At last week’s OMMA Mobile, Roger Wood from Amobee speculated on the elusive yet inevitable mobile “killer app”, claiming that it will be created by someone born after 1990. “A Facebook will happen to messaging,” he said. He’s not alone in thinking this. Kanishka Agarwal from Fierce Wireless put it thus
Early adopters we are, but our experience does not match the true
mobile generation, who most likely have carried a phone since they were
pre-teens and who are avid users of data content and mobile media services.
The idea is that a person who hasn’t grown up with the technology cannot possibly grasp all its potential. Youth have grown up with a different mindset where mobile is inextricably tied to their lifestyle
Wood, decidedly not under the age of 18, later speculated that on what that killer app would be: mobile UGC video. Youth are documenting their lives with picture phones, and increasingly on video capture phones. “Such video phones would let you do some level of a mashup, adding audio overlay send via mms,” he said, “that becomes Youtube or Metacafe on steroids.” This would create many niche channels to run highly targeted advertisements to micro-audiences, which could sustain a high CPM.
Given this proposition, carriers will look to raise ARPU through services that enable multimedia creation and communication. These services should replicate what’s been happening on the web—UGC video, mashups–but adapt them to a wireless environment. YouTube Mobile lets users watch video on the handset, while Kyte TV Mobile enables mobile lifecasting to the web. AT&T’s Video Share goes a step further, allowing users stream live video to one another all on the handset. Such data intensive apps are key to monetizing the future of mobile usage ad we’ll likely see many more in the future. But as for the killer app, ask your little brother.
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