Kwickee bills itself as a Mobile Information Exchange (MIX – their TLA) or “a service that not only allows your mobile to become a gateway to a vast library of content but also to add your very own content for others to buy”.
A kind of eBay for mobile content, bringing buyers and sellers of content together.
They claim to offer a wide range of content organised by subject, ranging from ÎHow toÌs and ÎWhere toÌsÌ entertainment, sport, reviews, shared knowledge and experiences, stories, soaps, diaries, recipes, medical
guides and, of course, the inevitable adult section.
The cost for each article (viewed over WAP) ranges for 50p – £1.50 ($0.89 – $2.68). And the link stays open for 6 weeks after purchase.
If you’re a content seller, your royalty ranges from 29p to 40p if the article is sold at £1.50, or about 60% of Kwickee’s revenue (don’t forget the operator will take about half the gross).
The key to this taking off (stating the bleeding obvious) is the quality of the content and whether people are prepared to pay for it. Well, actually, just the latter 
And I think therefore, they need to do an awful lot of sampling of that content to demonstrate that Doris-down-the-road can actually produce a surprisingly compelling soap opera or that Bill-round-the-corner’s restaurant reviews are as good as anyone in the world’s.
This sampling facility is lacking online and certainly needs to be looked at.
I’m also not sure the cutesy MIX thing does them any favours really. Assuming this takes off, the vast majority of transactions is going to be purchases, not contributions. Most people simply can’t or won’t produce quality written content others will pay for. Therefore, the “user” proposition needs to be far more important than the “contributor”. At the moment, the website is a little confusing as it assumes everyone will want to do both. This is patently not the case, although in an ideal world, it would be nice if more people did write.
Chris Anderson writes a fascinating article in Wired this month exploring The Long Tail phenomenon. I strongly recommend you read it, as it’s a very important concept. But basically, it proposes that in a digital world, we can move away from the “hit” mentality that dominates art – books, film, video, music. This means that were free to discover and explore all the quality, perhaps niche, stuff in the “tail”.
Read it, it’s a fine piece of journalism.
Kwickee’s idea is perfectly poised to exploit the long tail phenomenon. And its contributors are writing with the mobile user in mind. Though I think that a 3G delivery mechanism would make it work much better from a readability/usability point of view.
Finally, I’d also add that they should explore a subscription based model, where for say, £5 per month ($8.95), I get a package of content that represents great value. Lots of £1.50′s are going to add up and put many users off. I realise that this is going to be more difficult to share with contributors, but Kwickee could also move away from Premium Rate texting and make much healthier margins too.
A subscription would also be able to be delivered into a java app, which means that you can browse the latest content offline. This is important is you’ve ever tried a long WAP session. Maybe this is for the future, but I think it would be quite cool in the present too.
Let’s hope that people will pay for this type of service
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