The success and profitability of the mobile Internet all hinges on the level of personalization and intelligence it can achieve, according to Amdocs’ director for market development and strategy, Michael Breen.
Breen, who has been in the mobile industry for a decade, and having moved from the operator side of the business to the vendor side, said it was no secret mobile Internet had been going through the roof. Quoting some stats, Breen said that from 2008-2009 in APAC the mobile Internet saw a rise of 119% more unique users, 271% more data transferred and page impressions were up a whopping 459%.
“Mobile is where people are looking at the internet, but it’s not straightforward. It’s getting better but it’s still not straightforward,” he said.
With people’s attention spans waning to almost nil, Breen said it was imperative for mobile internet providers to add value and for operators to re-group, collaborate and smash down any remnants of old walled garden strategies.
The crux of the problem, explained Breen, is that there is simply so much information out there and the mobile user and his teeny weeny attention span simply can’t find it, or presumably forgets he was even looking for something in the first place.
As if this digital amnesia wasn’t bad enough, Breen also deplored the fragmentation occurring in the mobile handset industry, which he said wasn’t helping matters.
To improve the mobile internet, Breen posited, one needed to learn a lot more about the user, to learn about the user’s domain, their context, so to speak. Operators needed to gather more data on their users’ connection speed, locations, specific data plans and the context of how that user is connected.
“Build a user community. Know if your users are interested in music, games, sports or all three. Build subscriber intelligence,” said Breen adding, “behavior analysis really does have an effect.”
Services, he concluded, needed to be non-intrusive but a lot more relevant to users’ lives than they currently are. It’s a tough tightrope to walk, but if the mobile internet is going to become most people’s primary internet experience, there is no doubt that experience has a long road to improvement ahead.
See Breen’s conclusions here:
The mobile Internet, personalized, intelligent and profitable
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