Mobile Video: AT&T and Bold.. Talk
Been playing around with the “Cellular Video” or CV as they call it on my Blackberry Bold this morning.
Its really getting there. When you combine something like the brilliance of Wall Street Mobile Reader - if you dont have it you should and every media company should use it, dissect it and make it - you start to get somewhere really fun.
The one thing/issue we are going to face on mobile video is that for some reason, the mobile networks have seen this as a “walled garden” play. ie They want to create their own networks so specific content can only play on specific networks.
The reason they do this, is because they are not happy with just being “pipe providers”. They want to add content services. Broadband providers tried this. Sites like AOL tried this. It doesnt work and it retards the industry because it is not business to one consumer that fuels use/excitement, its when people start sharing it. ie YouTube - its ok using it on your own - its a lot more fun when you can receive links from friends and pass them on to friends.
On the experience of “CV” on Bold - pretty good. Watched a clip of The Mentalist with no buffer and pretty clear. Then switched to music videos and it got a little weird. There was one channel called “Music Videos” that started charging me $0.99 a clip and then the VH1 music video channel next to it that was free. Weird Al. Also some of the clips were titled incorrectly - annoying. You would click on Coldplay and get some other random music vid. There was buffering on the music videos which made me click off them.
All in all - as soon as we reach a point where a person can find something in the menu of the mobile video section on a phone (industry calls it “on deck”) and then watch it and then easily share it with a friend who can receive it as an email and click and watch it right away regardless of which network he is on - then we will have take off. Till then, it will be a small, early adopter/tinkerer market.
