Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Do you watch TV on your cell phone?

Watching TV or Movies on your cell phone is nothing new.. but are people using it? not according to this LA Times article "No Big Demand for Small Screen" which had some interesting facts

  • " only about 1% to 3% of subscribers currently watch videos on their cell phones."
  • " 4 in 10 teenagers said they were uninterested in watching television shows or movies on computers, cellphones or hand-held devices such as video iPods"
  • When 12-17 year old kids were asked - On which of the following devices would you want to watch a movie?
    Computer: 47%
    Cellphone: 11%
    Video iPod or similar device: 18%
    I would not want to watch a movie on any of the above screens: 38%

I'm part of that 38%...when I first got my moto e680 and was able to store King Kong the movie on my 1GB SD I was pretty psyched! but then disappoinment hit... Video and sound were ok at best..but battery consumption is what killed the thought of ever doing it again even though I downloaded the movie for free (illegally) but free.. unlike others that pay up to $15 for services like such as VCast by verizon or MobiTV While executives and industry insiders expect the demand for such services to rise dramatically..these surveys dont seem to agree...I am not saying this will never take off..I hope it does actually.. in theory its a cool service if properly offered but a few things have to take place or change...here are my top 4

1. Affordable subscriptions - if the CEO thinks I can't get the same content for free he needs to be fired! why pay $15 for something we can get for free
2. Wider Content selection-most of the time carriers only offer content as a result of a partnership or marketing plot..(HBO and Cingular offered the sopranos but no Entourage?)
3. Devices and network - don't offer it if you cant provide me with a reliable fat pipe to download/stream it through 3G-EDGE-Wifi-Bluetooth capabilities and a device that will not crash every 3 mins, and with a battery that will last for me to actually talk after I watch a clip
4. Sharing is caring -Dont be like verizon and disable bluetooth on cell phones to stop mp3 and picture sharing..chances are that if I liked a movie I will want to share it with my friends and if you read #1 chances are my friends will sign up

What about you..

1 comments:

Loosey said...

There are some great oppoutunities to watch video and tv footage on you cell phone! With Companies like Vodafone Catching on the to Crazy and Also Boost Picturecast teaming up with jetty images, you can get high quality video footage, but not only that, you can get it fast.!