Hats off to the Snowflake gang, who as part of their moving card have let us know their new TOID !! One day we will all know this information – well OK maybe not 🙂 but its good to see the idea of using feature identifiers communicated in a fun way.
Written and submitted from the BA Lounge at Manchester Airport, using BT’s Openzone 802.11 network.
Fellow geeks stop reading this is not for you !!!
Vodafone last week introduced a range of mobile phones designed for the technology challenged user, who wants their phone to be – well just a phone, no camera, no mp3, no internet etc.
I am a big fan of good simple design, and again we see another example of customer power !! Love the celebrity backing of Richard and Judy 🙂
I lead a session at the Ordnance Survey Partner conference last week discussing our future geoweb services plans, and not surprising the main topic of discussion was business models.
Nobody in the industry today really knows what will happen in the market, I in the past have often drawn parallels with the download music market and with the recent launch of the Yahoo Music Unlimited service it’s interesting to watch this business model dynamic as a potential indicator for future geoweb services.
The established market leader here is Apples’ iTunes Music store which sells tracks at £0.79 or $0.99 each – the transactional model. Once bought the tracks are available for use on a limited number of computers and your ipod forever.
The alternative business model of subscription based pricing has been supported up to now by Napster and Realnetworks but they have been eclipsed by the new Yahoo offering.
The yahoo offering provides unlimited access to an online music catalogue for an amazing $6.99 a month ( the service is not available outside the USA). Tracks may be downloaded to other devices but will only be playable as long as you keep paying the subscription.
Which model will win? The industry pundits are falling over themselves with contrary predictions, nobody seems to think both models will survive, but I’m not so sure!
I think it depends too much on the very different buying habits of consumers, regular buyers may go for the subscription model for example, while less frequent buyers like myself will chose to buy each track. There are big differences for the service provider in terms of the cost of service of course, however the past ten years must have taught us that the customer is now in charge and will vote with their feet.
I think the same will also be true of geoweb services.
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.