Mobile Video For Communications, Not Broadcast

from the calm-down-everyone dept

The phone people always come back to video. First it was all about videophoning, which has been shown repeatedly to have very little interest to most users. More recently, there's been a flurry of activity around TV on mobile phones. The latest is a new report saying that mobile TV will be a bigger revenue generator than SMS text messaging, despite the fact that no one seems to know if there's really any demand. However, if video on mobile phones is going to be a success, it's going to be because of user created content. There's already a growing world of people recording/analyzing their own lives via personal blogs, using audio posts and photos, so it only makes sense to add in the video component as well -- easily offered via a mobile phone. The problem (once again) is that too many carriers don't see how they can put in the necessary tollbooth. So, for now, the focus remains on videophones and mobile TV, and the real exciting uses of video on phones gets left behind.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    John, 12 Oct 2004 @ 7:02am

    Video

    Mike, you are wrong on this one. Do you intelligence work. There are a lot of exciting things coming to the cell phone space using video besides just streaming TV. MobiTV is a nice diversion, but the real applications, infotainment and entertainment and gaming products are coming soon. Look for them :)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Mike (profile), 12 Oct 2004 @ 8:14am

    Re: Video

    I never said there weren't other apps coming to phones... All I was saying was that streaming TV and videophoning weren't going to be the successful ones. Which part of what you say disagrees with that? I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but I don't see how what you say says I'm wrong. It looks like you're agreeing with me, actually, by saying that mobile TV is "a nice diversion."

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.