What comes around goes around...

Funny, for years carriers were doing anything to generate "enhanced services" revenue - that is, anything other than basic talk minutes because they became a commodity. Interestingly enough, this necessity spawned the first wave of development by folks like openwave (phone.com) and others. WAP directories and elementary ring tones and games emerged to help increase usage of "other" minutes and messaging. Fast forward to today. Mobile apps are at the forefront of development and, as the clip identifies, offering the ability to launch a voice call from within the app. The handset gang and independant developers are leading the charge to innovate, but its prett...

What comes around goes around...

Funny, for years carriers were doing anything to generate "enhanced services" revenue - that is, anything other than basic talk minutes because they became a commodity. Interestingly enough, this necessity spawned the first wave of development by folks like openwave (phone.com) and others. WAP directories and elementary ring tones and games emerged to help increase usage of "other" minutes and messaging. Fast forward to today. Mobile apps are at the forefront of development and, as the clip identifies, offering the ability to launch a voice call from within the app. The handset gang and independant developers are leading the charge to innovate, but its pretty ironic that carriers are encouraging this type of functionality. However, it does make sense. Consider this: with the emergence of ip telephony and competition from cable operators (not to mention the looming presence of Google and upcoming spectrum auction) it would appear that the carriers are concerned not only about making money...but remaining relevant. Wouldn't be even more ironic if they began to refocus on the dusty voice-minutes model as a customer retention play?