Mobile Presence-Based Services $6 Billion by 2012

The value of presence-based mobile services will increase to more than $6 billion by 2012, according to Juniper Research.  Increasing smartphone penetration in developed markets, coupled with rising global usage of mobile instant messaging will help to drive the trend, says John Levett, Juniper Research analyst.

Juniper thinks the key drivers will include presence-based text message alerts and services, geolocation applications that allow people to collaorate, share location details and take advantage of local knowledge, as well as social Web applications including social networking, user-generated content, blogs and dating apps.

Up to this point, revenues from presence-based services are almost exclusively derived from operator-billed mobile IM accounts. The amount of that activity faces two contradictory trends, one might argue.

On one hand, mobile IM will tend to fare better as end user adoption of 3G or 4G services increases. Broader adoption of 3G and 4G should therefore lead to heavier use of mobile IM, which should drive higher revenues. Mobile Web applications such as IM work best, and therefore encourage use, on faster data networks.

On the other hand, operator-billed IM revenues often are based on user inability to easily use over-the-top VoIP and IM applications that do not drive operator revenues. Over time, access to such open applications will deprive operators of the ability to profit from captive IM application access.

Juniper believes there is a way to thread the needle, as mobile broadband becomes a standard service for most developed-market customers and as operators move to embrace mobile VoIP in ways that include them in the revenue streams created by some over-the-top providers.

source

fring Launches Mobile Web and IM Initiative

fring has launched of a new version of its mobile phone application that allows anyone with a compatible handset to talk, chat, and interact with other fring users on their mobile phones. Originally launched as a way to talk using VoIP, fring now is making an effort to use VoIP as a way of creating and enhancing IM-based mobile social networking.

As such, it hopes to become a mobile Internet service and community, enabling users to talk, chat and interact with other fring users in the context of their online IM communities, from their mobile phones.

fring’s new file transfer feature allows fring users to swap music tracks, pictures, video clips and other files between each other, from mobile to mobile and mobile to PC quickly and reliably without the need for multimedia message service, cable, Bluetooth, or infrared connections. And because its fring, the connection is made via the phones’ mobile Internet capability, using the already paid for data plan, so there’s no extra cost.

fring users now conduct voice sessions over the mobile phone’s data service channel, using instant messaging in place of text messaging, for example, using fring, Skype, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo! and AIM.

The new fring version has enhanced chat features including new real-time displays alerting the user of new incoming chat, real time typing indication and easier navigation between different chat windows, making for rich PC-style interaction.

fring users also can activate the fringME! Web services feature, making themselves contactable from any PC-based Web page, blog, home page, email, MySpace or Facebook pages (the Facebook capability will be available soon).

fringME! also allows fring users with GPS-enabled handsets to choose whether to have their real-time location displayed via a pop-up GoogleMap.

Mobile service providers probably are ambivalent about the new features. On one hand, fring will stimulate demand for data plan purchases. On the other hand, fring also will supplant and replace some amount of text messaging, at some point.

How do People Use Their Smart Phones?

The Nokia Smartphone 360 survey shows that mobile users spend an average of 48 minutes per day on their smart phones, says iLocus. About 12 percent of the time is spent on making voice calls while messaging consumes 37 percent of user time; multimedia 16 percent; PIM 14 percnet; Games four percent; Browsing eight percent.

Browsing accounts for 72 percent of data traffic while entertainment accounted for four percent of the traffic in 2006. That pattern changed in 2007, though, with entertainment grabbing a sharply greater share of time spent with the mobile device.

In 2007, browsing represented 44 percent of time spent; entertainment 26 percent. Messaging increased from 11 percent of the data traffic to 21 percent year over year.

Nokia assumes that messaging traffic increased because users were sending photos using multimedia messaging service, while entertainment traffic increased due to increased podcasting.

Usage also peaks at different times of day. Music usage peaks at around 8 am and then again at 6 pm, suggesting music gets used when users are commuting. Voice usage peaks around 4 pm to 5 pm. Browsing peaks at around 10 pm.

Obviously mobiles are being used at home in the evening for browsing, and the question is why the home PC is not used instead.

Nokia assumes that the mobile phone is using Wi-Fi to download Internet content. According to Nokia, podcasting also is a later-in-the-evening activity.

About 47 percent of outbound calls are made on the move. About 29 percent of outbound calls are made from home. About 24 percent of outbound calls are made from the office.

About 35 percent of packet data is consumed when users are on the move. About 44 percent is used at home and 21 percent is used at the office.

Data traffic use increased from 6 mbytes a month in 2006 to 14 mbytes a month in 2007.

Wi-Fi or wireless LAN connections accounted for 31 percent of data use while mobile access accounted for the rest of use. WiFi sessions were longer with an average session duration of 4.5 minutes.

About 31 percent of the respondents used instant messaging. Some 38 percent of respondents listen to music at least once a week. Some 47 percent of the panellists say that mobile is now their primary music player.

About 59 percent are regular gamers. "Snake" and "Card Deck" are the most popular games. About 81 percent of users regularly use browsers, and the typical user visits two sites a week.