BMW launches world-first: personalized mobile video advertising campaign in China
GoMo new reports that BMW has selected China for a world-first in advertising – personalized video messages delivered directly to cell phones. The targeted messages, distributed Dec 21-24, 2009 in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, address individual customers with a holiday greeting that is uniquely tailored to a specific individual.
Technology for the campaign was provided by Clip in Touch. The company provides a platform for sending advertising campaigns via MMS. The uniqueness comes in allowing users to personalize, edit and add their own voice, video and text to any advertising campaign.
Initial response to the campaign has been very positive, generating more test drives in a three day period than at any time this year.
Read the full article at http://www.gomonews.com/bmw-launches-world-first-personalized-mobile-video-advertising-campaign-in-china/
How soon till mobile TV really gets going?
By Saad Fazil, DigitalBeat.
Mobile TV has analysts excited. ABI Research estimates that mobile TV will have 43 million subscribers by 2013, and research firm TeleAnalytics estimates 50 million mobile TV users in North America by the same year. But so far mobile TV has not nearly lived up to the hype. Qualcomm’s FLO TV, the technology used behind the current market leaders — AT&T’s Mobile TV and Verizon’s V Cast — still isn’t making money. For this holiday season, Qualcomm launched a new product, FLO TV Personal television, to turn the situation around. Could this be a new beginning for mobile TV?
Read the full article at http://digital.venturebeat.com
A Real Tsunami Warning
With ATT’s Ralph de la Vega making the stunning announcement last week that 3% of its smart phone users accounted for 40% of its network capacity while pointing a finger at video makes a very compelling story for video optimization. The iPhone has enabled and enamored so many users to access video that adoption will only grow and grow. His announcement is equivalent to a seismograph shaking its little needle off the paper.
The long awaited video tsunami is pulling the water away from the beach now. And it’s all going to come crashing back. De la Vega hinted of usage-based charging or ‘other’ incentives to motivate users to throttle back. There will be a backlash on ATT. Subscribers will get sensitive about dropped calls, QoS, and monitor their bills closely. This will lead to a rash of customer service calls for credits, justifications, explanations. Many will jump ship to Verizon. Handset makers and content providers are going to complain that uptake is slowed, etc. (That’s another story all together regarding ‘over-the-top’ plays).
But the savvy operator will take note and gird up for this onslaught before it reaches them. As iPhone and Android devices take off worldwide, the operators that remember their Boy Scout motto, ‘Be Prepared’, are going to protect themselves with bandwidth optimization facilities such as Dilithium’s DVO. DVO provides the operator the ability to control, throttle, and reduce the impact that video puts on the network. This is just the beginning.
Read More Here:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/09/technology/AP-US-TEC-ATT-Data-Usage.html?_r=1&hpw
Give me Advertainment!
Given that my previous blog was about Video Director/Producer having such a rosy future due to online video demand, I started thinking and watching. My light’s just gone on that there’s a whole new-to-me-at-least genre combining advertisement and entertainment. Sort of like, if you enjoy your work then it isn’t really work, right? If you liked the video is it really advertising or advertainment?
Ok, service providers, give me a ‘Cool Advert’ channel and give me ‘Video Push’ so I can share the joy with my friends. Operators and VAS players should have no problem finding good, professionally produced content to drive this channel at dirt cheap cost. And, while at it, make that multiple channels focused on gender, hobbies or what have you.
Here’s my fav of the week. Thank you Harley-Davidson for combining noise, action, photography and the beauty (Marisa Miller) on the beast (HD’s V-Rod Muscle) Enjoy.
The End of Single-Purpose Devices
| Jim Rapoza posted this blog in eWeek.
So what am I doing? Am I walking around with an MP3 player, an e-book reader, a digital camera and a digital camcorder? Nope, just one device, my BlackBerry smartphone, which lets me listen to music, read books, take pictures and video, and, oh, yeah, make calls, play games, manage contacts and so on. I do own a nice MP3 player, a very good digital point-and-shoot camera and a Flip camcorder, and, while I don’t own an e-book reader, I’ve had the chance to try out several. But I find that I’m leaving these devices at home more and more and just sticking with one multifunction device. All of these single-purpose devices are excellent and in pretty much every case they are superior to the functionality in my smartphone. But it’s also true that in most cases my smartphone is good enough.” Read the full article at http://etech.eweek.com/content/mobile_and_wireless/the_end_of_single_purpose_devices.html |
Video Producer/Director makes Top 10 Hot Jobs List
The Video Space Blog doesn’t always have to focus (pun intended) on video facts, figures or technology geekdom. But today, I tripped across a surprising assessment of the US job market – it’s in fact-n-figure form, but not what you‘d expect.
Out of 750 jobs reviewed, The Daily Beast (www.thedailybeast.com) has decided that Video Producer and Director is the #3 Top Job in America for job and wage growth! They based it on analysis of 3 years of the Bureau of Labor Statistics so it must be infallible. They’re talking PAID jobs over 45k USD, not your fav homeboy with a Flip camera, but PAID professional work. They go on to say that the demand is driven by our thirst for on-line video.
Given that tidbit, Video Value Added Services should have no problem finding good, professionally produced content to drive their apps. Hmmm, I thought outside the news and sports categories most professional online video content was repurposed broadcast material. But after some thought, there is an ton of advertisement videos made for the web. Ok, service providers, give me a ‘Cool Advert’ channel with Video Push.
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Ubiquitous Mobile Broadband
There has been a lot of press and buzz in the industry regarding 4G deployments and the related technology choices being deployed by carriers. It is a good time to study the impacts of deployment of these technologies on the business of telecommunications providers.
Of the many articles I have read in the past few months, invariably when 4G (LTE or WiMAX) is mentioned in the same breath people start talking about more bandwidth to the cell/smart phones. While this may be true, the objective and scope for the development and deployment of 4G mobile technologies is certainly much more than that. Deployment of these technologies allows the wireless service provider to achieve the following:
- Compete for High Speed Internet business, with a much differentiated service than traditional HSI service providers by not only providing the service but also adding mobility to the plan and thus significantly differentiating their service offering.
- Provide a much richer multimedia experience on mobile phones and other devices. 4G certainly is going to emerge as a strong competitor for DSL and cable because of higher speeds and mobility. Based on current architectures it is understood that 4G could provide up to 15-30 Mbps broadband speeds to individual subscribers with about 100Mbps shared amongst various users on a particular cell cite.
- Always-on connections and seamless mobility for all wireless enabled devices.
- As technological innovation continues for these 4G technologies, there could come a time where broadcast video services are provided over the wireless infrastructure as well for certain demographic areas in the network. Voice will become ubiquitous where the phone picks the best network medium available based on the location of the subscriber
These are just some of the benefits that position 4G as the next step in mobile broadband. 4G can be used both in densely populated regions to increase capacity but also in rural areas to use spectrum that you cannot use today in existing networks.
The above points are just some of the benefits of 4G in terms of higher speeds and feeds. Another way to think about this technology is in terms of coverage for all services in areas of developing as well as developed countries which are under-served or not served in terms of telecommunications services. Even in a developed country like the United States of America there are areas of the country that are not served with broadband. As a part of the economic recovery stimulus spending the federal government has allocated $7.2 billion to serve these areas with broadband. There has been talk in certain sections of the industry that rather than spending a lot of money of adding wireline infrastructure it may be advisable to look at LTE and WiMAX as technologies that can blanket these under served areas across the country. This way the entire population can have access to not only broadband capabilities but also mobility for any type of service.
This model can also be replicated in countries where lots of greenfield infrastructure is being added to provide basic telephony as well as other advanced services.
According to a World Wireless Research Forum report, it is expected that by 2017 there will be 17 trillion wireless serving the world population and a wireless broadband network based on technologies like 4G and beyond could provide the seamless connectivity to anything from anywhere.
Live Video Casting – the New TV
Imagine being the owner, executive producer, director, actor and programmer for your own live TV station. Stop imagining. No, the FCC didn’t offer you a free license to operate neither did Rupert Murdoch just toss you the keys to one of his TV channels. You are now streaming your video content live on one of the available channels on such web services as LiveStream, Ustream, Stickam and Justin.tv to the entire world. Not much capital investment needed (3G phone or webcam) and no license to operate required. Live video casting is not new to the internet but what’s new is that 3G technology expands the boundaries to provide and view content anywhere anytime.
This isn’t blogging – this is live which is quite a different social dynamic. For example, you’re a talented musician and want to get your material recognized. By advertising a free live concert with the service provider, you perform and people can see your raw talent knowing there has been no editing to fudge the performance. Not everyone is plugged in to a broadband connection because they’re at the local pub but 3G puts the performance in your hand. Of a more corporate nature, a CEO wants to address all his employees with the latest company news. Some of his employees are at their desks and others are on the road with their 3G handsets. An announcement is sent out that the boss wants to address the entire company and you can tune into www.livevideocast/XYZcorp at 1PM and he’ll also field the IM questions you may have. Or perhaps there’s that once in a life time event – your 5 year old daughter is performing her first ballet recital and you have family that can’t be there because they live all over. Imagine the joy your daughter will have when she knows grandma, grandpa, aunty May, uncle Buck and all the cousins are watching her live. People can host their own cooking shows, sitcoms, provide coverage for their son’s little league final (CBS didn’t want to pick up the rights) or offer a home improvement show with advertising for carpenter services. With 3G, you can view or stream live from anywhere. All these scenarios have recording options as well.
For a provider of live video casts, the opportunities for some sweet moolah are as limitless as the imagination. There’s the advertising, airtime, recording fees, etc. How people watch video has change considerably in the last few years. How they watch live video is about to change thanks to live video casting value added services and 3G.
Monetizing Mobile Video Services
The key discussions around multimedia services used to be all about technology – the meetings were with the CTO personnel and were very limited about how to actually make money. This has all changed in the last two years and very much so in the current economic environment. What is most important is how to get back the return on investment (ROI) in a quick timeframe and to demonstrate to senior management that all of the leg work has been done to segment, define and put forward a compelling value proposition for the provider’s customers.
Monetization has become a key buzzword and if we (as an industry) can really show in a clear and concise manner that video services can make money – or that technology can save capex or opex in real-time – management will sign off for the needed investment.
The elements of monetizing video services across mobile and broadband networks are vast and complex, but relatively simple in the end. We have advised operators on use cases and best practices in terms of marketing, service development and pricing models and they inevitably show a 6-9 month payback in worst case but require the commitment and involvement of the marketing organization to make this happen – it is just not a matter of “showing up” and hoping that people will use these services.
What do you think are the key elements of monetizing multimedia services? What do service providers want or need to do? What do subscribers really want or need?
Hottest Video Applications
For several years now, we’ve been in discussions with service providers, value added resellers, partners and content owners on what multimedia applications customers want. We’ve further defined this into not only what customers want, but what they are willing to pay for, actually use, and the revenue potential to providers of these services. What has become very clear is that the list of these services has continued to grow on a global, regional and local level, and the expertise in developing, marketing and pricing these services.
In the “early days” of 3G networks (think 2003-2005) there was a lot of talk around person-to-person and related services. These included video telephony, video mail and video conferencing. One of the issues that quickly emerged was the “fax machine” syndrome – one needed someone else to video call, and the amount of 3G subscribers compared to 2/2.5G was very limited. Also, video quality given mobile phone codec capabilities was less than optimal, pricing and tariffs were too high, and there was no way to know who had video services or who was on-line. Since then, network capabilities including Video Call Completion to Voice (VCCV) and presence using IMS have greatly increased the potential usage – but we have also seen the extreme take-off of other machine-person services.
While video portal and video streaming were available also from the beginning of 3G networks on circuit and packet access, we have seen the massive take-off now of video blogging (uploads and download access), live TV streaming and video push of personalized video clips. While we’ve seen some traction for video/multimedia ringback tones – especially in Asia – this is a market that is still emerging being as it is dependent on person-to-person video calling and cultural norms.
So … what do you see as the hottest and most used video applications? How are they being used today and what do customers want most in the future? In other posts you can find more information about multimedia applications and how they are being marketed and sold today.