Reminder To Mobile Phone Industry: It's About Communications, Not Content
from the why-do-they-keep-forgetting dept
We've never quite understood the fascination from those in the mobile phone industry with mobile broadcast TV. It has almost everything going against it. It's incredibly expensive to set up (witness the money spent by Qualcomm alone), it's of limited utility and it doesn't really add much value. If you want something new to catch on, it has to allow people the ability to do something that they simply couldn't do before. However, mobile TV has been tried in the past and failed. Sony had a portable handheld TV that did poorly on the market, as the appeal for mobile broadcast video just isn't that strong. If you're on the go, you're not likely to have much time to sit down and watch a full hour, or even half-hour, TV program. Also, with the advent of time shifting, there are even fewer reasons to want to "watch stuff now."But the biggest thing working against mobile broadcast TV is the whole concept that it's broadcast. It's almost as if the mobile industry hasn't paid attention to what's been happening to the content industry over the past decade. It's facing quite the challenging atmosphere, as there's lots more competition than ever before, and new technologies let people get around the annoying aspects of the broadcast business model (i.e., intrusive advertising). Even more to the point, people view mobile phones as communications devices, not content devices. So, if there's any interest in mobile video, we expected it would be more for communications than broadcast -- and it appears that others are coming around to this view as well. Deloitte & Touche's latest report suggests that mobile broadcast video has little compelling future, and the real opportunity is in helping people create their own content and then share and distribute that content to a wider audience. Would have been nice if they had told the mobile industry before they put up billions to build broadcast-only mobile networks.
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Mobile Web 2.0
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Content is the Future
Basically, you have to remeber that these companies are looking for long term stratigies that they feel would make them money, and unless you know something they don't, they have probably picked the best option
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broadcast
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One possible use for mobile broadcast TV
Also, the next logical step would be some type of on demand offering from your cell phone. As you get lots more memory, I could see being able to download 1 or 2 movies during off peak time or something (or even download the movies to your phone from your computer or other media device), and again, it could be a cheap portable entertainment system.
Also, what about selling peripherals like adapters for external monitors. Then you could turn your cell phone into a content system for your car, again cheaply (why not make it so you can also use the browser capability and allow it to connect to full size pages when connected to an external monitor).
Again, the operative word is providing the functionality above at marginal cost, instant value add.
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Re: Content is the Future
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TV on mobile is not necessarily a dead end
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PC cell phone
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Re: It's ALL about content
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Well, in the Japanese market........
The Japanese broadcast industry is famous for not releasing detailed viewer ratings data, and there are no plans to impliment a ratings system for at least four years, so unfortunately there is no accurate data right now as to how much this technology is really being used on a daily basis.
As an aside, I think the reasoning behind the lack of ratings is that rather than a fear that nobody is using the technology, the worry is that you can theoretically get ratings data of Internet quality (actual total viewers, etc.) for broadcast with tv phones. As mobile Digital TV is currently limited to simulcast of the normal analog and digital broadcast signals here, broadcasters are probably nervous about there being a noticeable gap between the panel based ratings for normal broadcast and the more accurate ratings which could be gained from tv phones. Such a gap would cause a crises in the Ad Agency Broadcast Media TV Ratings Monopoly Cartel which feeds off of advertisers with bloated pricing.
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Better Ways
2nd I think what we are getting from our cell providers in the US is not what customers really want. Walled gardens and getting nickel and dimed are 2 things people don't like. What would work better here is for people to pay for bandwidth (cellular too) and then use it to watch the content they choose (some free some paid for). I have friends with data plans that watch sling mobile on their phones when at the airport or wherever when there is downtime (paid content) and watch internet videos some too. I'll pay for my "tubes", but let me decide what to fill it with.
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I *might* watch a sports highlight clip while waiting on a line, perhaps, but to date I haven't -- it just hasn't occurred to me to do so. I usually check email and maybe CNN.com.
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