Gearing up for BREW 2007

It's mid-June and I'm preparing for my annual trek to San Diego for Qualcomm's developer fest--BREW 2007. The conference, which will take place June 20-22 in San Diego, isn't a very big gathering, but it always attracts some fairly innovative players in the developer and mobile entertainment space.

This year I'm particularly looking forward to hearing an update from Verizon Wireless, Qualcomm's largest purveyor of the BREW platform. In case you don't recall, at last year's BREW conference John Stratton, then-CMO of Verizon Wireless, addressed concerns about the apparent slowing growth of mobile content downloads. This was particularly remarkable because it was the first time I'd heard a wireless operator acknowledge a disturbing trend that vendors and analysts had been talking about for a few months--that growth of mobile content downloads was slowing much quicker than anticipated, and it was starting to look at if mobile entertainment wasn't going to be the mass-market phenomenon that most were expecting.

In fact, Stratton called upon the developers at the conference to work on ways to make the mobile content buying experience better. He criticized his own company's Get It Now service for having a crowded deck and content stored in silos. And he talked about how Verizon was going to improve its on-deck offering as well as launch BREW Zone. With BREW Zone, the carrier would be able to sell content off-portal through the VZW.com website.

I expect off-portal to be a hot topic at BREW again this year. I think all BREW operators are trying to balance the convenience and control they have enjoyed with the BREW platform and still meet the demands of consumers that don't necessarily always want to purchase content from the carrier deck.

It's now a year later, and I wonder if Verizon has accomplished all of the plans outlined by Stratton at the BREW 2006 conference. Merchandizing mobile content is a complex process, and I think it may take a lot more trial and error before carriers strike the right balance with the consumer. - Sue

P.S.  Please look for our coverage from the BREW 2007 conference next week in this newsletter and at the FierceDeveloper website. FierceMarkets is producing the BREW show daily at the BREW conference and we'll be posting all our coverage live at the FierceDeveloper site.