The mobile phone offers radical commercial opportunities and all that is needed is creativity and innovation to harness them, says Tomi Ahonen, a Finnish strategy consultant and author of 3G-related books.
Ahonen was in SA to speak at the First Tuesday Vodacom Mobile Connect event, which was held at the Sandton Convention Centre last night.
Calling the mobile phone the seventh media, Ahonen says it can match what the Internet can do - and surpass it.
The advantage the mobile phone has over the Internet is it is personal, always on and has a built-in payment mechanism, he says. It is also always carried, with 60% of mobile users taking their handsets to their bedsides, he says.
The continuous, personal connectivity allows business to provide targeted messages that the user can respond to instantly, Ahonen says. For example, a dentist who has cancellations may alert clients scheduled for consultation in the near future of the opening, giving them the opportunity to get help much earlier than anticipated, he says.
Conducting financial transactions using a mobile phone also helps speed up the transaction process compared with in-person consultations, and allows the business to save on office space and staff costs, he says. It also helps business and consumers to bypass the payment problem that the Internet had where consumers had to use credit cards, he says.
Ahonen notes purchasing by use of a mobile phone is set to overtake online purchasing. In Korea, 45% of all music revenue is already being paid through the mobile phone, he says.
Another growing trend is the migration of Internet communities to the mobile digital communities. Mobile users are building communities similar to those built on the Internet, where users can play virtual games, communicate, blog and even conduct business transactions in these communities, he says.
Ahonen says while an estimated 10% of Americans are traditional bloggers, more than 30% of Koreans are already mobile bloggers.
"Mobile content is evolving from a personalisation model to a consumption model, where people can communicate and improve their lives," says Davin Mole, CEO of Exactmobile.
Mole says Exactmobile, which previously identified itself as a mobile content provider, is evolving its services to provide digital communities where people can m-blog, advertise their services or meet potential partners.
Mobile phone users in SA are ready for the migration, Mole says, pointing out that 95 000 people subscribed to Exactmobile`s service within four months of its launch.
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