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Emerging customer trends towards mobile music services
Abstract
Elaborating on the rapid evolution of mobile entertainment services, this paper investigates customers' preferences and attitudes towards mobile music services in Europe through an exploratory research approach. The study ran in Finland, United Kingdom and Greece, targeting both music consumers and music professionals. Significant differences were observed between the three countries in terms of the importance music consumers attach to specific mobile music buying criteria and functionalities. Music consumers and music professionals evaluated the sound/image quality and the music content variety as the most important mobile music selection criteria. Ubiquity is the most attractive mobile music service for both music consumers and professionals, while content personalization is the most desired feature for music consumers and the least desired one for music professionals. However, there were no considerable differences observed between music consumers' and music professionals' attitudes towards mobile music services. The findings imply that mobile music service providers should design tailored marketing mix programs towards sufficiently meeting the needs and attitudes of local customers in the emerging mobile music industry. Finally it seems that B2B and B2C segments do not significantly differ in their preferences regarding the features and functionalities of a mobile music service.
... The global telecommunications industry has developed several products and services with varying degrees of success. Vlachos and Vrechopoulos (2004) explained that mobile operators were continuously seeking new revenue streams and services to assist in recouping their enormous investments in third generation mobile networks licenses. According to Petrova (2004) many scholars have agreed that mobile commerce has failed to deliver on the promise of economic stimulation that was previously projected. ...
Globally, the telecommunications industry is transitioning from a business model that relied heavily on voice communication as the primary source of income to one in which data services provide the largest share of revenues. This trend is evident in Europe, the United States, India, and several other countries. However, while data services have been introduced widely, not all countries have experienced the same level of success. In this chapter, we posit that the differences in economic benefit are directly related to the cultural uniqueness of each mobile market and recommend a consumer-centric approach as a potential solution to successful market uptake. Cultural uniqueness is evident in the consumption of high levels of multimedia content in South Korea which is not enjoyed in other economies despite the push by telecommunication providers. It is also evident in the success of mobile banking for the unbanked poor in parts of Africa but western societies have not exploited its potential. In this research, we used Anckar and D'Incau's (2002) analytical framework to assess consumer value-added preference structures by exploring the market preferences of a developing country which exhibits the characteristics of a telecommunication market that is saturated and poised for data services integration. The findings suggest that all value-added characteristics evaluated had a positive impact on consumer desirability for a mobile application. Most importantly, the findings highlighted that the inclusion of value-added features within a mobile application is not enough but optimizing the desired combination for a user group may be critical.
... From a practical perspective, MIS providers should consider gender when seeking to increase users' continuance intention, as the MIS market is expected to continue expanding in coming years (Vlachos and Vrechopoulos, 2004). Females are often ignored in MIS marketing plans because of the assumption that they are less likely to adopt MIS than males (Nysveen et al., 2005a). ...
The paper investigates the moderating effect of gender on the intention to continue using mobile Internet services (MIS) in an everyday life context. An extended model based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) is applied to predict MIS continuance intention, with gender as the moderating variable. The hypotheses are tested on data from a survey of 648 French MIS users. The findings show that female users expressed a stronger need for perceived usefulness and ease-of-use than male users. Interestingly, the stronger effect of perceived usefulness in females was contrary to prior TAM research. These results may be partially explained by the role of intrinsic motivation. The effect of perceived enjoyment was not significant for either males or females. The observed gender differences suggest that MIS providers should consider user gender when advertising and marketing MIS.
... The differences found in this study relating to the ways people discovered, managed and consumed music in the different cultural settings are summarized in Figure 3. Previous research has also reported that there are differences in music consumer behavior in different countries. In [4], this has been found to occur in the criteria people use when selecting mobile music services and rating the importance of their functionalities. ...
This paper reports a user study on creating, consuming and managing digital music content. We consider people's personal relationship to the music entertainment technology and content, and the typical actions carried out in and outside of the home domain. The study was carried out in two cultural environments, New York City and Hong Kong. Author Keywords Music, multimedia, end-user studies, cultural studies.
... Until now, however, mobile operators have failed to deliver meaningful focused mobile services to their users and customers. Telecommunication companies have made considerable investments (license, implementation costs) into third generation (3G) mobile networks but have not yet generated compensating revenue streams (Vlachos & Vrechopoulos, 2004). Customers are often tired of receiving information from which they get no added value, because the information does not reflect their personal interests and circumstances (Sarker & Wells, 2003). ...
The pervasiveness of mobile computing devices and wide-availability of wireless networking infrastructure have empowered users with applications that provides location-based services as well as the ability to pose queries to remote servers. This necessitates the need for adaptive, robust, and efficient techniques for processing the queries. In this chapter, we identify the issues and challenges of processing spatial data on the move. Next, we present insights on state-of-art spatial query processing techniques used in these dynamic, mobile environments. We conclude with several potential open research problems in this exciting area.
... Mobile entertainment is a reasonably newer method to implement the ubiquitous model. According to Vlachos and Vrechopolous (2004) [26] , a number of ventures have already begun to take advantage of wireless and mobile networking technologies e.g., music-wave and listen.com. Business contexts are rapidly changing and the future of business is to utilise ubiquitous computing more than presently done so. ...
The U-business model is the next stage in the evolution of business to take it beyond that of the e-commerce model. The opportunities offered by transforming business to utilise ubiquitous computing applications is fraught with difficulties not at least with the sensor networks, latency, noisy channels, context-middleware and the ever changing needs of business. The ubiquitous shopping mall model supports the change to a U-business by providing an approach that looks to make the process of change more manageable. This work is in its early stages and further research is required to understand and harness the opportunities that ubiquitous computing can offer retail shopping-malls
... Studies that have addressed mobile music phenomena usually fall into two categories: surveys and statistics that rely on selfreporting and sales records [5, 10], and ethnography using qualitative methods such as interviews [6, 9]. For instance, Synovate Ltd. [5] recently probed interests for new kind of music services from 8000 respondents around the globe. ...
In this study we attempt to quantify the popularity of mobile music device utilization. We present an observational method to study music interaction in the wild and assess the reliability of the method. We apply this method to investigate mobile music device use regionally and globally in Europe, Asia, and North America. Our results show that globally, a stable one ninth of all observed urban commuters is engaged with music gadgets, in Tokyo above the other cities. In depth analysis shows that public displays of music devices are most common late on the working days. A subsample of bicyclists suggests that they utilize music devices even more than the pedestrians, but none of the observed segments is much interacting with the device while in transit. This has several implications for designing ubiquitous music experiences, particularly for modalities utilized in interaction.
... The differences found in this study relating to the ways people discovered, managed and consumed music in the different cultural settings are summarized inFigure 3. Previous research has also reported that there are differences in music consumer behavior in different countries. In [4], this has been found to occur in the criteria people use when selecting mobile music services and rating the importance of their functionalities. ...
This paper reports a user study on retrieving, consuming and managing digital music content related to mobile music consumption. We study the personal relationship people have with music entertainment technology and content, and explore how music is enjoyed on the move. We also look at the typical actions related to personal music management, how they are accomplished, and where they take place. The study was carried out in New York City and Hong Kong, and the paper also reports the differences found in mobile music consumption between these cultural settings.
... The Vlachos and Vrechopoulos [2004] study suggests that there are no big differences in buying criteria between music professionals, that is, people who work in the generic music industry value chain, and those of music consumers; the mobile music service requirements are almost identical for both. The most important buying criterion for music professionals and consumers is content (i.e., " good sound/image quality " and " variety of music songs/video clips " ) [Vlachos and Vrechopoulos 2004]. In the value chain for mobile games there are two significant buying decisions: first the B2B decision made by the distributor, usually an operator/carrier, handset manufacturer, or portal, and second the B2C decision made by the consumer downloading the game. ...
A short value chain, strong brand, strong game concept, broad porting, strong language support (EFIGS, i.e., English, French, Italian, German and Spanish), combined with short time to market and powerful global distribution machinery, are key components in building a successful mobile game and gaming business. But which of these components and factors affect success when success is defined as high revenue per download and high download volumes of the game? Or does the combination of all these factors decide the outcome? These are two central research questions in this study.
We specifically describe the effects of using a brand in the mobile games' value chain. The comparative analysis of three J2ME-branded racing games points to the fact that the brand has a significant impact on the value chain and the success of a game. The stronger the brand the shorter the value chain, and the higher the revenue per download and the download volume.
To some extent, a strong brand compensates for a lack in game quality, and even game porting. The other way around, we find that if the brand is weak even a good-quality game and very broad porting cannot compensate for the negative impact of a weak brand.
Telecommunications and Internet Technologies have evolved dramatically during the last decade, laying a solid foundation for the future generation of Ubiquitous Internet access, omnipresent Web technologies and ultimate automated information cyberspace. Ubiquitous computing has been investigated since 1993. As a result, current efforts in research and development in the areas of Next Generation Internet and Telecommunications Technologies promote the formation of inter-disciplinary international teams of experts, scientists, researchers and engineers to create a new generation of applications and technologies that will facilitate the fully-automated information cyberspace systems, such as Future House 2015. The authors discuss the current state-of-the-art in the world of Telecommunications and Internet Technologies, new technological trends in the Internet and Automation Industries, E-manufacturing, Ubiquity, Convergence, as well as the concept of the Fully-automated Future House 2015, the 2006 Web Report with the Microsoft project on Easy Living, while promoting research and development in the interdisciplinary projects conducted by multinational teams world-wide.
Globally, the telecommunications industry is transitioning from a business model that relied heavily on voice communication as the primary source of income to one in which data services provide the largest share of revenues. This trend is evident in Europe, the United States, India, and several other countries. However, while data services have been introduced widely, not all countries have experienced the same level of success. In this chapter, we posit that the differences in economic benefit are directly related to the cultural uniqueness of each mobile market and recommend a consumer-centric approach as a potential solution to successful market uptake. Cultural uniqueness is evident in the consumption of high levels of multimedia content in South Korea which is not enjoyed in other economies despite the push by telecommunication providers. It is also evident in the success of mobile banking for the unbanked poor in parts of Africa but western societies have not exploited its potential. In this research, we used Anckar and D’Incau’s (2002) analytical framework to assess consumer value-added preference structures by exploring the market preferences of a developing country which exhibits the characteristics of a telecommunication market that is saturated and poised for data services integration. The findings suggest that all value-added characteristics evaluated had a positive impact on consumer desirability for a mobile application. Most importantly, the findings highlighted that the inclusion of value-added features within a mobile application is not enough but optimizing the desired combination for a user group may be critical.
Elaborating on the rapid evolution of mobile internet services in Korea, this article investigates consumers' perceptions and attitudes toward mobile Internet services through person-to-person questionnaires. The study tried to find out "how" consumers perceived different mobile services from the consumers perspectives: expectation, satisfaction, and fulfillment of that expectation. A new construct of perceived fulfillment of expectation was suggested in the study and used to explain consumers' attitudes toward the mobile Internet services in 2004 and in 2006. After examining what the consumers actually said, it was found that consumers' expectation was fulfilled differently for different service categories. The expectation was more fulfilled in system attributes, that is, network-wise, for personalization and information services, and in contents attributes for entertainment services. It was also observed that consumers of different age groups showed different patterns of fulfillment of expectation with the same services. Even though most of the past studies on mobile telephony concentrated on attitudes and behaviors of teenagers toward the mobile telephone services, the result of this study indicates that the consumers in their 20s and 30s can provide more insight for future directions of mobile Internet services. The newly defined construct could well explain the differences among the various consumer groups' perceptions and attitudes.
Reports on the use of subjective personal introspection. Offers a brief overview of subjective personal introspection and then describes the technique used to inform an ongoing piece of research that is being conducted into popular music consumption. Concludes by assessing the usefulness of the technique and highlights how it may be of use to practitioners.
For companies to realize the benefits of recent innovations in customer interface technology, they need to understand the
value consumers place on technology as part of the shopping process. A national survey of 2,120 online consumers was conducted
to explore how people want to shop in both online and in-store environments and determine how interactive and conventional
media work together to move consumers through the purchase process. The study investigated 128 different aspects of the shopping
experience, from common elements to recent innovations. The results indicated that consumers are generally satisfied with
the convenience, quality, selection, and value provided by retailers today. They are less satisfied with the level of service
provided, the availability of product information, and the speed of the shopping process. The findings suggest that new technologies
can enhance the shopping experience, but applications must be tailored to the unique requirements of consumer segments and
product categories.
The rapid evolution of B2C e-Commerce alternative interaction channels (i.e., World Wide Web, Mobile Telephony and Digital TV) along with the continuously changing consumer behavioural patterns, has created a strong need for research tailored to the peculiarities and needs of the aforementioned emerging "distance shopping" channels. Stimulated by the these evolutions, this paper focuses on the investigation of consumer attitudes and behaviours against mobile commerce in
Business as usual in the music industry is over. Online music is a force to be reckoned with now and increasingly in the future. This paper first describes the current revenue streams and cost causers that characterize the traditional business model in the music industry. Then, the impact of the Internet on the current business model is described, especially as it relates to the distribution stage of the value chain in the record business. Also, the impact of the Internet’s disruption of the distribution stage on the state of existing copyright law, as manifested through the introduction of Napster’s peer-to-peer innovation, is explained. Third, an analysis of salient economic, political/legal, and technological issues arising from these changes on the entire industry is presented. Finally, the paper identifies characteristics of a viable business model in the music industry and offers lessons for other digital content industries.
Business pundits have enthusiastically prognosticated about a seamless, mobile world where commerce occurs on an anywhere,
anytime basis. This type of commerce has been referred to as mobile commerce or, more simply, m-commerce. However, there have
been relatively few attempts to systematically explore the opportunities and challenges posed by m-commerce. This article
investigates the implications of m-commerce for markets and marketing by means of a formal conceptualization of m-commerce,
a space-time matrix that delineates the impact of mobile technologies, and a taxonomy of m-commerce applications.
Barely before Internet-facilitated e-commerce has begun to take hold, a new wave of technology-driven commerce has started—mobile (m-) commerce. Fuelled by the increasing saturation of mobile technology, such as phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), m-commerce promises to inject considerable change into the way certain activities are conducted. Equipped with micro-browsers and other mobile applications, the new range of mobile technologies offer the Internet ‘in your pocket’ for which the consumer possibilities are endless, including banking, booking or buying tickets, shopping and real-time news. Focusing on business-to-consumer markets, this paper examines how value is added in the stream of activities involved in providing m-commerce to the consumer. As such, it analyses the key players and technologies that form part of the m-commerce value chain, providing a foundation for future strategic analysis of the industry. Drawing on some of the key factors that may influence the take-up of m-commerce—including technological and other issues—the paper also provides predictions regarding the future of m-commerce.
The changing role of mobile communications is reflected in the increasing use of mobile devices for e-commerce purposes. Supported by the penetration of mobile devices and the evolution of mobile technologies, mobile commerce promises to change the way certain business-to-consumer (B2C) activities are conducted. Focusing on B2C markets, this paper underlines the critical role of consumer behaviour research in mobile commerce and investigates, through an exploratory research approach, the critical success factors towards mobile commerce diffusion. To that end, an online consumer survey ran in three European countries (Finland, Germany and Greece). The results showed that mobile commerce (m-commerce) penetration in Europe is in its infancy. In addition, significant differences regarding consumer attitudes towards mobile commerce were observed among the countries investigated. Lower prices, improved security, improved devices and effective customer support, proved to be the critical success factors towards accelerating m-commerce consumer adoption. It is concluded that the customisation of the marketing mix to the specific characteristics of each target market is a key success factor for mobile operators in Europe.
The growth of direct marketing has been attributed to rapid advances in technology and the changing market context. The fundamental ability of direct marketers to communicate with consumers and to elicit a response, combined with the ubiquitous nature and power of mobile digital technology, provides a synergy that will increase the potential for the success of direct marketing. The aim of this paper is to provide an analytical framework identifying the developments in the digital environment from e-marketing to m-marketing, and to alert direct marketers to the enhanced capabilities available to them. Note: Correct tile in published article is "Mobile digital technology: Emerging issues for marketing" Yes Yes
Using an online survey this paper examines the personality traits and shopping characteristics of high and low intentioned wireless application protocol (WAP) shoppers. Results indicate that individuals with a high intention to use WAP shopping have both similar and contrasting characteristics to previous electronic non-store adopters, such as television infomercial shoppers. It is recommended that specific marketing efforts be developed to target WAP adopters and these efforts include offering unique items for sale that are offered exclusively to WAP users.
This article focuses upon innovation and issues in on-line market research. On-line research, on-line consumer behavior, and e-commerce are new areas of academic study in marketing. Most of the early work in these areas was done by practitioners, as illustrated by research reports and case studies presented at professional conferences. The present article reviews technologies and methods of on-line research and points to various methodological and ethical issues. On-line research is evaluated from two perspectives: orthodox thinking about the validity of research, and out-of-the-box thinking about how on-line research can increase the impact of market research and develop the core competitive capabilities of firms. Further academic research and learning from the data of on-line research and electronic commerce are encouraged.
As customers increasingly accept mobile communication as a matter of course, mobile operators are looking for new promising markets within m-commerce. Customers want and expect to do commerce on virtually every communication device. New technologies are enabling a large variety of applications and m-commerce services but solutions are inadequately analysed yet. This contribution summarises first results from a European-wide project, which investigates current and future m-commerce service scenarios, serving as a base for promising business models. Starting from a categorisation of service scenarios for m-commerce a couple of exemplary scenarios are analysed and for one of them a business model is outlined. A set of recommendations that can help mobile operators to model their own m-commerce services concludes the contribution.
It has been difficult to develop a profitable business model for Internet content. The emerging medium of mobile communications promises a new opportunity for this type of business because the gatekeeper for the medium, the wireless network provider (WNP), has greater control over what customers can feasibly do with their mobile devices. Higher barriers to entry and usage costs for mobiles should lead to the development of content business models that are more likely to generate profits. Within the mobile value chain, the WNP has the greatest bargaining power and can thus negotiate the largest share of profits. This paper examines the transformation of an industry as it moves toward a mobile, as opposed to Internet, focus. Mobile games are expected to generate substantial revenue but service providers will have to examine where they fit within the new value chain. The most appropriate strategy for WNPs is to leverage their control over wireless infrastructure and customer relationships. The management com...
This article considers the role of the consumer in the diffusion of mobile telecommunications technologies. There is presently
little research on the consumption and use of mobile technologies, and the aim of the present paper is to facilitate discussion
about the way consumer behaviour is currently understood in industry and academia. The paper considers key themes in social
science research on mobile ICTs, and understandings of the consumer held by those in the mobile industry. Bringing these understandings
together, we reiterate the now well attested view that the diffusion and consumption of mobile telephony and computing cannot
be understood without investigating the contexts and processes of their use in everyday life.
Consumer Attitudes towards Mobile Commerce in Europe
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