O2 finds people use eBay on i-mode
O2 have just released findings on what people do with their i-mode service (reported here and here). While being coy about how much they make, they are rightly pleased that people are actually using it.
What I find mildly amusing in all this is that they’re reporting that eBay is the hottest service. Well golly gosh, could that have something to do with the blanket advertising they did promoting eBay well above their own brand?
What this proves is that there is latent demand for many mobile services, but most people don’t know they exist and many people can’t make them work as the operators have put up too many barriers to adoption. Promote services that work, easily, and people will use them.
Compare and contrast with Vodafone (with whom I couldn’t even place voice calls yesterday evening) still seem convinced that mobile TV is the future. But they don’t promote it that much and they make it difficult to use. Recipe for failure?
