Peter Kafka from Forbes has made some predictions, including the statement that investors in US mobile content startups are in for a nasty surprise…
Investors are betting big money on lots of mobile-content startups, premised on the notion that consumers will be using their phones for all sorts of entertainment. They’re probably right. But they’re also assuming that American mobile carriers are going to open up their digital storefronts to just about anyone who wants in–after all, the argument goes, that’s what happened in Europe. But look for the U.S. carriers to be much more controlling about who makes money off of their networks. That means deals with a handful of content owners and scant room for the little guys.
Well, those deals usually include a number of aggegrators, who then make their deals with the little guys, but it’s a valid point. Mobile content needs to be accessible by a mobile phone to be successful, and while the “walled gardens” are opening up they’re not all the way there yet, so developers have to consider how they’ll gain access to mobile phones, or how mobile phone users will gain access to them.
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