Blyk as a user-generated media company
Marek Pawlowski of MEX thinks that Blyk, the advertising-funded MVNO, is really a user-generated media company:
“Blyk is typically described in press reports as ‘an advertising-funded MVNO’, but after spending some time looking at the company’s model and talking to the management, I’m inclined to think of it as a new type of mobile business.
Blyk is actually user-generated media company, but with some important differences. Unlike most ‘user-generated’ content ventures, it does not rely on users going out of their way to compose their own web pages or post photographs. Nor does it seek to place advertisements within the ‘content’ itself. Instead, Blyk’s ‘media’ is the free person-to-person communications it offers its subscribers.
Traditional media companies, like magazines and television studios, must employ staff to produce a constant stream of compelling content onto which they can tack their advertising inventory. User-generated services face their own set of challenges, particularly the need to gain scale with breakneck speed, thereby conquering the ’empty rooms’ problem. Blyk’s offering, however, enables the company to sidestep the scale issues of the user-generated model and avoid the production costs of traditional media. All they need is for people to remain interested in the idea of making calls and sending texts.”
Blyk by the way announced today that they are expanding into the Netherlands and that they have some new investors, including Goldman Sachs and Industrial and Financial Investments Company (IFIC).
