Slides of the talk I delivered on "Mobile + Social: Show us the Money" at Casual Connect Europe in Hamburg on

1. Mobile + Social
Show us the Money!
Casual Connect Europe, Hamburg - 11 Feb 2010
Volker Hirsch (@vhirsch)

2. Who is this guy?
Co-Founder Strategy Advisor
Investment Opportunity: Little World Gifts
(redefining digital gifts)
Opportunity
Little World Gifts offers an appealing investment opportunity for
investors seeking significant returns from early stage investment in
!
high growth markets. Little World Gifts is positioned to maximise
returns through creating a new market for digital goods on mobile
starting with the iPhone platform with deep web and social network
(Facebook) integration. The opportunity builds on the exciting
landscape of the booming (yet still early and undeveloped) mobile
smartphone space, and the potentially enormous (and also early)
digital goods space. With extremely low overheads and high
margins, the company is set to turn over £2m in year 1, 50% of
which is profit. With a valuation of £2m (Year 1 profit x2), Little World Gifts is seeking £150,000 Angel investment
ahead of launch in exchange for 10% equity in the business. This is an opportunity to get involved early in a
dynamic business at the very leading edge of both the digital goods, and the iPhone / mobile 2.0 sectors.
Enormous Market Potential

4. What is Social?

5. Social refers to the
interaction of organisms
with other organisms and
to their collective co-
existence [...]
Source: Wikipedia

8. Easy!

9. Get a social network!
There’s loads of them...

10. NOT the Right Answer!

11. 1.! A “social network”
is not a community!
2. Do you own one?

12. Where to find a
Community?

13. On Mobile!

14. Mobile is the most
powerful digital medium
to date.
Why?
1. It’s Big (numbers)
2.It’s Personal (nature)
3.It’s really personal
(Identification of needs)

15. 475,000,000
circulation of newspapers
825,000,000
registered cars
1,700,000,000
Internet users (PC, Mobile, Web Cafe)
1,800,000,000
unique credit card holders
2,250,000,000
tooth brushes in use
4,000,000,000
FM Radios
4,600,000,000
mobile phone subscriptions
various sources

16. Mobile is a 1st!
• Personal mass media
• Always carried
• Always on
• Built-in billing system
• Always present at the point of
creative impulse
• Accurate audience identification
• Captures social context
• Enables Augmented Reality
Tomi Ahonen, Mobile as 7th of Mass Media, 2008;
Alan Moore & Jonathan MacDonald, The Glittering
Allure of the Mobile Society, 2008

17. Significance to Users...
• 91% of people have their mobile within arm’s reach
24/7. Morgan Stanley 2007
• 64% of Americans are not willing to share their
mobile with anyone. 60% of married people will
not share their mobile with their spouse!
Wired Magazine 2006
• It takes an average of 26 h for a user to report
a lost wallet but only 68 minutes to report a
lost mobile phone.
Unisys Survey
• 8 out of 10 German men would rather lose their
wife than their mobile phone.
Jonathan MacDonald; Survey of 10 German
men at 1am in a bar...

18. OK, it’s big, we get it.
But How do I
convert that
into a
community?

19. Concept: Object-Centered
Sociality
Prof Dr Karin Knorr-Cetina,
Sociologist
Jyrri Engestrom,
Founder Jaiku

20. Easy:
make sure that mobile
levers the Social
Object (that is: your
game) towards Your
Users...

21. My game a Social Object?

22. WTF ?

23. Human Value Drivers:

24. Human Value Drivers:
Sex
Hope
Money
Belonging
Feeling Important
Security
Getting more out of Life

25. WTF ?

26. CwF + RtB = BM!
Mike Masnick, TechDirt

27. Nine Inch Nails
- All Music free under CC license. CwF
- All videos by fans aggregated on
website.
- Free iPhone app: Fan Finder.
- Double Album for $10 RtB
- Deluxe Edition (Double Album + Photo
Book + BluRay + DVD) for $75
- 2,500 limited edition signed luxury sets
(with Vinyl + prints) for $300
Limited Edition sold out in 30 hours !!!
$750k revenue in 30 hours, $2.3m in week 1.

28. Connect With Fans +
Reasons To Buy =
Business Model

29. Object
Let’s recap:
Social is interaction
in context

30. Engagement!
Games are perfect for this!
- Gamers Interact.
- The game is the social object!
- Turn Players into Fanatics!
- Interact with them IN context, i.e.
in the game!
- Let them interact between them
(they have a common object!)

31. Address the unique
propositions only
Mobile offers.

32. Value Levers: the 6 M’s.
Movement
Me
Moment
Multi-User Money
Machines
Source: Tomi Ahonen

33. Mobile is a 1st!
• Personal mass media 
• Always carried 
• Always on 
• Built-in billing system
• Always present at the point of
creative impulse
• Accurate audience identification
• Captures social context
• Enables Augmented Reality 

34. We need Tools

35. What
- Create Fanatics.
- Provide avenues for players’
passion.
- Incorporate players’ strongest
community: his friends!
- Allow them Choice: if, when and
where to share. Just offer the
path.
- Keep it in context, i.e. in the game.

36. How
- High-Scores (Reward) but make
them customizable (Relevant).
- Connect to the community
(Avenues of Passion).
- Person-to-Person Challenges &
Tournaments (Playful contextual
interaction).
- Awards / Rewards (Fanatics).
- In-Game transactions & Virtual
Currencies (Contextual
Monetization).

38. Real Cross-promotion
- General ads disregard the power
of context & relevance (“Spray-
Can”).
- Players = Fanatics = Ambassadors.
- recommendations by friends: most
powerful promotion (74% buy on a
friend’s recommendation)*.
- Promotions by friends in context
are genuine cross-promotions. The
tools are there (e.g. Challenges).
* Source: Bain Consulting

39. One last thing:
123,296,966,069,453
The Law of Big Numbers

40. The Mass Market is here:

41. don’t forget
the “other”
smartphones!

42. Choose a tool that
delivers all that.
Scoreloop does... ;-)

43. Scoreloop’s Core Social
- Customizable High-Scores
- Player-to-Player Challenges
- Recommendations to Friends
(using any source available)
- Awards & Trophies
- Full virtual currency (supports
in-app purchases, item
downloads, dual currency)
- iPhone, Android, BREW,
Symbian, Maemo, RIM, Web

44. Don’t forget:
Deliver on the basics.

45. On the outside...

46. And on the inside...

47. People Decide!
1 - Permission
People decide what they see and
engage with.
2 - Privacy
People decide what, when and where
they share information.
3 - Preference
People decide what content is relevant
to them and when. Don’t make
assumptions!
Andrew Grill

48. So...
Where’s the Money?

49. Where it always was:
in your pocket...
Catchy phrase nicked from
Jonathan MacDonald

50. Summing up:
• Engage, don’t lecture.
• Observe the 3 P’s.
• Offer avenues to activate the
player’s passion.
• Deliver, and in big numbers.
Got all that? You have a winner!
And if the user wins, the rest (incl. $$ $) comes almost on its own...

51. Image Credits
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Numbers_grid_in_NY.jpg
http://gapingvoidgallery.com
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Petanque_players_in_Cannes_(France)_2003.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Bhgs_crowd.jpg
https://svn-create.freedesktop.osuosl.org/public/create/docs/logo/images/light_bulb_off3.jpg
http://www.easy-access.com/garagelo/coloring/tools.gif
http://www.scorpioshoes.com/accessories-42/shoe-care-44/dr-martens-shoe-polish-black-8128.htm
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/f-4eoJyuiitoJIPDaqrMJQ
http://img.wallpaperstock.net:81/car-mechanics-wallpapers_11816_1024x768.jpg
http://www.mixedforyou.com/fineart/Renaissance/Flying%20Machine,%20Leonardo%20da%20Vinci,
%201490.jpg
http://blogs.fayobserver.com/faytoz/files/2008/10/davinci_toothed_gears_original.jpg
http://www.adsinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/1100109100-1.jpg
http://adsoftheworld.com/files/images/video-game.jpg
http://www.thealarmclock.com/euro/images/flirtomatic.png
http://img.glu.com/WSOP_Mobile/images/WSOP_header_logo.png
http://villageshow.co.uk/assets/images/trophy.jpg
http://images.internetsafety.com/www/images-pm/safe-eyes-mobile-logo.jpg
http://www.foldingbikehut.co.uk/images/Toolbox%20Travel.jpg

52. Thank you!
+44 7843 599 678
@vhirsch
me@vhirsch.com
http://vhirsch.com/blog