I was recently in a meeting trying to convince a very stubborn old timer that mobile is the future. My first error was trying to explain the technology; my second was not mentioning the money earlier in our conversation / argument. Anyway, I was shown to the door to the echo of "I'm not into gimmicks, it's all just hype, you'll see."
Mobile porn, wireless adult entertainment, sex in a small black box, call it what you will, remember one thing it's the next big thing. We know.
My first error was trying to explain the technology; my second was not mentioning the money earlier in our conversation
On my last visit to LA I decided to conduct an unofficial survey in the nearest shopping mall. I had one question only; what is the iPhone chiefly used for. And the answer, well you guessed it, making calls. I hope you didn't think I was going to tell you that the iPhone was solely invented so that companies like Night Mobile could clean up on the mobile porn industry.
Actually, the fact remains that as far as anybody bothering to read this article is concerned that is its main purpose, to disseminate porn to the masses. There is hardly a studio, magazine or even club out there that doesn't or will not have, in the next six months or so, a mobile offering.
The question is why, what's so important about mobile and why should you be worried if you don't have a mobile offering pushing your content?
Let's look at the stats: love them or hate them, stats really drive the markets of the world. They can be manipulated of course, but then we would all be lying to ourselves. These are stats based on my own personal experience and research, so here goes:
- An average of seven percent of all web surfing is via mobile devices; these include mobile phones and devices with wireless capabilities like the iPod Touch.
- Conversion rates are constantly higher via mobile, averaging around 1 in 250 but can be as low as 1 in 150.
- People are prepared to pay that little bit more for a 3G mobile service.
- The average retention is four months.
Monetizing the above means that if you have 1m hits per month, seven percent or 70,000 of those hits are mobile surfers. That also means that 466 of these hits will convert (best case) and at an average of $25 per month you could be making $11,650 a month. That's income otherwise wasted because your non mobile site will be practically useless to the discerning iPhone user.
I'll tell you how to drive traffic cheaply and affectively another time so you maintain those conversions.
If that hasn't made you sit up and listen then, well quite frankly you can send me a check because that's money you've already written off in your heads anyway.
Japan's mobile porn market is so vibrant the networks can't handle the traffic. We are not quite there yet, but with the introduction of 4G making services that much faster, we will see a huge shift from the PC to the mobile.
You didn't hear it from me first, of that I am certain, but you better listen, take note and do something about it or it won't just be DVD sales you'll be crying about.
This isn't a gimmick, this is the future.
J.C. is the VP of Business Development for Night Mobile.