Lack Of Choppyness Is Mobile Videos Selling Point?

from the phew! dept

Tue, Feb 1st 2005 10:18am — Mike Masnick

While it was announced weeks ago, Verizon Wireless has finally launched their VCAST 3G streaming video content. It's still not at all clear that there's any real demand for streaming mobile broadcast style video. While it's probably a "nice to have," it's hardly a strong motivator. People still buy mobile phones to communicate -- not to consumer broadcast style video. Especially when they're on the go. While it does have a nice novelty factor, that's not the same as a sustainable business. On top of this, it looks like Verizon Wireless is already selling this based on the fact that, you know, it doesn't actually suck, rather than what it's useful for. As pointed out by Broadband Reports, the first thing a Verizon Wireless product manager said when asked about the offering is: "it's not choppy." Well, there's a strong selling point.

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

5 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Oliver Wendell Jones, 1 Feb 2005 @ 10:45am

Suitable for mobile porn?
Other than porn, I can only see two other markets - music videos or live news broadcasts.

Am I missing any?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Mike (profile), 1 Feb 2005 @ 10:48am
  
  Re: Suitable for mobile porn?
  Even mobile porn seems like a questionable market to me. First, you have the tiny screen issue... but more importantly, most people using mobile phones to view video will do so when they're out in the public, where mobile porn won't be particularly acceptable. You don't see too many people riding the train/bus to work while reading porn magazines, do you?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - thecaptain, 1 Feb 2005 @ 11:41am
    
    Re: Suitable for mobile porn?
    People get fired daily for watching porn from the net at work...we hear more and more often of people watching porn IN THEIR CARS in traffic and you have ask this?
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2005 @ 4:07pm
    
    Re: Suitable for mobile porn?
    In Japan you do......
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Darren, 1 Feb 2005 @ 11:27am
  
  Re: Suitable for mobile porn?
  i guess its similar to news broadcasts - but maybe sports highlights.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]