In the mobile industry, there’s a term for the mobile sites available directly on the phone, via the menu system. It’s called “on deck” content, which is nestled safely in the carrier’s ”garden”. On AT&T this garden is called mmode, on Verizon it’s VCast… each carrier has a marketing term, but they’re all just beautiful gardens. Oh the garden! Like the Garden of Eden, what a safe place it is! Where you can run free and frolic among $2.99 clips of Saturday Night Live and Bollywood, yellow pages search results, and ESPN news. Where everything you could ever need is just 5 or 6 clicks away! Why go outside the garden? Why look elsewhere when everything you want is available there? I mean, that wacky joke of the day page is all I need! And the carriers want me to stay here! I’m sure it’s out of their benevolent love and acts of kindness! I’m sure it’s not due highly profitable contracts and revenue share agreements!
And then there was the shiny fruit…It beckons you. Tempts you from the tree of knowledge. With its curves and its shiny screen. It’s an Apple on the tree. And now the Apple only costs $99!
You touch the Apple. And then everything you now know changes. The garden walls collapse and you have the entire internet in front of you. You now realize there’s life outside the walls. There’s more than one place to get those Bollywood clips! And they’re FREE or at least cheaper because they don’t have to rev-share with the carriers!
It was only a matter of time, really. The death of on-deck. Of course, technology and market demand trump contracts. And those precious on-deck deals are slipping away.
With the new $99 iPhone (which I think is more impactful than the expensive 3GS) and other powerful and cheap “superphones”, we’re seeing more and more a democratization of the mobile experience. More people can afford it, more people can explore it, and more people can finally leave Eden and see what the mobile internet is about, and not just what the carriers are paid to show us.
