It’s an idea that has always intrigued me; I’m a fan of anything that is gripping, true and something I can relate too (in terms of Dramas that is). Even more so, I’m finding more and more often with the onset of recurrent boredom throughout the day, it would be brilliant to have something on my mobile which was free, that could keep me entertained for five or ten minutes.

Now yes, of course there is the marvel that is the iPhone, and a number of software developers who have found ways to get your favourite films compressed and ready for viewing on said devices, but what if you don’t have an iPhone, and you don’t have the time to watch the first part of the Matrix Trilogy?

Well, there is something like THMBNLS, or if you’re like me and totally at a loss at text language, Thumbnails.

I’ve signed up for this, thinking and hoping for, let’s say the best. After all, I would have hoped that somewhere a long the line something good might come-about this mini-mobile-drama…

Wrong.

Well, actually, that’s just a tad biased. It’s funded by the Government, and the Department of Children, it has a primary focus on all things “teen”, and current in the news; sex, drugs, bullying, respect etc.

Now whilst I like the initiative being shown here by the Government and the obvious attempts at trying to bridge into the “youth of today”, there really is little to be said about this “drama”.

And the same can be said for previous attempts I’ve seen floating about the internet. I can remember a number of similar (although far shorter) offerings being heavily promoted on the popular Social Network, Bebo. Needless to say, they had the same shortcomings of Thumbnails…

They’re not that good, at all.

In a technological age of the internet and Youtube, and the growing popularity of programming such as Hollyoaks, Skins, and even American imports such as The O.C and others, the expectations of the teen audience are far more than what I have come-across with the mobile supplements.

The thing is, as with many brilliant ideas, there is a huge potential here; but once again what is delivered is so much less than what you or I expected. Whereas I would love to find and become engaged in a mobile drama which I could enjoy over a number of weeks, when all there is to offer is quite bluntly, tripe… Am I going to waste my time?

The same can be said for my peers. As far as I am aware, no one that I know engages in opting to watch, sign-up, download or view these things. And I’m really not surprised!

Maybe it’s too early to judge now, if this area of mobile improves like many of the others have done, then I do not doubt that in a few years or so there will be some mini-masterpieces right there on our handhelds!

Until then though, I think I will stick to my daily dose of the good ol’ television.

Samantha.
Samantha@mobileindustryreview.com

Haven’t written anything for a while, but this is something I just had to share.

I just got back from filming the latest edition of the Mobile Industry Review Show (live from the T-Mobile event) and I was about to go to bed when I found this video in my Google Reader from one James Burland, he of (the quite frankly awesome) Nokia Creative fame.

The man has got the iPlayer up and running on his N95!

Awesome!
So I did a little digging… and then I found this piece over on Symbian-Freak about how to install etc… and, as well as finding the actual file there, I also found out a few other facts.

1. If your Nseries has Web Runtime (WRT) enabled, you can haz iPlayer.
2. N95ers out there – hit *#0000# – if your firmware is v21 or above, you have WRT enabled.
3. N95, N96 and N85 all confirmed as compatible
4. Current installation only works over a wifi connection

I’ve poked a few friends of mine at the Beeb to see if we can talk to some of the techies there, fingers crossed we’ll be able to bring you a follow up piece over the next few days outlining some of the finer details.

So what are you waiting for? Download it now and let us know what you think!

Whatley out…

Says Toshiba:

“Since its establishment, Mobile Broadcasting Corporation has provided diverse services in an attempt to build a subscriber base and enlarge its business. However, the number of subscribers has not reached a sufficient level to sustain operations and, following a thorough review of operations, the company has decided to cease broadcasting.”

The service will be closed down by March next year. However, it doesn’t look like Japan has lost its enthusiasm for mobile TV in general – rather, it just wasn’t that keen on this service: other reports say that there are 20 million mobile TV watchers on a rival offering in the land of the rising sun.

The pair’s service will cover: the service platform, a security and encryption technology, the platform for encoding into a DVB-H compatible format, the satellite delivery to terrestrial infrastructure and the TV channels themselves.

There’s a lot of advantages in going for a hosted option – it takes a lot of the upfront costs out of the equation and means that you can test out the service without committing a load of cash. That said, it doesn’t leave much room for differentiating services across different operators, but at least it’s a relatively safe way of testing out DVB-H while the business models – not to mention the demand – for mobile TV are being sounded out.

So pretty impressive penetration rates and also a shocking lack of awareness.

So which is it – is mobile TV a Hit or a Miss?

To be honest for me mobile TV is definitely a miss – I wouldn’t ever want to watch twenty minutes of Eastenders (for our non-UK readers – a dodgy London based soap opera that charts the different levels of misery that our nation’s capital drives people to) while stuck in my cattle-truck of a commuter train. Mobile video on the other hand – a round up of last night’s The Apprentice, or a summary of the game from Euro 2008 – that’s a winner. But do people really need a mobile for that? With the internet (and mobile internet) and iPods etc, do I need to subscribe to mobile video?

From the survey though, it seems that many people are keen to watch. Other stats include:

- 33% have watched for upto 60 minutes or longer

- 65% said they’d be willing to watch ads if it meant a free or discounted service

The press release doesn’t say how many people were surveyed, but it does say that the UK results closely matched those for the US.

Another Forbes article reports the German head Fritz Joussen as saying he doesn’t see a viable business in offering pay television via mobile phones after the emergence of phones that receive regular terrestrial TV signals. “These devices came as a surprise and call a payment based subscription model into question,” he adds.

While I can’t help wondering why, if Vodafone was so unimpressed with mobile TV, it bid for a licence in the first place, but it’s right to pick up on the question of whether paid TV is the way forward. Vodafone has repeatedly championed the cause of mobile advertising – I’m surprised it hasn’t already starting giving away mobile TV clips in return for ad viewing. After all, it’s what we’re used to on terrestrial TV – we know the model works, why not export it to mobiles?

According to Qualcomm, it’s now got its hands on the 40 MHz (1452-1492 MHz) of L-Band radio spectrum, for the princely sum of £8.3 million. It hasn’t given any definitive word on what the spectrum will be used for, except to say it will “bring a variety of innovative wireless technologies to the UK market”, along with its partners.

Needless to say, it’s keeping quiet on the partners and the services in question, but it’s worth noting that the press release the company’s put out about the spectrum quotes an exec with the clunky job title of “president of Qualcomm Internet Services, MediaFLO Technologies and Qualcomm Europe” – could that be a hint on what we’re about to see? After all, it’s got a bit of history over here with mobile TV, following a trial of MediaFLO in conjunction with Sky not so long ago.

The service, based on Qualcomm’s MediaFLO, will go live in 58 cities, with the usual mix of broadcasters from the likes of CNN, Comedy Central, MTV and Fox, with the usual mix of movies, news, comedy, and music content being promised.

At least now we get a chance to see the pricing: and it’s $15 a month, which seems rather ambitious on AT&T’s part. How long before it switches to an advertising (free content in return for ads) or bundled (all the data you can eat and mobile TV thrown in for good measure) model?

The test looks like it’s just a small one without any consumers involved – according to the pair, the trial will take place in Dish’s labs from May to August with a view to finding out how well it performs and how much it costs.

The trial seems a little on the small side for anyone seriously thinking about getting into mobile TV any time soon. But if Dish really is just testing the water without a full scale rollout in mind, why did it buy a great big chunk of 700Mhz spectrum recently?

By 2010, mobile TV will also be the most lucrative channel for mobile advertising, although idle screen advertising will also do well, with ad spend $7 million this year and up to $500 million in 2013.

If mobile is the biggest generator of ad revenue, it looks like we can expect more free channels and programming on the way. If there’s one thing that could open up mobile TV more than anything else – be it good handsets, clever standards, and so on – then it’s possibility advertisers will make sure we can watch TV gratis. As long as we can get over all those annoying ads…

The group will provide recommendations for a standard to standards body Advanced Television Systems Committee and hopes to have it approved by next February, when the US will switch off its analogue TV signal.

It looks like there could be a new trend in mobile TV broadcasting: both the Open Mobile Video Coalition and ICO Global Communications are launching mobile TV services but want to sell them as suitable for other devices, as well as mobiles, like in-car entertainment systems or laptops. By increasing its potential market beyond mobile devices, could this give mobile TV the push it needs for mass market take-up? Or is it a sign that purely mobile TV isn’t viable?

The satellite will let ICO provide services including mobile TV, navigation and emergency assistance service “to be known as ICO mim (mobile interactive media)” across the US, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

According to the Washington Post, the company reckons its mobile TV service will be different to others on the market because it will reach even the most remote parts of the US. Add in the two way communications the standard allows, and it looks like ICO has an interesting service on its hands. Don’t expect it to turn up on your mobile any time soon – the company is using a standard that hasn’t really been adopted yet.

Head of internet services t the Finnish handset maker, Niklas Savander, told Reuters that broadcast mobile TV “is a bit in turmoil… We have seen that there are multiple segments who are not interested in the broadcasting, but rather in downloads. Roll out is slower than also we anticipated a couple of years ago.”

Nokia may not have predicted it, but from the time mobile TV started being discussed, a lot of other people did. The success of downloads is probably due not only to their greater accessibility – everyone can get 3G, not everyone can get DVB-H programming – but also it seems to suit mobile usage patterns better. A three minute snack TV program is handy when you’re waiting for the bus, a 30 minute broadcast TV program less so.

The company said Qualcomm said the licences will let it offer more MediaFLO content in areas including Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia and San Francisco. The company has also got new spectrum around its office to help with R&D efforts.

Mobile TV is still an uncertain bet – anything that can help whip up some more interest from users can only be a good thing. Hopefully the capacity boost will let Qualcomm do some serious work on differentiating its content from what’s available on the home TV.

AT&T said the service will feature two exclusive TV channels, but didn’t give any more information on their content. The operator did say however that it will offer full-length television content and sporting events and programming from leading entertainment brands CBS Mobile, Comedy Central, ESPN Mobile TV, FOX Mobile, MTV, NBC 2GO, NBC News2Go and Nickelodeon.

While there still seems to be a lot of skepticism from several quarters on whether mobile TV is a goer, the networks at least seem to be convinced. I can’t help but think that AT&T will need to add a lot more devices to its line up before too long if it wants to take mobile TV anywhere beyond a niche product.

The speculation the spectrum will be used for mobile TV rather than voice or data stems from the nature of the spectrum Dish, through a company called Frontier Wireless, bought: the spectrum is suited to video but can’t handly two way communication.

But whether that actually translates to mobile TV remains to be seen. After all, few broadcast mobile TV services are up and running commercially, let alone are bringing in the revenue. Dish so far has refused to comment on its plans for the spectrum. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if there’s more mobile TV on the way.

Here’s how it works:

The Movie Key is a USB stick. You plug it into these ATM style ‘moviepoint’ machines and download your movie of choice there and then. Smart.

It’s using Microsoft Windows digital rights management stuff so the movie will expire after a few days and the movie companies can relax about content control.

The thing that struck me when watching the video was that it would be rather convenient to use your mobile instead of a USB Stick. Theoretically speaking, actually, you could probably get a Nokia N95 8Gb to work with this service. You’d have to wait a little while for the movie to download to it though, even by USB… it’d probably take ages.

Still, i like the concept of being able to ‘plug my mobile’ into a moviepoint ATM and rent a few movies to watch at home later on. Or on the plane. Or wherever.

The Commission has also hinted that it won’t accept proprietary behavious from those involved in DVB-H, saying it wants to see ‘”transparent intellectual property rights regime, based on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and allowing low price of devices” and a transparent patent pool.

It always looked like the Commission was going to give DVB-H the nod, so this week’s announcement isn’t exactly a surprise, but I suspect will still be provoking some glass-raising at Nokia HQ. However, there are still the questions around spectrum, devices and consumer take-up for that matter to be solved before DVB-H actually gets into people’s pockets so don’t hold your breath for broadcast mobile TV any time soon.

The so-called L-Band spectrum, 1452 – 1492 MHz, can be used for “mobile multimedia services including mobile TV which could be deployed using a variety of technologies” Ofcom said. The spectrum will be sold off on a technology neutral basis and licences will be tradeable.

With almost all of the operators piloting some form of broadcast TV, I wonder if this release of spectrum will the auction winner move from test phase to a full-on commercial service launch.

Always one for pushing the boundaries, Helio Mobile have done a deal with Isabella Rossellini to offer her 8-part Green Porno adventure series on their ‘Give A Damn’ channel.

Green Porno is not Jenna Jameson with a reduced carbon footprint. No. It’s a ‘comical but insightful study of the curious ways certain creatures (insects, mainly) make love’.

So there will definitely be a bit about the female spider killing the male. Count on that.

“I’ve always been interested in animals and animal behavior,” said Rossellini. “I wanted people to laugh, but then to leave and say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know about that.’ That was my green intervention. It was to make people aware of animal life.”

The Green Porno minisite, sundancechannel.com/greenporno, will feature all 8 films and exclusive web only interviews with Isabella Rossellini and the cast and crew, exclusive photo galleries of behind the scenes shots, making of footage and samples of Isabella Rossellini’s hand drawn storyboards. The exclusive web content also explores the challenges and opportunities associated with creating short films for ‘small screens’ — namely the internet and mobile devices.

What does Helio think of it?

“Green Porno has the right balance of entertainment and education for our members,” said Rob Gelick, Vice President of Media and Community Services at Helio. “The series will be available across all of Helio’s devices and featured in the ‘Give A Damn’ channel which offers the best mobile content themed around socially conscious issues.”

More details here.

Related to the previous post about IMMI, my attention was piqued today by news that Zenith and Nielsen are joining together to offer an end-to-end service that will deliver advertising performance insight across ‘three screens’.

(Three screens = television, internet and mobile.)

I’ve always thought that the awful, awful truth must really hurt with the likes of mobile and internet video measurement. More so with video.

I wonder just how the stats look. No doubt, people are watching television and video on their mobile handsets. No doubt. Just… it’s hardly in the millions.

I wonder, for example, how the pinstriped nike-wearing media executives in New York react to getting their report and wondering if 6.7 daily viewers is measured in millions or, if 6.7 is the actual figure.

I think it’s smart that these companies are uniting their services. Just, while mobile video is in its infancy, I doubt many of their clients are going to want to actually look at the equivalent of the Emperor’s New Clothes. The various ratings that we’re all used to — the ’18 million people watched EastEnders last night’ stats — are going to be vastly, vastly different when it comes to analysing mobile television viewing habits.

The services being adopted by Zenith Media are all part of Nielsen’s Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) initiative, which was launched by Nielsen in response to the expansion of television programming to a variety of digital platforms. A2/M2 will allow Nielsen and its clients to “follow the video” to multiple media delivery systems, both inside and outside the home.

“We believe that it isn’t about linear television anymore,” said Peggy Green, Vice Chairman Zenith Media. “It is about following video content, content that can be viewed out of the home, on the net and on-mobile devices. We believe that Nielsen’s skill in media research will help us understand the depth and breadth of audiences across multiple platforms. This is just one step we are taking to master the new world of video content.”

More at http://www.nielsen.com/

Came across this company today during a bit of research into mobile video advertising measurement:

Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI) is the developer of an end-to-end media measurement system that links media exposure to consumer action. Using a mobile-phone-based digital monitoring system, IMMI tracks almost all media 24/7 and helps businesses evaluate the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns. IMMI is based in San Mateo, Calif. More information is available at www.immi.com.

I’m going to look into their offerings more detail shortly. I’ve been interested in how people use mobile video on their handsets — and, more importantly, how companies measure the ‘impressions’ of this. I wonder, for example, what can be recorded by IMMI whilst I’m sat watching a 5 minute video that constantly buffers. Do I count as an impression, even if I’ve not been able to actually watch the stream?

It’s interesting to see investments in mobile TV that aren’t specifically targeted at mobile phones themselves, instead Quantum specialises in media-player type devices. However, the software it makes will doubtless interest mobile operators – it comes with the type of content protection software (read DRM) that record labels and movie studios are very keen on.

Whatever Motorola decides on handsets, it makes sense for Motorola to continue dipping its toe into mobile telly – it struck a deal with Nokia to co-operate on DVB-H development back in 2006 and it’s set top box business is still looking healthy. Perhaps there’s room for Moto to cross-breed Quantum’s mobile TV players with its own phones?

Kyte’s business model is all about distributing mobile and online video to destinations including phones, social networks and blogs for viral marketing campaigns. It’s currently being used by music industry figures like 50 Cent to distribute video to fans, who can then interact with the content by way of Kyte Player on their PC or, if they’re on a mobile, through the iPhone-optimised Kyte Mobile Web.

If Kyte’s backers are anything to go by – Telefónica, Nokia Growth Partners, DoCoMo Capital and Swisscom to name a few – the company’s video broadcasting will go down well with the operators.

ABIresearch sees the Asia-Pacific market being the biggest leader, growing from 24 million users in 2007 to ten times that amount by 2012. North America is also singled out, as both Verizon and AT&T, the two leading operators with a combined total of over 130 million subscribers, plan to have their Mobile TV networks ready to rock by the end of 2008.

I think it will be interesting, especially as the U.S. is using Qualcomm’s MediaFLO technology and the rest of the world is using DVB-H and other similar variants for their mobile TV.