Mobile media: A year at a glance
December 31, 2008
Get the dirt as the candidates throw
In 2008 many large media brands leveraged the mobile channel to extend their reach and to have an additional means for monetization.
With the mobile phone becoming an important part of consumers' busy lives media companies are now challenged with providing people with information when and where they want it. Media giants like the New York Times, Style.com, People.com and the Associated Press proved that mobile can act as an extension of a brand. Let's take a look at a few media companies that had mobile initiatives this year.
Condé Nast
Condé Nast's Brides.com just recently began streaming live mobile videos of bridal fashion shows to keep brides-to-be updated on the latest wedding dress trends.
Editors at Brides.com, Condé Nast's premier bridal destination Web site, are hitting the bridal runway shows with Nokia N75 mobile phones in hand to capture and stream the events live.
The strategy is to give brides-to-be real-time access to bridal fashion.
Mobile style points
Additionally, Condé Nast's Vogue magazine is using JuiceCastor's mobile video search service to enable consumers to watch Shopvogue.tv fashion videos on mobile.
Consumers can also browse and buy products featured in the advertisements in Vogue and in the videos. The fashion-focused Vogue is the circulation leader among all Condé Nast titles.
Condé Nast also launched its first iPhone app for Style.com in late August, timed to coincide with the Spring/Summer '09 fashion shows that began in New York in early September.
To date the application has had over 150,000 downloads and more than 3 million advertisement views.
For Style.com, and for the other CondeNet brands, the iPhone is a great platform. It combines form and function in a way that's uniquely suited to the media giant's content.
The screen is unfettered by physical keys, so it becomes the perfect slate for full-bleed fashion photos and hi-res videos.
The App Store-- being part of iTunes-- has an audience of millions, pre-trained to search and download, giving Condé Nast access to an audience that augments its online viewers.
Election coverage
This year's election coverage was different than any other. With more and more people owning mobile phones and demanding real-time election information. Media brands stepped in to reach consumers on-the-go.
Here are some examples of mobile election coverage.
NewsGator Technologies Inc., Washington Post and Newsweek unveiled Campaign Tracker, a free application for Microsoft Windows Mobile phones that gave users up-to-date election news.
The application aggregated political content from these brands' media properties, extending their reach and letting readers access the most recent and popular news on any given candidate on their mobile phones.
Verizon Wireless's V Cast subscribers were able to stay informed and in touch with all of the live election coverage using their mobile phones.
Verizon Wireless offered customers two ways to watch live, up-to-the-minute Election 2008 coverage with V Cast Mobile TV and V Cast Video. Coverage included breaking news and commentary during live simulcast programming from NBC, MSNBC, CBS and ABC.
In an ongoing effort to bring America's youth coverage of political issues, MTV's Choose or Lose is extended its youth coverage across multiple new media platforms, including mobile.
Consumers were able to watch the new, hour-long program, the "Best of Choose or Lose," exclusively on their mobile phones via MediaFlo USA Inc.'s Flo TV service, airing each Friday at 7 pm EST.
Even Google joined the elections bandwagon with a new mobile site dedicated to the elections.
The site at http://m.google.com/elections leveraged Google mobile products to deliver information related to the race between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama for president. The site was in typical Google fashion -- plain vanilla.
Mobile for monetization
The Chicago Sun-Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Time Out Chicago, Time Out New York and Metro International partnered with Verve Wireless for mobile couponing.
Verve's local mobile network covers the top 200 designated market areas across America.
Using Verve's publishing and mobile advertising system, these local content partners can extend their communities and readership onto mobile phones and offer local businesses mobile advertising options.
Tribune Co.'s Los Angeles Times turned to mobile to increase revenue and create new value for its automotive and real estate advertisers.
The newspaper tapped mobile marketing and technology provider Gumiyo Inc. for the mobile marketing initiative, which connects consumers with the Los Angeles Times' classified print and online automotive and real estate advertising via mobile.
The winter issue of "Martha Stewart Weddings" is one of the first women's magazines to fully mobilize its print ads after a similar effort three months earlier between SnapNow and Hachette Filipacchi's Woman's Day.
Martha Stewart Weddings used SnapTell image-recognition-based mobile marketing services to make the advertisements live.
On-stands since Dec. 29, the fully interactive issue allows readers to snap a picture of any featured advertisement, send the picture to SnapTell and instantly get back content from an advertiser.
In addition, Chicago job seekers can now get help wanted listings sent directly to their handsets as part of the newspaper's effort to expand its classified offerings and appeal to a younger, mobile demographic.
The newspaper claims it is the first in the country to mobilize its job listings. Cellit Mobile Marketing is powering this initiative.
Gone mobile
Who went mobile in 2008?
In November, leading celebrity news site People.com launched People.com Mobile.
People.com tapped Crisp Wireless, a provider of mobile publishing and advertising services for media and entertainment companies, to create People.com Mobile. The new People.com Mobile Web site also provides added depth to Crisp Wireless' Entertainment News channel.
The mobile site can be found by typing http://m.people.com into a mobile browser.
The Huffington Post, an Internet newspaper, launched an ad-supported mobile Web site on Nov. 5.
The online publication tapped Crisp Wireless, a provider of mobile publishing and advertising services for premium media and entertainment companies, to create its mobile Web site and provide some collaborative advertising services.
The mobile site at http://m.huffpost.com launched in time for on-the-go election-day coverage.
Top celebrity blogger Perez Hilton has launched a mobile Web site to feed hungry gossip addicts anytime, wherever they are.
The mobile site at http://m.perezhilton.com offers all of Perez's hottest celebrity gossip and signature photos. Readers have the ability to share posts with others through SMS and email, and search the entire Perez Hilton archives from a mobile phone.
Mobile marketing services company Vibes Media signed a deal to extend newspaper giant Tribune Co.'s editorial to the mobile channel.
Vibes converted thousands of articles from the Tribune Media Services content into a mobile-ready format and for mobile publishing on a regular basis.
This was the Tribune's first major effort to leverage its print and online content across mobile.
Also, National Geographic launched a mobile division to leverage its nature-focused content across mobile -- one of the fastest-growing interactive channels.