國外行動加值服務經驗談

前幾天在Open Gardens看到一篇文章How I Stopped Developing Mobile Entertainment and Found True Happiness，這篇文章是Morten Hjerde寫的(七年手機服務開發經驗)，文章內容主要是在說明，為什麼他會在開發七年的手機服務後，離開Mobile Entertainment這個領域，文中提出了幾個觀點，雖然他是以手機遊戲的觀點切入，但是我覺得還是有一些觀點可參考(3,4我比較不與置評)。

1. 內容提供商是沒有品牌的，在電信業者的Portal中，是不會去強調，某某東西是哪一家廠商做的，也就是說如果用戶喜歡某個遊戲，他是無法透過你的Brand去找到公司其他的遊戲。

1. The content creator has no name
The portals will sell a game exactly like they sell any other entertainment item like ringtones or the infamous "logo"s. The portal will not say who made the game, sometimes not even the name of the game. They will market it with a screenshot.

For the developer of a game this means that you build zero brand value towards the end user. If a customer love a game, there is no easy way for that customer to find your other games. For the portal it means that they can easily switch you out.

2. 百分之90的遊戲都很爛，但是以電信Portal經營的型態來說，大部分都是短線操作，甚至有可能因為因為合作案，將一個爛的遊戲選為每月推薦，基本上這種操作方式，會摧毀消費者的信心。

2. Garbage is marketed as gold
Lets be honest, 90% of mobile games stinks. The portals decide what to market based entirely on short term profit estimates. If they got a good deal on any miserable game, they will market it as Game of the Month. Of course this totally destroys customer confidence.

3. 開發手機服務的風險非常高，通常業者只會接受已經證明過的應用。

3. Aggregators will not commit to anything new
Development risk of any mobile service is 100% on the developer. The portal may sell your stuff, but in my experience they very seldom will commit to market anything that is new and unproven.

4. 點子會被盜用

4. The aggregators will steal your stuff if they can
You may hesitate to believe this, but we could only sell services that were based on some form of technological solution that the portal could not easily duplicate. We had on staff a group of very talented designers and illustrators. Once we made a series of "background images". The portals said no, thanks. A week later one of the portals launched their own series of home made copies of our stuff.