Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 18 April 2008 07:50
Opinion and Analysis
Page 3 of 4
Other stats include almost 40% of Australian respondents regularly use information services, while 30% are regular users of entertainment on their mobile phones in Australia.
However, the use of purchasing MDS is lower, due primarily to the limited services currently available – and this is seemingly despite the ever growing ‘walled gardens’ of content that carriers offer – while also giving their customers the freedom to surf the web and access any other web services now available, be it YouTube, streaming media, Facebook, news sites or anything else.
Weather and news remain popular – likely because they are part of the easily accessible and properly screen formatted walled garden of content, but interestingly - entertainment, musical gigs and audio and video downloads are all growing as services people have used, but not necessarily purchased, while the growth of ring tones has actually dropped.
My personal view is that ring tones are cool, but as they’re more expensive than a digital download, savvier phone users are probably figuring out how to convert their legally – or illegally – downloaded music into a ringtone on their own.
Likewise, I believe that musical gigs, audio and video downloads probably need better pricing – i.e. cheaper pricing – and have still been limited by the capabilities of phones, although in 2007 and 2008 this is clearly rapidly changing as mobile phones rapidly transform into ever more capable and HSDPA broadband enabled “portable multimedia computers” that can download and/or stream large music and video files ever faster and more reliably – while costs for MDS continue going down, down, down.
Dr Maio Mackay explanation is that: “This reinforces the idea that when companies in the mobile space are communicating through MDS, they need to provide a mix of interaction and content that reflects both current behaviour and growing tends. For example, you might send people an SMS message and attach an audio clip, and people expect that, especially from companies with whom they have an existing relationship.”
Although almost half of respondents only use MDS for less than 10 minutes a week, the study believes that, as MDS costs are coming down, usage this is likely to increase.
On a personal basis, my usage of MDS is far, far higher than a mere 10 minutes a week, but clearly as I style myself as a technology evangelist, this is something you would expect.
So, what was a big surprise to Dr Maio Mackay when it comes to mobile data services, something that, to me at least, is absolutely NO surprise at all? And who ends up paying for phone bills? Users themselves, their companies or their parents? The answer might surprise you. Please read onto page 4.
