First feedback on mobile business ideas.
Written by: Jonathan Briggs
March 8, 2005 [4027 views]
I have looked through the first 30 responses to the last survey. Thanks to people who have put forward their business ideas. The current set include:
- Tagging patients in hospital
- Bluetooth customer information
- Live TV over phones
- Portable patient records
- Printing from cell phones
- Find an empty car parking space
- Electronic ticketing (barcodes) displayed on mobiles
- Web site monitoring
- Patient monitoring
- Mobile commerce
- Remote control for the house
- Mobile phone shop on a mobile
Some of these are better than others (and I have provided less details for the good ones to make the rest of you think). Some are not sensible because they require too many things to happen that are outside your control.
I think that m-commerce only works for products that I really want to buy immediately. Think about things that are volatile or impulse purchases. I see a poster and want to buy something then and there.
I think that most of the medical applications are quite interesting. You need to think through how they will work, security and scalability.
Ask yourself why these services have not been offered before or if they have make it clear how your idea would be better than the existing one.
Be very realistic about the additional price that the mobile consumer is prepared to pay. I can book a car parking space at the airport online but not in a general NCP carpark. Why do you think that is?
Describe your potential customers better. Many of you just said everyone or general public. Do you really see everyone as your potential customer? This will be very expensive to reach needing TV or radio.
I asked you to look at partners. I want specific companies (like Mobile 365 or Nokia or NCP) that you would work with. If you need their data you need to be sure that they have the data in the first place.
Please try and find competitors or people doing similar things. This will force you to see how your service is different or complementary.
You had some interesting questions that you need to research. They included the resolution of mobile phone screens (for automated recognition of images), interference from GSM, costs, capabilities of Bluetooth, access to data and how to link technologies together. I don’t have answers to all of these and you will need to conduct your own research.
You are not constrained in what you finally use for the exam and some of you will now want to change your proposals in the light of the comments I have given. Please feel free to fill in the survey again (as often as you would like) and I will provide more feedback once another 30 have been added.
Evaluate your mobile business idea by filling in this survey
Recent comments:
What do you think?
On April 6, 2005 at 10:48 AM, Dina wrote:
Our idea is to develop an application whereby specific consumers can
> pay utility bills via wap after registering on the utility companies
> site. This will enable the consumer to receive reminders via sms and
> automatically give an option to connect to the wap site to pay for the
> bill. Suitable for professional working people with a busy lifestyle
> and little time on their hands. Is this a suitable idea to pursue?
>
Jonathan replies: Do I want to pay my utility bills while on the move? Is it like getting your account balance from your bank or is it something that I will happily do from home or work?
You have to decide whether the mobile aspects of your proposal are sensible. You will not be marked right or wrong. Instead the quality of your thinking will be evaluated.