ComScore and Telephia, two consumer research companies, have teamed up to provide better audience measurements for mobile and PC based Internet usage. In a press release, they've published their first analysis for September 2006. And apparently the type of service next to email that users request the most when mobile is, well, weather.
So from a general perspective, the mobile services that seem to stick are email, search, sports and weather. For sports, I would reckon that the results are driven by Mobile ESPN, which will go out of business as of December 31, 2006. That leaves email, search and weather on the table.
When looking at the index, it turns out that AccuWeather.com is by far the most popular service relative to the PC based audience. AccuWeather has a dedicated wireless channel, called - surprise - AccuWeather.com Wireless.
The fact that ESPN's vertical offering has failed and that AcciWeather Wireless is so successful in the mobile space (in relative terms, and note that that doesn't mean it's profitable) is in my view just one more example that trying to vertically integrate the network and the service just won't cut it. Take a look at all the operators that AccuWeather Wireless supports. Did anybody say choice?
Same applies for the Weather Channel, which also has a dedicated mobile offering. While The Weather Channel "only" supports seven carriers, it includes all the ones with a national footprint, which is far better than being forced to go e.g. with a Mobile ESPN MVNO.
The index also tells us that there is still a lot of upside for the traditional web-based email providers except for Gmail, which has managed to reach a higher mobile audience share. One reason for that might be that Gmail is still a much much small player compared to Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, with a user base that is somewhat more technophil and hence more "connected".
For more on Off Portal Content, see also the transcript of a discussion on Wireless Week from May 24, 2006.
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