incremental revenue from the
> > mobile channel. What is the value proposition to buy a book or CD from
> > Amazon.com on your mobile phone? Sure, some people probably will, but not
> > enough to build a business on it.
> <snip>
>
> Right - there's no point in trying to sell things this way that aren't time-
> and location-critical. However, that leaves a fair number of applications
> like:
>
> * getting a taxi
> * ordering a pizza delivery
> * booking a cinema ticket
Yeah, but most of us can do all this anyway on the phone without a fancy application that will likely be annoying to navigate at
first. I wonder if the value proposition of an application in these examples would be large enough to draw a sizeable user base.
Booking a ticket to the movies could have potential simply because movies sell out, and it sucks going two hours ahead to pick up a
ticket. But, hey everything is worth a shot.
I hope that mobile developers at least try to make a good effort at using the technology and cultural behaviors associated with the
technology to create applications that don't simply replace operations with which everyone is already comfortable and familiar.
Isn't the juicy potential of mobile commerce in allowing people to do something they can't easily do now, or aren't even thinking of
now? -- as well as something they would particularly want to do in the state of being "mobile" -- whatever that is.
Christian
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Received on Tue Nov 20 09:25:45 2001