Welcome to the latest edition of Telco 2.0™ Update, the newsletter of the global Telco 2.0™ Initiative:

• Telcos’ Role in Advertising – The 5 Key Strategic Questions
• Messaging and SMS – Finding the True Sources of Value
• Telco Services Survival – More Investment in Open API’s Needed
• Mobile Entertainment & Advertising - London & NYC events in March
• Meet the Telco 2.0™ Team at 3GSM World Congress

Telcos’ Role in Advertising – The 5 Key Strategic Questions

In a Telco 2.0 world operators could be serving two customer groups who want to interact THROUGH them: 1.) Advertisers who wish to use operators as a channel for their advertising, receiving enhanced customer usage information and ad performance metrics; 2.) End Users who wish to consume content and take advantage of highly targeted 3rd party promotions, as well as use traditional operator services (some of which may, in turn, be subsidised by advertising). Unlike the current ‘1-sided market’ that telcos by and large operate within, these new scenarios enable telcos to take a central role in a ‘2-sided market’. Managing the commercial relationships with two distinct customer groups (‘upstream’ and well as ‘downstream’) is substantially more complex than simple content distribution, but there are significant growth opportunities from doing so. To prepare, there are 5 key strategic questions for operators to consider... (More)

Messaging and SMS – Finding the True Sources of Value

As part of our ‘Voice & Messaging 2.0’ analysis we’ve been researching every innovative new application we can get our hands on, looking for common themes. A skill we think most operators could do more to develop is understanding what the true sources of value are in their products. The basic misconception is that transport of the bits always constitutes the value of the service, just because that’s how we market and bill for it. This results in endless analyst reports comparing the Revenue per Megabyte of new services. This is the worst possible metric to run a network by — particularly as the opportunities to offload the transmission of “heavy” media onto user-supplied media and networks increases. In a world of open IP networks, we need to think about value in a different way... (More)

Telco Services Survival – More Investment in Open API’s Needed

It’s hard to tell whether new services and features will be successful. Value analysis is difficult. Hence the Web 2.0 phenomenon of the eternal beta product. So, should you push your own feature innovation and differentiation? Or insist on cross-operator standardisation — raising all telco boats, to the same level? The latter is probably best: the telecom industry is not about networks, but about competing distribution systems (of which networks are one component). The job of an operator is to make things operate, it doesn’t matter too much where the technology comes from. The Telco 2.0 twist, however, is that much of that commonality needs to be in the operators’ platform APIs, an area of increased interest but still woeful under-investment. APIs create option value and should be a stimulant for lots more innovation... (More)

Mobile Entertainment & Advertising - London & NYC events in March

We’re delighted to be collaborating with the GSMA on two linked events covering Telcos' role in Entertainment & Advertising: a.) a European-focused workshop in London on 29th March (part of the Telco 2.0 Industry Brainstorm) and b.) a N.American-focused event in New York City on 30th March (The Mobile Entertainment & Advertising Summit). They build on the major research programme we’ve been running with GSMA. We are currently briefing the stimulus presenters for the European event (they include VPs from BT and Deutsche Telekom) while, in New York, speakers include VPs from CBS, Yahoo!, Vodafone, enabling vendors and a special appearance from Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP... (More)

Meet the Telco 2.0™ Team at 3GSM World Congress

The Telco 2.0™ team are out in force at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona next week. At our hospitality suite in Hall 3.1 (HS 91) we will be presenting summary findings of the research and analysis we’ve been doing with the GSMA on ‘Telco 2.0 Market Strategies’, ‘Voice & Messaging 2.0’ and ‘Telcos Role in Advertising Value Chain’. Email us to arrange an appointment – contact@telco2.net.com. (More)

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© STL Partners 2007