The 3G Mobile fraternity believes that Mobile TV is the next big thing to drive up their flagging ARPU and growth. Is it really? Do we really all want to watch TV on screens the size of postage stamps all day? And if not, what will we watch (if anything) on Mobile TV?
The omens are mixed.....small portable TVs have been around quite a while, and have not taken the world by storm - on the other hand, watching small TV-like images on PC screens is a part of the day now...and that gives a clue - these tend to be either short, to the point broadcasts or are kept as wallpaper on the screen while we work, much like radio is used (eg Ashes feed). Its harder to do that on your mobile, and less attractive if you have to pay by the byte.
Also, the overall lesson of most comms mediums is that they are used by people to communicate with each other (email, txt, icq...), and if moving images are easy to capture then this will most likely be another big slice of mobile TV content. However, mobile photography has a small usage as a % of all traffic, and its unclear why video should be any higher.
The business model will be critical....advertising will be hard owing to the short nature of the clips, people are unlikely to subscribe to a service where they want to see many disparate clips (maybe with the exception of an aggregator like Yahoo) so some frm of micropayment is required.
So, my starter for ten is that mobile TV will not be used to watch
long programs, but will be used to view short useful clips, or self
produced content used to communicate with others. Porn (as always) will
probably be a driver of early usage (the tartadvid?), and there will also be some forms
of interactive service blending TV and txt. People will not want to pay a lot for this though, and will consume it sparingly..expect a performance similar to mobile photo usage.
Not the killer app hoped for, then.........
