Verizon Personalizes Broadband, Video Packages

With a maturing market, service providers often find themselves facing different marketing challenges than in a younger, faster-growing market.

Though it has been emphasizing triple-play packages for some time, Time Warner Cable now will devote new effort to "broadband only" single-play customers, in part because most video customers seem unwilling to change providers just to get broadband services from a new provider.

Likewise, Verizon now is offering packaging with more variety for its triple-play prospects and customers as well, essentially offering end users to emphasize either broadband or video, rather than having to buy linear packages that essentially offer a "good, better, best" approach that assumes all customers value video and broadband equally.

In other words, a consumer really wanting the best broadband, but less interested in video variety, can buy a package built that way. Likewise, a consumer that wants the maximum video variety but is less concerned about broadband speed can buy that way as well.

It's hard to tell what the recurring revenue impact will be, but the customer churn should be lower. Verizon’s broadband packages increase by $5 for each 10 Mbps increase in speeds, while video packages increase by $10 as they step up from about 200 channel to nearly 400 channels.

"Choice" long has been one of the most-powerful marketing concepts. "Personalized" has likewise become key. Verizon seems to be wanting to reflect those values in its packaging.

Verizon’s Bundle Builder

Mobile Will Need to Become an "App Platform"

For European mobile operators, the next phase of business development will be about mobile service as a platform for web and other applications, displacing a more-recent phase where success hinged on new data revenues, smart phones, reducing operating costs and raising average revenue per user, says Declan Lonergan, Yankee Group analyst.

Clearly gone is the period where success could be built around text messaging, voice revenue and minutes of use.

Some executives rightly will be concerned, if only because the next phase of growth will depend on the ability to create a new revenue platform based on access and other elements of mobile service that can be sold to business partners, if not directly to end users.

Mobile Will Need to Become an "App Platform"

Apple iMessage Will Act Like BlackBerry Messenger

Apple's new iMessage service will act in a manner similar to BlackBerry Messenger. Depending on your point of view, that is a major alternative to carrier-provided text messaging, or not a factor. iMessages will be sent using the standard data connection, and could replace a text message, so long as the recipient also is on an iOS device.

So iPhone owners who are able to send iMessages to the people they most often text with might find the feature quite useful. Such users might be able to pay text messaging plans that save them money. Others will simply find they don't want to think about "how" to send a message. Also, lots of users are on unlimited texting plans in any case, so the "savings" actually aren't there.

Apple Attacked Mobile Carriers Today, But Also Gave Them A Gift

Apple's iOS 5: No More Syncing to a PC

With iOS 5, Apple finally has moved device set-up and updates away from the need to connect to a PC to accomplish such tasks. One assumes that eventually will happen with iPads as well.

Apple also has integrated Twitter, providing a single sign-on for Twitter use on the phone, and with any app you download, it will just ask you for Twitter credential permission.

There’s no need to re login. The practical advantages are that photos, maps, YouTube videos, web content and location details can be sent directly from inside the applications.

Twitter photos and @usernames can be autopulled into the phone’s contacts.

Apple's PC-Free iOS 5 Coming This Fall

"No Ads" for iCloud Email

However Apple sees monetization of iCloud, "ads" does not seem to be among the approaches. While discussing Apple's free, new iCloud email service, CEO Steve Jobs said the new email service would not feature advertising.

"We build products that we want for ourselves, too, and we just don't want ads," said Jobs.

Read more here

Mobile Social Networking Grows 10%

The frequency of mobile social networking grew about 10 percent between the three-month period ended January 2011 and the three-month period ended April 2011, according to comScore MobiLens data.

Some 28 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers accessed a social networking site via mobile phone in April, compared to 25 percent in January.

Mobile Social Networking Grows

New Apple iOS Features

For some of us, Apple's new iCloud services are more interesting than updates to the Apple iOS, but there were new features announced at the same developer meeting where iCloud services were announced.