WIRELESS CONSULTANCY PROBES MOBILE CONTENT CONSUMPTION

Two veterans of the realms of online and mobile measurement resurfaced last week with a new company dedicated to supplying the wireless industry with better-quantified data on mobile content usage. At the launch, the outfit released findings from its first benchmark report that shed new light on how consumers are using mobile multimedia applications, as well as who those consumers are and how the operators are doing.

“This is a market waiting to be measured,” said Will Hodgman, co-founder, president and CEO of M:Metrics.

Among the report's findings, which will be made available on a monthly basis via subscription to M:Metrics' Syndicated Mobile Market Measurement Service, are the relative absence of gender and age gaps in mobile content usage and the willingness of customers to use multimedia apps if an employer is footing the bill. Of the sample studied, 58% said they use their devices for more than just voice.

The study did find that male subscribers are more likely to download mobile games, possibly because most games available are action- and sports-oriented. Somewhat surprisingly, M:Metrics also concluded that adult wireless users are increasingly likely to download ringtones and use text messaging, realms of mobility widely associated with the youth market.

The report also indicated an uptick in the use of wireless camera phones not only to take pictures but to send them as well — the revenue-generating aspect of that app that wireless carriers need in order to move beyond the role of simply subsidizing a digital camera for their subscribers.

M:Metrics collects data for its Benchmark Report from a voluntary panel of 180,000 wireless subscribers whose consumption M:Metrics tracks based on the subscribers' recall. Ultimately, when technology exists that can be embedded in subscribers' mobile devices, M:Metrics will expand its methodology.

“One of the lessons I've learned is that no medium is reliant on one particular methodology to measure it,” Hodgman said.

The founders of M:Metrics have complementary backgrounds in studying both online and wireless consumption. Hodgman founded AdRelevance, which helped forge the standard for online advertising benchmarks. That firm was acquired by Jupiter Media Metrix and became Nielsen//NetRatings. Just prior to founding M:Metrics, Hodgman was CEO of Sightward, a predictive analytics company. “I've been in the world of measuring new media for years,” he said.

Seamus McAteer, who is co-founder, chief product architect and senior analyst of M:Metrics, is the founder of Zelos Group, a mobile industry consultancy. Prior to that he was a senior analyst at SRI International and a research fellow at Jupiter.

Both founders felt wireless firms lack a source of very granular, quantifiable data on content usage, as well as benchmark data on competitors.

“As wireless data becomes a more significant revenue chunk, carriers need to provide better guidance to their investors,” McAteer said. “It's also a natural in any market to want to see how you're doing against your competitors.”

M:Metrics is hopeful that the presence of quantifiable data will be warmly received by the wireless industry, which the company believes has had to rely on speculation and word-of-mouth more than anything else in the past.

“You need factual data to support assumptions. Assumptions heretofore were based on conversations between applications developers and service providers,” McAteer said. “We provide a snapshot and a running tally of what's really going on.”