Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Messaging Monetization Remains an Issue for App Providers and ISPs


Monetization long has been a key business challenge for most Internet applications, features and services. 

That is true for new over the top messaging platforms and has started to be a problem for mobile service providers who find text messaging usage and revenues dwindling. 

That remains true for mobile applications such as messaging, with the salient exception of text messaging, among the few messaging services with a clear direct revenue model.

Messaging is viewed by some as mobile's killer app. The problem for access providers is that it might prove a killer app for third party app providers, not Internet service providers. 

Text messaging, though a key source of mobile value in the past, will be so important a direct revenue generator for mobile service providers in the future, either. 

In fact, text messaging is becoming more a key feature than a major revenue source for many mobile service providers. 

In  many ways, that would fit the pattern of email, which drove adoption of dial-up Internet access. Email the feature drove adoption of Internet access the service.

That seems still to be the pattern. More than 50 percent of total commercial email opens occurred on mobile devices in the first quarter of 2013, according to Experian Marketing Services. That is another example of an indirect revenue model. 




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