New White Paper Argues Market For Ad-Funded, Open Source Mobile Email; Is The Mobile Internet The Land Of The Free?
Regular readers will know that it’s MSG’s mission to be a thinking space for companies seeking ways to monetize their digital assets (through search, discovery and personalization), drive mobile revenues (through mobile advertising & marketing), and harness the power of empowered consumers (through social media). However, MSG is also a think-tank for companies requiring competitive analysis, a clear assessment of the marketplace and an objective evaluation of their business performance, capabilities and potential risks.
In line with this focus I’m pleased to report an increasing number of companies have sought out MSG services to research and write professional-yet widely accessible – white papers on topics ranging from semantic search to location services. (Please check back regularly. I will post this work for you to download and browse freely as and when clients give me the green light to do so. If you wish to discuss a research project, then please reach out to me directly at peggy@msearchgroove.com .)
Today Funambol, a provider of Mobile 2.0 messaging software powered by open source, has released a new MSG white paper, entitled Free For All: The Untapped Opportunity For Mass Market Mobile Email. The white paper – available for download here – expertly argues the case for a solution that is based on open source for the broadest device compatibility, and supported by advertising to foster adoption among cost-conscious users. (press release)
In the paper I also contend that the arrival of flat-rate data plans and the advance of mobile advertising strategies create perfect Petri dish conditions for companies to offer mobile email services subsidized by relevant advertising. Users are open to mobile content in exchange for the proper incentives, and mobile email – a huge untapped market that Frost & Sullivan, a research and consulting company, forecasts that global mobile email usage will increase 24 percent annually over the next four years – should be no different.
My conclusion: Despite the advance of Internet giants there is still ample time and room for many in the mobile value chain to compete and win against GYM (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) if they can deliver an engaging mobile email service for the mass market at an attractive price.
By way of background the open source approach is ideal to address the market for mobile email because, in contrast to proprietary software, it enables increased reach at reduced cost. Put simply, open source unites teams of developers working together who share a common goal to constantly improve the software and deliver the most up-to-date capabilities. This means service providers and mobile operators – even those with the most limited resources – have the capability to manage mobile email services across myriad devices without making huge investments in support. The ad-funded business model is the only approach that gives people the service they want at minimal or no cost, while allowing mobile operators and service providers to generate significant revenue.
To build on an idea introduced by Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine author of the milestone book The Long Tail, in his new book FREE (slated for publication in 2009): The winners in the webmail windfall were the companies that “made their stuff free first.” (Some might recall Google turned the model upside down and offered 1 gigabyte free to every user. Yahoo followed suit with infinite free storage. And since then each page of webmail comes with ads.) More users mean more revenue. Anderson doesn’t examine the potential impact of this “freenomics” on mobile services such as mobile email, but all indications are it will be profound.
Special thanks to Funambol for commissioning MSG to write this research and to Hal Steger for his excellent input and enthusiasm during the project.
(Disclaimer: Funambol is an MSG supporter.)
