MobileMultimedia
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MobiTV closes UK office, cuts off 3 and Orange
The king of mobile television content, MobiTV, has shut down its British office to focus squarely on the burgeoning U.S. market. While mobile TV still is in its infancy here in the U.S., we'd think there was more immediate potential across the pond. Guess not. MobiTV is shuttering services it provides to UK carriers 3 and Orange, along with jettisoning the J2ME app that makes mobile TV possible on the Orange network (according to reports). Hey, at least MobiTV still loves Windows Mobile, right?[Via mocoNews]
NBC announces full mobile versions of hit TV shows
In a first for a U.S. television studio, NBC said that it would permit customers to purchase prime-time TV shows at will and on demand to play on their cellphones, similar to Verizon's new offering. Maybe the old guard of television sees how media viewing and takeaway content is changing, eh? Anyhoo, efforts so far for viewing television and movies on cellphones screens have faltered, probably due to the limited and short-length content out in the market today. As usual in the mobile video market, NBC will be making hit shows like "The Office" and "Heroes" available through mobile multimedia pioneer MobiTV, and will allow customers to buy full-length episodes for $1.99 each up to 24 hours after the television show airs. A key feature we think here will be the on-demand ability to let consumers stop viewing and resume from the same point later on. That is, unless you can stomach all 23 minutes or so of a 30-minute sitcom on that 2 inch screen all at once.
Mobile entertainment experience gets slammed by Time Warner CEO
If you've tried the native Verizon VCAST and Sprint Music Store features lately, did you come away feeling unimpressed and possibly frustrated? It's been mused that the reason mobile handset-based music services have not reached critical mass with consumers was because the limitations and difficulties with usage. This is true, and nowhere has a system like an iPod clickwheel been installed -- along with music selection software -- on any mobile that gets close to the reality distortion field the iPod ecosystem creates. So, it is no wonder that Time Warner's CEO is kinda bashing the existing and overall mobile music experience for consumers at 3GSM this week. Said Ed Bronfman Jr., who said mobile music purchasing is expensive, complicated and slow, added that "We need to make it easy, affordable and quick to get music on mobile phones -- until we achieve this goal, we will be leaving billions of dollars on the table."
