Vodafone Live!, The Right Stuff?
Vodafone made a big deal about the fact that it got nearly 400,000 people to sign up for it's Vodafone Live! service. That's really not that much when you consider that it's 400,000 across seven markets. I think they've done a good job of replicating i-mode's holistic approach with the custom handset interface and content partners. But more importantly they are also replicating i-mode's practice of sharing revenue with content providers. While the Vodafone 60/40 split isn't as generous as i-mode's 90/10, it's better than what most carriers have offered to date and has content partners lining up to get on the service. Which proves the real success behind i-mode isn't the over-hyped ease of cHTML but the quality and breadth of the content.
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