All,
As you read this
Wall Street Journal piece, think
Mobile Warrior MVNO and state-of-the-art devices. If it wished to, PDAPhH could even be the 'carrier'. And yes, Mods could be paid!
(Emphasis added.)
--BAM
Now Everybody Can Be a Cellphone Company
By AMOL SHARMA
May 7, 2007
The National Wildlife Federation reaches out to its five million members and supporters through direct mail, the Web and email. Now it's trying something new: its own cellphone service.
The organization launched NWF Mobile in April, offering a line of phones and service plans tailored to wildlife enthusiasts and activists. The group's phones feature ringtones that croak like frogs and chirp like birds, provide updates on environmental news and, someday, will allow users to call their congressmen at the touch of a button.
"What I saw was a new opportunity to communicate with our constituents," says Greg Griffith, director of cause-related marketing at the federation. "Just about everybody is getting a cellphone, and the younger generation is using them for just about everything."
NWF Mobile is one of a host of new mobile services targeting micro-markets, tiny niches that no cellphone giant would have the time or expertise to penetrate. A California entrepreneur recently launched a service aimed at yoga practitioners -- a market he sizes at roughly 20 million in the U.S. The Chicago Bandits women's professional softball team is selling a service that provides regular text-message updates on standings and schedules, along with team photos. There's a company targeting cancer survivors, one for members of a Christian group, and one whose market is moms who are entrepreneurs: "Mums in Business Mobile."
Behind the new launches is a former
Microsoft executive whose new venture,
Sonopia Corp., allows any organization or club to start a wireless company "in 15 minutes or less" online. The company, based in Menlo Park, Calif., has
signed up nearly 900 organizations to create their own service, with relevant features, news and content for members of their respective groups.
Sonopia helps each organization design custom phones based on existing handset models from major manufacturers, and it helps the groups
lease network access from Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, to carry phone calls and data. Sonopia also manages monthly billing and customer service, though each organization's name -- NWF or Chicago Bandits -- is what appears on the customers' bill.
Most of the micro-niche providers aren't in it for the money -- and that's a good thing, considering they only get about
3% to 8% of the revenue from monthly service plans. The rest goes to Verizon and Sonopia. Instead, most of the groups use the service as a self-sustaining way to promote themselves or their causes and keep members or customers engaged.
Cellphone companies targeting much broader niches by buying network access from carriers have had mixed success. The idea was tainted somewhat by the failure of ESPN's mobile venture last year. Walt Disney Co.'s cable network shut down the phone service after struggling to find customers interested in its sports-oriented phones. Other providers have done better -- such as Virgin Mobile USA, a joint venture between Sprint Nextel Corp. and Virgin Group PLC that has built a base of 4.9 million customers largely by targeting teenage users with its pay-as-you-go service. Companies like Amp'd Mobile Inc. and Helio, a joint venture of EarthLink Inc. and SK Telecom Co., are selling high-end devices with media and GPS services, charging customers over $100 per month, double what major carriers get.
The challenge for these operators is to find a big enough market to justify their investments in marketing specialty devices and service plans. It's not clear that they will. For
Sonopia Chief Executive Juha Christensen, who has years of experience in the wireless software and handset business, the solution is to think about even smaller niches. He says businesses have yet to tap the powerful identification people have with communities, organizations and groups that share common interests.
It's still too early to tell whether his approach will work, especially when Sonopia has to share revenue with two parties. But the company says it keeps its costs down by relying on its partner organizations for marketing and keeping most of its staff in Ukraine, where labor costs are lower. While some of the organizations it works with would be lucky to sign up a few thousand customers, if Sonopia can reach a total of 100,000 customers, it will break even, the company says. Some investors are betting on the model: Mr. Christensen has
raised $21.3 million through a trio of venture firms, Cardinal Venture Capital, Sevin Rosen Funds, and ComVentures.
[Note: Sevin Rosen was Compaq's original VC; ComVentures assisted Broadcom.]
NWF Mobile offers a Motorola Razr on its Web site for $50 with a two-year contract. It sells plans ranging from $40 per month for 450 minutes to $97 for 2,800 minutes, prices that track closely with Verizon's. Mr. Griffith says the NWF phones send out text-message blasts notifying members of volunteer opportunities. Down the road, he plans to add a function that will let people press a button to call their congressmen about a pending dispute in Washington -- say, the controversy over drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Yoga Phone service, which is already live but will launch formally in June, was created by Johannes Fisslinger, a devotee of the discipline for 20 years who now runs a Los Angeles-based organization called Yoga Revolution Inc. The phones offer yoga news and blogs. Mr. Fisslinger, a 43-year-old native of Germany who learned yoga when traveling in India and Japan, says he's considering adding inspirational text messages and a video that will have a "pose of the day."
"I felt there was a need to tap into the huge yoga market," Mr. Fisslinger says. "It has huge potential."
Mr. Fisslinger is striking partnerships with other yoga organizations, such as the magazine Yoga Journal, to help market the service and provide content for it. He says the proceeds from his service will go to the Yoga for a Cure Foundation, which funds efforts aimed at improving people's "health, vitality and personal well-being."
© 2007, Dow Jones & Company Inc.
(Mobile hyperlink below; paid subscription may be required.)
Now Everybody Can Be a Cellphone Company - WSJ.com
Sonopia's Web site:
Sonopia
Sonopia on FierceWireless' "Fierce 15, 2007":
Sonopia
