It often is hard to envision precisely how a service provider can combine its current suite of communications services with applications in ways that produce incremental revenue. It isn’t easy. But Telefonica (News - Alert) provides a couple of examples. Sometimes what a service provider needs is a willing partner.
Telefonica, which formed a new business unit, Telefonica Digital, to develop application-driven new businesses, has announced mobile content deals with social media provider Twitter (News - Alert) and augmented reality startup Layar.
Twitter has now integrated application programming interfaces from Telefonica’s UK mobile operation O2 (News - Alert), which let users on the O2 network send photos to Twitter through the phone’s multimedia messaging service.
Once taking a picture, users can now send those pictures directly to their Twitter accounts by associating their mobile number with their account (through the Twitter account settings) and then sending the photos to a specific short code, 86444. The revenue model? O2 gets to bill for a message at the O2 MMS rate.
The intended user if a subscriber with a feature phone, since smart phones have access to apps that allow users to post images to Twitter.
Twitter already had deals in place with operators to enable SMS-based tweet posting, and many also offer an option in which users get free texts with any direct messages and @ mentions from other Twitter users.
For Telefonica, the attraction is potentially mean more revenues from MMS traffic as well as more stickiness: getting users to reach for their handsets to post pictures immediately. For Twitter, the linkup means Twitter’s user base has another way to participate, without technology limitations.
Bluevia, the Telefonica developer platform, expects to provide the functionality across the mobile company’s entire footprint globally.
Telefonica also will be using Layar’s technology as part of its “IRIS” project, “to develop a service that provides information related to an object just by taking a picture of it,” according to the release. That service, which works on products, posters, logos and other images, can potentially be used for advertising and other kinds of marketing, which provides one potential avenue for monetizing the service.
What both initiatives illustrate is the effort to build new apps directly on the core communications platform, leveraging relationships with other partners who have a clear business reason to use those communication features.
Gary Kim (News - Alert) is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Gary’s articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by Stefanie Mosca