I went smart phone with Internet access about 18 months ago.
Last Christmas, Ann Marie surprised me (which is tough to do with a present) with an iPhone under the tree. I liked my Samsung Blackjack, but with the iPhone, there's no comparison. I know that all Apple users have a not so secret mission to convert all PC users! The iPhone may be the thing that pushed me over when it's time for a new laptop.
This blog entry is not about Mac vs PC, but the iPhone has solidified my mobile Internet usage. Getting and sending email from both business and personal accounts, checking on stocks, getting weather and surfing the net for whatever info I need makes "Internet on the go" all too valuable.
The Center for Media Research has just released some new information.
MEF recently released its Top Ten 2009 Mobile Entertainment
trends including the ‘iPhone effect' and greater pricing transparency
for consumers, but predicts that mobile advertising will not "take
off." The report
notes that, though the $25 billion global mobile entertainment industry
has weathered and prospered through hard times as well as good, 2009
will be a year in which almost a decade of investments begin to deliver
returns.
MEF has
identified what members see as the biggest trends facing the mobile entertainment industry in 2009:
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The ‘iPhone effect' -Mobile applications have emerged as a new content
category and the mobile internet will finally come of age
-
Greater value and transparency for consumers will help sustain demand in 2009
-
Some delay in the proliferation of mobile advertising
-
Telcos begin to acts as enablers for the Entertainment industry with
services such as billing, authentication and zero tariff data
-
The emerging dominance of services that operate at a multi-platform level
-
The rise of ring back tones
-
Social networking becomes an important driver of mobile entertainment consumption
-
2009 will be the year that mobile video really takes off
-
Emerging economies will become an increasingly important driver for mobile entertainment worldwide
-
A proliferation of touch screen devices drives discoverability and content usage
More about mobile entertainment, from a Nielsen report summarized by
Mediabuyerplanner, shows that content from NBC and CBS is among the
most popular with viewers of mobile video, with many tuning in to watch
hour-long dramas, a
format that was assumed unpopular with mobile viewers. NBC is drawing
the largest audience to mobile, generating 1.8 million mobile video
streams. Of those, 1.3 million were for full episodes of shows like Heroes and The Office.
Traditional shows are popular because they're familiar, says the
report. Made-for-mobile shows, such as those CBS has had in
development, are hard to find because mobile web users are less inclined to search aimlessly. Still, CBS is
continuing to produce mobile series, and has scored with short Hollywood news segments.
Steve Andrade, general manager of NBC.com, says that "Long-form is doing better for us than short form and... we're surprised... "
Nielsen estimates that 10.3 million mobile phone subscribers,
5% of the cell phone population, access video via their phone each
month. M:Metrics' most recent survey shows that just 7.5 million users
watched video in a given
month.
"As smart phones continue to drop in price, and new entrants impress
consumers," says comScore, "mobile internet penetration and engagement
will continue to soar..."