Livewire: The Communications, Media and Entertainment Blog

In-app billing seems to be the hottest thing since then developers are looking at other revenue stream other than ads. In-app billing is billing from within the application you are using on your mobile device. In- app purchase gets triggered when an application enables you to play or listen or view something (such as a game download) on your mobile for a period of time or until you reach a certain threshold when you have to buy the full version. It is a kind of a 'try before you buy' scheme.  Some examples of In-app purchases are buying virtual goods, currencies, additional game levels , subscriptions to digital magazines or newsletters.

As consumers, most of us try and then buy clothes. This is the very similar concept in in-app billing. Heard about Farmville? There are millions of consumers who were farming their virtual farms for long days and nights. The developer Zynga had an in-app billing concept to ensure the consumers stickiness. The advantage to the developer is the consumer had already tasted the pinch of the product and it would drag the consumers to buy in the full version.
What is more crucial to the developer is where to have the in-app billing in place. It can be in
 
Content - Digital content which can be delivered within the application
Functionality - unlock additional functionality within the application. For instance, game levels can be unlocked by in-app purchase.
Subscriptions - Subscription renewals to content or services.

Even though in-app billing can be a new revenue stream for developers, it has its own grey areas. The IAP (In-app Purchase) might have a simple Interface, however consumer has to learn on how to send text, click a buy button, etc to invoke IAP. The real challenge for the developers is when they build a simple interface to show the description or any status messages, they had to look for right place for it in their applications. The positioning of the IAP matters the most to make the IAP app successful.

Letting users download an app for free and pay later through an in-app purchase of additional content has proved successful in other app store like Apple who started the in-app purchase model  in October 2009.In my opinion, it will be a significant revenue generator for developers using the App Store.Sooner we will be seeing more developers get into this concept of monetization. Where to stand in future is a complete choice of developers!

Posted by Arun at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

WebEx, remote desktop, MS-Office, overnight trip to client site, very usable on an airplane to do emails and review spreadsheets, and works even more beautifully in the meeting to make presentations, uses cloud storage for the documents you need; managing traffic disruption, reviewing bid slides and sending a tweet to the airline and getting an instant reply. Sometimes social media works magic, than trying to contact the call centre. And it is light on the bag too. Well, it is not the mini laptop we are talking about. It's the tablet, pioneered by the iPad. And if you think this is a concept scenario, it is not. This one is taken from a recent real life experience.

And in case any one doubts that tablets will become a truly enterprise device, check out the Gartner Top Predictions for IT organizations (http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1480514). "By 2013, 80 percent of businesses will support a workforce using tablets"

Setting up the device itself might be an obnoxious exercise - Procuring Micro Sims, setting up iTunes accounts, adding apps with a credit card and etc etc. Not an enterprise grade experience. Strikes me that we could do with a   managed fulfillment service.

But why tablets cannot replace laptops?

• Lack of a real keyboard makes it challenging
• Limited storage
• Size of screen
• Security and interoperability of enterprise applications

I could only think of the basic differences at this time. They are like sports convertibles - do it with style and panache, but it's not a car for every need.

Having said that, all the negatives can be turned around quite easily - just need a dose of creativity and innovation. Haven't we after all evolved from the X86 to the PC to laptops. They demanded a change of perception more than anything else, and change is something which always encounters resistance. Helps provoke the realization that we do not just buy devices - we need to adapt to new innovative ways of working, new apps, newer personal ways to engage with customers.

The most striking part of using a tablet in front of a customer is the relative intimacy. Highly open and personal, we are moving away from the clichéd 'across the table customer v/s vendor' to a more rich form of communication and at the same time oozing innovation. How much is the highly open, personal and innovative communication and relationship building during a RFP or a quarterly review worth to the organization? The price of the device? No. The price of investing in innovation customers can relate to? Yes.

Mobility is transforming the globe, the way businesses are being done. Who is going to catch the train early is yet to be seen, but the ones who do, will reap the benefits. Game changer, this one?

Posted by Mrinal Somani at 7:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

More often than not the clichéd term "Digital Divide" is used to denote lack of inclusion of rural populace in the internet and mobile revolution sweeping India. However what has created the media buzz (or the lack of it) is the uptake of DTH services in India. Hold your breath - rural population is the major growth driver of DTH with rural areas registering over 50% growth rates.

In another interesting move, a major Korean white goods manufacturer has announced to launch a television with an inbuilt DTH decoder, targeted towards the rural market. The target group of the company is approx. 40 million TV households which do not have cable or satellite connection.

As per various analyst reports the number of TV households in India stands at 124 Mn - 130 Mn depending upon the report you like to go with. Out of these 124 Mn - 130 Mn households approx 30 Mn are digital; DTH or addressable cable and the rest are analogue. With 65% of Indian population still residing in rural areas, the opportunity for DTH to grow is huge.

Another factor that will fuel the growth of DTH and the digital cable TV in India is the MIB's (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting) consideration to sunset analogue cable distribution in India. The deadline to sunset analogue in India has been put at around Year 2015.

This will have far reaching implications on different stakeholders in the entertainment value chain.

For the economy it will mean additional tax collections by way of Service/Luxury/Entertainment taxes, since digital being an addressable system, the number of subscribers cannot be underreported by the cable distributor.

For the broadcaster it means better subscription revenues and less dependence on advertising revenues alone. This will help broadcasters to offer rich content and make investments in producing/acquiring content that matches global production standards.

For small broadcasters who cannot afford premium carriage costs charged by cable distributors for carrying such channels (since analogue cable systems cannot offer channels beyond a certain limit), it opens the window for wider distribution of such channels.

For viewers, it ensures more variety, better picture quality and the ability to choose what they want to view.

Not to mention, this growth will have cascading effect in augmenting ancillary businesses such as pre and post production facilities. This will not only create employment opportunities but also spur the demand of specialized talent in creative and technical areas thus necessitating the need for establishing institutes imparting these skills.

Let's tune in to the future bulletin...

Posted by Himanshu Agarwal at 6:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Recently towards the end of Year 2010, a survey of 10 newspapers was conducted by an independent organization, representing North South East and West of the country. What emerged from the survey was quite startling; rural news is below 4 per cent of the total news coverage on Indian press.

The figure 4% when seen in isolation can paint a very dismal picture, however what needs to be analyzed are factors that inhibit newspapers from covering news from the hinterland.  Let's briefly touch upon some of these factors and possible solutions.

Lack of news bureaus at district or sub-district level -  From a cost perspective, it's prohibitive to appoint News Bureaus at each district and sub district for collection and distribution of news. It's a huge capital expenditure to set up multiple news bureaus at each district, appoint them with human/technical resources and associated infrastructure to support the resources.

A probable solution will be to co-locate news bureau with other news agencies/electronic media or if the publication has an established news bureau at district/sub district, it can amortize the news collection cost vide its syndication. Vice versa it can license syndicated news feeds, without incurring capital expenditure, from other publications/news agencies/electronic media having their bureaus at these districts.

Positioning of the Newspaper - Politics as a subject occupies the major space in a newspaper followed closely by Business and Economics. Considering the fact that most newspapers service urban and semi urban population, rural coverage is not a very interesting proposition for them. Instances of political violence, local elections or major protests reported from hinterland are the ones which usually make it to the newspapers.

Also a newspaper may not like to be positioned as one which appeals to a class of people who are interested in news from district/sub-district levels. This may hamper the perception of the newspaper to its large national advertisers thus effecting considerable revenues.

However there is a certain class of people residing in urban areas who would like to consume news pertaining to the hinterland. These are the people who've migrated to urban areas for better prospects and would like to be connected to their place of origin.

For a newspaper to satisfy the content needs of this class of readers, it can enable a wider coverage of rural news on its website. Alternatively the newspaper can launch mobile subscription packs specifically covering news from hinterland. The packs can be in the form of plain vanilla text SMS, Audio/MMS clips or a neat mobile application that can be customized to serve rural news.

Lack of rural coverage by mainstream media players opens up lot of opportunities for VAS content organizations to fill this gap.

Posted by Himanshu Agarwal at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

For the much touted Mobile Number Portability aka MNP, the stats are out: launched nationwide on 20 Jan 2011, out of 750 million plus mobile subscribers, less than 5 million have opted to change their Service Providers. In percentage terms it's less than a percentage of the subscriber population.

Hyped a lot vide the marketing monies spent on MNP campaigns by various Service Providers featuring silver screen glitterati and discussed at length on various business and news TV channels; in sheer numerical terms MNP turned out to be a damp squib.

However it may be too early to write off MNP. MNP is not similar to a one time promo scheme that its effectiveness can be gauged by sheer numbers. It's a policy that shifts the balance of power in the hands of subscribers. It gives subscribers a tool to show discontent to their existing Service Providers.

Some reasons that have so far contributed to low uptake of MNP are:

1. Lack of wide scale subscriber education. Subscribers are still not clear on the modalities to change their Service Providers.
2. Huge numbers skew in favor of prepaid subscribers and the demographic profile that forms the prepaid subscriber base. Especially the youth who are not chief wage earners, do not put lot of weightage on the value of retaining their existing numbers. Value for money tariff plans are a huge influencer for this segment of users.
3. Not much differentiation in the tariffs and the service levels provided by Service Providers, since telecom is a highly regulated industry in India.
4. Not much differentiation in VAS content and offerings across Service Providers. The same set of developers/publishers/aggregators make their content available across various Service Providers thus enabling effective monetization of their content. Sometimes the content offered by a particular Service Providers is exclusive to its subscribers, but exclusivity is limited to a few weeks or month's time.

Though it's not even three months since the introduction of MNP, it's difficult to put a verdict to it. It's a welcome introduction by TRAI and will go a long way in ensuring better quality of service to subscribers.

Posted by Himanshu Agarwal at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)