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Sporkman
April 6th, 2009, 05:49 PM
Micro-Billing, Byte by Byte, Suits the World of Cellphones

By MATT RICHTEL and BOB TEDESCHI
Published: April 5, 2009

LAS VEGAS — As the music, film, television, newspaper, book and video-game industries strain to find a way to thrive in the new digital marketplace, one seems to have figured it all out.

Piper Jaffray, a market research firm, expects cellphone downloads like music, videos and games to be a $13 billion market by 2012, compared with $2.8 billion this year.

It is that trailblazer known as the phone company.

Consumers are using their mobile phones to download tens of millions of games, songs, ring tones and video programs. And they shell out money for these items, even as they resist paying for similar digital goodies online using their computers...

...“There’s been no expectation that anything would be free,” said David Chamberlain, an analyst with In-Stat, a market research firm. “The telcos have been very careful not to give stuff away.”...


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/technology/06cell.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Simian Man
April 6th, 2009, 05:52 PM
These two areas are converging as phones get more powerful and laptops (netbooks) get smaller. It will be interesting to see which camp will win out. I'm betting it's the everything-must-be-free crowd :).
Sporkman
April 6th, 2009, 05:55 PM
These two areas are converging as phones get more powerful and laptops (netbooks) get smaller. It will be interesting to see which camp will win out. I'm betting it's the everything-must-be-free crowd :).

The article makes the point that people are willing to pay if the payment mechanics is effortless, which it is in the case of the phone (i.e. it automatically gets added into your regular bill - you don't have to whip out your credit card & pay each time).

This system might be preserved, though, in the case of the new laptops that come bundled into a cellphone-style wireless plan, however (such as the new verizon(?) netbooks)...
billgoldberg
April 6th, 2009, 06:18 PM
True.

It's to hard to pay for stuff online.