• Editorial: Looking For The Next Mobile Gaming Killer App [08.13.07]

• The mobile industry has been disappointed by the large gap between voice and data ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) and the failure of first-generation content to close this gap. Today, all forms of content downloads comprise less than two percent of mobile revenue. And only five percent of mobile users have downloaded a game, with many of them failing to make a repeat purchase. Research findings suggest a lack of public awareness, deck visits, deck purchases, and repeat visitors making repeat purchases. The bottom line is that the public won't take time to figure this out by themselves, and they won't spend hard cash on unproven content offers that merely provide another way to kill time. They want it to be easier and they want it to mean much more to them, or else they will continue to go elsewhere with both their time and money.

  Perhaps a more glaring illustration of the problem is that the last several years of mobile content have produced exactly zero killer apps. And yet in this same time period, the dotcom bubble that seemed flattened and dominated by AOL and Yahoo! came back from the dead with several killer apps, ranging from MySpace to Facebook to NeoPets to YouTube, with hundreds more now venture-funded and on the way.

  Why can't mobile be more like the Web? Well, it can. We just need to repeat the lessons that were learned from SMS, the first mobile killer app, which followed the Internet principles of social value and viral spread. Let's look at another form of content for insight: coffee.

  I believe data ARPU can catch up with voice, closing a gap that is around $300 billion worldwide. An industry veteran joked to me once that this would require a giant leap in Gross Domestic Product in the economies of many lands. This worried me, but then I thought about Starbucks. They closed a similar gap with their customers.

  Starbucks entered a mature beverage industry and added personalization and a warm social environment to the mix, and socially-starved urban consumers literally lapped it up. A consumer that finds the coin to visit Starbucks three times per week will be spending as much as they do on their mobile phone bill each month. But closing this gap is not about conventional content in the same way that Starbucks is not really about the coffee.

  People need new ways to connect with friends and meet new people. And there needs to be a simple method that enables them to spread virally. SMS became one of these, and it is the major component of mobile data revenue today. Consider that most people learned how to SMS from someone else. The same demand and viral spread is driving killer apps on the Web.

  It also helps if these services are emotionally-themed and have a sense of place - a key with both real and virtual locations ranging from your local Starbucks to the NeoPets Website. There's nothing wrong with functional communications pipelines like voice, SMS, and IM, but when you provide a context that gives people an excuse to congregate and something to do and talk about, they will find deeper meaning and spend more money.

Next: DChoc Café

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