Wirelessville

The mobile content industry veteran stood with the new recruit on top of the hill, overlooking the sprawling town of Wirelessville.

He explained “I am a veteran of this industry and moved to this town to work on mobile content in the early days – way back in 1999!

“Look at all the different sizes and types of buildings and streets, representing the different types of companies toiling away here.

“In ’99, most of this was fields. The buildings were modest dwellings and there were none of the office blocks being built by cranes that you see today.

“The inhabitants were pioneers and entrepreneurs. Techno geeks, some would cruelly call them. But they all had a vision of the day when you would be able to play games, change your ringtone, access the internet, get your email, watch video clips, gamble and do all those other things on your mobile phone.

“Steam rose from the dwellings in those days, as they sought the answers to questions like ‘What is the business model?’, ‘Can we make money out of WAP before Java and 3G?’ and, most relevant to my job, ‘Can we license some famous brands to give our stuff instant popularity?’

“The largest building in those days was the conference centre. Look, the conference organisers made so much money, out of hosting debates about those questions, that today they are having the roof clad in gold!

“At the other extreme, many were casualties of those early struggles. For example, behold the ruins of Riot E House with the words ‘Curse Marvel!’ scrawled in fading red paint on the wall. Some say they paid over $1 million for an X Men WAP game.

“Some houses look a bit crowded, don’t they? That’s where two companies have had to move in together, to survive the winter of modest revenues and hang on for the summer of large profits!

“Now, behold those tall buildings at the top of that grand parade. Those are the hallowed towers of the Network Operators.

“See the long queue of Content Providers along the grand parade? At the head of that queue are the early pioneers who found the right business model, made the right content and signed the right licences. They have names like Jamdat and Digital Bridges.

“I helped to lever open the doors of those tall buildings for Digital Bridges by negotiating their first deal with that god of the parallel videogames universe, Electronic Arts. The power of effective licensing was seen, as the Operators threw open all of their doors and sat seductively on their desks begging for some FIFA and Tiger Woods!

“At the back of the queue are the New Arrivals. They saw the bandwagon rolling through the neighbouring towns and jumped on it a bit too late. Many of them are what I call Dotcom Refugees. Now, they face a long wait in line to be allowed access to the Operators.

“They make my job trickier by tabling ridiculous bids for licences, in desperate attempts to gain distribution. I have to persuade Brand Owners that my clients will pay them more in the long term, because they already supply the Operators.

“See the posh suburban houses on the outskirts of the town? That’s were the Brand Owners live. They have old money, made from TV shows, movies, sports, music, comics, books and associated merchandise. Now, they are making increasing amounts of cash from using their brands for mobile content.

“Some have chosen to set up a direct line to the Operators and a huge internal team to manage it all. Others prefer the lower risk option of licensing their brands to the Content Providers on the grand parade.

“All along the grand parade are various shops, which trade with the content providers. They offer goods and services like aggregation, development, testing, localisation, recruitment, advertising, PR and web portals.

“In this town, pawnbrokers have been renamed Venture Capitalists!

“My shop is there, see, it’s called AT. It introduces Content Providers and Brand Owners to each other, for happy long-term licensing relationships.

“Let’s go and get a latte or a beer each. Next time, I will start to explain to you how licensing works.”