The Next Web

Mobile phones just got interesting…

Written on May 17, 2008 – 6:30 pm
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France

Despite being a tech geek I have not used a mobile phone more that about 10 times in my entire life (shock horror). They just never really interested me but I guess it says more about my social ineptness than it does about mobile phones.

But an odd correlation, I had the same feeling about computers as they went through the Microsoft business tools era (Word, Excel, Quickbooks et cetera), as a developer back then computers just didn’t get me going, so I spent the nineties in electronics making audio products.

Mobile live stream battle on SXSW 2008: Scoble vs. Pistachio

Despite being an early hacker on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum at about age 14, computers really only got interesting for me with the arrival of the Internet, then when broadband arrived I got ‘really excited’.

But in the last few months something has changed the landscape so dramatically in the mobile market that I see a paradigm shift similar to the above where an entirely new species of mobile device evolves which is much more attractive than has been previously seen. Obviously I’m not alone having these thoughts, as we sit here thousands of others are having the same realizations, not least those emanating from Adobe’s crystal ball.

So after teasing Sarah Lacy I’m checking out the comments of Arrington’s interview with Lacy which was streamed live through a mobile via Qik and looking through, there’s loads of trolls getting into a twist about the quality of the stream. Being a bit of an expert in the sound department, immediately I see obvious errors and solution.

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adsense, adsense for video, advertisment, mobile, Mobile Advertising, Mobile TV, qik, video streaming, youtube

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Are you a European who watches mobile TV?

Written on May 5, 2008 – 10:50 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

The New York Times business section opens today with an interesting story about mobile TV. For those of you who think this is a service born for the niche - except for Asia, you seem to be mistaking. Alright, in the US it is: Verizon Wireless has been offering this service since March 2007, but it has fewer than 100,000 paying viewers. However, some European countries have adopted the service entusiastically — in Switzerland, 40,000 people watch news broadcasts on a daily basis, and a million Italians pay 19 euros a month to watch a dozen mobile TV channels.

Several American and European investors have started to expand the infrastructure on which mobile TV relies, which the New York Times describes as “special transmission towers that beam to tiny receivers in the mobile phones.” In the UK, France and Germany, mobile video services like these are on their way. AT&T is shaking things up in the US by launching a mobile TV service as well.

These rapid developments exceed the expectations of experts. A year ago, research firm Screen Digest predicted that the adoption of mobile TV services in the UK might have to wait until 2012, due to a shortage of spectrum. The new infrastructure might speeds things up.

The big question remains though: who will watch mobile TV? People stuck in traffic jams or public transport? And still, when caught in a situation like this, wouldn’t you prefer an episode of Seinfeld or anything but a news broadcast? I suspect that people have already found their sources for news: the TV bulletin in the morning, mobile news sites, screens in public transport and for that matter, the newspapers. Who would want to pay another 20 euros for 100 seconds of news broadcasts?

Europe, mobile, Mobile TV, New York Times, Television, united kingdom, United States, us, Verizon Wireless

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