Screen Grab

Facebook Home is just the latest stage in the land grab for the digital medium of choice: mobile.

Smartphone lock screens and home screens are the battleground - coveted real estate which current players are trying to centre around themselves rather than creating value for the entire ecosystem based upon every competitor’s needs.

Some examples:

• Handset manufacturers want to enhance their relationship, create differentiated value and drive long-term monetization with the consumer.

• Mobile Network Operators want to ensure they can compete effectively and upsell services beyond basic communication.

• Large publishers want to increase engagement of their content, while social media companies prefer to position themselves as the communications hub.

We at Celltick believe the key is to keep the user in mind, while being mindful of creating value for the entire ecosystem.

Do so without bias and the value created from new areas of commerce, for example, can benefit all parties.

However, if the solution is skewed towards just one aspect of the user’s needs, then the resulting value to the user diminishes significantly.

We are seeing that a number of our users want the ability to continuously change the appearance of their mobile lockscreen in order to reflect their persona.

To some, this is about having ‘cool’ content made available immediately. While for others, it is just a convenience coupled with their personal albums.

We would say that with the power and openness of Android, the path is to put the user first and ensure that the solution is not about “one size fits all”.

Photo (cc) Google Play.