Carriers are struggling to match the demand for data with pricing plans that keep their profits up. Over the top services like Viber and WhatsApp are causing even more pain, but 3 Hong Kong may have found a solution that would work for everyone. Read more »
Book publishers are trying hard to argue that e-books cost almost as much to produce as printed ones, and therefore prices for e-books should be higher — but the bottom line is that consumers don’t care what a publisher’s costs are, nor should they. Read more »
The top 20 Internet retailers changed their prices 30 times more often than their peers who had lower sales during the holiday season in 2011, according to BlackLocus, a startup that helps companies set competitive prices online. Its goal is to transform retail pricing with data. Read more »
I had the pleasure of sitting down this week with Bill Patry, one of the country’s top copyright scholars and a leading thinker on digital r… Read more at paidContent »
The economics of providing mobile data don’t work, and as proof we only have to look at the death of the unlimited plan. Today only 13.5 percent of operators offer a “true” unlimited plan, while 25 percent offer an unlimited plan in name only. Read more »
Ericsson released a report today about mobile data consumption today that gives a clear picture about how pricing for mobile broadband will change as well as how cultural norms will shift as wireless networks become more popular and prevalent. Check out the charts inside. Read more »
The carrier cash cow of SMS text messaging is on the wane, driven by third-party messaging apps that include BlackBerry Messenger, iMessage, Skype and others. So what will carriers do to replace it? Look for pricing changes and a focus on M2M. Read more »
Two new product offerings are trying to make you love your mobile carrier with a Facebook app and a product that allows carriers to personalize a pricing plan just for you. Will Facebook and customized pricing plans be enough to ensure loyalty and generate higher revenue? Read more »
Proving that virtual currency can be worth a good amount of real-life cash, social stock market Empire Avenue has landed $1.2 million in funding. Empire Avenue serves a unique and somewhat controversial purpose: It’s a stock market that puts a price on people instead of companies. Read more »
Carriers are preparing ways to change their pricing to charge by applications or services. And as they do, consumers will lose — namely because carriers will offer a variety of their own services that could strangle the quality of anything one might consider over-the-top. Read more »
Smartphone users are consuming 89 percent more data than they did last year, but the cost per megabyte has dropped to 8 cents. But these stats miss the subtle economics of running a network, and aren’t caught up with pricing changes hitting the mobile ecosystem. Read more »
Demand for mobile data appears to outstrip the supply of spectrum available to provide Facebook or streaming video on our phones and tablets. However, we are ignoring some very promising technological solutions that could turn the spectrum crunch into a capital spending bonanza by telecommunications companies. Read more »
As we’ve noted, the rise of LTE opens up the potential for wireless carriers to court wireline broadband subscribers. Well, even with the limitations of wireless, the comparison is valid, at least for now, according to Deutsche Bank, which studied the latest 4G offerings. Read more »
Two announcements on Monday night illustrated the yin and yang of the streaming market. Amazon announced a cloud storage drive and cloud music service, and Netflix said it would have to degrade the quality of video streams in response to bandwidth caps. Read more »
ISPs have staked out a singular public rationale: Data caps are necessary to limit the consumption of “bandwidth hogs” in order to protect the network experience for everyone else. But is this really accurate and what can the application providers do to help? Read more »
A new report says people are willing to pay more for apps on the iPad, and the gap is growing. The average price for an iPad app has risen 14.5 percent in the last six months, compared to 2.3 percent for iPhone software. Read more »
Early this morning, Apple lowered the price of the Mac mini in many international stores. Macerkopf.de points out that prices seem to have changed in all stores except the U.S. one, but that’s not entirely accurate, since in Australia and Canada they remain the same. Read more »
The MacBook Air is a bold move forward in mobile computing. It has flash storage, and real need for an optical drive. But Apple’s greatest achievement with the MacBook Air, and the thing that will have the strongest influence on its other notebooks is the price. Read more »
While Apple haters are surely whining that Apple is gouging customers with its iPad prices while getting away with huge margins, the reality is actually quite different. Read more »
According to at least one source, pricing of e-books sold through Apple’s iBookstore will not be as expensive we were initially led to believe. Many sources put the original price of bestsellers between $12 and $14, as compared to the $9.99 sweet spot offered by Amazon. Read more »
Just when you thought the iPad might be able to breathe some life back into the failing print industry, the industry itself seems dead set on making sure that doesn’t happen. Well, certain parties within the industry at least, like maybe News Corp. for instance, if […] Read more »
One of the main reasons I like buying e-books for my Kindle instead of physical ones is the price advantage. Yes, portability is nice, and I don’t have to line my apartment walls with bookshelves just to hold everything, but I still do value the book […] Read more »
Despite Amazon’s knee-jerk banishment and reinstatement of its books following a price increase of its books, publisher Macmillan isn’t the only one looking to introduce a new, more lucrative pricing structure. HarperCollins is also eager for renegotiation, and now, Hachette Book Group has also joined the […] Read more »
Verizon has made an art form of sending mixed messages, and it raised things to a new level when its top executives couldn’t decide what Verizon’s new mobile data pricing strategy should be. Will it offer bundles or usage-based plans? Depends on who you ask. Read more »
Do you remember the notion we used to have that multiple carriers selling the iPhone in the same territory seemed like a golden ticket to more options, lower prices and altogether more competitive deals for customers? Well, forget it. Ain’t gonna happen. Not if the UK’s […] Read more »
