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| robert.redpath | Posted on: 2008/3/13 18:29 |
Quite a regular   Joined: 2006/11/28 From: SL Australia Posts: 23 |
Diffusion Of Innovation Theory and Mobile Services An article I am reading (Advanced Mobile Service Adoption -Comm of the ACM Jun'07) looks at factors influencing new technology/services adoption rates. While stating that traditional diffusion curve theory operates under stringent assumptions of an invariant unit of innovation and a definable population of potential adopters it suggests that mobile services are different. Traditional theory considers a number of factors such as triabilitity, relative advantage, compatibility (& more) and assumes that innovation is superior to an old product/service. But mobile services are considered to be different with adoption of new services not automatically leading to abandonment of old and certain services requiring a viable population of users for instance SMS and lately 'Twitter'. I am particualrly interested in mobile banking and seek your views on factors affecting its adoption and the topic generally. In Australia I think only one major bank (ANZ Banking Group) offers mobile banking and in German speaking parts of Europe 12 of 16 banks sampled offerred some form of mobile banking. What is happening in your geography re: offerings and acceptance?
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| robert.redpath | Posted on: 2008/4/20 21:03 |
Quite a regular Joined: 2006/11/28 From: SL Australia Posts: 23 |
Re: Diffusion Of Innovation Theory and Mobile Services Since I posted the above I have formed a better picture of mobile banking and payments generally. South Africa has extensive offerings from all the major banks. Australian banks are likely to have caught up by the end of 2008. As of April 2008 three banks in Australia have mobile banking offerings, ANZ, NAB of the 4 majors and Suncorp a smaller bank. They are using both SMS, Java application downloads and WAP enabled browser technologies. Other interesting developments include a payment system by one of the internet service providers in Australia for merchants/small businesses on the move. I aim to have published a paper with more detail at systemiclogic.net shortly.
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| pontsho.lefenya | Posted on: 2008/4/21 14:44 |
Just can't stay away  Joined: 2003/9/5 From: Johannesburg, SA Posts: 64 |
Re: Diffusion Of Innovation Theory and Mobile Services Hello Robert'
Nice piece of work you are tackling. My observations of the market in South Africa and Africa in general is that the usage of mobile phones by the masses has far surpassed expectations of investors and business people in the arena - the poorest of the poor would spend their last pennies on buying prepaid airtime and one loaf of bread instead of two. In Africa we love talking to each other – communication with one another is core to our culture, hence Telecoms Operators here are scraping some of the highest profits. However, the majority are still using basic phones (not smart phones) and SMS with prepaid airtime due to obvious affordability issues. Thus it remains to be a challenge for many transaction based mobile services that require smart phones to receive massive utilization. Another reason why the current large mobile subscriber base in Africa has not necessarily equated to the utilization of phones for baking transactions for example - is because the majority/ the poor do not have access to basic banking infrastructure and services...hence there has been recent campaigns in South Africa of 'banking the un-banked'. Even amongst sophisticated sections of the South African population with multiple bank accounts and advanced mobile devices - mobile banking has not been adopted as quickly as was expected - my guess is the issue of Trust in these alternative channels is still a very big deal, people don't just trust yet. Internet Banking that has been around longer is itself slowly gaining numbers and usage. From all of these observations, I have four points moral of the story:- - The overwhelming response to the concept of the Mobile Phones in Africa has not merely been because of the revolutionary functional capability of the radical innovation, but IT IS A DEEP EMOTIONAL CONNECTION WE HAVE with the device…this device has hit the soft spot of our communal culture. - Technology Innovation in the mobile applications space has been too radical and outpaced people's paradigm shifts on non traditional uses of these devices. Players in this space are going to have to be a little patient…especially Financial Services. - Players that will dominate in Mobile Applications space (including banking) are those that will invest their resources on innovating on “User Friendliness” and Marketing of the Usability and Trust of these features. - There might be a need to have a radical innovation about the concept of money and its mediums & platforms of exchange for masses to start exchanging money using mobile phones as much as they are using them to talk. This could threaten the existence of traditional banks as we know them. …meanwhile the back of my mind is wondering about game plans of cats working on distributing other advanced mobile payment innovations such as Near Field Communications e.t.c pontsho-at-gmail.com |
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