Friday, December 19, 2008
Ad-funded mobile email? It works!
Messaging in mobile is the killer application. I have no doubts about it. The phone is a communication device, you either talk or send a message. The rest of the time (less than 5%, in my opinion) you do something else, like browsing. But browsing is an emergency activity. Messaging is core in mobile.Now, the next question has always been: if the browser is the killer app on the desktop and Google made tons of money on browsing, adding advertising, what can you do in mobile? Well, you put advertising in messaging, of course... and the Google of mobile will come from messaging and not browsing.
Easier said than done. Ads in messaging might be perceived as spam, could be intrusive because of the lack of real estate on the device screen, risk to raise tons of questions on privacy.
All true.
However, what if you have a micro banner on top of the mobile messaging client, that is not intrusive, and could actually bring you useful ads (the one that you want to see)?
You could do a lot of research and ask people. They will probably tell you "no, thanks". Or you could give them an actual working client with ads and ask them "ok, now what do you think?".
We did the latter. We put ads on a subset of mobile email clients in myFUNAMBOL, we let it run for a while, then we asked the users about their usage and perception (also having objective data on our service, totally anonymous).
It is all reported in the free research report entitled, "Market Potential for Ad-funded Mobile Email", summarized below.
The result is that people are:
The report summarizes the findings of a survey that was conducted with users of the ad-funded myFUNAMBOL mobile email service. The survey was performed to gauge user acceptance of mobile ads and to learn about a broad range of issues relating to an ad-funded mobile email solution. The report found that there is good potential for an ad-funded service. Users indicated that they are willing to accept ads as long as the ads are non-intrusive and relevant, user privacy is maintained, and ads subsidize the service cost. The report also discusses the financial prospects for an ad-funded solution. It found that users generated $10 each per month and were willing to pay about $6 per month for the service.
The free report is available immediately and can be downloaded, with free registration, at http://www.funambol.com/solutions/library.php.
- ok with ads that are not intrusive
- even willing to still pay for the service, just at a lower price
Too good to be true? Maybe, since our user base in myFUNAMBOL is skewed towards techies. They get more emails than others. But they tend to be more annoyed by ads. So I feel it evens out.
Let me write it again: the Google of mobile will come from messaging. Now I have a tangible proof of it. You just have to do it smart.
Posted by Fabrizio at 08:07
3 Comments:
Kari Mattsson said...
Few notes.
1)
My perception is, that mobile email is mostly just for reading. If you have to reply with a lengthy response, you either make a phone call, of wait until you have good enough keyboard.
2)
Spam is the biggest thread of mobile email. If you don't have good spam/malware filters in place, you end up getting just too much noise on your mobile device.
3)
Mobile push-mail is fast becoming a commodity service. At least forthe early adopter consumers. They get the service from various places, such as myFunambol.com. How many consumers really actively use push-mail? I mean how many of those who have tested and verified it works at least once? That would be an interesting number. Care to share? You are in unique position to tell.
4)
Power-users wanting to do most of their email mobile are not easily satisfied. They need proper access to many mail folders and ability to move mails between folders. Ie. move mail from 'inbox' to folder 'archive 2008'. I've done most of my email mobile since 2001, so I know the pain first hand. Having push-mail is nice, but it is not on the critical path.
5)
Business-mail-user is another rather difficult animal. Even the big one, Nokia failed there. This market is not on Funambol's agenda now. There is actually no one dominant player here, but several.
How will all this evolve 2009 and beyond? We live interesting times :-)
It has been a pleasure reading this blog.
Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo, Fabo.
Comment Posted at 13:37
Certainly there are and will always be mobile e-mail solutions that are ad-free and that are no more expensive than the adware e-mail solutions you propose.
Comment Posted at 21:40
Innovation et Biopolitique said...
Dear Fabio,
I agree with you that
messaging is the mobile killer application and ads /messaging perspectives.
However in mobile messaging SMS is the real stuff (with some exception like Japan).
So why Funambol will not propose an Open Source SMS enhanced system allowing advertising and perhaps some more graphic improvments (Smileys ... for final users.
If you will propose something please let me know.
Sono sicuro che potremo fare del buon business assieme :-))
A presto sul Blog.
Giorgio Griziotti
