Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Understanding the Mobile Ecosystem
The mobile ecosystem is immense. It‘s analogous to “The Web”—very large with many moving parts and many different technologies working together. Though unlike the Web, it isn‘t a field where anyone can buy a few books, sink their teeth in and sort it out. Knowledge and information is closely guarded in the industry, making getting mobile a difficult task.
Most importantly, mobile is a controlled ecosystem, much like a drive-through wildlife preserve where animals roam free and you see them from the relative safety of your car. You may not be able to see the fence that keeps the animals caged, but it exists nonetheless.
The wireless network is the cage I refer to. Owned and operated by carriers (operators outside of North America), they’re trying desperately to prevent what happened on the Web to happen in mobile.
A Brief History
While it may seem that a mobile phone with a Web browser is some sort of modern marvel, the first WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) capable phones were introduced in the late 1990s. In fact, just as the dot-com bubble was deflating, mobile devices started to show signs of the Mobile Web to come.
Seeing websites focus on strictly inclusive experiences, overwhelming consumers with choices during the early dot-com era, the carriers wanted to ensure that their subscribers were protected for the onslaught that was to inevitably happen in mobile. Being such a limited device, they knew that consumers would leave for another carrier if they could not maintain the integrity of the their Mobile Web.
This yielded the “walled garden” of many mobile carrier services. This is the concept of creating an Eden for your phone - a mobile paradise where everything you need is readily accessible, on one condition—you cannot leave. Many carriers prohibit subscribers from accessing the Web by redirecting their quest for information to their own controlled experiences.
Why does this happen? Largely because carriers must increase ARPU, or Average Revenue Per User, by charging you for games, ring tones, videos and other mobile-only content. It is also partially due to the lack of mobile-ready content on the Web, and to the need to create a consistent customer experience.
Yet other carriers embrace the Web, by creating their own subscriber portals, known as “decks” to encourage subscribers to explore the Web instead. With little mobile-optimized content available, carriers charge subscribers by the kilobyte for loading bloated p
