With Hollywood playing catchup on the Internet platform, they are trying to get in much earlier in the wireless entertainment business.
In a strong statement by Peter Chernin, the president and chief operating officer of News Corp Inc. (NWS), at a recent CTIA Wireless Association conference, he said, "I believe that mobile could be one of the greatest media platforms ever created. It could rival television, the Internet and literally anything."
He added that before that could happen, there would need to be an easier way for content to be formatted and delivered. The handsets need to be standardized according to Chernin...and others agreed saying that the process needs to be far more user-friendly. For many users it is extremely difficult to access the content.
The medium is growing tremendously as revenue from all services offered for the first half of 2006 is $6.5 billion, an increase of 70 percent over last year during the same period.
Peter Chernin
Chernin also said that he believes the medium must have its own content, and not be a remix of content already being used on other platforms. While this may be true, that would be a huge project to undertake. Since ringtones, text messaging, video, game and music downloads are the most popular uses, how long would it take to create completely new content for mobiles?
While ringtones and simple games may be easy enough, music and video could take forever. I'm not sure what he's thinking here, but if he's referring to professionally made offerings, it doesn't seem realistic to me. Now if he's referring to user-generated content and social networking, that may have some real potential that wouldn't take long to be offered.
Of course it is there that everyone is struggling to find a way to make money on that type of content. That's still an issue that hasn't been figured out yet.
In the end, user-generated content with occasional professionally made offerings, a way to monetize it all, and simple to use handsets, will be the deterimining factors in when mobile entertainment will explode.
Is there anything you see that can add to this picture?
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