The Six Immutable Laws of Mobile Business

CHAPTER 4

IMMUTABLE LAW NO. 4: THE VALUE OF TIME ZONES

Let us begin this chapter with a pop quiz.

You will recall that we measured mobile content use across four distinct locations a couple of chapters ago. Please take a moment to rank how you think other people access mobile Internet content from the four locations listed below, from most often to least often:

Locations

1. Work or school.

2. While commuting between home and work (or school).

3. Home.

4. Leisure (out and about) time.

Your Ranking

1. (Most often) _____

2. (Next most often) _____

3. (Third most often) _____

4. (Least often) _____

THE MYTH OF “OUT AND ABOUT”

Usually when we conduct this exercise, our respondents’ rankings strongly reflect the notion of mobile content being used while on the move, in line with the following:

London, UK, 2005 Orange UK has developed what they call “boredom busters”— short snippets of video content designed to kill time while waiting for a bus.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2008 The global association of media publishers, IFRA, organized an industry conference with the title “Mobile Media for Content Consumers on the Move”.

Standard thinking about mobile use has focused on these types of “on the go” or “boredom buster” content, for those times in between the more important things in life we have scheduled.

However, research has shown a much different picture of where and when mobile Internet content and services are used most. Japanese consumers, for example, responded as follows:

Women

1. Home.

2. Leisure (out ...