The Mobile Content Industry can Learn from Pornographers
January 19th, 2006 | by amarfresh |In an article on The Register today, mBlox, premium billing provider, was “called-out” for jumping on the porn bandwagon money train. Can you really blame them? After all, the “straightlaced” companies like Jamster! are tainting the market in their own deceptive way to the detriment of mBlox. Ultimately if mBlox has billing partners who are scamming customers, and not building value or long term relationships, mBlox can’t possibly see steady growth in their billing. Sure there are tons of mobile dollars being spent and there is a ton of money to be made- today. But if those dollars are spent irresponsibly, tricking people into subscriptions, and SMS services they don’t care for then there is no long-term plan for making mobile content delivery a viable business. Mblox cut their teeth in dealing with Jamster; and clearly they recognize that Jamster’s model isn’t going to help them in the long run. Porn on the other hand will.
If in this business you do manage to keep your customers without tricking them you must have something they really want. Internet marketers call it sticky content - stuff that keeps people’s attention. It is an idea that web and mobile porn firms make puns about. Porn is particularly sticky.
Ha. But true. Andrew Bud, mBlox co-founder, said this:
The porn industry, is more likely to keep its customers because its suppliers treat them well. It is not tarnished by the scams that tempt the purveyors of mainstream mobile content into abusing their customers.
Whoa! I wonder who he is talking about.