Location Based Services for £1.79? What does it say for the LBS business model?
By Shaun Zelber, Friday 10 October 2008 :: General :: #142 :: rss
Ajit Joakar :
This is interesting .. and makes me think ..
Just because we WANT people to pay - does not mean that they WILL .. If the observation in this blog is true, it means that many a business plan based on paying for Context will also hit rough waters (considering that location is one of the most important elements of the Mobile context)
Consider some of the paid iPhone apps from the telegraph.
Vicinity (has got good reviews etc and also GPS based with wikipedia links and so on) is only £1.79??. Is that 1.79 per month or for all times??.
As far as I can see, it's a £1.79 price as a one off charge.
Other paid iPhone apps are (from the Telegraph link above)
* Starmap Planetarium (£6.99): Astronomers and space nuts will love this - a stargazing guide that provides information about constellations, planets and even shooting stars, plus oodles of scientific details.
* Etch-a-Sketch (£2.99): Twiddle the virtual dials to start a sketch, or draw directly on screen using your finger. "Tilt technology" will be added soon to enable you to move the iPhone itself to create a drawing.
* Meal Splitter (£4.99): There will be no need to squabble over restaurant bills with this application, which precisely calculates what each diner owes based on the cost of the meal. Okay, so the iPhone's in-built calculator could do pretty much the same thing, but this takes the pain out of the entire process; it will even work out how much the non-drinkers should pay compared to the drinkers.
* Vicinity (£1.79): Takes advantage of the iPhone 3G's GPS to provide one-tap access to information about local services and amenities. It will even pull in relevant Wikipedia entries and Flickr photos.
* Band (£5.99): Compose your own music using the collection of virtual instruments.
* Stage Hand (£4.99): Control your Apple Keynote presentations using your iPhone or iPod touch, and read and review slides on its screen.
* Super Monkey Ball (£5.99): The pick of the bunch of new games for the iPhone and iPod touch. Tilt the device itself to control the progress of a monkey inside a transparent bubble. The graphics are first-rate, and the gameplay is highly addictive.
The games(super monkey Ball) seem to be valued higher as does niche apps
However, the business model does not seem to be so good based on this evidence since the useful apps like vicinity seem to be valued only at £1.79
We have all seen many many reports saying that LBS will be the big saviour, people will pay for location etc etc - and then we see a very good LBS application priced at only £1.79. This is in the same series of posts where I talked about taking the principles of better than free for mobile and also said that Google's initiatives point to a pricepoint of free for mobile applications - for instance, if we contrast Vicinity to Google maps - then Google maps on mobile is free. And although Vicinity gives us some cool features like wikipedia integration which I love - it does point to a very low pricepoint if that becomes a precedent. Further, it points to a one off price point i.e. not a monthly fee ..
This is interesting .. and makes me think ..
Just because we WANT people to pay - does not mean that they WILL .. If the observation in this blog is true, it means that many a business plan based on paying for Context will also hit rough waters (considering that location is one of the most important elements of the Mobile context)
Consider some of the paid iPhone apps from the telegraph.
Vicinity (has got good reviews etc and also GPS based with wikipedia links and so on) is only £1.79??. Is that 1.79 per month or for all times??.
As far as I can see, it's a £1.79 price as a one off charge.
Other paid iPhone apps are (from the Telegraph link above)
* Starmap Planetarium (£6.99): Astronomers and space nuts will love this - a stargazing guide that provides information about constellations, planets and even shooting stars, plus oodles of scientific details.
* Etch-a-Sketch (£2.99): Twiddle the virtual dials to start a sketch, or draw directly on screen using your finger. "Tilt technology" will be added soon to enable you to move the iPhone itself to create a drawing.
* Meal Splitter (£4.99): There will be no need to squabble over restaurant bills with this application, which precisely calculates what each diner owes based on the cost of the meal. Okay, so the iPhone's in-built calculator could do pretty much the same thing, but this takes the pain out of the entire process; it will even work out how much the non-drinkers should pay compared to the drinkers.
* Vicinity (£1.79): Takes advantage of the iPhone 3G's GPS to provide one-tap access to information about local services and amenities. It will even pull in relevant Wikipedia entries and Flickr photos.
* Band (£5.99): Compose your own music using the collection of virtual instruments.
* Stage Hand (£4.99): Control your Apple Keynote presentations using your iPhone or iPod touch, and read and review slides on its screen.
* Super Monkey Ball (£5.99): The pick of the bunch of new games for the iPhone and iPod touch. Tilt the device itself to control the progress of a monkey inside a transparent bubble. The graphics are first-rate, and the gameplay is highly addictive.
The games(super monkey Ball) seem to be valued higher as does niche apps
However, the business model does not seem to be so good based on this evidence since the useful apps like vicinity seem to be valued only at £1.79
We have all seen many many reports saying that LBS will be the big saviour, people will pay for location etc etc - and then we see a very good LBS application priced at only £1.79. This is in the same series of posts where I talked about taking the principles of better than free for mobile and also said that Google's initiatives point to a pricepoint of free for mobile applications - for instance, if we contrast Vicinity to Google maps - then Google maps on mobile is free. And although Vicinity gives us some cool features like wikipedia integration which I love - it does point to a very low pricepoint if that becomes a precedent. Further, it points to a one off price point i.e. not a monthly fee ..
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