Mobile Web Europe 2008 – London
Today I chaired the panel discussion at Mobile Web Europe on Uncovering the Killer Application for Mobile Social Networking to Realise the Full Future Potential of the Market.
On the panel were: Ric Ferraro, Managing Director, GeoMe Communications, Toti Stefansson, CEO, Hexia, Dan Philips, Strategy Director, The SEA, Faraz Syed, CEO, DeviceAnywhere, Marcus Thornley, Head of Innovation, Buongiorno.
I asked the panelists to give some thought to what elements make up a killer application as I wanted to give the audience a takeaway list of “must have” key features that a killer mobile social networking application must have and the external factors that need to be in place. Another aspect I asked the panelists to turn their thoughts to was how best to monetise a Killer Application as there seem to be very differing perspectives on this. Some people suggesting that advertising is the way to go whilst others suggesting that advertising on mobile will be rejected by customers like a bitter pill.
The debate that followed was very lively with lots of audience participation and the concensus seemed to be that the killer application need to be user friendly, offer something different to a PC experience and be integrated with phones current services such as the phone book. External enablers like the cost of mobile data, larger screen sizes and longer battery life were also cited as key factors for success. As for commercial success, the panel and audience were split on whether an adfunded or subscription model would be more successful.
Personally I think the key to killer mobile applications will only be found once you have inclusive data plans, more and better optimised mobile websites and services that benefit from being used on the mobile. As for the adfunded/subscription argument – I think that it’s failing to see the inherent key benefit of the mobile environment. Mobile empowers micropayment and small per use billing removes the need for annoying adverts AND costly subscriptions. The public will inevitably vote with their feet but I’m betting that Pay-as-you-go has got to be preferable to Spam-as-you-go or Subscriptions-as-you-go!
A great conference and some thoroughly enjoyable networking…
