NEW YORK ? Lucky Magazine, MTV, Sports Illustrated and Gannett Digital executives said that mobile has the potential to cannibalize print the same way the wired Web did.

During the Mobile Marketing and Media 2010 Conference, panelists discussed how mobile is changing media and the opportunities of monetizing video on mobile without wearing out the television experience. Mickey Alam Khan, editor in chief of Mobile Marketer and Mobile Commerce Daily, New York, moderated the panel.

?Mobile is not as much an opportunity, but more of a neccessity,? said Mary Gail Pezzimenti, online director of Lucky Magazine, New York. ?This is a bit of an obvious point, but what I find refreshing is that people are conditioned to pay for some pieces of mobile in a way that they don?t online.

?It?s making us think about our brands differently,? she said. ?We want to do a replica of what Sports Illustrated did on the iPad. Lucky Magazine is evolving into Lucky the brand, but what does that mean?

?It?s about developing a shopping experience ? mobile is anywhere and you can shop anywhere.?

Lucky you
Lucky will be using SMS in its September issue and is also looking into launching mobile games in the fall.

In addition, the publication is looking at using bar codes where users can scan a bar code to view a styling video that drives purchases of an item.

According to Ms. Pezzimenti, readers can view the styling video with the bar code and if they see a certain product they like, they can click on it, which then takes them to that brand?s Web site where they can purchase that item.

?The opportunity to shop on mobile platforms such as the iPhone and iPad has exploded this year,? Ms. Pezzimenti said. ?It?s an innovation for us and advertisers that we?ve talked to are interested in that.

?We would coproduce a video with them, give them styling advice,? she said. ?If someone has a new line coming out, we would do a video on that and we would ideally make that video shoppable."

The iPad is also changing how Lucky views its content.

?It?s making us think about our brands differently,? Ms. Pezzimenti said. ?The iPad will begin to affect how we design the magazine. It?s a game changer.?

Illustrated mobile
Sports Illustrated is looking into monetizing its mobile content.

The publication recently released an iPad version of its magazine, which is being offered as both a free and paid application.

Additionally, last year the company offered its swimsuit application for free to readers, but it found that many readers upgraded to the premium version.

?Everything we look at should have a ROI strategy and mobile is no exception,? said Ken Fuchs, vice president and general manager of Sports Illustrated Digital Group, New York. ?Today, it?s a newsstand sales process and hopefully a subscription opportunity for us ? we try to understand user adoption trends.

?The environment is different than what it was three years ago,? he said. ?Three years ago there were smaller screens, you had to wait a long time for the information to load and you didn?t have great networks at that point.

?Then an influx of devices happened, which allowed a premium content to flourish within the mobile experience.?

Sports Illustrated also finds Apple?s iPad to be a game changer and thinks the device will revolutionize the way that the company will monetize its content.

?We have high-definition photos,? Mr. Fuchs said. ?It changes the game of how you can monetize mobile on your core assets.

?Before it was news and scores and it was hard to charge for that,? he said. ?Now we all have unique experiences that we can translate to this environment.?

However, the company?s mobile strategy is not an iPad strategy.

According to Mr. Fuchs, the strategy is a platform-agnostic approach.

The company is currently working with Netbiscuits on a Facebook-based game, which users can play from any mobile Web device.

Although the company does not have a collective data aspect, it will be able to get user data from Facebook, which it can use for advertising and marketing purposes.

Another key mobile aspect for Sports Illustrated is video.

?On the Sports  Illustrated side, [video] is part of the journalistic entertainment experience,? Mr. Fuchs said. ?The means producing original video content, having highlights ? it?s really about the storytelling experience.?

Video can also be another way that brands can monetize their content, according to Ran Farmer, managing director for North America at Netbiscuits, Reston, VA.

?Generally media companies that we work with look at video as a way to monetize,? Mr. Farmer said. ?It?s definitely viewed as one of the ways that companies can monetize on mobile.?

Mobile opportunity
According to Gannett Digital, mobile creates an opportunity to bring in new users, readership and a new demographic.

It began with the mobile Web, transitioned to applications and now there is also an opportunity with the iPad.

Craig Etheridge, vice president of mobile advertising sales for USA Today at Gannett Digital, Atlanta, said that there was a large investment put in for the company?s mobile strategy.

?It?s all about integration and cross platforms,? Mr. Etheridge said. ?We extended to digital and now mobile.?

Gannett is educating its digital sales team on mobile and wants everyone to know all of the platforms.

?We really use it holistically,? Mr. Etheridge said. ?It?s about using all three platforms to drive readership.?

Hipcricket sees mobile as an engagement tool.

According to Ivan Braiker, CEO of Hipcricket, Kirkland, WA, mobile can be intimidating to a certain extent, especially for a smaller company.

?There?s a lot of ways to approach mobile,? Mr. Braiker said. ?[You can] build a pyramid from SMS to the mobile Web to applications.

?All of those things, in each step of the way, can lead to monetization,? he said.

MTV mobile
MTV had a mobile-only content in the past and has several success stories, but found that the video content, which started on mobile, got picked up for TV and transitioned on that channel.

However, the company found that SMS was working ? users where able to interview celebrities via SMS.

The company is also looking at monetizing its content, but before it does, MTV is looking what content it would be, the history of whether or not people would pay for the content and if there is an opportunity to create ads.

?Mobile is a great opportunity to reach consumers with the same content,? said Joe Lalley, director of product development at MTV Networks Global Digital Media, New York. ?More people are consuming the same content in different ways.

?We have a premium mobile video experience on aggregated services and carrier services and we see those as being very successful businesses,? he said. ?I think mobile consumers are more accustomed to paying for that.?

At the conclusion of the panel, Mobile Marketer's Rimma Kats interviewed Ms. Pezzimenti. Here is a video:

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Here are some screen grabs of the panel: