July 13, 2006 - BT Wholesale and Virgin Mobile will pilot a service to deliver live television to mobile phones.
Selected Virgin Mobile customers will be able to access Sky Sports News, Sky News, a new music channel Blaze, more than 50 digital radio channels and the UK's first Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) delivered to a mobile device using DAB technology, all provided by BT Livetime.
Key partners for the pilot, alog with Virgin mobile, are Microsoft, Sky, Arqiva (formerly NTL Broadcast), HTC, GCap Media and Digital One.
A four-month pilot of 1,000 users within the M25 bracket began in June.
The wholesale service will enable a “one-to-many” delivery of mobile TV, where mobile operators offer their retail consumers access to television and radio channels broadcast direct to DAB digital radio enhanced mobile devices such as smartphones and personal media players. This is an extremely cost-effective method of giving high quality TV services to large numbers of consumers.
BT Livetime's wholesale mobile TV service is complementary to mobile operators' existing GPRS and 3G services, stimulating new revenue growth by delivering a facility similar to the interactive services which currently exist on digital television.
BT Livetime's commitment to enhance the UK's national commercial DAB digital radio network within the M25 for the pilot and create an EPG will also benefit the digital radio industry by increasing consumer access to digital radio services.
Chris Hutchings, director ventures BT Wholesale said: "BT Livetime intends to be Europe's first commercial mobile entertainment service to deliver broadcast TV and entertainment services direct to DAB-enhanced mobile phones and media players. Mobile broadcast TV delivers a significant commercial opportunity for UK mobile operators and is complementary to existing GPRS and 3G services."
Graeme Hutchinson, sales and marketing director of Virgin Mobile, said: "This is undoubtedly the most exciting mobile television service in the industry. No one else offers the ability to receive live television on your mobile, an electronic programme guide, or the ability to use the service anywhere. This mobile television service is revolutionary, yet it uses an existing technology which can be used right here, and right now, unlike some other forthcoming mobile TV offerings. We think the service is going to change forever the way people use their mobile phones, and we know our customers are going to love it!"
Annika Nyberg, President of the World DAB Forum, said: "The pilot of BT Livetime is not only a technological landmark for DAB digital radio as a standard but a major step forward for consumers in the UK who will be among the first to experience cutting edge technology. The UK already has an extensive DAB digital radio network in place and working and BT Livetime will be able to take advantage of the multitude of opportunities offered by this exciting technology."
BT Livetime is a BT business that was set up following an agreement between BT and GWR Group, the commercial radio company, now part of GCap Media following the merger of GWR and Capital Radio. It will provide its service via Digital One - the UK's only national commercial DAB digital radio network.
SK Telecom, Korea's biggest operator, has stopped providing adult content on its service...although it had made a wide range of efforts to prevent the youth from accessing to adult content, there still remain social concerns and as a result, it made the decision.
I don't know how many of you were aware of Paris Hilton's blunder at E3 in promoting a mobile game branded with her name -- she not only arrived late to the conference but she got the name of the game wrong, continually refering to Diamond Quest while Gameloft was promoting Paris Hilton's Jewel Jam. I didn't mention it at the time because Paris Hilton saying something stupid didn't seem like news. However, I was interested to learn that rather than contradict Paris Gameloft has simply renamed the game Paris Hilton's Diamond Quest. Which is probably the most input Paris had into the designing of the game, but refusing to have let her call it what she want it would have been petty... Surprisingly enough, the game gets a good review.
You start the game in New York and you go to all the major cities around the world collecting diamonds to fee Paris’ gluttonous consumption. Whenever you finish a puzzle you get some encouraging words from the blonde such as: “You’re a total Einstein baby! Smarts are hot.” This was exactly the motivation I needed to finish the game. (c) www.quicklybored.com
In an article about the links between consumers, marketers and musicians mobile music comes out pretty good. "Dan Duncombe, digital media manager at EMI-owned music label Parlophone, says that music publishers have recognised that mobile is the future. "The music industry is looking at how we can deliver mobile content...A number of big brands have come to us and bought downloads to give away to consumers. Mobile is an interactive medium, and marketers get the chance to take the relationship beyond just listening to the track or watching the video." Of course, mobile marketing with music is still mobile marketing, and if done badly (push rather than pull) it will alienate consumers. "Mobile marketing is going to be huge, but a mobile phone is an incredibly personal space, so brands have got to respect the rules of the new media landscape when they consider using it. Get it wrong and you don't just annoy people, you alienate them and create brand terrorists," said the head of digital at Proximity London, whos name is ironically Iremonger.
Local Content, Starting With Weather Related Topics: Mobile Video
An interesting story about Japanese company Weathernews' moves into the mobile video space (reported last month) talks about the demand for local (as opposed to national) mobile content. MobiTV is looking to introduce local content beyond the regional sports matches and concerts it already has. "[Local video content] is one of the biggest requests we get from subscribers," says Jason Taylor, global director of corporate communications at MobiTV." As for demand, Weathernews expects to sign up 200,000 users paying $4.99 per month within a year..."the company says it has already signed up 1.5 million paying subscribers for similar services in Asia and Europe".
Not satisfacted users will not use mobile data service again
44% of UK Mobile Phone Users Who Used a Mobile Data Service For The First Time During The 2006 Football World Cup
Pricing and ease of set up and use are key barriers to mobile data uptake during the 2006 football World Cup
11 July 2006 A new NOP survey commissioned by Olista, the pioneer of service adoption management (SAM), reveals that nearly half of the mobile data consumers who used a service for the first time during the 2006 football World Cup in Germany would not use it again. According to the survey of 999 adults carried out during the final weekend of the competition, an encouraging 29% of world cup mobile data users has used a service for the first time but worryingly for operators 44% claimed they would not use the service again.
A closer look into the views of UK mobile data users reveal that only 49% of consumers were satisfied with the cost of the mobile data service they used. On top of this 19% believe that if mobile data services were easier to set up and use they would have been encouraged to use the services on offer during 2006 football world cup.
The survey also asked the question, if the ease of access and quality of service was not a problem which mobile data services would potential users have considered using. Of the services on offer during the 2006 tournament, text alerts (22%), video clips (16%) and picture messages (16%) were the most appealing to users.
Only 11% of potential mobile data users would have been interested in mobile TV. This is disappointing reading for mobile operators and content providers, who were banking on the tournament to bring mobile TV to the forefront of data service offerings.
Oren Glanz, CEO of Olista says, “The survey illustrates that operators are succeeding in getting consumers interested in mobile data services with an encouraging amount of first time users attempting to use a services during the 2006 tournament. The disappointing part of this survey is that after interest has been achieved the customer is often left disappointed and does not become a repeat customer” states Glanz. “Operators need to anticipate, detect and resolve potential user problems to ensure users enjoy a flawless first time experience every time or they can forget about repeat customers”.
About Olista
Olista is the pioneer in Service Adoption Management (SAM) for mobile operators. Olista’s solutions dramatically increase the number of active subscribers of every data service and enable operators to deliver superior user experience and proactive customer care, and thus raise ARPU.
Half of Subscribers to Video Cell Phone Services Never Use Video Capabilities
Groundbreaking study of mobile video also shows that almost 90% of mobile video downloaders would watch a commercial for free content
Menlo Park, CA; July 11, 2006: A new Knowledge Networks study has found that 50% of those who subscribe to video cell phone services – and 30% of video iPod® owners – never use these devices for viewing video. The study also revealed that 88 percent of people who download mobile video would watch a commercial in exchange for free content, and that laptop computers are actually the most commonly used devices among those who view mobile video.
The new report, How People Use® Mobile Video, is part of the ongoing service The Home Technology Monitor™, which combines annual nationwide surveys of media technology ownership with special reports on key devices and services. These special reports are based on Knowledge Networks/SRI's exclusive How People Use® media methodology, a proven technique for studying the quality of media exposures, including engagement.
Based on a large-scale quantitative survey – conducted among homes with broadband Internet access – as well as in-depth ethnographic research, How People Use® Mobile Video measured
where mobile video is used,
what sources of video viewers rely on,
satisfaction with mobile video devices, and
perceived effects on regular television (TV) viewing.
In addition, those without mobile video devices were surveyed about their degree of interest in the technology and their reasons for wanting or not wanting the devices and services.
The study found that consumers are usually not purchasing video cell phones and video iPods® for their mobile video capabilities. Using the data in this study, we can project the proportion of video iPod® or video cell phone owners who actually watch video on either of those devices to be just 3 percent of the 13-54 broadband population, whom we would normally consider to be technologically oriented.
The study also shows that, even among those who actually subscribe to one of the three major video service providers for cell phones – paying extra to have mobile video available to them – only 50% are actually using that capability. Consumers questioned for the study were carefully screened to confirm that they actually have video cell phone service or a video iPod®.
By contrast, the proportion of laptop video users projected to the 13-54 broadband population is closer to 17 percent. The study found that, among those who use laptops for downloading or streaming video:
77 percent watch streaming video, and 61 percent have downloaded video for later viewing,
23 percent who have downloaded video for later viewing have paid for the video content,
88 percent of people who download mobile video would watch a commercial in exchange for free content, and
89 percent of people who watch live streaming video would watch a commercial in exchange for free content.
"The buzz in mobile video may be around iPods and video cell phones, but laptops are actually trumping those super-small screens when it comes to real-world usage today," said David Tice, Vice President of Client Service at Knowledge Networks/SRI and Director of The Home Technology Monitor. "Even among those who have gone out of their way to obtain mobile video service, use of this capability is still not prevalent. This suggests that either consumers do not really have the time for viewing mobile video, or comfort with the technology is still embryonic among early adopters, not to mention mainstreamers."
Knowledge Networks delivers quality you can use - superior methodologies, design, and analysis that give you an edge when it comes to making smart, safe business decisions. KN's unmatched consumer research resources include the only projectable Web-based consumer panel. The company leverages its expertise in brands, media, advertising, and analytics to provide insights that speak directly to clients' most important marketing issues. In addition, Knowledge Networks has built a substantial practice in government and academic research, an area notable for its rigorous methodology standards.
In 2001, Knowledge Networks acquired assets and expertise from Statistical Research, creating Knowledge Networks/SRI. KN/SRI is one of the country's leading authorities on consumers' use and ownership of media and technology. The company is the leading measurement provider for Yellow Pages directories; other specialties include cross-media allocation ("MultiMedia Mentor"™) and studies of consumers' interactions with media ("How People Use"® research).
Operators Scanning Film Festivals For Mobile Shorts
Newsweek
June 26, 2006 issue - In their bid to turn cell phones into portable cinemas, mobile-phone giants Sprint, Verizon and others are summoning their inner Miramax and discovering the film-festival circuit. This week, for example, Cingular and its wireless-content partner HBO are scoping out the Urbanworld VIBE Film Festival in New York, in part to hunt for short films suitable for the size-challenged cell-phone screen. "I've already set aside six shorts that I thought would be perfect for the [mobile multimedia service]," says Stacy Spikes, who founded Urbanworld 10 years ago. If Spikes's taste doesn't match theirs, Cingular and HBO will get to reach out directly to filmmakers by participating in a panel, "Content on the Go: Opportunities in the Mobile Arena."
Meanwhile, Nokia is setting up a tent this week at the Los Angeles Film Festival to show off its mobile-video phones and technology. Sprint is calling on one of the most famous festivals of all—Sundance. In addition to cosponsoring the event this year, Sprint provided a cellcast of "Live@Sundance," a daily highlight of premieres, filmmaker interviews and other activities. "Because of the evolution of [wireless] Sprint TV, we are able to provide an enhanced experience for film fans," says Sprint spokeswoman Angie Read. Sprint is now studying whether to make a big splash at other festivals, she says, calling such events "an interesting universe" for pursuing the company's multimedia ambitions.
The mobile giants aren't alone in prowling film festivals for video-to-go. MTV, which operates MTV Mobile and the broadband Internet site Overdrive, will be surveying Urbanworld for abbreviated content to distribute wirelessly and online. "We are looking for short-form content just for wireless, Overdrive and video on demand," says Paul DeBenedittis, MTV's top executive for multiplatform programming. Atom Films, an online site with a library of 1,500 shorts, has been at festivals since it launched in 1998. "In the last year, it's really picked up," says CEO Mika Salmi. "A lot of the major media companies and the mobile-phone companies are actively looking for video content. The real money is definitely in the game now."
You're reading it here first...Bryan Biniak, the SVP of AG Interactive division of American Greetings (heading its mobile efforts for the last three years) has left the company, and is starting a new VC fund. The fund, not yet named, will look not just at mobile content, but all kinds of interactive and social media efforts. American Greetings is initially contributing to the fund, and Bryan is also putting in his personal money into it. The fund raising effort is still on. I spoke to Bryan this evening, after he announced his move internally earlier today: he said that AG's mobile efforts have been ramped up (with its multi-cultural efforts, through Univision Movil and Def Jam Mobile, among others) and the mobile division has been merged with two other AG divisions: the messaging division and the social communications division, in an effort to drive a unified interactive media strategy at American Greetings. He spent the last six months merging the three divisions together...Josef Mandelbaum is the CEO of AG Interactive and is now heading all this. Prior to joining AG, Bryan exec VP of sales and marketing for (then owned by) Vivendi Universal's Moviso and before that was COO of YourMobile Networks. His heart is in startups, he told me, and with this new fund, he will help incubate new companies. More details down the line when they announce the company and portfolio investments.
The results of the DMB mobile TV trial during the FIFA World Cup were more or less positive, according to the Bavarian Regulatory Authority for Commercial Broadcasting (BLM). "More than half of the 200 Munich residents chosen had rated their experience with mobile phone TV as good...37 percent had rated their experience as satisfactory, while about 25 percent of those questioned had stated that they intended to make use of the service beyond the trial period". 10 percent said the service was unsatisfactory. Of the trialists, more than 90% watched at least one World Cup match (since that was the whole point of the trial I don't think the rest were pulling their weight) and "in excess of 50 percent of those questioned had said that they found the quality of the TV images displayed to be good". Of course there are disclaimers -- the trial was fr*ee, you'd want to be sure the sample population was representative of the overall population before extrapolating numbers and so on.
AG Forms Licensing Studio For Online, Phones, Among Other Uses
American Greetings, the world’s largest publicly traded greeting card company (which already has a mid-sized online mobile content division in AG Interactive and AG Mobile respectively) is launching of AG Properties, a subsidiary focused on developing new characters and other content that can be sold to toymakers, movie studios, clothing designers, online, mobile phone companies and others.
AG, which quietly has been working on characters for about a year, is hoping to build on the success of vintage characters such as Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears and the beloved Holly Hobbie, born in 1967 and retired a decade later. The card company brought Holly and the other classics back about five years ago, gave them modern makeovers — “Cake” now has pink highlights in her red hair — and quickly earned $2.8 billion in revenue from royalties.
More research on the demand for mobile TV -- this one specifies 10-12 year olds and is pretty positive. UK market research company Quaestor found that "87% of children would like to watch TV on their mobile, and 91% would watch mobile TV while travelling...Content preference varied among the sexes, with girls favouring soaps and boys preferring sports, although entertainment channels such as E4, which features shows such as 'Lost' and 'Hollyoaks', were popular across the board. Some 72% of children said they would watch cartoons on their phone, ahead of 62% who would watch music videos." It's not clear who the research was done for, or why.
Mobile TV is not expected by Quaestor to replace TV viewing but rather supplement it by offering another channel, "just as listening to music via mobiles has not replaced MP3 players".
Al Gore-backed youth and citizen media TV channel Current TV is launching "Current Mobile," a new TV program that showcases video from cell phones. This new show will be sponsored by Sony Ericsson, and the product placement integration is pretty deep: When the piece airs on the network, it will be framed inside a graphic that represents a cellphone display, branded with the Sony Ericsson logo. People can upload their mobile video to the site, and any video that goes on air will earn $100 each. To jumpstart the program, Current TV will offer a summer promotion called "MobileVision," where mobile videomakers can capture moments from summer festivals, hot street fashion, rants, and other topics that will be posted on Current's site. The public can vote pieces on the website and the most popular every week will receive $500 and be considered for TV broadcast.
MobiTV Receives A Whopping $70 Million Third Round
Expansion Capital, DVB-H Launch?
This is possibly the biggest mobile content funding to date: mobile video aggregator and distributor MobiTV has received a whopping $70 million in third round funding. The funding is led by Oak investment Partners, and will be used for its expansion across various markets and different areas beyond just mobile: online, Wi-Fi, Wimax etc. I am presuming a chunk of money will also be used to start mobile streaming TV services, whichever standard it chooses, but the company is not saying much about that now (It is part of the Mobile DTV alliance, which back DVB-H). It has about a million subscribers now, and has expanded across Europe and into Asia as well. In terms of product line, it has gone into mobile radio recently. I spoke briefly to Bruce Gilpin, CSO and interim CFO, about the funding and other plans, and couldn't get much info out of him. But he did mention that the money is for expansion, though they're not disclosing how the money will be invested in specific areas. Safe to say that mobile (or mobility) will still be the main focus, even though the company has expanded into online through its deal with AT&T on Wi-Fi, and with Microsoft for mobile and online. On mobile TV standards, it hasn't decided on a standard to back, and is looking at all standards including DVB-H and MediaFlo. Money will also be used to ramp up its mobile advertising efforts, developing technologies and services around it. The company is also closely looking at expanding services on the still-nascent WiMax network, Gilpin mentioned. In terms of the future of the company, exit is probably a year or so away, and I doubt it would go the IPO route.
It took two years for MobiTV to sign up its first 500,000 customers — and just six months for the next 500,000. The growth has been aided by the availability of more video-capable handsets and increasing access to wireless broadband, along with greater awareness of mobile devices as a way to watch various forms of TV and video. During an in-depth conversation at CTIA, co-founder and COO Paul Scanlan talked about some of the advances the company has made in the past year, the move beyond phones to laptops, and possible involvement in the Sprint-cable joint venture. Other services on the product map: DVR-like capabilities, an online locker for off-device storage through MobiTV, Scanlan also was quite frank about the location shifting options from Sling Media and others, spurred, in part, by my use of Slingbox Mobile on a Cingular device that doesn’t support MobiTV. Some excerpts:
Someone suggested to me that Slingbox disrupts you out of business. “Sling, in a weird kind of way, is actually helping our business more than most people would think. One of the nice things about what Sling is doing is they’re really agitating the content partners. … We’ve been challenging (our content partners) to free up the rights and license their content so that we can offer a paid service for subscribers who want to get their content outside their television set and offer an affordable package that’s available to everybody and legitimize the service offering. What’s happened is, in lieu of not having that available with the exception of MobiTV, people are buying products like Sling Media and doing it arguably illegally but still getting access to the content that they want. … It’s very similar to what the music industry went through several years back … the fact is the music industry actually wasn’t providing consumers with an opportunity to do it in such a way that those things could be straightened out.” – “We’ve moved from mobile phones into PDAs and Smartphones into WiFi and now into laptops and PCs so MobiTV is available to you everywhere from any broadband-connected device and all of our content is licensed and rights are clear for the distribution that we’re allowed. … In its current form in the way they’re offering it, (Sling’s) not really a mass-market device. Our goal and … our vision is to enable a very, familiar easy to use service for people to get TV on all the devices that they want access to.”
Do you really think I’m breaking the law? “I think you are breaking the contract with your cable company or satellite … If you look at the rights that you have to distribute that content, you’re confined to distributing that content inside your home so you actually don’t have the rights to retransmit that content. Here’s why: The providers who are providing that content to you are providing it because they’ve licensed it for certain specific uses. They’ve licensed it for cable and satellite. There are windows of availability that they can make their content through. If you have a tool that enables you to view that content in areas where they don’t have the rights, you’re actually putting them in a legal situation because they may be licensing content from a sports league where they’re subject to blackout restrictions… You’re paying for access through the distribution you pay for but not through the one that you’re watching.”
The fact that I’m watching through my own set doesn’t matter? “Doesn’t matter … This is definitely a gray area and one which the content providers clearly are not excited about. … If I had my way, I would agree with you that, hey, we should be able to watch this content wherever. That would be better for us. We wouldn’t have to license content if that were the case. We could just go and I could hook my cable and distribute it. But that’s not the way rights work. When you’re talking about produced content whether it’s music, TV, movies, there are a lot of people involved that need to be paid, who need to be compensated for their work. Just like an artist deserves to be paid every time someone downloads their song. … In this case, the content providers are claiming — and I actually think they have a very solid argument — that they should be compensated for the additional use and that that additional use should still be subject to the same rights and restrictions that they licensed the content with. … The first iteration of MobiTV way back before we launched the commercial service was, in fact, our own version of what Sling is doing today. Technically, it wasn’t challenging for us. The real challenges are in the business model and finding a way … I think one of the things Sling is going to be subject to is they are agitating the carriers and they are agitating the content providers. If they want to have a very successful mass market product, the people participating in the value chain need to be compensated fairly. They don’t need to go overboard on the compensation. … Our goal for MobiTV isn’t that you would have to have a separate, distinct subscription for every device that you have but you need to figure out the business model. … We’re working with our carrier partners and our content partners to make sure we can provide easy to use, easy to understand packages where you get MobiTV on your laptop, PDA and your cell phone, it’s one subscription on all devices — and maybe if we work in cooperation with the cable company, it’s offset with the fact that you’re paying for cable at home.”
You’ve worked very tightly with carriers, Sprint, you’ve got 1 million-plus customers and yet it feels like the carriers still have yet to quite figure out what to do with all this. “I actually disagree with that. … I would say the carriers understand this space a lot better than they used to and they’re doing a lot more to build this space than they ever have as witnessed by our growth. We grew to 500,000 subs in the first two years and in the last six months we added another 500,000 subs. That tells you something about how the operators have firmly gotten behind these products and service … Sprint is very visionary in their approach to TV; they’re now bundling TV in all their data plans. Alltel is doing the same thing. In the early days, TV was something they were interested in but not a strategic objective of theirs … I think actually through a lot of our success, we’ve demonstrated how powerful TV can be. … They’ve actually stopped calling data plans data plans, they call them TV plans. That’s the Holy Grail for us.”
Are you involved with the Sprint-Cable joint venture? Sprint’s a big partner of ours. They’re got the JV. We’ve shown some things at some trade shows (programming set-tops through the phone) … I can’t talk about anything yet but we like what’s happening. It’s good for us and it’s good for Sprint and it’s good for the cable companies.”
Jack Hallahan, VP of Advertising for MobiTV was on a panel at the Integrate LA conference this Thursday, and he gave some numbers on the mobile video service: he says the users generally watch for about 7-15 minutes each session and about 2-3 times a day…not unlike radio, he mentioned. On advertising on MobiTV, he mentioned that Jeep had a special (advertising) channel on MobiTV, and he said is was among the top viewed, and outranked the likes of iFilm, Weather Channel, and others during the campaign period. At any time, they have four main advertisers on the service. The pricing for such ads: a Jeep-like campaign would last about 3 months for roughly about $100K a month.
К 2010 г. продажи телефонов, поддерживающих стандарты сотовой связи и Wi-Fi, значительно вырастут, считают эксперты исследовательской компании In-Stat.
Сотовые операторы первоначально рассматривали Wi-Fi как угрозу продажам услуг мобильной передачи данных: например, люди часто используют телефоны, чтобы узнать прогноз погоды и котировки финансовых рынков. Однако это восприятие быстро меняется, и, по данным In-Stat, поставщики услуг осознают конкурентоспособность телефонов, поддерживающих технологию Wi-Fi.
По прогнозам аналитиков In-Stat, к 2010 г. в эксплуатации будет находиться 132 млн таких устройств. На рынке уже представлено либо в ближайшее время появится более 20 моделей мобильных телефонов, поддерживающих Wi-Fi. Некоторые из этих новых телефонов являются плодами сотрудничества сотовых операторов и компаний-провайдеров интернет-телефонии. Так, например, компания Motorola в начале прошлого года объявила о партнерстве с провайдером интернет-телефонии Skype. Если совместный бизнес пойдет по плану, покупатели мобильных телефонов с поддержкой Wi-Fi смогут переключаться на службу Skype, если они находятся в зоне действия хот-спота. Покинув эту зону, они смогут пользоваться услугами сотовой связи на этом же телефоне.
FIFA Mobile Content Rights Worth "Tens of Millions" Worldwide
FIFA Mobile Content Rights Worth "Tens of Millions" Worldwide
The availability of mobile content varies according to territory based partly on the TV rights…the general package was set five years ago before anyone really knew how the mobile market would be in 2006. “Infront has put together a standard mobile rights package, which consists of up to four minutes of selected video footage per match, with no embargo in terms of distribution so it can be delivered as clips during a match. But only these four minutes can be exploited, so the same material must be used for near-live goal alerts, as well as single-match highlights, daily highlights, group-stage highlights and so on.” Personally, I’m wondering if there’s any way I can see Australia’s games here in Mexico…
And so it begins…you can expect a lot of news over the next few weeks about the FIFA World Cup, which is the first World Cup which will be shown widely on mobile phones. Which is handy timing, since its the first one that’s been filmed in high definition, allowing for editing which will make the game easier to see on mobiles. According to this very good article on mobile efforts, at the last World Cup only Japan had a network capable of delivering video, and it garnered 250,000 subscribers. “This year we see a different situation. We have done mobile deals in over 100 countries,” Salomon said. Infront does not divulge the value of the mobile rights market, but Salomon said it is now worth “tens of millions” of dollars worldwide. “It’s definitely significant. In some markets we have achieved about 10% of the television rights revenues, even a bit more,” he reported. Infront’s standard Internet package also has sold to more than 80 countries worldwide.”
Analysts Predict Small, Successful Niche For Mobile Video
Analysts Predict Small, Successful Niche For Mobile Video Simplicity, Familiarity Should Spur Usage 06.21.06
By Bary Alyssa Johnson On Wednesday, analyst firm ABI Research released the results of its study on the "fledgling" market for mobile television, which the firm forecasts will continue to grow both exponentially as well as internationally.
The Broadcast and Unicast Mobile TV Services study was conducted by principal analyst Ken Hyers, and examined market dynamics including industry players, enabling technologies and business models. Among the key findings, Hyers said he expects to see upwards of 500 million international mobile TV subscribers by 2011.
In a similar study, Jupiter Research found that the American mobile video market will generate approximately $501 million by 2010, although it will only represent 5 percent penetration among mobile subscribers. In other words, by 2010, 12 million of the 246 million estimated cell phone subscribers in the U.S. will use mobile video regularly.
Analysts said that the concept of mobile video -- essentially TV on the road, with ads -- was familiar to both U.S. consumers and broadcasters, who could see it as an extension of their existing TV content contracts. Still, Hyers noted that, like television, a communications infrastructure would have to be in place before the technology could take off.
"South Korea and Japan are the early adopters, but European and North American markets are not far behind, with three contenders planning to introduce mobile video broadcast services in the United States over the next 12 to 18 months," ABI's Hyers noted in a statement. "Most markets will not be able to support more than two broadcast networks due to the high cost of building them, and the fact that most markets only have three or four major mobile operators selling wireless services to subscribers."
Qualcomm's MediaFLO mobile video broadcast service is one of three competing services that ABI expects to enter the American market. MediaFLO announced plans to launch its service later this year, according to the research firm. Crown Castle's Modeo and Aloha Partner's Hiwire services will make their debut at some point in 2007.
Due to the high cost of building broadcast networks and limited access to major mobile operators that offer wireless services, ABI maintains that there may not be room in the mobile video market for all three services. Success in the U.S. will likely depend on commitment to mobile operators.
"MediaFLO has been built for this purpose from the ground up, and…Verizon Wireless has already committed to it," Hyers said. "Modeo and Hiwire are competing for the business of just three major operators and one of them will fail. Modeo plans to be faster to market, and if it signs a major operator quickly, its battle is half-won. On the other hand, in Hiwire's favor is its large (12 MHz) and valuable swath of spectrum with more favorable characteristics than Modeo's."
"The service we expect to offer on the MediaFLO network would be multicast broadcasts, which are essentially many different channels that would be pre-programmed -- similar to cable TV," said Jeffrey Nelson, corporate communications director for Verizon Wireless, told PC Magazine. "The Qualcomm broadcast service is not 'traditional' TV – it will have different kinds of programming…[because] we don't think many people will sit down for an hour to watch an event on their mobile phone. We don't view our multimedia services as a substitute for TV, bur rather an extension of existing media." Continued...
Modeo and MediaFLO were the only contenders in the mobile video game until Aloha Partners and its Hiwire service showed up on the scene. MediaFLO plans to launch its network based on proprietary broadcast technology developed by Qualcomm, while Modeo is building its own Digital Video Broadcast – Handheld (DVB-H) network. Hiwire also boasts a DVB-H network with a considerable broadcast spectrum space.
DVB-H technology was developed by several major presences in the IT industry, including Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, Samsung, and more. The companies created this "open" standard in a bid to drive market adoption by increasing competition and subsequently driving down prices.
"The key question is whether Aloha's Hiwire will meet the dual priorities of being based on an 'open' standard, like DVB-H, and being on an ideal frequency spectrum like 700 MHz," Hyers said. "If it is able to trump DVB-H and MediaFLO in these respects, Hiwire might just prove to be the tortoise that beats the hare to the finish line."
"Mobile video adoption is important to wireless carriers to continue trying to figure out ways to make additional money, and I don't blame them," said Todd Chanko, analyst at Jupiter Research, in an interview. "The market for cell phone subscribers is slowing down…so the carriers are making good money from subscriptions, but they need to make more money and the way to do that with already-existing subscribers is charging for additional services – basically they're thinking about video."
"We asked consumers earlier this year what features were most important in considering their next cell phone purchase – text messaging was a very important feature but accessing video content was the lowest on the list," Chanko said. "As of this year the idea that a phone can play video was not considered important enough for the majority of consumers in terms of planning their next cell phone purchase. That speaks volumes to me – it says right now consumers in this country aren't really interested in the 'gee-whiz' factor, they want to use their phones to make calls and send text messages."
ABI addressed other issues related to the mobile TV market including various business models and the possibility of piracy when it comes to copyrighted content, although a company representative was not available to elaborate on these topics.
"Mobile video is very much on the horizon and I think they expect to deliver more and more broadcast content directly to your mobile phone," said Deborah Wilcox, a partner with Baker & Hostetler LLP in Columbus, Ohio, and co-chair of the firm's Intellectual Property (IP) Litigation practice. "We know technology facilitates authorized broadcasts, but it can facilitate unauthorized broadcasts too."
Wilcox maintains that although piracy is a major issue on the Internet, it is not yet clear whether such problems will extend to the mobile video market.
"The Supreme Court Grokster case found that when you're using technology that enables people to share information and are inducing people to copy copyrighted works you can be found liable for copyright infringement," Wilcox said. "When this new technology comes out you have to see what developers are telling users to do with it – it becomes problematic when someone starts profiting from content copied off their mobile phone. It seems like it would be less of a problem than issues like P2P file sharing that goes on over the Internet."
In terms of business models for mobile video distribution, Wilcox and Chanko agree that an ad-supported approach would likely be the most logical.
"An ad-supported business model would be similar to how television is today – when you're getting content on your phone you'll be watching ads as well as the broadcast programming," Wilcox said. "The advertising model lets advertisers reach out to mobile phone users. This is a way to reach users who are more on-the-go and not sitting at home in their living rooms."
"Consumers can get content for free if it's supported by ads, but somebody has got to pay for content to be formatted and delivered via phone," Chanko said. "ABC and CBS are more than happy to enter the mobile video business because it's incremental income for them. What traditional content providers are doing is leveraging existing brands – this is a way to reinforce the popularity of existing programming and make additional cash on the side."
Last edited Jul 12, 2006 - Note created Jun 26, 2006 Analysts Predict Small, Successful Niche For Mobile Video - www.pcmag.com/...
By Laurie Sullivan22 June 2006 09:19 AESTConvergence Consumers will start to buy into mobile TV during the next six years, sending subscriber numbers soaring as the correct mix of technology and business models find their way into the market.
ABI Research forecasts 514 million will subscribe to the service by 2011, up from 6.4 million last year worldwide. The emerging mobile television market has begun to build momentum, said ABI Research principal analyst Ken Hyers in a report released Wednesday, suggesting ad-supported broadcast services will propel growth.
Three companies plan to introduce mobile video broadcast services in the United States during the next 12 to 18 months. Qualcomm will launch MediaFLO between September and December. Aloha Partners' Hiwire and Crown Castle's Modeo will follow in 2007.
Hyers, however, cautions most markets won't have the ability to support more than two broadcast networks because of the high cost to build them, and many markets only have three or four major mobile operators selling wireless service to subscribers.
Executives admit consumer interest runs mixed when it comes to multimedia-enabled mobile handsets that offer TV content. Motorola vice president of ecosystem and market development Christy Wyatt says mobile TV isn't about replacing other devices, but rather extending the experience.
"I probably wouldn't sit in my living room and watch my Q, Motorola's new phone, instead of my big LCD screen," Wyatt said. "But on a flight, a bus or in a boring meeting this device lets me take content into new places."
Handsets, such as Motorola's recently introduced Q phone, are helping to move the concept of mobile TV into reality. Frost & Sullivan industry manager for digital media Mukul Krishna suggests other factors are lining up, too. "Apache now runs on mobile phones, networks have the bandwidth to support the content, and codecs and players on handsets now offer decent video on the handset," Krishna said.
Companies are working to connect the in-home digital video recorder with the mobile network, allowing consumers to retrieve and play content from their digital video recorder (DVR) on their mobile phone, Krishna said.
Holding back adoption had been the business model. That means a method to integrate ordering, billing, fulfillment and a content management portal strategy to deliver the goods. Carriers, such as Cingular, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, would also need a way to tie it all back into the DVR.
Still missing, a "wider pipe" to deliver broadcast-quality content to the phone, Krishna said. "You also need a device built into the DVR that would transcode the content into a sufficient frame rate, upload that content to a portal, and then download to the mobile phone."
Carriers and handset manufacturers have the technology to deliver this service, but it's still too expensive. Krishna said other factors include the high risk of piracy and digital rights management (DRM), which tend to make media owners a little uneasy about sharing content between the DVR and the mobile phone.
Last edited Jul 12, 2006 - Note created Jun 26, 2006
514 million people will be watching broadcast video on handsets by 2011, according to ABI Research.
The number of subscribers for TV services delivered over a mobile phone is expected to soar worldwide in the next five years, a market research firm said Wednesday.
By 2011, the number of people watching broadcast video on the handsets is projected to reach 514 million from 6.4 million at the end of last year, ABI Research said. Demand for so-called "unicasting," such as video on-demand, is expected to be much smaller.
"Broadcast will be the preferred method of access to mobile video for most people," ABI analyst Ken Hyers said in a statement. "Unicast will remain part of the mix, for customers who want to access video-on-demand, but ABI Research believes that the majority of subscription services will be for broadcast content, and that unicast-only subscriptions will not be a significant part of the market."
Japan and South Korea are the early adopters of mobile TV services, but Europe and North America are not expected to remain in the rear. In the United States, three companies are planning to introduce mobile video broadcast services in the next 12 to 18 months. Those firms include MediaFLO, owned by Qualcomm Inc.; Hiwire, owned by Aloha Partners; and Modeo, owned by Crown Castle. MediaFLO plans to launch services in the fourth quarter, with the others following suit in 2007.
Success in the market, however, will depend on partnerships the services sign with major wireless carriers, ABI said. MediaFLO has signed Verizon Wireless, but the others have yet to announce deals.
Есть сервисы, которые берут деньги за хранение ваших файлов на сервере — как правило, фотографий, видео и музыки. Есть те, кто хранит их бесплатно. А теперь появился и сервис, который обещает за это заплатить вам. Разумеется, платят далеко не за все.
Сайт с не самым звучным названием www.eefoof.com напоминает известный сервис YouTube (www.youtube.com), о котором я не так давно рассказывал. Здесь тоже можно зарегистрироваться и закачать свои мультимедийные файлы, с тем чтобы по вашей ссылке их могли посмотреть другие люди. Но в отличие от YouTube здесь за размещение вашего контента вам обещают деньги. Модель очень простая: контент привлекает посетителей, которые смотрят рекламу, сайт зарабатывает на этом деньги и делится доходами с поставщиками этого контента.
Выкладывать можно все, что угодно: фотографии, видеоролики, звуковые файлы и даже флэш-анимацию. Последнее — просто находка для тех, кто рисует флэш-мультфильмы: отличная возможность проверить, насколько его творение может понравиться людям. Многие такие произведения становились популярными в Сети — например, появившийся недавно замечательный мультфильм “Аниматор против анимации” (www.deviantart.com/view/34244097), только денег их авторам никто не платил.
На сайте приведена схема выплат — сумма напрямую зависит от посещаемости данного раздела сайта и популярности каждого его файла в отдельности. Например, если фотораздел за месяц посетили 10 000 раз, а вашу конкретную фотографию посмотрели 100 человек, то вам достается $5. Тут есть маленькая хитрость: на самом деле значение имеет не столько само по себе количество посещений (хотя и оно, конечно, тоже), сколько доля посещений, которую принял на себя ваш файл. Выплаты производятся через систему PayPal (www.paypal.com), как только сумма на вашем счете превысит $25. Добиться внимания к себе не так-то просто, учитывая, что здесь запрещено размещать материалы “для взрослых” и продукцию, правами на которую пользователь не обладает.
Каждый раздел делится еще на два — последние поступления и наиболее популярные файлы. Так что, если ваши фотография, ролик, песня или мультфильм не привлекли внимания сразу и не попали из первого раздела во второй, шансов заработать практически нет, и это четкий сигнал сделать новую попытку чуть-чуть заработать.
Last edited Jul 12, 2006 - Note created Jul 11, 2006
It took two years for 
And so it begins…you can expect a lot of news over the next few weeks about the FIFA World Cup, which is the first World Cup which will be shown widely on mobile phones. Which is handy timing, since its the first one that’s been filmed in high definition, allowing for editing which will make the game easier to see on mobiles. According to this very good article on mobile efforts, at the last World Cup only Japan had a network capable of delivering video, and it garnered 250,000 subscribers. “This year we see a different situation. We have done mobile deals in over 100 countries,” Salomon said. Infront does not divulge the value of the mobile rights market, but Salomon said it is now worth “tens of millions” of dollars worldwide. “It’s definitely significant. In some markets we have achieved about 10% of the television rights revenues, even a bit more,” he reported. Infront’s standard Internet package also has sold to more than 80 countries worldwide.”