Archive of TheNextWeb.org
Written on September 26, 2008 – 4:44 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Flirtomatic, the UK’s leading mobile social networking service announced that they’ve welcomed the millionth user this week. Not surprisingly, since the service cuts to the chase: it’s just about flirting. Most of those flirting users are British and more than half of them seduce folks via the mobile phone. Flirtomatic has just started to lure Germans into their flirting heaven.
The growth of Flirtomatic is rather spectacular. It had 225,000 registered users in February 2007, which means an almost 350% growth within an 18 month period. What’s even more interesting, is Flirtomatic’s impressive revenue growth. According to a press release, it has “skyrocketed” by 475%.
Make money with mobile
That’s fascinating, as at all the mobile conferences I’ve been, people have been complaining about a lack of revenue through mobile advertising et al. Maybe Flirtomatic is exaggerating and their revenue increased from 1 euro to nearly 500 euros. But I figured it would be worth it anyhow to ask Flirtomatic CEO Mark Curtis to share his thoughts on generating revenue via mobile sites.
Curtis: “Generating revenue on the mobile web is basically about either advertising or user payments. You can forget data revenue share with operators, especially with the - slowly growing - move to flat rate.”
Mobile advertising
Advertising? At MoMo Amsterdam, I heard Yme Bosma from Holland’s largest social networking service Hyves say that they would only think of advertising when they have millions of users. So how about that?
Curtis: “Advertising is bumpy but growing. It’s rather difficult to separate out the effect of the credit crunch on advertiser confidence from the inevitably inconsistent demand of a nascent marketplace. In other words, the revenue stream is good and getting better but is damn hard to predict.”
User revenues
So user revenues might be a more secure option? Curtis: “Luckily user revenues are easier to predict once you have some runway behind you, and are continuing to lift. It’s easy to see why: a long time ago operators put in place micro billing through handsets and users became accustomed to it through the first mobile content boom. There remains however a lot of suspicion following the dodgy subscription packages that many consumers were caught out by.” (more…)
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Written on May 17, 2008 – 6:30 pm
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
Despite being a tech geek I have not used a mobile phone more that about 10 times in my entire life (shock horror). They just never really interested me but I guess it says more about my social ineptness than it does about mobile phones.
But an odd correlation, I had the same feeling about computers as they went through the Microsoft business tools era (Word, Excel, Quickbooks et cetera), as a developer back then computers just didn’t get me going, so I spent the nineties in electronics making audio products.
Mobile live stream battle on SXSW 2008: Scoble vs. Pistachio
Despite being an early hacker on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum at about age 14, computers really only got interesting for me with the arrival of the Internet, then when broadband arrived I got ‘really excited’.
But in the last few months something has changed the landscape so dramatically in the mobile market that I see a paradigm shift similar to the above where an entirely new species of mobile device evolves which is much more attractive than has been previously seen. Obviously I’m not alone having these thoughts, as we sit here thousands of others are having the same realizations, not least those emanating from Adobe’s crystal ball.
So after teasing Sarah Lacy I’m checking out the comments of Arrington’s interview with Lacy which was streamed live through a mobile via Qik and looking through, there’s loads of trolls getting into a twist about the quality of the stream. Being a bit of an expert in the sound department, immediately I see obvious errors and solution.
(more…)
Written on April 16, 2008 – 8:00 am
Martin Kloos, Web Strategy Consultant
Every month, The Next Web Blog picks three relevant books for you to read. The teasers are short, the pro’s why to read are relevant. This month we’re discussing Mobile Advertising by Chetan Sharma, Wikipatterns by Stewart Mader, and Programming Amazon Web Services by James Murty.
Mobile Advertising: Supercharge Your Brand in the Exploding Wireless Market
If we only had to identify one trend people on the Next Web 2008 were talking about the most it was probably about the oppertunities of the mobile (social networking) market. So if you want to take full advantage of this rising market, “Mobile Advertising: Supercharge Your Brand in the Exploding Wireless Market” written by Chetan Sharma is the book for you to read. What’s interesting is that this book not only describes the history of the mobile market and the enormous opportunity the mobile market offers, it also provides a blueprint for you to exploit this opportunity. Want to take a sneak peek into the first parts of the book? You can find the preface and first chapter of the book on the website MobileAdvertisingBook.com.
“If you believe the future is wireless, then this book is a guide to that future. Simple, fact-filled, and astute.” -Om Malik, GigaOM
Wikipatterns
As a business consultant, I’m always looking for ways to improve my skills on making use of the new tools and concepts the so-called Enterprise 2.0 wave has to offer us. And I guess I found in Wikipatterns, written by Stewart Mader, a handy guide to help people make the most out of Wiki software, or collaboration tools in general. What particularly appealed to me was the practical approach of the book. It offers many useful tips on implementing wikis, from a simple pilot to large scale adoption. It also describes many interesting case studies of wiki adoption in various enterprises. Written near the end of 2007, but still relevant today. Not for techies, but for the end users who are planning (or working on) wiki adoption within their organization.
Programming Amazon Web Services: S3, EC2, SQS, FPS, and SimpleDB
I’m not a programmer, but one thing I realized during The Next Web Conference is that íf you are planning to built a global start-up, you should built it on cloud-computing technology. Or do you really really want to waste your venture capitalist’s money?* It looks like Amazon has just the right platform for you to do so (or perhaps you are planing on building on Google App Engine). Programming Amazon Web Services written by James Murty seems to be just about right to get you started with building your small to medium-sized platform on Amazon’s AWS. Nothing more, nothing less but invaluable if you want to realize a scalable platform that pleases our VC’s.
* anyone counted how much this phrase was used during the conference :-)
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
