Niamh Collins is the Director of Wireless at Australia’s ninemsn

mo:life
What can we expect to see coming out of ninemsn mobile in the next year?

Niamh Collins
Our vision is all about anytime, anywhere access to ninemsn content and services. We already have a wide variety of mobile sites available including: Getaway, Money, CLEO, ninemsn Movies, National Nine News plus services such as Mobile Hotmail and Instant Messenger.

mo:life
Can you give details about how mobile users are accessing ninemsn content? Are people ‘emailing’ via their phones, or do you find most users prefer to call someone rather than type out an email?

Niamh Collins
There are a couple of ways of accessing our content and services. The most basic is SMS based services ie. a ninemsn customer can sign up to receive Hotmail and Messenger alerts to their phone. MSN Messenger also permits consumers to add mobile buddies ie. I could “John” to my messenger pane (even if you don’t use Messenger) by adding your mobile number. I can therefore communicate to you using Messenger, and IM messages are sent to your phone.

mo:life
What are your thoughts on the user interfaces available on mobile applications? Are they friendly enough for business customers or will the interface designs take more time to evolve?

Niamh Collins
Just as online interfaces continue to evolve with new considerations such as screen size and speed of network access, we anticipate constant change within the mobile user interfaces.

mo:life
Is it true to say the mobile market is currently a very small fraction of ninemsn’s online audience?

Niamh Collins
Mobile penetration is roughly 90% of Australia’s population. ninemsn’s online audience is around 7.2 million. The penetration of mobile services within our base is currently growing but it’s hard to give a definitive number.

mo:life
Does ninemsn mobile have a local developers program specifically for mobile media? Or will traditional PBL content be simply re-purposed for mobile?

Niamh Collins
Our focus is repurposing and enhancing PBL content and MSN services for this specific medium - mobile.

mo:life
In terms of mobile media, what kind of content is ninemsn prioritising? Are you looking to produce specialised content, or source it from aggregators?

Niamh Collins
As with our online strategy, we’re looking at a combination of specialised and aggregated content.

mo:life
Does your partnership with Optus provide opportunities to deliver content to Asian markets?

Niamh Collins
Mobile is just a small component of the Optus partnership, the alliance is focused around providing a unique, convergent experience for customers who are using both Optus mobile and ISP services, for example centralised messaging to both devices.

mo:life
Can you sketch the future (5 years) of mobile tv and mobile video?

Niamh Collins
Right now its about snack content on mobile including video content. In terms of the next five years, it’s all dependent on device capability and consumer interest.