BRANDING UNBOUND

Gartner Lists Top 10 Mobile App Trends for...2012

Not content to make the usual year end review or new year forecast, Gartner's already looking ahead to 2012.

Maybe it's the recession. Maybe it's the slow app adoption rate. For whatever reason, CIOL reports that Gartner's looking out past 2010 and 2011 to see what 2012 holds for mobile apps. The top 10 trends:

1. Money Transfer
2. Location-Based Services
3. Mobile Search
4. Mobile Browsing
5. Mobile Health Monitoring
6. Mobile Payment
7. Near Field Communication Services
8. Mobile Advertising
9. Mobile Instant Messaging
10. Mobile Music

 Some of this seems obvious (especially the money transfer and payment parts). But personally I think mobile advertising will have already hit a trough of disillusionment by then (mobile marketing's so much more powerful than that).

Gartner gets it right when it says, "The mobile channel will be used as part of larger advertising campaigns in various media, including TV, radio, print and outdoors." Just not in the way it means (as yet another ad delivery platform.) Instead, mobile will increasingly be used as an activation mechanism for responding to commercial messages we experience in those other media. There's a big difference.

The rest of the list is already here. Which means no great leap on any of this except for the mobile ad part. On that score, let's all hope Gartner is wrong.

Read more, here. 

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Apple Planning Unskippable Ad Technology For Mobile?

Say it ain't so, Steve.

Word's out that Apple's recent patent moves include "enforcement" schema that integrates advertising into its hardware and software that users can't skip. In fact, apparently the user would need to confirm that they'd viewed the ad before proceeding with content. It may even be a big part of the business model for Apple's new Tablet.

I'm not sure if that also means it could be tied to video and music content accessed on the iPhone or iPod, but one can easily see how it would work with free apps. Most people prefer free apps over paid ones, so being able to demonstrate to advertisers and app companies that these free apps could be monetized would be very powerful.

But there must be a better way. Mobile ads are an unbearable bore (thank goodness Apple didn't buy AdMob). And once we're drowning in them, they're going to get even older, even faster. Experiences or offers based around brands, on the other hand, would not only be more compelling, but have true brand value. For instance, content brands could offer points toward products based on the user's performance in free game apps. Or retailers and brand partners could offer coupons based on content or apps known to appeal to their target audience. Think offers from Maybeline based on viewership of Gossip Girl.

As study after study indicates, anything's more compelling than mobile advertising.

Read more here and here.

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First-Ever Movie Launch for Theaters & Mobile Phones

In what's being billed as the first ever "day and date" theatrical and mobile release, mobile entertainment player Myxer and Mass Animation are launching a new movie that will premiere on 500 digital screens at theaters and on mobile phones on the same day.

"Live Music" is from members of the teams behind "The Chubb Chubbs" and "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs."

Question #1: Will viewers show up at the cinema, or just phone it in?

Read more, here.

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All The 'Rage': First Full-Length Feature Film To Premiere on Mobile Phone

Who needs the big screen when you can use the (very) small screen, instead?

That's the thinking behind "Rage," a new feature-length film from independent filmmaker Sally Potter that will make its premiere on mobile phones, Monday, September 21.

This isn't just some nouveau experiment. The film, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, stars Steve Buscemi, Judi Dench, Jude Law, John Leguizamo and Dianne Wiest and others.

Don't freak just yet having to sit through a two hour movie on your mobile. Indie Wire reports that the movie - which tells the behind-the scenes story of a New York fashion show through a dynamic series of intimate interviews - will be shown in seven episodes through Babelbum's mobile content application, adding one new episode per day, for a full week.

The film will also make its DVD debut September 22, on satellite TV in the UK September 24, an online release beginning September 28 and so on.

As a statement from director Sally Potter and producers Christopher Sheppard and Andrew Fierberg puts it: “We always wanted to incorporate new media platforms into our release strategy and to find a novel approach to bringing ‘Rage’ to both new and traditional film audiences."

Novel, indeed.

Read more, here.

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Tune Into Tonight's Presidential Debates On Your iPhone

Tonight's on-again, off-again, on-again presidential debate is coming to the very, very small screen.

MobiTV says it's teaming up with the major networks to bring live coverage of the debates to iPhone and other mobile phone users.

"These kinds of events are extremely relevant to our users, evidenced by the nearly 400 percent increase in MobiTV's tune-in to this year's political conventions, which were also aired live on our service," said Charlie Nooney, Chairman and CEO, MobiTV. "We're committed to consistently bringing relevant and historic events like these to our subscribers through our deep and rich partnerships with content providers like FOX News and MSNBC."

In BRANDING UNBOUND the book, I interview MobiTV president and co-founder Paul Scanlan, about how mobile television is transforming the way - and where - people consume television.

For some reason, I don't think a lot of people will be tuning into the debates on mobile television when it will be so widely available via TV and radio - but for those who do wish to tune in that way, MobiTV's the place to go.

For more, read here.

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Oops: Olympics Not Such A 'Watershed Moment' For Mobile After All

I know this will come as a shock, but it turns out that not a lot of people wanted to watch the Olympics on the postage stamp-size screen of their mobile phones.

On August 7, Nielsen estimated that that 45% of U.S. mobile subscribers will watch the Olympics on their mobile phones - calling it a "watershed moment" for mobile.

“Mobile media will change the way many consumers engage with this summer’s Olympic Games,” said Kanishka Agarwal, vice president of mobile media at Nielsen Mobile.

Welllll...maybe not.

As I posted at the time, I was skeptical. Now it turns out USA Today is reporting that this was the watershed moment that wasn't.

Oh, mobile TV consumption was huge - if you're talking about in China.

China Mobile, the world's largest mobile group by subscribers, said last week 1 million viewers had watched more than 300,000 hours of the Olympic mobile TV programs it was showing under an agreement with CCTV.

As the pub reported, that number is just a small fraction of China Mobile's more than 600 million subscribers. And there is little evidence that mobile TV really registered anywhere else, outside the established markets of South Korea and Japan.

NBC said in the first week of the games it was registering about half a million people a day requesting Olympic content over their phones. That's what, not even 1% of the total U.S. mobile population.

"I'm still a great believer in TV on mobile phones, because everybody gets it, everybody loves TV, but it hasn't really happened," Ben Wood, research director at Britain-based CCS, tells the pub.

Gary McFarlane, a 37-year-old with his own software company in London, told the pub he tried accessing Olympics coverage from a couple of sources on his Nokia N95 smartphone.

"It didn't work," he says. "I got my laptop out instead."

At some point people will realize that TV via mobile is not a very interesting experience. Nice for quick updates while you're standing in line, commuting on a train (...and how many people in the U.S. really do that...?), or otherwise disposed (some research indicates most people watch mobile TV, of all places, at home. Think bathroom breaks, bedtime, etc.).

Nobody's itching to watch that Big Show - whatever that Big Show is to them - on a mobile screen.

And forget about commercials.

Read the USA Today piece, here.

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Nielsen: Olympics A 'Watershed Moment' In Mobile Content

Time will tell if Nielsen's projections will come true, but on August 7, the research firm predicted that 45% of U.S. mobile subscribers will watch the Olympics on their mobile phones.

“Mobile media will change the way many consumers engage with this summer’s Olympic Games,” said Kanishka Agarwal, vice president of mobile media at Nielsen Mobile.

“Consumers are especially looking forward to the high-profile, short events such as Track and Field and Gymnastics on their phone.  Longer team sports, such as soccer and volleyball, are less conducive to mobile viewing, but mobile users will still follow the scores closely on their devices.”

Now that we're halfway through the games, I have to wonder just how close that projection is. It turns out television viewing of the games is hitting new records, despite the 12-hour delay. Ditto for real time coverage on the Web.

And to be honest, never once, even in at the hight of Phelpsian hype, did I think to myself I need to watch this on my cell phone.

I suspect those mobile numbers won't be quite as high as predicted. And it's precisely because of what Agrawal adds: “It will be difficult to miss a second of the Olympics this summer."

With or without a mobile phone.

Read more, here.

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Hollywood@Hand: What Does William Morris, Accel Partners, Venrock & AT&T Deal Mean To Mobile Content?

Hooray for Hollywood.

One of its most legendary talent agencies, a couple of powerhouse venture capitalist firms, and the nation's largest mobile carriers have teamed up to figure out just what to make of the mobile medium.

What will it mean to mobile content (and advertising)? Probably not as much as these parties might hope.

In BRANDING UNBOUND the book, I look at how a number of Hollywood studios - Warner Bros., Sony, NBC Universal and many others - have been making the most of the mobile medium.

But this new alliance between the venerable William Morris Agency, venture capitalist firms Accel Partners and Venrock, and mobile carrier AT&T is as much about threats than opportunities.

As today's New York Times puts it, the real impetus for these partners' new investment funds may be fear from Hollywood and the carriers that upstarts and other interlopers could upend their content plans - plans that didn't work well on the wireline Internet, and probably aren't that compelling on the mobile one, either.

According to the Times, AT&T's not really look at this for mobile content. Instead, it's on the hunt for new technologies "that will make it easier to run ads on cellphones, as well as to nurture social networks like Facebook and MySpace, online hits that have migrated to hand-held devices."

Let's hope so. AT&T along could sink any compelling new content offerings. Not that there's anything wrong with AT&T, but it's essentially like a Hollywood studio teaming up with a cable company to find content that can thrive outside of its walled garden. Ain't going to happen - at least not well.

Still, the Times narrative is along the lines of "Hollywood has never understood technology, and technology companies have never understood Hollywood."

Nothing could be further from the truth, of course.

Hollywood was among the first to truly monetize many new media forms, from film (silent to the talkies to Technicolor and beyond) to radio to television.

What it hasn't been so good at is the Internet, and, more recently, mobile. Open platforms anyone can use as they wish.

AT&T's maybe not the best partner to try to figure that one out.

Then again, for all these players - AT&T especially - what alternative do they have?

Read all about it, here (sub. req.).

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MobiTV Releases Mobile Television Advertising & Viewership Data

MobiTV is on the move.

The Emeryville, Calif.-based company released its mobile television advertising and viewership data today.

As it stands now, there are more than 60 million handsets enabled with the MobiTV service in the U.S. market and three million plus subscriptions.

According to recent interactive tests,  users of the MobiTV service engaged with ads they viewed through the service "at a rate 300 percent above direct response industry standards."

Hmmm. That last statement is a positive sounding way to spin very low numbers - but credit MobiTV with trying.

According to MobiTV, viewers of the MobiTV service move readily from watching 30-second television ads to taking action to learn more about products and offers through click-to- dial invitations; deep links to WAP sites; viewing advertiser-branded channels for a deeper brand experience and much more. In fact, MobiTV saw several branded channels gain in popularity with usage that rivaled some of their premium channels.

"Using MobiTV's advertising platform and branded channel experiences, advertisers now have the ability to go beyond simply targeting their audiences on mobile phones, they can create compelling, branded entertainment experiences that connect viewers with their products and offers in a new and compelling way," said Jack Hallahan, vice president, advertising and brand partnerships, MobiTV.

"This year will see mobile video ads become significant to the small screen medium, answering many of mobile advertising's challenges by providing easier to find and more focused opportunities."

Other data from the study:

• 9% of MobiTV's users watch in their office or home with a "watching apparatus"   -- 43% of parent users utilize the MobiTV service to entertain kids in the car   -- 67% of users have shown the MobiTV service at a party or other social      gathering   -- 85% of MobiTV's users say they watch more TV at home since signing up      for the MobiTV service.

• MobiTV reaches more than three million adult viewers between the ages of 18 and 49, who subscribe to more than 50 live TV channels and/or digital music. Key audience demographic and psychographic data points include:

  • They love television -- They are highly mobile -- They are technophiles, trend setters, mavens who drive tech purchases, both within corporations and amongst their friends   -- They are 67% male and 33% female   -- 82% are between the ages of 18 and 39 and the remaining 18% are 40 years of age and older.

MobiTV collected the above usage and advertising data and metrics from its proprietary mobile advertising platform during H2 of 2007.

All of this sounds great. But I have my doubts that mobile television has quite the growth potential the the industry hopes for. Note that the data does not include churn rate or actual usage on a daily or even monthly basis.

I'm not picking on MobiTV - it's an innovative company with really great capabilities, especially in the realm of branded content, which I delve into in-depth in BRANDING UNBOUND the book with MobiTV founder Paul Scanlon.

It's just that I think the category needs a game changer - much more SlingBox-like capabilities. New projection technologies wouldn't hurt. Or some other advance nobody's thought of yet.

Still - if you're on the go and just have to catch that live news or sports cast, nothing's going to fit the bill like MobiTV.

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Mobile TV: Lots Are Subscribing, Fewer & Fewer Are Watching

Ah, the eternal question: HD TV or cellivision?

It may come as a surprise to the industry, but it appears people would rather watch TV on a big screen HD television set than a two- to four-inch screen on their mobile phones.

A new M:Metrics report finds that mobile subscribers who are "former mobile TV users" grew 68% last year, while growth of new users only grew 36%.

Now, it appears it's not for lack of interest. Nearly 60% of former  users said they'd sign up again if service quality and reliability significantly improved in the coming year.

I think it's more complex than that. I was a mobile TV subscriber who realized I never actually watched it. When I did, service sucked. But overall, even if it worked well, there are so few times when I absolutely need live TV on a mobile phone.

What's more, an iPhone, or some new SlingBox mobile solution, quickly points to time-shifting being as important as place-shifting. It's not that I want to sit and watch TV commercials (or tiny news scrolls and weather maps) on my mobile. It's that I want what's on my DVR or iTunes - commercial free - whenever, and wherever I want.

Nonetheless, the industry's got to see if this can turn into something big. To that end, some key findings from the M:Metrics study:

•  The UK had the highest ratio of ex-users citing quality and reliability
       as reasons for not watching mobile TV

• The United States has the lowest ratio of ex-users to users, at 1.3.
       Yet the attitudes of U.S. ex-users with regards to quality and
       reliability are very much in line with their European counterparts

• Overall mobile TV penetration in the United States lags behind all
       European markets but Germany

  • Interestingly Germany showed a staggering 159% growth in ex-users,
       while Italy has the highest percentage of mobile TV viewers

Read more about the study, here.

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