Square peg, round hole

O2 announced this week they will be discontinuing their I-Mode offering.
Launched with a hefty advertising budget two years as the way to access the mobile internet, the offering has failed to excite consumers.
This may in part be due to handset restrictions and the closed nature of the network. But I think there’s more to it: it may simply be that browse, surf and search, which works so well from a desktop PC or laptop, is simply not the best way to experience the mobile web.

Vodafone, who have a huge campaign live at present promoting their mobile internet offering, are clearly betting that I’m wrong.

But at present a better model for the mobile internet is “subscribe & receive”: browse for interesting content from your desktop, and then subscribe to receive this content direct to their mobile. An RSS [define] model for the mobile. Like this.

Image from vrogy.

Posted by: Sam at home time on Thursday, 26th July 2007