In recent years, NBC Universal’s mobile strategy has focused largely on helping carriers get its content to consumers.

Now that strategy is subtly changing.

Carrier partnerships are still "critical to what we do," Salil Dalvi, NBC Universal’s general manager for wireless said at yesterday’s Mobile Entertainment Summit. "But we also think we need to go out to market with great integration between web, TV networks and mobile phone."

Take NBC’s hit show Heroes.  This year, fans have had a series of new cross-platform ways to interact with the program, including  a toll-free number for the fictitious paper company Primatech Paper revealed during the Jan. 22 episode; and the launch of a dedicated WAP site designed to give them "two-screen" interaction with the content, including downloads and texting campaigns.

At the same time, the linear show can also be viewed on the NBC2Go channel on Verizon and soon AT&T.

The campaign points to how video and other rich media content will increasingly move beyond the closed decks of mobile carriers to the mobile Internet.

Until now, U.S. carriers have kept tight control of mobile content on their networks, fearing that allowing third parties to freely create their own mobile services will cut them out of the revenue stream.

That attitude means that "content owners do not see majority of money that goes to carriers", Dalvi notes, contrasting with the much more equitable split programmers get in cable or satellite. 

It creates a disincentive for Hollywood studios to make their content available on mobile — to say nothing of small, mobile-only content creators struggling just to survive.

The burgeoning off-deck revenue of European carriers suggests that American operators’ fears of being locked out of the mobile content chain are groundless. They may end up with a smaller piece of the pie. But the pie will be orders of magnitude greater if they loosen their grip.

See Also

• NBC’s Hero Site
• NBCU rolls out Digital2Go mobile initiative
• Mobile Entertainment Summit

Posted under Uncategorized

Jobs announces a third party SDK for the world’s most closed phone

I always thought that Apple got a pass from dazzled media over the closed nature of the iPhone. For all of Apple’s talk of being consumer-centric and user-friendly, the basic design of the iPhone made it by far the most closed mobile environment of all. You couldn’t even get a ringtone download until last month, and the selection of those tones on iTunes is truly pathetic. Steve Jobs trotted out a laundry list of excuses for the lack of third-party inclusion (viruses, bringing down the AT&T network, etc.) but none of it really explained why I could’t download a decent game or ringtone.

Apple apparently is moving toward a greater spirit of inclusion and true user-friendliness today. Not only did the company announce that it was lowering the price of its DRM-free iTunes Plus tracks, but it also said that an SDK would be available to third party developers for both the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

According to Jobs, the kit will be available in February because Apple is trying to ensure two things at once. First, it wants a development kit that gives third parties a good experience and access to as much of the multi-touch interface as possible. Second, they are working to ensure that these third-party apps do not comprimise the security of the phone. Jobs seems a little touchy on this matter, as he goes out of his way to rationalize his rationalizations for keeping such a tight leash on his coveted new tech hit.

Sayeth the great and powerful Jobs: "Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target."

What does this mean for develoeprs and the mobile eco-system? Well, it is very good news for the two million or so of us who do own the phone, but I am not sure it has that big an immediate impact on the rest of the mobile world. As has often been the case with the iPhone, its infleunce seems indirect. By giving users and developers a lush and flexible interface and palette, the iPhone obliquely pressures the rest of the mobile community to follow suit.

Posted under Michael's Blog

A questionable survey says we don’t even know our own product

A European provider of wireless services, BuzzCity, surveyed attendees of the recent Mocollywood conference in London and found that 54% of respondents don’t use the mobile content they are trying to sell to consumers.

This sounds like bad news for the mobile industry, a shameful admission that the marketers don’t even believe in what they are selling. Well, perhaps. The BuzzCity survey only harvested 50 respondents, which is not exactly a quorum. Beyond that, 56% of these executives said they did access the mobile Internet on a regular basis, which is well above the 10% of users often cited for users overall.

Whether the BuzzCity stats even vaguely reflect industry reality, it is a point worth making about the status of our trade. Everyone needs to understand whether and how consumers themselves actually make use of mobile content. There is a real knowledge gap here. Carriers, marketers, and even content providers push new product and press releases out there and the media rehash them endlessly. But how hard is it for one of these reporter to pick up a cell hpone and actually try the product? Where is the critical feedback loop? Except for a handful of mobile game review sites and an occasional blog post from an enterprising analyst, we see little thoughtful analysis of the goods themselves.

Perhaps we should start with ourselves. If more mobile executives actually used the content they sell, then we may be able to talk to each other intelligently about, well, mobile content.

Posted under Michael's Blog

If “content is king” then why can’t it run a wireless kingdom?

If Mickey Mouse can’t do it, and sports content can’t do, and even hip and edgy youth-oriented media can’t do it, then who can make the content-driven MVNO model work? This morning Disney Mobile users visiting the Web site were greeted by a notice of closure that reminds us of the days of crashing dotcoms. "Disney Mobile has announced that it will cease its wireless operations as of December 31, 2007," sayeth the Magic Kingdom. "It has been our privilege to serve as your wireless service provider and we want to thank you for your support of Disney Mobile."

According to its press release, the wireless service’s Family Center cluster of family monitoring and location services may end up at another carrier. A reimbursement program is being offered.

Bye Mickey. But we have to wonder what this means for the mobile content industry in general. With the end of Disney Mobile, we now have three media-fueled MVNOs (Amp’d and Mobile ESPN) to bite the dust in less than a year, how powerful is media in drawing people to a wireless service? Granted, Disney tried a smarter route by focusing on its unique kid tracking service. But still, MocoNews reports that part of the problem for Disney was simply getting retail distribution. This was an issue for Amp’d as well.

It may be hard to recall now that just a few years ago the media MVNO was all the rage. I was reporting on up to twenty in the wings. The thinking then was that the major carriers just didn’t know how to market to the niches like young and hip and sport fans. The MVNO let companies ride on the Sprint or Verizon networks but create wholly seprate services and plans. Everyone pointed to Virgin Mobile as the classic success story, but apparently no one successfuly repeated it.   

But getting people to switch is tough. Ultimately, the phone is about convenience and reliable one-to-one communication. People don’t like to fuss with that just to get some cool videos on a handset or even sports scores. The lesson here for digital media is that in most cases our product is nice-to-have, not must-have.   

Posted under Michael's Blog

With Nokia’s purchase of enPocket, the great consolidation starts shaking things up

All of the coverage of Nokia’s planned acquisition of mobile ad network and marketing leader enPocket focused on how this move signaled the hardware’s maker’s shifting business model. But the news has important implications for the nascent field of mobile advertising. With AOL’s purchase of Third Screen Media earlier this year, this is the second major validation of the ad-support model for mobile content. Add to that CBS’s recent multi-network partnership to drive ads into its WAP and on-deck properties and some other deals in the works to launch next week, and we have ourselves a bona fide business model.

As is often the case, the mobile marketing industry met the news scrambling to differentiate themselves in an increasingly cluttered field. Ad networks that remain independent are quick to point out the possible dangers of advertising coalescing around too few players with conflicting interests. Exactly how open will Nokia be with its ad platform, some executives whispered in my ear after the deal was announced. Mike Baker, enPocket’s CEO insists this helps grow the ad market by helping the industry standardize in execution and metrics on a global basis.

How it shakes out is anyone’s guess until we see Nokia execute. What is for sure is that pressure on mobile carriers to embrace an ad-supported model aggressively is now coming at them from all quarters. Advertisers want measurable, target-able mobile marketing yesterday. Media companies see ad revenues as the real driver of mobile content innovation and profits. And now the world’s largest handset maker is building its own ad network.

Only two years ago industry pundits in all of those quarters doubted whether consumers would accept ads on phones. Today, it is clear to everyone, even the carriers, that mobile content cannot move forward without the ad model.

Posted under Michael's Blog

Nokia just can’t let go of its mobile gaming dream

Admire the tenacity of the cell phone giant for doggedly pursuing the dream of its own mobile gaming platform, but Nokia might want to consider re-branding its N-Gage service at this point. The Swedish mobile firm will unveil the next iteration of N-Gage this week, this time as a platform that works across its Symbian devices rather than as a single dedicated device. The original N-Gage phone-cum-game device is reported to have sold over two million units worldwide, and it did spawn the relatively successful N-Gage Arena service of multi-player gaming. But given Nokia’s hopes for N-Gage and the colossal marketing budget thrown at the brand, it is considered one of the great flops of modern mobile history.

The New York Times tells of the development journey for this new system. After discontinuing production fot he N-Gage in 2005, Nokia refused to surrender the mobile gaming field to others and enlisted the help of Silicon Valley design firm Ideo. The result is a platform that allows users to play more casual games with their friends, sample games before buying, and generally streamlines the experience with fewer features.

The new gaming platofmr will allow third-party development and play across Nokia’s smartphones. MocoNews’s James Pierce says the Times goes a big "hard" on the old N-Gage device but I am not sure you can be too critical of one of the worst phones ever made. I reviewed both N-Gage and N-Gage QD back in the day and they were miserable to play on, to talk on and to carry around. The first model was so bad, and the second "QD" model learned so little fromt the mistakes of the first that some of use wonmdered whether Nokia was just institutionally delusional.

What can be said about Nokia is its willingness to throw a staggering amount of money at a problem and stick with it. The company helped underwrite a lot of early mobile game development with the N-Gage project, and its devotion to mobile gaming helped fuel the industry.

We hope that the new N-Gage platform is considerably more inviting than the first two generations. Still, whether a handset manufacturer really can own the customer when it comes to gaming is another matter. Nokia still seems to think that owners will buy or stick with a phone brand because of gaming, and no research I am aware of anywhere supports such a view. If anything, one of the things the mobile gaming industry has had to learn is how much people enjoy mobile gaming but how little importace they place on it. Most people still play the same crappy game that came with their phone. The gaming industry wants desperately for mobilistas to show the same level of dedication and descrimination here that console gamers have with their platforms. It just doesn’t work that way. A twenty-year-old game with lousy graphics, Tetris, remains the best seller on mobile, hands down. That should tell you a lot.   

See Also

• N-Gage Home Site

Posted under Michael's Blog

Bejeweled, DailyMotion, Digg all want a bite from that Apple mojo

With only a fraction of the audience of any other mobile platform the iPhone is attracting dedicated development the way a chic new mall with little traffic sucks in upscale retailers. Everyone wants a piece of the hype, and so branded media and many marquee Web sites are pouring iPhone Web apps into the mix just this past week. The most visible, PopCap Games’s signature game Bejeweled, rolled out yesterday and in recent days DailyMotion opened a section of its streaming video portal formatted for the mobile Safari browser. Both releases are some of the best examples of what is possible under the iPhone’s Web-only platform for third party digital media developers.

As a Sci-Tech Today piece announcing Bejeweled points out, it is challenging to develop games for a mobile platform as Web-only apps. The Bejeweled game for the iPhone is free, but other PopCap games either come with ad support or as for-pay downloads. Making a subscription gateway for a game that players can’t even keep locally on their phone could be a tough model to sell, even to those Bejeweled-addled soccer moms.

Web-based games like Bejeweled also suffer on this platform from a lack of audio. Even via its modest speaker, the iPhone has good sound, so current third party apps miss an entire, vital dimension of game design.

See Also

• Digg

Posted under Michael's Blog

The demise of Amp’d Mobile should give all digital content providers pause about the real value of entertainment on cell phones

If all goes according to plan, high-flying MVNO Amp’d Mobile will be shutting down service to its 200,000 or so subscribers at 12:01 tomorrow morning. For details and background on the debacle see Rafat Ali’s coverage and the Q&A at the Amp’d site. Considering that this is the second big crash and burn of a content-driven MVNO in less than a year (Mobile ESPN) you have to wonder whether some of the underlying assumptions of mobile media are questionable and not just the MVNO model. How important is content to mobile? While people do ring up incremental sales from wallpapers, applications and ringtones, is that enough to sell phones and two-year contracts? Is content a real market mover?

Some will recall many in the indsutry calling the ESPN foray into mobile a “slam-dunk” because it was plugging into such a base of brand loyalists at their passion point. But reality sets in even for rabid sports fans when you have to pony up hundreds of dollars for a 3G phone and commit to $50 or more a month in fees. Amp’d was unabashedly a content-driven model. From the first time I spoke with former CEO Peter Adderton months before the MVNO’s launch, he argued that exclusive mobile media would sell this service. Young people were ready for mobile video and for a phone that entertained at least as effectively as it exchanged messages.  And with a small but growing core of youth, the model was appealing. Consistently, Amp’s executives argued to me that their ARPU (average revenue per user) was almost double industry averages because their users were buying so many  video downloads, graphics and games. At least one made-for-mobile series, “Lil ‘ Bush” actually broke out to prime time, now on Comdey Central.

See Also

• Amp’d Home Page

Posted under Michael's Blog