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No MMS for Christmas   By Michael Hulme

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MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) will be a huge success! Or it will be if the need for quick profits is controlled, and sufficient thought is given to product establishment and evolution. And if we do get this right, we may well open the door to many of the more glamorous services that are still a ‘dream’ away.

Based on Teleconomy’s longitudinal studies of emergent mobile device-centred behaviours, combined with our examination of more broad-based issues of technology adoption and evolution, a clear insight is possible into the conditions for MMS adoption and its future evolution.

The youth market has been essential in the success of text messages because the ability to share experiences with fixed-cost SMS is particularly significant to the youth market. MMS has the same innate qualities for success because, as part of a ‘power package’ of voice and data information, it has the capacity to effectively translate in image, text and speech format a physical location or experience

So what does the experience of SMS tell us about MMS?

1. Rapid successful adoption will centre upon access: physical, financial and social. Physical access is obviously a priority. There needs to be a critical mass of devices capable of talking to one another, within and beyond individual networks: currently phones cannot send picture messages to other networks and this functionality is not expected until well into 2003.

Financially the enabled mobile device needs to be affordable. The high prices of MMS-enabled phones are well out of the reach of the youth market that will drive growth. Furthermore, just as importantly, connection packages need to combine simplicity with, at least initially, a high degree of affordability for the sort of quick basic services that most fit into ‘early adopter’ behaviours, encouraging messages to be sent spontaneously. The adoption of MMS is almost certain to centre round packages of spontaneous, rapid communication - what we have called ‘power packages’ – that can combine voice and data in simple pricing formats that enhance device usage at minimum cost.

Social access requires physical and financial requirements to be met, and from this point it becomes increasingly important that the new service becomes part of social lifestyle. Achieving lifestyle status drives the pace of initial adoption and encourages new or novel behaviours or usage. It is only at this stage of novelty (or sustaining cool) usage that increasingly significant profit opportunities will develop.

2. Secondly, initial adoption will almost certainly be as an extended form of communication. It will become an issue of co-presence: the ability to share experiences that is particularly significant to the youth market. So, for example, it allows a teenager in a club to maintain his or her social network in a similar manner to SMS, but with richer opportunities to share, virtualise and translate the physical and experiential presence of being in that club to their friends. The adoption of MMS is almost certainly to centre round packages of spontaneous, rapid communication - what we have called ‘power packages’ – that can combine voice and data in new pricing formats.

3. Thirdly, its evolution curve will almost certainly, by using frozen frame pictures, act as the ‘gateway’ for moving image/video and the further development of ‘power packets’.

Ultimately successful adoption is about there being a reason for use. The service must either substitute or enhance an existing format or experience. Successful adoption will ultimately depend on the imagination of the network providers to create the optimum access conditions. If they succeed they may find they have unlocked the evolutionary door to many future generations of mobile services.

This article was taken from a longer thought piece by Michael Hulme only available to subscribers of the Free Teleconomy Newsletter. To subscribe, please click here.