Mobile 2.0: Beyond Free, Panel

Moderator: Inma Martinez, Stradbroke

Harald Neidhardt, Smaato

Fee Beyer, Berlin

Ian Ginn, Amsterdam

Dr Lai Kok Fung, BuzzCity

Priya Prakash, Nokia

IM: It's hard to fund mobile-specific busines

IM: What digital goods are being sold for a decent price?

PP: It depends on context. What goods are being sold on ebay?

PP: There's a distinction between creating an application and a service. In the song analogy, it's like being a creative musician. Anyone know of any apps which are service-like?

IM: There's a company in Madrid who does betting on mobile goods. They auction cars, games consoles, by text message: you bid for the ident, lowest price.

IM: What are the services worth paying for?
FB: Infrastructure companies like Orbster ("infrastructure on the phone").

IM: Imagine your service complementing others, so the uptake of users is faster. What elements are worth paying for? PP stresses UI...
PP: It's not just about the UI, that's where we're going wrong. UI can be lipstick on a pig. It's the whole ecosystem, there's as much design in the business model as in the presentation layer.

FB: To push a service through the operator organisation is very different.

IM: So many people create nice applications, but not apps you'd want to pay for.

LKF: In some emerging markets, we saw mobile banking as strong.

Q (Andrew Scott, Rummble): You need to focus on product, not revenue.

Q: (Martin, Layar) How should we charge?

IG: It feels like a killer app. I'd make a 30m drama about it to get the story out.

LKF: Make it work on all phones.

PP: Think about the discovery - who's going to help me find it?

IG: Make it newsworthy. Save a life with it, get it on the news.

Q: I keep hearing talk about money. But I like the iPhone because people can make an app without having money, and release it to a community - for social capital. Why do we focus on financial game? Why can't we help make life better?

A: If you're talking about a venture funded business, VCs have a different model. Bootstrap, don't talk to a VC - unless you're making something beyond amazing or your team has already done it before, your valuation will be so low... VCs are banks. The app store today is a good model for small developers, or Salesforce etc (having a mobile implementation of a pre-existing platform online).