Sonera Zed priced just right

In response to the April 18 McKinsey Quarterly article "Wireless Web portals duke it out":

We must point out the inaccuracy of your statement about our company Sonera Zed relating to "high costs of service deterring users." The reverse is in fact the case. We have found that far from pricing deterring users, Zed is now often experiencing more than a quarter of a million transactions a day across eight markets with an average of around 800,000 unique users a month.

Pricing will vary market by market and depending on the service offered. As the point of Zed is to offer specific content in a specific context, elasticity of pricing is very hard to talk knowledgeably about in these early days of a new medium, but experience is beginning to show us how customers value different content types when they are mobile.

Being stuck in a traffic jam or being bored on the bus is the perfect time to check the sports results or horoscope, or play "Trivial Pursuit." In fact this game is already one of our most popular services in the Netherlands. This costs users 50 Dutch cents (approximately 20 U.S. cents) per question, but we are finding that most people try to give correct answers in all six categories, so if they are very clever they can complete a game for 3 Dutch guilders (approximately $1.20 U.S.).

"Info snacking" can be at least as satisfying as a burger or a shake and a lot kinder to the waistline.

Jonathan Russell
Vice president corporate affairs
Sonera Zed
Boston