Insight Community

The perfect app for mobile combines the social net benefits with the joy of exploring new neighborhoods...  Virtual walking tours created by users...  It doesn't even have to be touristy - it could be just showing off your hood... your ghetto... your secret places.  Along the way the creator can talk about recommended places.  

Monetizing is easy - just activate some Location-based contextual advertising. 

simple!

Not expanding a recommendation service beyond music would in competitive terms like shooting oneself in the foot. Even in the very early days mobile recommendation services focused around music are available and increasing in popularity.

1. How should a mobile recommendation service best target the NA Market/ EU Market/ Asian Market.

A: The best entrance into mobile recommendation is usually music services. But anyone able to inovate from this approach from an early stage will be able to enforce differentiation and perhaps carve a stronger new niche.

In the US there are thosands of radio station. Instead of merely recommending songs that are similar - there might be a way of using the FM Radio to launch radio recommendation and search services - similar to those in Japan. These Radio Appli service on KDDI and DoCoMo allow users to search radio channels for favourite or similar music. This might work in the US where its easy to click find on the car radio only to be dealt with more and more music stations that simply don't appeal.

In the European market dating and friend finding is now huge. Any recommendation service that could recreate a social network on mobile will be a huge hit. This could link with geo-location and users tagging the same interest could be sent sms that similar fans or friends or potential new friends were nearby. Indeed there is a risk to from children -but the recommendation engine should not focus on physical meetings but on viral recommendations. This means that like minded people could be asked to play a multi-player game instantly or some kind of intellectual game.

2. I think the top recommendation service after music on MOBILE (because it would be easy to put books down here) is radio recommendation followed by mobile site recommendation followed by offers or mobile coupons. Mobile Coupons will be huge and finding, sending and recommending special offers for mobile content or public concerts, cinemas or shows to friends in the way forward.

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