C2Mmonthly

Service providers should give careful consideration to ensuring that they deliver the best possible experience to the widest possible audience in order to attract and retain the necessary volume of users, writes Jeremy Copp, CEO Rapid Mobile Media.

Delivering applications or content to mobile phones is vastly different to delivery to PCs connected to the web: there are a huge variety of different device capabilities – not only screen size and interaction models, but execution environments, firmware differences and content format support. It is not uncommon to have to support well over 4,000 device variants. To reach the widest possible audience the service must automatically deliver an experience that matches device capabilities, and most importantly must not fail to deliver any service at all. There needs to be a mechanism to deliver a service in an appropriate format for less capable phones, rather than following a ‘lowest common denominator’ approach and scaling up the experience for higher-spec devices.

Optimising the user experience is also dependent upon automatically accounting for device differences. There is an opportunity to maximise user engagement and “stickiness” - the tendency to return to a service at every stage; from the initial point of contact where users should not have to identify or configure their phone (many won’t know the model or how to anyway) right through to the experience of the service itself. The interaction model should be familiar to the user and match the user interface of the device (for example, a dedicated ‘back’ key should do just that; an application shouldn’t require a different keystroke or action to achieve the same effect).

Issues of responsibility
Achieving the widest device reach and optimising the user experience should not have to be the responsibility of the service provider: their focus should be on the content and/or service delivery rather than having to constantly repurpose, port and test for every possible phone type. Nor is it the responsibility of the handset manufacturers – they will always want to differentiate their products through alternative functionalities and capabilities rather than homogenise with their competitors; the emergence of new platforms in the market does not improve this situation either, only increasing the diversity from a service provision perspective. Rather it is the content, application or advertising delivery platforms that should manage the automatic deployment, allowing the service provider to develop (and manage) only one version of the content or application.

Advertising is increasingly offering a viable mechanism to subsidise or wholly monetise mobile services and applications, but the delivery of high quality display advertising is subject to the same issues of device diversity as the content and applications; from the brand and advertiser’s perspective they want to be able to reach as many people as possible at the highest quality, without having to manage the complexities of the diverse range of mobile devices. An advertising delivery platform should therefore offer the ability to serve up adverts in a variety of mobile media (messaging, mobile internet sites and in-application) automatically accounting for differences in the phones whilst optimising delivery. Furthermore, ad creative teams shouldn’t be expected to have to repurpose the advert content to match the multitude of display and interaction options that have to be accommodated.

Monetisation mechanism
The monetisation mechanism for a service also needs careful consideration in order to ensure that a sufficient volume of users is attracted. There is growing consumer acceptance of relevant, targeted and unobtrusive advertising within mobile services which can be potentially coupled with subscription or pay-to-play models. Advertising also offers an option for lowering the barrier to entry for the end user by ad funding trial or introductory versions of the service, thus accelerating growth of user numbers. Consumers appear to be willing to pay for services that provide entertainment, offer opportunities for a return (usually some kind of winning in return for a stake) or provide personalisation of their devices; more straightforward utility services are a harder sell and other revenue generation methods may need to be deployed, such as advertising.

As the mobile market evolves so consumer appetite and acceptance of mobile services grows. The technical and business environments have also evolved to support this but at the cost of ever increasing device diversity – a situation that is only likely to get worse over time. Ever richer content and media types will be delivered as part of these services, compounding the problems of delivery to the widest audience at the optimal quality. To take advantage of the mobile phone as the ubiquitous content consumption device of the future, service providers need to consider:
• How they will reach a sufficient number of users and not artificially limit their addressable market through device type.
• Mechanisms for monetising the service without alienating their user base.
•The option of delivering advertising within the service, but in such a way that it maximises value for both the advertiser and consumer by being presented at as high a quality as possible and by being perceived as relevant by the end user through intelligent targeting.