By Jayakishore Bayadi
What’s hot now? A friend of mine asked. Christmas is around the corner; climate is chilly, what’s really hot then? Slowdown miseries? May be. I really wonder. Yet, I believe this is the time to build some thing new without worrying about sales part. If you build some thing great, you can sell it when situation turns around.
Leave that apart. Indian governments recent announcement of launching 3G in India is certainly true opportunity. So, what could be the next 'killer application' that could drive mass to go for 3G? In Japan it was the video telephony and downloading music. Will it repeat in India? Well, I believe imagination is only the limitation.
I can bet 3G is an opportunity creator driven by massive broadband penetration, which is extremely good for India. Perhaps it will single-handedly achieve far more in terms of bridging the digital divide than any other measure or policies. You might know at speeds that are almost 10 times the existing technologies 3G could change the very reasons for which we use the tiny pocket device! According to industry pundits, 3G could pour huge opportunity for mobile applications development for entertainment, and for segments like video broadcast and data-intensive services such as stock transactions, e-learning, and telemedicine through wireless communications, and advertisement.
Killer applications need not be entirely new ones. Novelty lies in how the Web apps can be brought into the mobile space. Hence 3G can be an extension of Web 2.0 applications on the PC to the mobile space. I hope bright minds spot opportunities right here. As 3G services will bring better video quality and faster Internet access that will enable easy viewing of advertisements, entrepreneurs can envision the opportunities to build innovative Internet advertisement platforms and applications suitable for the mobile space, just as they built it for the Internet space.
I spot here an excellent opportunity for carriers, ad platform developers to make good money. Also advertisers can reach maximum audience (can be targeted audience) for their ad and mobile users to get their services for relatively cheap! Idea is simple. My gut feeling is that what if carriers offer some discounts to its mobile customers to accept ads they receive via carriers? It’s like sharing the ad revenue with mobile customers. Hence carriers can some extra money from ads. Advertisers can reach maximum-targeted audience. Obviously, developers will gain once the whole ecosystem starts functioning. Consumers can get service for much less cost, provided they are ready to spare some time on viewing ads.
Well, this won’t so rosy as we imagine. Still it could work.
Let me know your opinions on this.
(Taken from my regular column in siliconindia Startup city. Click the heading to go to Siliconindia)
