Jul 13 2008
User Experience of ad-based mobile services
The other day I was musing over why mobile operators in India have not yet integrated text/image/voice ads with the basic voice calls, SMS/MMS or atleast with value added services? I started wondering how the more mature European market is doing on this front.
In my search I stumbled upon this interesting interview with Marko Ahtisaari who heads User Experience and Branding for BLYK, the first ad-supported Mobile Virtual Network Operator operating out of the UK and other European countries. BLYK targets 16-24 year olds and provides free SMS and voice minutes for end users in return for watching ads. So it sounds like an ad-driven model is beginning to take off globally.
The interview highlights some interesting experience aspects of an ad-based mobile service. I liked Marko’ answer to the last question: “We founded Blyk because we felt strongly that for mobile advertising to take off, you needed a company with the capabilities of an operator, but the ethos of a media company. And we think it’s important to work within existing patterns of behavior.”
I wonder what the future of mobile advertising has in store for us - Hollywood has been feeding us images of inter-planetary communication through videophone - what contextual ads will you see when you get a call at 3 am from a wrong number versus at 8 am from a tele-marketer versus an SMS at 11 pm from the cute girl across the lounge?
This could be a space for interesting innovations - if the content and context are well understood by markets and advertisers - otherwise the ads might just have a run in with future spam filters.
