The internet/web 2.0 is blowing up primarily because of social networking and social media. 10’s of thousands of video files a day of user generated videos are uploaded and viewed by millions of people. As is always the case, we are now seeing the conversation to mobile – but this is NOT an easy transition. Why? Lots of reasons:
1) File formats – online you have 1 or 2 file formats that you might be working with – and typically if you have Windows Media or Quicktime (maybe Real or Divx) installed on your computer, it will work – in mobile this is not the case
2) Handsets – out of 207 million mobile subscribers in this country, about 5 million can do video
3) Carrier networks – 1) they can not maintain, at this point, the bandwidth necessary for users sending the amount of data moving on sites like youtube/myspace
4) Carrier interopability – if I send a piece of content to my phone, I want my friends to be able to see it, even if they are on a different carrier. Walls, tangible or intangible, screw up this process.
But there are much bigger reasons, for example, Xingtone could solve the first two, with on the fly encoding and carrier networks will eventually get up to snuff. The real issue comes around the philosophy and the legal liability around user generated content. User generated content works because it is real, raw and unedited. It is a voice for ‘kids’ everywhere. There are illegal things (music videos, or music in the background), there are jack-ass type videos, there is porn type videos, etc.. All of these ultimately are what the consumer wants. The user also wants things in real time. They do not want to upload a video today and have their friends watch it in a week – that want it now. If they cant have it now, they will move on to the next thing. Additionally, the cost in verifying the veracity and legality of every piece of content is too much for virtually any company to absorb, let alone most of the companies focused on mobile user generated content (saying nothing of just user generated content).
Carriers claim that they are worried about the FCC, worried about legal liability, about an angry consumer who downloaded a video and saw a penis by accident. I call bullshit and believe it ultimately comes down to control. Carriers continue to focus on their ability to market, distribute and sell mobile content. If the world of mobile moves to free content, especially P2P user generated content, carriers are worried that they are just dumb pipes. This issue begs the question of net neutrality, which is for a different time….
The solution, which I am not going to give away here, is relatively simple. The value chain must focus on delivering what CONSUMERS want, NOT want the ecosystem needs for self preservation.
