Demand growing for mobile content and services

Stephen Withers
Friday, 22 August 2008 10:48

Your IT - Mobility

Interestingly, it seems there is a slightly higher demand for information rather than entertainment, with maps (31 percent), news (29 percent) and weather (28 percent) topping the future demands list.

The survey also noted substantial increases in demand for information such as restaurant guides and reviews, and TV listings.

Social networking and instant messaging has yet to make a big impact on Australian mobile owners, with only 16 percent having used such services.

Around a third of them have created some kind of content on their phones. Almost all of that subset had taken photos, but over 70 percent had created  videos or music. Half of them shared the content with others, with a fairly even split between MMS and Bluetooth. (Did you see that Apple? MMS. Can you take a photo on an iPhone and MMS it to someone else? No.)

A much greater proportion - 55 percent - said other people had shared content with them, most commonly photos. No great surprise there: my observation is that a relatively small group of people send photos to multiple friends and family members.

My main conclusion is that advertising is working for mobile content providers, even if it doesn't fool all of the people all of the time. Those TV ads for games, ringtones and wallpapers are apparently driving sales, while others (largely from carriers and phone makers) explaining the potential for using maps and other information on your mobile are presumably getting through as well.