Making Money from Content

Just read this article in Mashable, “How Startups are Using Social Media for Real Results”. The basic premise: startups should make social media the centerpoint of their communication tools, as it’s cheaper.

Can’t argue that. However, it got me thinking of other ways that startups can take advantage of Social Media that weren’t noted in the piece.

Using social media as a coherent and actionable approach to updating investors and the investment community (especially if you are a public start up) can save an incredible amount of time for the senior team as they deal with ensuring that the messages are always clear, and consistent.

Educating and training your supporters on where, when, and how to find the information is critical…and as the piece suggests, requires a great deal of commitment. But the opportunity – not to mention efficiencies – far outweighs the short-term challenges and provides a great outlet for idea mashing and just as importantly feedback.

To answer my own question here: no, results and social media are not an oxymoron. We just need to help people define what real results should be viewed as.

News just came out today from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that 24 mobile carriers from around the world are going to unite together to produce an international application store called the “Wholesale Applications Community.” It’s an obvious reaction to Apple’s iTunes application store which has a stringent review policy before any application will appear in its online store. For example, Apple has strict rules about pornography and profanity in its applications, but we’ve seen them relax those rules in certain cases.

Can this idea really work? Can 24 carriers along with three device manufacturers operate more smoothly than just a single device manufacturer?

My answer: Good luck.

I’m sure when the announcement was made there were cheers all around. Execs were slapping each other high five and saying to each other, “Watch out Steve Jobs.” And then as soon as everything calmed down, they all said to themselves, “Oh shit.”

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I can’t make heads or tails of this, but the cost of mobile applications varies widely between different mobile platforms, or sometimes not at all. There’s no consistency. It’s all over the map. For simplicity, I’ve decided only to compare iPhone vs. BlackBerry applications.

Let me show you some examples:

BlackBerry app more expensive than iPhone app

iPhone/iPod

BlackBerry

iPhone app more expensive that BlackBerry app

iPhone/iPod

BlackBerry

iPhone and BlackBerry app priced exactly the same

iPhone/iPod

BlackBerry

While both BlackBerry and iTunes have many free apps, only iTunes seems to have inventory of $.99 apps. With BlackBerry, after free, the applications cost $2.99 and up. Most wouldn’t think much between $1 and $3, but that is THREE TIMES AS MUCH.

A few top selling $.99 iPhone applications

In this sample I only looked at games, not productivity applications. When you get into that space the price varies even more widely, especially when you start comparing Windows Mobile applications which back in the day could cost hundreds of dollars on Handango. Now productivity applications have come down to a more reasonable arena of about $29, but it’s still violently more expensive than other applications. I’m just confused as to why the pricing of the mobile applications have no rhyme or reason to them. I don’t track the gaming market that closely, but I can say that when a game is released on the three major platforms (XBOX 360, PS3, Wii) it’s priced the same. So why isn’t it the same for mobile platforms?

Possible explanations for the complete inconsistency in mobile application pricing:

• Who cares? It’s usually less than $5.
• Nobody is deciding between an iPhone or a BlackBerry app. They’re deciding whether they’re going to get the app at all, so they never compare prices on other platforms.
• The cost of applications is never a deciding factor when purchasing a mobile device.
• Pricing for mobile applications is far from settled. We’re all still in a “figuring it out phase.”

Got some other explanation? Let me know.