Open Gardens

Wireless mobility - Innovation - Digital convergence - mobile web 2.0

 

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by Ajit Jaokar and Chetan Sharma

About Open Gardens

Open Gardens is published by futuretext

Recently, the OpenGardens blog was rated amongst the top 10 mobile blogs as per technorati stats.


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About The Open Gardens Blog

I (Ajit) founded the blog on May 26, 2005 based on my vision and philosophy of OpenGardens i.e. the philosophical opposite of 'walled gardens' especially as applicable to the mobile data industry.

Today, the OpenGardens blog is one of the few blogs that span both the Web and the Mobile domains.

The blog covers wireless/mobile applications, open networks and mobile web 2.0. My vision behind the OpenGardens blog has been :

  • The blog is about the Mobile data industry and Digital convergence('Mobile web 2.0')
  • Analysis is more important than story/controversy. I don't believe that bloggers are true journalists. The blog is not about the latest 'story' but it's more about independent analysis/viewpoint
  • The OpenGardens blog is broadly about opening up the networks, growing digital usage and digital businesses i.e. we don't advocate closed networks, broadcast media etc
  • It is about disruptive digital technologies

Founder and Chief blogger : Ajit Jaokar

Ajit Jaokar is the founder of the London based publishing and research company futuretext (www.futuretext.com) focussed on emerging Web and Mobile technologies -including Web 2.0 and Mobile Web 2.0.

His thinking is widely followed in the industry and his blog, the OpenGardensBlog (www.opengardensblog.futuretext.com), which was recently rated a top 20 wireless blog worldwide

In 2009-2010, Ajit was nominated as part of the Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Internet by the world economic forum. He hopes to use this opportunity to further extend the pragmatic viewpoint of the evolution of Telecoms networks in an open ecosystem.

(Note: The Network of Global Agenda Councils plays a significant role in shaping the global agenda by monitoring global issues and elaborating recommendations to address them. Each Council, comprised of 15-20 Members, serves as an advisory board to the Forum and other interested parties, such as governments and international organizations. The Global Agenda Councils also act as the intellectual drivers of the World Economic Forum's Global Redesign Initiative, an unprecedented international, multistakeholder and multimedia dialogue that aims to develop a 21st-century vision of global cooperation. Members of the G20, the UN and other International Organizations have pledged their support for this initiative. )

Ajit is best known for his books Mobile Web 2.0, Social Media Marketing. Two new books ('Open Mobile' and 'Implementing Mobile Web 2.0') are being released in 2009.

His consulting activities include working with companies to define value propositions across the device, network, Web and Social networking stack spanning both technology and strategy. He has worked with a range of commercial and government organizations globally including The European Union, Telecoms Operators, Device manufacturers, social networking companies and security companies in various strategic and visionary roles

His recent talks and forthcoming talks include: CEBIT 2009;MobileWorld Congress(2007, 2008, 2009); Keynote at O Reilly Web20 expo (April 2007);Keynote at Java One; European Parliament – Brussels – (Electronic Internet Foundation); Stanford University's Digital visions program;MIT Sloan;Fraunhofer FOKUS ; University of St. Gallen (Switzerland); Mobile Web Strategies (partner event of CTIA in San Francisco)

Media appearances include BBC – Newsnight – 3phone launch; CNN money; BBC digital planet

Ajit chairs Oxford University's Next generation mobile applications panel and conducts a course on Web 2.0, Social networking, Mobile Web 2.0 and LTE services at Oxford University.

Ajit lives in London, UK, but has three nationalities (British, Indian and New Zealander) and is proud of all three. He is currently doing a PhD on Privacy and Reputation systems at UCL in London. Ajit is a fan of animation especially Tom and Jerry, Tintin and Asterix and likes the music of ZZ Top and other rock bands

You can contact me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com

You can follow me on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AjitJaokar

See a video of my talk at CEBIT in Hannover
(intro in german - presenttion in english)

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May 29, 2005

Show me the money!

jerrymc.bmp

If weblogs have a patron saint, I guess the patron saint of this blog would be Jerry Maguire – with his trademark phrase – ‘Show me the money’

Having spent a lot of time trying to understand how to ‘sell’ mobile applications(wireless applications) – I keep being reminded of this phrase often

Selling a mobile application is not an easy task and requires an understanding of multiple disciplines – technology/sales/channels to market and so on.

Its often possible to ‘sell a mobile application’ but make little money!Here is an example -

Consider mobile gaming – a ‘hot topic’. How many game downloads would it need to attain a profit?

The Mobile game industry is similar to the PC or console game market. Traditionally sales are heavily skewed to the top ten titles, and in many cases the top five take a huge portion of the entire market. Most titles lose money. Net margins for Mobile operator and aggregator distribution models (for example using aggregators like Cellmania, Mforma etc) run from 60% to 75% in the USA. In other markets, it could be worse (for example India), or better (for example Japan and Korea).

In the USA, a game typically retails at $3.99 (for an ‘over the air/OTA’) delivery. Product development costs for a single player game title could range up to $40K including handset testing and porting (but that could get a lot cheaper if developed overseas). Assuming a net of $2 after all costs, we need sales of 20,000 units just to break even. This gets even worse because many successful titles depend on a brand – for example a ‘Harry Potter’ game. Brands have their own costs leaving even less for the developer.

Does that mean there is no money in this field?

Although mobile games themselves are saturated, there is money in variants ..

3D gaming(technology variant), multiplayer gaming(communities), games for women(subsector of the audience)

In a nutshell, the ‘obvious’ approach would be to create a game single player game (just because there are so many of them) .. but it may not be the most profitable (and our patron saint would frown on it!)

Example source: OpenGardens

Movie : Jerry Maguire : 1996

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Filed under: OpenGardens — ajit @ 12:10 am

2 Comments

  1. ajit,
    while i think gaming is a growth market, but also a crowded market, mobile gambling is something that will explode… particularly in light of the change of laws in gambling being proposed..
    i know of quite a few application providers who are already up and running with applications..
    in terms of ‘breakeven’, i dont think mobile applications are any different to conventional applications.. in conventional software applications too you need to work out cost of development and see how many units you need to amortize this over to recover your costs..
    and the same applies for ASP services too.

    Comment by yadu — May 29, 2005 @ 10:26 am

  2. Hi Ajit
    Nice Blog, I think it means there may be less money than some think and your right, there may be more in a niche.
    Show me the money and I’ll show you more!
    Regards
    Charles McGill
    Founder/Chairman
    http://www.netaid.co.uk
    cmcg@blueyonder.co.uk

    Comment by Charles McGill — May 29, 2005 @ 11:48 am

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Open Gardens is published by futuretext