So SIMpay will blow operators apart, by completely bypassing them and let people sell content without going through them?

Hmm, I'm not sure. As evidence for this, the article says that most content sold in Germany is off-portal: as if they are somehow ahead of us and this is the way things are going here. But actually, I think it's exactly the same here now: the ringtones and logos market is huge and all involves off-portal sales (using by premium SMS, which operators still take a large revenue share from). Off-portal doesn't mean you're free from operator involvement

What this article doesn't take into account is that portals don't just offer payment, they offer distribution: 1-button access to Vodafone Live!, for instance. What better place to advertise and offer mobile content? Every time we've added one of our mobile services to an operator portal, we've seen traffic to that service leap: this is how people get to content.

But even assuming SIMpay does affect the operators, where does that leave them? Well as I-Mode has shown in Japan, there's plenty of room for operators to reduce their revenue share significantly: from the 50/50 split typical today right down to 91/9, or who knows, maybe even further.

And the SIMpay FAQ avoids mentioning what share of revenue operators take, but is explicit that:

"Our intention is to offer an interface to the mobile operators' existing solutions so that customers will be able to reach connected merchants and vice versa."

There's lots of talk at the moment about MMS traffic being lower than expected, and blaming this on ease-of-use. But, whilst I'm in no way making excuses for the operators, I'm not sure that this is the case.

Sending a photo from my Nokia 6230 takes 10 clicks, including going to the camera, taking the photo, saying "send by multimedia", choosing a recipient, and actioning it. In contrast, sending a text message takes 5 clicks - but *just sending a photo* will take way fewer clicks in practice, because you're not typing in the text of a message. So I don't think the problem here is purely usability.

Sure, composing a complex MMS that has multiple slides is more effort, and the language phones use for building this ("Add an object"?) isn't ideal; and believing that your photo might actually arrive does involve a leap of faith, even presuming that your handset has been set up to do MMS out-of-the-box (which many still aren't - WHY???). But the mechanics of sending a photo? I don't think it's tricky.

Hmm, just finished giving a brief talk for a Sussex Enterprise event held at the lovely Koba (site design: Neujuice), on PDAs and smartphones for small businesses.

It felt weird. I've not done any public speaking for ages, and whilst I was nervous as hell before-hand I kind-of ended up enjoying it. I guess that's a good sign, but I spotted my usual tendency to talkfasterandfasterasthingswenton popping up, and ended up throwing a load of cack in there (bears? snakes? what was that all about??). I wish I'd prepared more, yet less formally, in retrospect: until 5pm this afternoon I had a *very* corporate PowerPoint indeed. So anyway, I need to do more of this - any offers?

Still, really nice to see a few of the local new meeja faces there (Jeremy, Richard, Jon, Matt, Alex, etc.) who I've not bumped into for a while. And interesting to hear about Moving Edge's experiences of really officelessness... it's one thing to sign up for that kind of existence in principle but carry on, as I have, doing things The Old Way - it's another to actually live it.

Update: "like being at a tupperware party organised by Gizmodo"

A album by 16 high-profile artists is released for free; supporting material from the making of Outfoxed is put out using BitTorrent; and Wired report on free content that people are paying for.

What's the mobile angle? Convenience is worth money. An example: the SMS service on the National Rail site, which will text you the details of a journey you've examined.

It's easily argued against: I look up these details when I'm sitting at my desk with pen and paper within easy reach, and the information isn't difficult to remember - "so who's going to pay for that?". But it's so damn convenient to have the details of my journey in my pocket all the time that I now regularly pay a 25p pittance...

Similarly, look at content services. I can use Yellow Pages to look up a restaurants details, or I can pay 25p to do it on Vodafone Live ... whenever and wherever I am. In many cases, mobility in itself adds value.