The Digital Klondyke, inside the Cyber Eldorado. Why YOU should go mobile now and fast

There have been physical eldorados and klondykes, "go West young man" to follow a gold rush to make "quick money". There also have been new industries that offered the ability to become rich fast - the PC revolution in the 1980s and the internet revolution in the 1990s.

The overall global economy has "cratered" to use John McCain's infamous but colourful term (when he cancelled on a Letterman appearance that came to haunt his campaign). Economy cratered. Imploded. From mountain to molehill. Massive hole. And not gradual decline into recession, the economic disaster was immediate, global and so severe that it may well be found (with hindsight, many quarterly periods from now) to actually have been a depression. The "second great depression" perhaps.

We've seen giant companies going bankrupt. That is not news. Chrysler was just one of hundreds of trusted brands.But in this severely hurting economy there is one bright spot: mobile telecoms. Where other industries were deeply in the red, many of the big brands in mobile, from Nokia to NTT DoCoMo, report profits. Yes, usually diminished profits but profits nonetheless. And many mobile major players report increased profits, like China Mobile (the world's largest mbile operator/carrier) and Samsung the second largest handset maker.

Now, if you want to be part of their success, that means playing the stock market which is a fickle opportunity, more guided by expectations than true economic performance. I am not suggesting any stock portfolio strategies. But there is a new digital klondyke, a cyber eldorado. Not the giants in mobile, it would be prohibitively expensive to attempt to launch a handset brand (to compete with Nokia and Samsung) and its almost impossible to become a rival of network operators, as most countries do not have any spectrum available even if you did want to try to become a Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo or China Mobile of your country. The mere network radio network installation (necessary infrastructure element) costs about one ...billion... dollars and in some countries the license alone the premission to sell mobile telecoms services) cost 5 times that! No, I don't mean to become a handset maker or a network operator/carrier.

MOBILE DATA IS BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY OF OUR LIFETIMES

The opportunity is mobile data services. First consider the reach and size. In 1985, half way into the PC decade, the world had 40 million personal computers and more than half of those were in the USA. Still, garage companies (literally) turned into giants of today, from PC makers like Dell to software makers like Microsoft. This from sales to a total addressable market size of 40 million possible customers.

Then lets look at the internet. In 2000, after a decade of the Worldwide Web, and just before the internet bubble crashed, there were 300 million total users on the internet, almost ten times more than the PC opportunity had been and nearly half of those were in North America. This opportunity generated such global giants as eBay and Google.

Mobile data is the youngest of the three, but consider this total, the active users of mobile data services today - 3 BILLION people. Ten times more than what the internet was at equivalent point in its evolution. And how USA-centric is this opportunity? Not at all. While half of the total global PC and internet opportunities in the previous decades was in North America, today only 8% of the total global mobile data consumers are in the USA. For the first time in high tech, the domestic economic opportunity is as much in Kenya, Colombia and Bangla Desh as it is in the USA, UK and Japan.

GROWTH RATES IN REVENUES

The mobile data opportunity started at the end of 1993 when the first person-to-person SMS text message was sent in Finland by Riku Pihkonen of Nokia on he Radiolinja (Elisa) network. In 2008 mobile data services delivered global revenues of 200 billion dollars. That is marginally less than the total global annual sales revenues of all PCs sold worldwide. Think about it, the first PC was sold in 1977. 32 years later PC sales are in the 250 billion dollar range annually. In less than half that time, mobile data has almost matched it. And the PC industry was the world's fastest-growing industry sector for nearly two decades. How about the internet? The internet revenues have two major components of roughly the same size. Half is access fees (our broadband monthly fees or narroband dial-up fees). The other half is "service revenues" most of which is advertising. The total internet industry is worth about 200 billion dollars. Again in far less time, mobile data has already matched that. Except it is not a fair comparison. Mobile data is exclusively "service revenues" and we pay MORE for our "access" ie our monthly movbile phone account (or pre-paid account). To compare apples with apples, the 200 billion in mobile needs to be compared with the "service revenues" part of the internet which is about 100 billion. Mobile is younger and yet twice as big as the internet.

But let me put it in very basic terms. The world economy has grown on average about 3.5% per year, on an annual basis, over the past five decades with peaks never more than 7%. The PC market managed to grow at double-digit rates for about three decades and until the saturation hit the industry recently, was sustaining 15% growth rates. Apple set the record for the fastest company ever to grow from zero to enter the Fortune 500.

The internet economy was mostly an illusion. Thousands of internet brands built large memberships and registered user bases, without any viable method of monetizing them. They were unable to get subscription revenues and unable to sell the content (except for pornography, gambling and some multiplayer gaming worlds). So the internet economy was chasing the elusive pot of gold in advertising. Google was able to succeed (and broke Apple's respeed cord to enter Fortune 500). Almost all other "grow big fast, the money will come later" concepts failed to turn profits. The owners sold the company to some sucker and retired rich. Years later the new owner admits the billion-dollar big purchase was not going to be profitable. Look at Skype and eBay. Look at YouTube and Google. Look at AOL and Time-Warner. The new economy is NOT an economy. It is an illusion. The rules of the economy have not vanished overnight. Web 2.0 may be a radical change in consumer behaviour, but it is NOT an economy 2.0. The economy is still solidly in 1.0 and will be so into the future. You have x production costs. You have to find customers willing to pay y for your goods. And y has to be greater than x else you will go bankrupt (see Chrysler). The economy has not changed.

But advertising... No. Advertising is a genuine revenue source yes, but it cannot alone power accelerated growth to the internet. Why? Because advertising already today delivers more than 10% of the total worldwide ad revenues, to the internet. Television is not going to die. Radio is not going to vanish. Billboards? They are not about to disappear. There is a zero-sum game for the total global advertising dollar. the more the internet tries now to grow ad revenues, the harder the older mass media will fight back (to survive). And they will fight back primarily with price cuts. Newspapers and television are already today offering enormous price cuts to hold onto their advertisers.

Now consider mobile data. Mobile data was never a fairy-tale illusion economy. Mobile data has always been a solid real industry. Guess how much of the 200 billion dollars is advertising? About half of TV is advertising. About half of magazines and newspapers is advertising. About two thirds of the internet service revenues is advertising. But only 2% of the mobile data industry is advertising !!!!

The tech columnist for the Guardian newspaper, Vic Keegan wrote two weeks ago contrasting the internet and mobile that the payment mechanism that we have on mobile and which is not on the internet is why "kids who don't pay for music online will pay £2.50 for a ringtone, why emails are free but text messages can cost 25p. It's why SeeMeTV pays users for uploading their videos to phones while YouTube doesn't".

The fake economy of the internet fooled millions of investors and entrepreneurs. They were AGAIN fooled now with Web 2.0. But in the shadow of "I have 100 million subscribers" press releases, there grew a REAL digital economy opportunity, on mobile. Robust. Making money from day 1, and from every customer. Like Vic wrote, while we have totally free email, we are willing to pay 20 cents per message on our SMS text messages. The world average consumer sends 3 paid SMS text messages per day. Even though kids will not pay for music CDs because they can copy MP3 files for free on file-sharing services like KaZaA, they WILL pay for ringing tones. Ringing tones were a 5 billion dollar industry last year - more thanthree times as big as the total iTunes global opportunity. And yes, YouTube can't get users to pay for videos. But SeeMeTV and LookAtMe just in the UK have had no problem to get millions to pay - and they've paid 16 million UK pounds (24 million USD) to look at similar videos on their 3G phones. And bear in mind these are 3G phone users - they will all have broadband internet at home, so they can see YouTube for free. Yet they pay 50 pence (75 cents) per video on their phones.

All investors loved "the tech industry" when PC sales grew revenues 15% year-on-year for two decades. Then investors fell in love with the internet industry because of the promise of big audiences even when revenues were tiny and profits nowhere to be seen. Now consider mobile.

For the early growth, the mobile data growth rates were literally astronomical, because of the mobile industry's reach and size. 300% and 400% annual growth rates. Lets ignore those, we can't get to that historical moment anyway. Look at this past decade. Mobile data services have grown revenues on an annual growth rate, sustained over the past ten years, of 42% year on year. The industry doubles in less than two years, every two years, for the whole duration of its existence.

There has never been a dynamic growth rate like is, sustained for ten years. Nothing even remotely like it. Not even HALF this growth rate sustained for HALF the time.

I cannot over-estimate the magnitude of this growth rate. The PC was growing in the 15% rate for a decade. That speed was a world record. The best investment opportunity of all of mankind's economic acivity up to that point. Today mobile data grows at almost 3 times that speed! The PC opportunity made Bill Gates the richest man on the planet. Can you imagine how much MORE wealthy the top performer will be in THIS opportunity.

Come on, financial guys. I know the IRR (Internal Rate of Return) is not a perfect measure, but it is one key measure for investments. IRR rates in the 20%-30% ranges tend to be considered great investments. Now consider that this whole INDUSTRY grows at 42% per year. You'd kill for that kind of IRR.

Even in this economic downturn the mobile data global industry will grow to at least 250 billon dollars during 2009, and may pass 300 billion. All major industry players form Apple to Sprint to NTT DoCoMo to China Mobile mention mobile data as their best growth sector. There has never been a sustained growth opportunity like the one we are witnessing now.

WHAT IS IT?

The mobile data opportunity is not deploying "the real internet" to mobile phones. The real internet is a real fake. A real illusion. A real bogus economy Don't try to make money by putting the free internet to a phone. Think about this logically. if the intenet experts all now agree that you cant' charge for content for mainstream intenet content and services, then WHY would it make any business sense to now incur MORE COSTS to deploy that free contenn to phones, where the custeromers would again not pay anything. It is economically as stupid as all of the "build it and the profits will magically appear" voodoo economics of the internet.

The mobile data opporutunity is not "LBS" Location Based Services. LBS is loved by all geeky technologists. but it is a total waste of effort. The money in LBS is puny. Miniscule. Laughable. Don't chase this false god, this elusive promise. Maps can be cool but we don't want our spouces spying on where we are every minute.

The mobile data opportunity is not wireless email like the Blackberry. Blackberry was a great niche opportunity for the USA and Canada (only) when North Americans were ignorant of the most powerful messaging service - SMS text messaging. Today most Blackberry users (worldwide) send more SMS than emails.

The mobile data opportunity is not "enterprise/business" apps and services. Yes, millions of enterprise and business users exist, but only American laggard experts anymore try to focus on this small sub-sector of the industry. Residential active mobile data paying users outnumber enterprise/business users by more than 8 to 1 worldwide.

Mobile data is ..fun, personal, entertainment. Fast, simple, even juvenile. SMS, Twitter, Ringing Tones. The fart-sound ringing tone. The love-detector. The sexual position of the day. The virtual red rose. The anti-Valentines's day card.
 
EVIDENCE TOMI EVIDENCE.

Take AQA (Any Question Answered) from the UK. Last year they made 4 million UK pounds (7 million USD) selling answers that cost 1 UK pounds each. Delivered by SMS! Most of those could have easily been "found" by using Google (at home when near the PC and broadband connection) - for FREE, but AQA has real people writing the answers, they make them funny and AQA has found a big opportunity selling answers. Magical.

Take American Idol. Back in 2007, SMLXL the UK based engagement marketing agency (Alan Moore's 'company) did an analysis and found that the format owners (Fremantle) who run the various Idols shows American Idol, Australian Idol, Indian Idol, Finnish Idols, X Factor (UK) Neuvelle Star (France), Deutschland Sucht Der Superstar (Germany) etc earned 136 million dollars of bonus income - bearing in mind that Idols is the most-watched TV show and gets premium ad revenues - from SMS votes PER YEAR. 136 million dollars. that was for the various national Idols runs for the full year 2006. Today its probably twice that number.

Take Flirtomatic. They introduced the virtual red rose in the Spring of 2007. The rest of the year, out of 400,000 total users, they sold 3.5 million of the virtual flowers as gifts from one user to anohter. Made 1.4 million dollars out of this innovation just that year. Today they sell gifts from virtual wedding proposals to virtual boob jobs (and Flirtomatic is non-pornograhic, so the boob job is only visible in a bikini.. Only about a quarter of Flirtomatic's income is advertising and they have abandoned their monthly subscription fee as "unnecessary".

Take Shazam the music identification service. The service is operational now in 60 countries and lets you use your phone to listen to any recorded song (radio, DJ, TV etc). Shazam listens for about 10 seconds, then hangsup the phone call. A minute later, you receive an SMS text message which identifies the singer and song title and what album it is on. Magical! Each Shazam "tag" is individually charged and paid for." Is there money in such frivolity? Shazam earns 100 millon dollars annually.

Take Habbo Hotel. They have 11 million active users monthly in 31 countries. All teenagers. Obviously these have almost no money to "spare". Yet Habbo earns 50 million Euros (75 million USD) last year from the kids. Less than 10% of Habbo's income is advertising.

Or take Mobage Town. They have 10 million (all age) users in Japan. They earned 200 million dollars last year and a small fraction of their income came from advertising. Compare with Facebook which had ten times more users (100 million) last year and made only slightly more in total revenues at 300 million dollars, all of that via advertising.

And what of cost savings. Finnair invented the airline mobile phone (SMS based) check-in. Can you imagine how much cheaper it is to process a passenger 100% via the passenger's own mobile phone, than using a live check-in attendant and very expensive airport chek-in counter, or even a check-in kiosk (at an expensive floor location a the airport). Today more than half of Finnair passengers on its busiest short-haul business-passenger oriented flights use mobile check-in !!!

Or take Helsinki Public transport where over half of all single tickets to the trams and subway trains are paid by mobile phone (using SMS). Its not just Finland. In London 20% of the Congestion Charge by cars entering the city centre are paid for by SMS Text message. In Estonia ALL of the parking fees are now paid by mobile phone (SMS). And banking is headed to an SMS message near you. In Kenya 20% of all banking accounts are now on phones, using SMS text messages to send money. You can have your paycheck sent to you via SMS.

Libraries now send "your book is due to be returned" alerts via SMS - and you can renew the book by return SMS. Dentists allow urgent patients to book replacement dental care slots to fill the times that were cancelled at the last moment. Here in Hong Kong just this weekend, a national emergency warning went to all phone owners about the heightened health and safety warning about swine flu after the first infected person was diagnosed here in Hong Kong. Car service centeres will send alerts when your car is ready to be picked up after its maintenance. The Pope sends daily blessings via SMS. There is even a service that will listen to your dog and translate the barking to human communication - and send you an SMS text meessage so you know what your dog is saying.

THE MOBILE IS A MAGICAL MONEY-MAKING MACHINE

38% of all global spending on music is now spent on mobile phone music. Not just ringing tones. Also ringback tones, full-track MP3 downloads, mobile karaoke, welcoming tones, background tunes, mood tunes and on and on and on. For comparison, iTunes (for iPods) only genrates about 5% of the total worldwide music revenues. but 38% is now earned from various music formats for mobile phones.

The same trend is following music closely in videogaming where today over 26% of all videogaming revenues are generated by games for phones. All other media follow. News - in many Asian countries 30% or more of mobile phone owners pay for news delivered to phones. Movies- yes, 2 hour movies already sell to be viewed on the tiny screens of phones. I've got a copy of Mission Impossible 2 on a phone memory chip... Even more bizarre - BOOKS sell directly to be consumed on phones. In Japan alone, the mobile books market is worth over 82 million dollars annually and 5 of the 10 bestselling printed books in Japan were first released as mobile books.

The PC did not impact every industry. The interent, while it seems pervasive, did not impact every industry. Illiterate people for example, have no use for the internet. But mobile does. There is no industry that is not impacted by mobile. Consider. Fishermen. Illiterate African fishermen. Can use mobile to sell their catch for the the best price. In Finland you can buy your fishing license on the spot, at the lake, with your phone. Farmers can track their cows by GPS and GSM equipped collars - and even teach the cows to respond to an SMS to come home to be milked! You SMS your cows! How about hunters. It has to be a nerdy geeky hunter who attempts to connect with a PDA and WiFi connection to the intenet while hunting and I'm sure some such hunters exist. But there really is a company that sells dog collars to hunting dog owners, that have GPS and GSM units that allow the hunter to track the dog via GPS on his phones - and to listen to the dog via GSM and what the dog is hearing, if the dog is near the prey. yes, these are in effect mobile phones for dogs, built into their collars.

Or take this as the ultimate proof - a forest. A million trees. No broadband in a forest, no personal computers, no electricity, even no people live in that (private, managed) forest. Just trees and some forest animals. And the trees are not like cows. They don't wander around. They stay fixed - rooted indeed - into the same place for 20 years until at the end of their lives they make one combined journey on some lumber-carrying lorry to their death in the jaws of a circular saw at some sawmill. You know what, we can use mobile. Modern Finnish forestry management systems use GPS-GSM chips that are used to tag EVERY TREE in the forest, to ensure that the right tree is felled at the right time, and when so, that it is sent to the right type of sawmills (some parts of the tree make good furniture parts, others used for paper, others for pup etc). Evewn though there is no broadband into the forest, there is cellular coverage.. We can connect all the trees..

My point is, that if illiterate fishermen can benefit from mobile. if cows and hunting dogs can be better utilized with mobile. If trees for goodness sake, trees! can be better managed with mobile. Then yes, YOUR business, whether barber shop or accountant office or taxi service or school or whaever - it can benefit from mobile.

And then it means there is a MONEY opportunity. Every example in this blog posting is real. Someone invented the idea to help dentists fill cancelled appointments with mobile. Someone else invented the farting sounds as ringing tones. Two hundred BILLION dollars worth of mobile data services were sold last year. The consumers paid for them. Not that the money came from advertising. This 200 billion (or technically 195 bilion out of the 200 B) came from customers paying for those services.

THIS IS THE ELDORADO INSIDE KLONDYKE

An industry that keeps growing revenues at 42% year-on-year. An industry that is already today being consumed by 3 billion people (ten times as big as the total USA population. Hey, that 3 billion - its twice as big as the total internet industy. Three times as many as all PCs in use worldwide. Ten times the size of all home gaming consoles like PS3 and Wii. 15 times the total installed base of iPods. 6 times more people pay for mobile data services than pay to buy a daily newspaper... Mobile data is twice as big a market as... all TV sets in use around the world. By far the biggest audience for you and your idea.

And the money is real, not a bogus fake economy like the internet. This is real, billed for and paid for services.

So then, where to go? Almost any idea in mobile data will be a growth opportunity. Some are so poorly performing that they should be ignored (like I said, the "real internet" and LBS and wireless email and enterprise). If you have an idea, go with it.

But the smart play is to ask, which of the service areas of mobile data grows the fastest? So look not for the best, but rather look for "the best of the best". And we have the answer. no surprise to regular readers of this blog. The fastest growting sub-sector of mobile data is also the fastest-growitng billion-dollar industry of all time, and it was only launched in 2003. Yes, five years ago, nobody had written any books about this. The fastest-growing economic opportunity of today, and of all time, is ... mobile social networking. If 42% annual growth rates seem breathtaking, how about 74% year on year on year. From 2003 to 2008. Mobile Social Networking reached a billion dollars of annual revenues from zero in - get this - two years!!!!!! Informa reported that social networking on mobile was worth 6 billion dollars in 2007. My company analysis reported in January that to be 8.9 billion dollars in 2008 and that estimate may have been too low.

So while the internet based social networking services is a sad collection of cyber-beggars, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, Bebo, Flickr, Friendster, etc. All chasing the elusive ad dollar (wth registered users revolting against ads like on Facebook last year). But on mobile, its success after success after success. I mentioned Flirtomatic, SeeMeTV, Mobage Town and Habbo Hotel in this posting. There are over 200 mobile social networking services (says the Netsize Guide 2009) and many are already famous, such as Itsmy, Mixi Mobile, Cyworld, Qik, Twitter and Mogi. Some brands have successfully already launched mobile social networks such as MTV, CNN and the Obama presidential campaign of 2008. All of the classic major intenet online social networks like YouTube etc are now exploring mobile variants or extensions.

So, you arrived at my blog. Some silly Finnish ex-Nokia exec is pitching a wild story that this is the biggest economic opportunity of not just your lifetime, but any lifetime ever. And its not that the opportunity has passed, as it did for PCs and the internet - this (mobile social networking) opportunity is so new, that if someone went to university when the first numbers and facts about it were released, that someone would still be at university today and would only graduate next year...

He claims that you CAN still enter it and be part of its biggest growth stage. Can you possibly take this guy seriously? This has to be some totally deranged goof, burned out or drugged out freak, eh? But perhaps, just perhaps he MIGHT be correct. Easy to check his credentials. Claims six published hardcover books. Check Amazon (oops, the guy really does have them, and three are by John Wiley, the biggest publisher of technology books, so he's passed some severe vetting..). Claims he lectures at Oxford - the university, not the town or some other institition - and specifically on mobile services, the business of mobile, 7th mass media and yes, mobile social networking. Easy to check, a quick Google and then hop over to the related Oxford University official pages (Gosh, and he does check out, and he's been doing those courses for six years, and what, he's also moderating a "Forum Oxford" for the University which focuses on the future of mobile and for the past three years has also chaired the Oxford University Future Technologies Conference. Hey and he lives in Hong Kong? So they fly this guy from Hong Kong to Oxford for these gatherings and his short courses? This cannot be some washed out hag...)

You do not know me, you cannot take my writings here as irrevocably true. I could be telling tall tales, spinning the wildest story  But if you consider the company I keep. My books include Forewords written by Mike Short, the Chairman of the Mobile Data Association. Stephen C Jones the (past) Chief Marketing Officer or Coca Cola. Pekka Ala-Pietila who is now the Chairman of Blyk, who is the past President of Nokia. Dr Hyun-Oh Yoo the CEO of SK Communications, South Korea's biggest internet company and owner among many assets, of Cyworld. Russell Buckley the Chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association. Teppo Turkki the Strategy Director of Elisa (telecoms operator/carrier from Finland, best known for their Radiolinja unit, the world's first GSM operator also being the first digital mobile network and the one that introduced competitive cellular telecoms, the world's first SMS and the world's first paid content sold to phones).

I may have been able to fool some people some of the time. But the above details re very easy for you to verify. You do know perfectly well by now, that this Tomi Ahonen guy has to be legit. Now think, if top execs from handset makers, network operators/carriers, internet players, Coca Cola, come on, major global brands, and this industry's association chairs, receiving global recognition from Finland to the UK to the USA to South Korea; and they not only endorse this guy,but write forewords to his books, then yes, he has to be legit.

Now what? A "most respected" and clearly long-standing expert of his industry gives stats and facts that do support the view that there is an enormous opportunity here. but wait, this blogis syndicated widely, from NY Times to Business Week to CNBC etc. This story is now being read - by your rivals and competitors. If you don't capitalize on this opportunity, someone else will.

This is what I want you to do. Take a few of the examples I list in this blog story and just "spot-check" me. Did Habbo Hotel really earn 50 million Euros last year. Or did Mobage Town earn 200 million dollars. Or did AQA earn 4 milion pounds. Pick your own facts among the companies I list and do a few spot-checks. If I'm correct, there has to be independent sources that echo the same facts. Takes you 2 minutes of Googling. if my story checks out as factually true, then READ THIS WHOLE BLOG AGAIN. Now not with distrust, curiosity and doubt, but read it with an open mind. Think of this blog as your map to the hidden pot of gold. Your personal guide to the Klondyke inside the Eldorado. If his facts are solid, and the guy is respected for his BUSINESS analysis of this industry, read the blog again. LEARN.

Then stop everyting else you were doing,and make a plan for how you can tap into this opportunity. If this turly is the biggest economic opportunity of our lifetimes, then any efforts for business success that you are now doing, if that is not with mobile data, is wasting your time and effort and resources. Remember how when the PC industry was the fastest-growing industry, it propelled companies like Apple and Dell and Microsoft into the very top among the biggest on the planet; and made Bill Gates the richest person on the planet. I know many who read this blog will not feel motivated by ultimate greed, but whatever business you are in, whatever your job, your career, your ambition; the mobile data industry will bring the biggest benefit (including revenues, profits, salaries etc) and/or with the least expense (effort, resources, time) for the same result than in any other industry. And lets be serious, if you want to be in business, you have to focus on profits - if for no other reason, to ensure that your employees will not have to be fired some day when the next economic downtrun will come. Profits are essential for business to succeed. I am not suggesting abusive excessive profits. But if your company (or department or division or team) is in a healthy growing industry, it means you can also afford to pay good salaries to your staff etc.

The mobile data industry will generate bigger global giant brands, faster, that will be more sound and healthy economically, than any of the familiar internet and PC era giants like Google,. Amazon, eBay, Microsoft, Apple, Dell, Intel, Cisco, Oracle etc. And the world's richest person will not be from nanotechnology, microbiology, space tourism, green fuels etc. Ten years from now the world's richest person will come from the mobile data industry; possibly the top 3 richest will be from this area. You could be one of them...
 
And if you are interested in the "mobile social networking" part of the story, then there is an eBook about it, with 50 case studies including all mentioned in this blog article, such as Flirtomatic, Mobage Town, Habbo Hotel, except that the eBook has much more in detail and stats, facts, revenues and executive quotes. And best of all, according to the philosophies of this blog and its authors, there are free pages and several case examples to read at this link [Tomi Ahonen Pearls Vol 2: Mobile Social Networking]


UPDATE - 5 February 2010: I have written a total industry statistics update on this blog page. See the full Mobile Industry Stats 2010

Comments

[aaronchua]

Hi Tomi,

I would love to see a post on the top 10 mobile business you would go into right now if you have the time and resources : )

[izmir forum]

thanksssss

[Tomi Ahonen]

Hi Aaron and Izmir

Thank you for the comments.

Aaron - very good question, ha-ha, and I do occasionally push some ideas. About a top 10, I'd have to think ha-ha, and it would really differ a lot from one market (country) to another - eg MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators best known example is Virgin Mobile from Australia to the USA), if they are already deployed in a given country but the concept is still new, this is perhaps the best single business opportunity in the whole mobile industry space. But in markets where MVNOs have been around for years and have gone through their cycle, like Denmark, Hong Kong, Finland, Sweden, UK, etc - there is no point in attempting to get those "low-lying fruit" as the MVNO opportunity will have been "harveste" by the earlier entrants.

And also, while obviously many markets are still closed to MVNO, there are also some that seem to be on the brink but don't have MVNOs. South Korea is a good example as is Singapore, where a given MVNO has launched or announced but they do not thrive (because the industry itself quickly "closed the door" to the MVNO opportunity).

Thanks for writing

Tomi Ahonen :-)

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Excellent post !! Thanks for sharing you insights.

I work in the area of call centers. And I have a good number of clients that I would like to offer/ advertise their product on mobile, and at the same time allow the users to send SMS messages back to the company, and then respond on these messages from our call centers operators.

I have actually seen one example used by a client that has a flirtation product, and they have a gate way that seems to field these chats and put them in a queue for call center operators to respond in turn.

My question is whether there is a company or software available that can assist me manage this effort with multiple clients, first send the ads, and second, chat in an interactive format back and forth with these callers via text messages? or do I have to build this..?

A related question would be how might a simple revenue model work for this sort of service?

Thanks again for your comments.

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The overall global economy has "cratered" to use John McCain's infamous but colourful term (when he cancelled on a Letterman appearance that came to haunt his campaign

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