'Freemium' business model set to become mobile money maker

'Freemium' is rapidly becoming the next big gaming buzzword, and relates to the purchasing of add-ons and special features to a free game, as seen in the likes of web-based Runescape, or iMob Online for the iPhone.

According to Juniper Research, by 2014 the option to upsell premium content direct from within free-to-play games will be worth $14 billion to the mobile games industry. Micro-transactions are set to become one of the most important factors of the iPhone's 3.0 software update, which adds serious weight to the research.

An almost identical figure is being applied to the purchase of mobile music, and leads the analyst to predict that mobile carriers could be encouraged to move charges from traditional contracts and call revenues and into applications and in-app advertising.