I wanted to try and get some consensus on what is for me the key
(stunning) feature of the SMS-TV and SMS-promotion phenomonon currently
underway in Europe: the unprecedented power content providers have over
operators in controlling pricing and revenue share. It ain't the 90/10
Docomo split offers but it's darn close. A buddy of mine hear in
Reykjavik, Iceland working with an SMS promotion service company says
they are getting an 85/15 split with the biggets operator here. Nice.
Am I correct in assuming that currently SMS TV and promotions represents
far and away the best business proposition for content/service providers?
Low (almost no) technology. Large engaged audience. Real, honest to god
revenue. What more could you ask?
J2ME. BREW. i-mode. Code-compile-debug. Cross platform headaches. Plead
with the operators for pennies. Why botther. I'm thinkin' boring old SMS
baby. Heck, SMS is like kudzu. It just grows, and grows, and grows, and
... (BTW: kudzu is a particulary robust and fast growing vine that grows
in the south in the USA. Check it out: http://www.cptr.ua.edu/kudzu/).
Finally, as I understand it the thing preventing these SMS services from
rolling out in the States (ignoring SMS usage) is something to do with
lack of support for the codes that participants can type into their
handsets. For example to vote during a TV show users type some number. To
enter a sweepstakes offer seen on a bottle of Coke they type the number
shown. Anyone have any idea when this will be put in place?
Cheers,
Douglass Turner
Received on Tue Oct 1 13:16:05 2002