Made-for-mobile not always best for video content: CTIA panelists
September 12, 2008
Panelists at a session titled, "Mobile video -- Community interaction with clips," said that consumers want to watch videos that they are somewhat familiar with.
"Existing content appeals to people," said Eric Berger, senior vice president of mobile at Sony Pictures Television. "People really like familiar classics, the movies that they love. So made-for-mobile is important but then again familiarity is always good.
"The key is to take those familiar programs and movies and optimize them for the mobile user," he said.
Mobile video is becoming more and more popular among handset owners, especially with the uptake in all-you-can-eat data plans.
The reported mobile video viewer share by carrier holds AT&T in the lead with 32 percent of video viewers on the carrier's network.
Verizon comes in second place with 25 percent and Sprint Nextel has 19 percent.
A whopping 49 percent of viewers access mobile video via subscription. Sixty-nine percent acces it via the mobile Web.
There is a total of 14.6 million mobile video subscribers per quarter.
Made-for-mobile may not be the answer for well-established brands that are just taking their television and movie content and bringing it to the handset.
However media publishers need to give mobile users something new on mobile.
"Offer compelling content types not typically offered by major news networks such as parodies, interviews and citizen perspectives," Mr. Berger said.
For example WebCast 08 is a V CAST video channel offering official campaign video as well as edgy and unique election coverage from the Web.
The channel managed by Kargo on behalf of Verizon Wireless offers a departure from mainstream content by showcasing citizen journalism and viral hits like Obama girl.
Us Magazine's Us Mobile has been generating traffic through a mobile community.
By offering a simple method of posting comments and interacting with other users, micro communities evolve that connect people both through the content and on a personal level.
The Us Mobile community averages 37,000 page views daily via AT&T only. The community also gets about 300 comment posts every day.
"It's very much like MySpace because it is fostering community around topics like celebrity news as a way to surge communication among people who are interested in this type of content," said Harry Kargman, CEO of Kargo.
Mobile video messaging is going to be the next big thing.
"It is important to remember that video messaging is about communicating and using video to replace and enhance a text messages," said Allan Benchetrit, president/CEO of Vantrix. "This type of mobile content should be fun.
"If it is someone's birth day, instead of sending a text that says happy birthday you can send an MMS with a video clip that has a birthday message," he said. "This is a great way to delight customers with the multimedia user experience."
Mogreets is a company that is already doing this.
The service is preloaded on some carrier decks.
Paramount Digital Entertainment is doing something similar where it lets users express themselves to friends with scenes from movies.
"It is also a way to promote movie availability on DVD and points user to a convenient buy location," said Madeline Herdrich, vice president of mobile at Paramount Digital Entertainment.
"If you take something that's popular culture and place it into mobile, it starts to lift everything."
But there are certain things to consider when getting into the MMS video market.
"People are going start using MMS as a way to send and watch videos," said Mitch Feinman, general manager at Mogreet. "It should be transparent for the consumer, with no subscription necessary.
"The screen for mobile is different and there is a lot to consider and the experience should based on that," he said. "You have to be very cost conscious."
There is a lot of growth in video and there is no question that there is more and more content available and this increases usage and so on.
The biggest challenges that the industry faces is that people think it's too expensive to watch videos.
"The ones that are educated and have all-you-can-eat data plans use mobile video the most," Mr. Kargman said. "Others don't realize it is part of the bundle.
"It is coming," he said. "It is just going to take some education."
Multiple distribution points are also necessary.
"You have to make content available across many carrier networks and platforms," Ms. Herdrich said. "The most important thing is to get your product out to the general marketplace."