On-Device Portals: An Industry In Hunt Of a Definition?
On-Device Portals is an industry in hunt of a definition…WirelessWeek has a good overview of the players, but what distinguishes it from mobile apps? Not much in my opinion. In essence, they are branded mobile apps, and in most cases, a closed ecosystem at that.
This is primarily a vendor-driven definition, and had very little traction in the content industry.
Examples include apps from Handmark, which sits on Sprint Nextel’s deck, among others. Others point to Alltel Wireless’ Celltop, Yahoo Go and Apple’ iPhone as examples of ODPs. Some have even suggested an ODP as an alternative for brands to act like an MVNO without all the hassle of becoming an MVNO, the WW story says.
A whitepaper defining it is here (PDF link).
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Comments (2)
May 21, 2007 4:59 AM
Rafat,
I agree with your view that it has been a bit of an uphill battle getting the ODP space to take off. At mPortal we have done quite a bit of work in making our Smart Client product become more successful by approaching the carriers and MVNOs directly rather than pursue the Content Provider angle. Our recent successes include the implementations we did of our Smart Client for Disney Mobile MVNO in the US and another upcoming ODP implementation for a US client which we will be announcing later in the year. On the Content Provider side we worked with TV Guide and built their EPG (Electronic Programming Guide) which is in essence an ODP for TV content. We didn’t take the next step of actually providing the TV feeds but that’s a step that can be easily accomplished and we are working with some service providers who are interested in leveraging our Smart Client product to do something along those lines.
I think the market will take 18-24 months to develop but we think it’s the way to go. Cheers.
May 25, 2007 2:24 PM
I understand why there is confusion surrounding the on-device portal segment because at first glance these ODPs do look the same as a stand-alone application. What makes them different is the underlying architecture of the ODPs which enables easy updates and the addition of new applications and services over the air.
For example, almost all ODPs are built using an underlying framework that makes it easy for brands to make changes over-the-air post launch. Unlike an a stand-alone app, ODPs can be updated seamlessly to the end user without requiring the download of a new application. They also have reporting tools that allow the content owners to track things like usage, advertising impressions, feature popularity, etc. and make adjustments based on these customer analytics. With an ODP, a brand can look at reports and see that the stocks application is unpopular, for example, and can then remove it and send a new storefront application down to the consumer’s phone to replace it - all over-the air.
Back to your post, I disagree on one point - that ODPs have little traction in the content industry. Yahoo! Go, Apple’s iPhone ODP, TiVo Mobile, MSNBC.com Multimedia on Mobile, Sprint’s On-Demand service are just a few examples of some of the big brands that have launched ODPs recently. There is a lot of funding and acquisition going on in this area right now and I expect you will see the ODP terminology begin to be embraced more frequently in the months ahead.