As Mobile Web Startups Proliferate, Making Money Is Still Elusive
A new wave of mobile startup is creatively reshaping the way people will think of and use their mobile phones in coming years.
Before long today’s pocket-sized communicator will become a credit card, a photo store, as well as a user’s primary source of information from the Web.
But this vibrant incubation of new applications is missing one key ingredient: a straightforward way of turning turn technical innovation and site development into revenue.
The proliferation of smart phones, such as Apple’s iPhone, the latest Blackberries and the Palm Pre, is enabling this transformation - opening the door to more complex applications and pushing data in steady streams to mobile users.
The dramatic shift is still several years away. But several early innovators were on display at the MobileBeat 2009 conference Thursday in San Francisco.
One startup, AppStore HQ, wants to create an easier way to locate useful iPhone apps. With tens of thousands of applications available, “it’s easier to get your applications found than get a camel through the eye of a needle,” says exec Chris De Bore.
The company is starting with the iPhone and hope to expand to apps for Google’s Android and the Blackberry.
Boku has already begun turning the phone into a payment device and now boasts operations in 50 countries. Urban Airship plans an alternative way to push data to cell phones and is even working on push alerts for RSS feeds – a potentially huge market. (Apple and other phone developers have begun offering their own push technology for phone data.)
Another promising startup – Touchnote – is rooted in the real world. It wants to make money by turning cell phone photos into postcards it mails to recipients.
But making money is no guarantee. Opentable has been able to use its iPhone application to deliver dinners to local restaurants, for which it gets a fee.
But Flixster’s hope of selling movie ads into its movie location app is a work in progress. The evolution of the phone payment system is also creating confusion.
Payment restrictions make it hard to know whether to charge for a game application and make money with virtual products or to charge for the game itself, says Andrew Lacy of Tapulous.
A new wave of mobile startup is creatively reshaping the way people will think of and use their mobile phones in coming years.
Before long today’s pocket-sized communicator will become a credit card, a photo store, as well as a user’s primary source of information from the Web.
But this vibrant incubation of new applications is missing one key ingredient: a straightforward way of turning turn technical innovation and site development into revenue.
The proliferation of smart phones, such as Apple’s iPhone, the latest Blackberries and the Palm Pre, is enabling this transformation - opening the door to more complex applications and pushing data in steady streams to mobile users.
The dramatic shift is still several years away. But several early innovators were on display at the MobileBeat 2009 conference Thursday in San Francisco.
One startup, AppStore HQ, wants to create an easier way to locate useful iPhone apps. With tens of thousands of applications available, “it’s easier to get your applications found than get a camel through the eye of a needle,” says exec Chris De Bore.
The company is starting with the iPhone and hope to expand to apps for Google’s Android and the Blackberry.
Boku has already begun turning the phone into a payment device and now boasts operations in 50 countries. Urban Airship plans an alternative way to push data to cell phones and is even working on push alerts for RSS feeds – a potentially huge market. (Apple and other phone developers have begun offering their own push technology for phone data.)
Another promising startup – Touchnote – is rooted in the real world. It wants to make money by turning cell phone photos into postcards it mails to recipients.
But making money is no guarantee. Opentable has been able to use its iPhone application to deliver dinners to local restaurants, for which it gets a fee.
But Flixster’s hope of selling movie ads into its movie location app is a work in progress. The evolution of the phone payment system is also creating confusion.
Payment restrictions make it hard to know whether to charge for a game application and make money with virtual products or to charge for the game itself, says Andrew Lacy of Tapulous.
posted by Mark Boslet at 12:35 PM
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