It's all about the Mobile
Opera releases a new Beta for their J2ME browser. Google releases a J2ME GMail client. It doesn't seem like that long ago that everyone was talking about how bad J2ME was... fragmented, awkward, slow.
I've got T-Mobile, so I'm not currently too worried about bandwidth costs, but I'm currious how bit-hungry these apps really are. This is definitely a space that I'm watching closely.
The real question: How are they going to make money off this? GMail Mobile doesn't include adds. Opera Mini is free and also has no adds... With GMail, the tie-in benefit is clear. Google is doing the polite form of embrace-and-extend. Microsoft has done this for years, providing lots of extras if you use their integrated services, but Microsoft is also famous for making it almost impossible to escape their embrace. With GMail, I use POP to backup all my GMail mails, so the only really issue is the email address.
Just as it tooke years for Google to emerge with such a winning revenue strategy for search (and online email, for that matter), I think we will see a great deal of gyration around revenue models for Mobile services.
I've got T-Mobile, so I'm not currently too worried about bandwidth costs, but I'm currious how bit-hungry these apps really are. This is definitely a space that I'm watching closely.
The real question: How are they going to make money off this? GMail Mobile doesn't include adds. Opera Mini is free and also has no adds... With GMail, the tie-in benefit is clear. Google is doing the polite form of embrace-and-extend. Microsoft has done this for years, providing lots of extras if you use their integrated services, but Microsoft is also famous for making it almost impossible to escape their embrace. With GMail, I use POP to backup all my GMail mails, so the only really issue is the email address.
Just as it tooke years for Google to emerge with such a winning revenue strategy for search (and online email, for that matter), I think we will see a great deal of gyration around revenue models for Mobile services.
posted by derek at 1:18 PM
2 Comments:
I have email for all my domains pointing to my 1 GMail account. I send and receive from those domains.
Why is the GMail email address an issue?
Because your 'from' header on any response says gmail. Or at least I'm assuming it would. It may be possible to use Gmail without exposing your gmail account name to anyone, but I didn't see how ot do it when I looked into it a while back.
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