CTIA IT Show: Will entertainment dominate?

The CTIA IT Show is still a couple of months away, but already I'm wondering if entertainment will dominate this show as it has done over the past several years. You may not realize this, but the conference originally was launched as an enterprise-oriented event and the organizers envisioned that entertainment would be one of the many vertical markets the conference addressed, not necessarily the dominant vertical. 

Nevertheless, the conference has developed a strong following among mobile entertainment firms. Take a look at some of the past keynote speakers: Michael Lynton, chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment; Peter Chernin, president and COO of News Corp. and Trip Hawkins, chairman and CEO of Digital Chocolate. You can see entertainment has become a dominant player in this conference, even though enterprise firms still make up the majority of the show.

Yesterday I talked with Rob Mesirow, vice president of operations at CTIA, about the conference, which will take place Oct. 23-25 in San Francisco. Mesirow says we can expect some high-profile entertainment companies to once again make their mark. Facebook co-founder and vice president of engineering Dustin Moskovitz will keynote the second day of the conference, and Mesirow indicated the company will be announcing some interesting news.

Mesirow also hinted CTIA is going to be doing something interesting to build consumer awareness of mobile video at the show. He says while 50 percent of all phones in the marketplace can handle video, only about 3 percent of consumers are using their devices for video. CTIA is working with a firm that can tell consumers whether their phone is capable of using video and, if it is, they will send you a video clip. "We will have some very special guests in the entertainment space doing some videos and sending them to people," Mesirow says. "This is a good way for people to experience video on the handset."

Of course, mobile entertainment will also be showcased at Billboard's Mobile Entertainment Live!, which will be co-located with CTIA IT and held Oct. 22. True to form, this conference will have a splashy keynoter: music legend Quincy Jones.  Although I understand the need for high-profile guests at these conferences--they draw the consumer media and they make for great photo opportunities and headlines--I find the real insightful commentary on mobile entertainment comes from the sessions with operators and the mobile entertainment executives that actually live and breathe this industry. The people I'm looking forward to hearing from are AT&T's new vice president of consumer data Mark Collins and Rio Caraeff, Universal Music Group's general manager of the mobile division and EVP of eLabs. Caraeff always tends to have provocative insights and opinions.

Of course, FierceMobileContent will be bringing you all the news and scoops from the CTIA IT Show. We are the official online show daily for CTIA and we will deliver this information through a custom micro-site entitled "CTIA Live!" that we'll incorporate into the FierceMobileContent newsletter. Stay tuned for more details as the show gets closer. -Sue [1]