It’s interesting to see the predictions that mobile phone content will take off really starting to come true in a big way.  The television is inundated with ads for all sorts of stupid gimmicks that can be sent to your mobile phone.  Want to know how to be a good kisser?  SMS this word to that number and the nice robot on the other end will give all the tips you need.  The ringtone craze has been going on for a while of course and there seems to be a subscription service being promoted for ringtones these days.  I haven’t seen an ad for mobile phone games yet so Mr Schwartz’s predictions still seem to be waiting in the wings a little (though mobile phone games are definitely pretty big business so I’d expect them to start showing up in TV ads here soon).

The best thing about these services is that they are an actual, real world example of micro-payments in action.  Frankly I never thought the idea of micro-payments would work because it’s too hard to keep track of a huge range of small payments you’ve made to people.  It turns out that that we’ve had micro-payments around for a long time already – everytime you dial a 1900 number (or your local equivalent, think 50c/minute billing rate) you’re essentially using micro-payments (though they are often very large micro-payments).  What makes it all work is the fact that they all just wind up on your phone bill which you were going to pay anyway.  It’s a trap for new players that these calls will cost substantially more than a normal SMS would so I can imagine a lot of teenagers getting some pretty hefty phone bills out of this.  Still, as a payment method it’s really very efficient and convenient.