"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
Benjamin Franklin
- Colpanic's right. It's not necessary to route any multimedia asset through a short code. That's incorrect.
- You need more than your back end 'watertight' to deal with global carrier guidelines...ask your provider to show you the carrier guidelines for each country & carrier they are connected to so you know what you are signing up for.
- Ask what their CP policy is and how they prevent CP from slipping into the system after sponsor/webmaster has signed up.
- Ask if they moderate all of the content that is distributed by their system....most will say they can't because they want ISP 'mere conduit status' .....but if CP gets through then everyone in the chain has far more to worry about than losing a $600 a month short code (which can be sourced anywhere again) over night.
- The USA...yes that's right you can't charge by SMS for adult, and you can't even send adult by SMS because US carriers demand that you do so in assocation with a short code (they want complete control) and if they see an 'adult application for shortcode' they will kill it dead. But that doesn't stop US consumers from pulling WAP content and been charged for it through any means you can think of. It's off the network carriers 'deck' (portal) so unless they are employing skin tone filtering software (hit&miss) how will they prevent WAP browsing charged traditionally? Yes, WAP URLS are a pain to type in but there are solutions - for our customers.
- Payouts.. everyone wants the green. And many vendors will offer more green than others. Check what you may be losing however for your higher payouts ...does it include worldwide customer support 24/7, does it include free video encoding to 3GPP, does it include affiliate (NATS/ES) integration, does it include mobile traffic generation programs to boost your mobile sales from your site? Examine the hidden costs of higher payouts..someone has to pay for video encoding..will it be you or the vendor?
- And what about added value? Is your vendor a one trick pony or able to develop and execute a full mobile strategy integrating web, WAP, SMS across your revenue generating and member loyalty/retention business units? Selling content directly from the web will make you money..but you know that there are many other opportunities that mobile presents through custom video, live streaming, location tracking, mobile image recognition, chat and good old fashioned SMS that you simply can't ignore.You want the whole cake not just a slice.
So these are important questions to ask..but in the end you do business with people you like and, since our launch at Vegas Internext in January, over 50 sponors have liked working with BabeCell. I'd be happy to share our experience with anyone on GFY about adult mobile and I'd be even happier to share our experience in mainstream mobile, developed over that last six years with Fortune 500 content owners who have exactly the same mobile business problems as you do..they want incremental renvenue from their intellectual property..theirs just isnt as 'pink' as yours!
And if you like us, well we might just end up doing business. In the meantime - Keep on 'Cashing in on Cellular' GFY!
Chris, CEO, BabeCell
ICQ: 261 131 833
http://www.babecell.com