After spending the week at CTIA Wireless 2007, my belief in the future of mobile entertainment is stronger than ever, but it wasn't so much what I saw at CTIA that convinced me--it was what I didn't see. Specifically, I didn't see Sunday's reputed instant-classic NCAA tournament matchup between Georgetown and North Carolina--I missed the game completely due to Orlando travel commitments, but if it had been available on mobile TV, I might have been able to catch some if not all of it while stuck in the airport or in the back of the cab on my way to the hotel.
I experienced similar moments throughout the event--times when the intrinsic appeal of mobile content hit me with absolute clarity. While walking the interminably long distance separating the press area and the cluster of interview rooms at another end of the convention center, it struck me that I could have been killing the time in transit watching cartoons or music videos on my phone. When an interview unexpectedly turned to the subject of Chicago post-rock icons Tortoise, I wished I had downloaded their recent singles and rarities compilation to my handset before I left home. And while part of a futile late-night mission to knock back one more round prior to last call, I began spitballing ideas for a user-generated mobile video reality series titled "Five Minutes to Booze," which captures wireless industry notables as they race to the nearest gas station to score a case of beer before the local off-sale laws kick in. (Trust me, it seemed brilliant at the time.)
I'm reluctant to call these moments "epiphanies"--if anything, you're probably responding something to the effect of "Well, duh…" But keep in mind that I spend each day working at the luxurious FierceMobileContent Mansion, with all my music and video at my fingertips; because I don't commute back and forth to an office five days a week, I rarely experience moments of downtime when the appeal of the mobile content snacking paradigm resonates quite so strongly on a personal level. The point is that I didn't come to these realizations as a guy who writes about mobile content for a living--I came to them as a consumer. So yeah, I'm not the first guy to grasp how mobile entertainment promises to add value to my life--but more importantly, I'm not the last, either. - Jason [1]
Links:
[1] mailto:jankeney@fiercemarkets.com