It's just SO early for mobile. It truly is. Not only is the internet itself not entirely there yet but neither are the users or the devices. Nobody 'needs' a concrete mobile strategy today, in my opinion, but should have one that is looking ahead in the future for development. This same stuff went on in web 1.0. I can distinctly recall Palm losing tons of money because it was too early.
Paul Glazowski
· 1 year ago
Well, if there's massive usage of the browser-based YouTube site (more than Yahoo search in total, say some measures nowadays), I think the carriers need to get that kind of momentum to translate to the mobile world. No question about it. It's big, and it makes perfect sense to start doing it in mobile in a big way. Clip sizes really work well for the format.
Jesse W.
· 1 year ago
Personally, I know VERY few people who view video through their mobile services.....just the IPhone
I'm sure the iPhone does a decent job of influencing some figures, but pretty inconsequential as far as the total popular is concerned. My personal experience is that I watch video on my iPhone only from things I get through iTunes, too. I rarely search via the on-board YouTube app, and never over my cellular connection, since I've only got EDGE capability.
Bernie Goldbach
· 1 year ago
Living in Ireland where I can upload around an hour of video every month (and download around 4 hours monthly) for around $50 monthly, I think it's a matter of high-speed network availability. I can get up to seven megabits per second in most Irish cities but I doubt that's the rate most American carries offer. On top of that, I'd never buy a handset that didn't offer a wifi option. I'm not sure it's easier to get a wifi handset as a network upgrade on many network plans offered Stateside. You need speed and high spec handsets to bring video into the purses of people on the street.
Shawn Kahandaliyanage
· 1 year ago
Great insight Paul. For industry insiders, the way mobile video has played out so far doesn't come as a surprise. This all comes down to basic carrier economics. Carrier network bandwidth is much scarcer than anyone likes to admit. Bringing more bandwidth online basically requires adding more network cells, which would require substantially more capital investment. This is a very tough sell for a carrier that is already burdened with the many billions spent on spectrum licenses, tower real estate, network equipment and terrestrial network upgrades, etc. Yet the demand-side growth curve for bandwidth will continue ramping unabated. AT&T's network congestion issues post-iPhone is a perfect illustration of this dilemma. All this to say that carrier bandwidth will remain a premium-priced resource for the foreseeable future -- and consequently, not very well suited to low cost video services.
This is why carriers love high value/low bandwidth services like BlackBerry, SMS, and ringtones: they bring in lots of money, with very low network utilization. The revenue per MB consumed ratio is phenomenal for these services. Bandwidth hungry, highly disposable content like video sits on the exact opposite end of the value spectrum for carriers. Video consumes enormous bandwidth, with a comparatively lower value yield for consumer on a per MB basis. Think of it this way: Which would represent more utility to a user: 20 seconds of video, or 15,000 SMS messages? They both represent roughly 1 MB of bandwidth consumption (back of the envelope math).
Mass-market adoption of mobile video is going to require much lower cost services, and open access to whatever content the customer wants to watch. Broadcast to mobile is one approach (a la MediaFLO), but I think consumers are moving in a more on-demand and unbridled direction. This space is in need of more alternative approaches to figure out what works. We think we've got one with Poptiq, and we'll continue to see if we can prove it out.
Shawn
Web TV Trends
· 1 year ago
These results are a bit low and surprise me a little. Judging from what I see in the subway, it seems like more than 3 out 100 people are viewing some king of video content on their mobile device. I'm also surprised that this practice does not create a bigger "me too" behaviour, which should help stimulate the mobile device usage for video viewing. But as you rightfully say, it's all a question of the offer which is not very attractive yet. because the demand is already there...
video ranger
· 1 year ago
The numbers are a bit misleading. In the US, if I am not mistaken, you'll need a data plan to watch video. So the 6 to 8 million video subs is fairly high given that there are only 40 million data subs.
Mystique
· 6 months ago
Yeah the media consumption is very less among the mobile users and the percentage which you have shown is exact in consuming the on demand video in any form..so there is no problem about it..But am not agree with some points in your article.. Halloween wigs
All Comments
Jesse W.
http://www.subprimeblogger.com
This is why carriers love high value/low bandwidth services like BlackBerry, SMS, and ringtones: they bring in lots of money, with very low network utilization. The revenue per MB consumed ratio is phenomenal for these services. Bandwidth hungry, highly disposable content like video sits on the exact opposite end of the value spectrum for carriers. Video consumes enormous bandwidth, with a comparatively lower value yield for consumer on a per MB basis. Think of it this way: Which would represent more utility to a user: 20 seconds of video, or 15,000 SMS messages? They both represent roughly 1 MB of bandwidth consumption (back of the envelope math).
Mass-market adoption of mobile video is going to require much lower cost services, and open access to whatever content the customer wants to watch. Broadcast to mobile is one approach (a la MediaFLO), but I think consumers are moving in a more on-demand and unbridled direction. This space is in need of more alternative approaches to figure out what works. We think we've got one with Poptiq, and we'll continue to see if we can prove it out.
Shawn
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