Flickr and Yahoo underscores carrier tensions<< Diego wants off of Scoble's link blog | Main | Walkman Phone is doomed >> Michael Gartenberg | March 21, 2005, 09:05 AM Not a shocker since this deal has been quietly being whispered about for some time. What's interesting is the underlying tension that's going on here and was very apparent at CTIA last week. The carriers, having spent billions of dollars on next generation networks, only to discover they never really articulated what the benefits of wireless data over wireless voice are to consumers, are desperate to create value added services. In short, they want folks to pay for their stuff, whether that's pictures or whatever. On the other side are the fence are the folks that are offering a ton of mobile services, like Yahoo, Google, TextAmerica and the like who have very little if any relationship with the carriers and who are essentially turning them into just big wireless bit pipes, which is the last thing that carriers want. For example, do I use MMS to send a camera phone picture (assuming I know how to do that) at a charge of $0.25 per message or just email them or post them to my TextAmerica site for free as part of my fixed data plan? Do I pay high fees to the carriers to watch video clips on my phone or do I use Orb? Look for more of these type of deals and look for some interesting carrier responses real soon. |
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