Articles Index: Agile Minds
When Andrew Bud—an outspoken voice in the mobile content industry and executive chairman and co-founder of mobile transaction network mBlox, a company connecting content providers and mobile operators at the heart of the off-portal experience—waved his arms and declared that mobile content was "boring," "stale," and "sorely in need of a rethink" during a recent industry conference in London, you could feel the shock waves.
The number of consumers accessing web content on their mobile phones will likely surpass the number of users accessing the web via fixed PC connections by the end of 2008. But a singular focus on repurposing content for small screens ignores what makes mobile indispensable to our everyday lives: the ability to deliver the right content to the right user in the right context.
Predictably, mobile content delivery scenarios require publishers to develop made-for-mobile sites and destinations. It's not a mammoth task for major publishers, but it can be a huge headache for eager independent publishers or smaller content providers anxious to move their old media into new territory.
If Web 2.0 is all about the tools and technologies that allow users to freely create, share, and connect around content, as well as interact with content companies, then the next evolutionary step is Mobile 3.0, which places location and the mobile device at the core of this exchange.
Search engines are indisputably a potent way to generate value, but it may be recommendation engines, which encourage users to keep coming back for similar content, that actually pay the biggest dividends for content companies and publishers in the long term. In its basic form, recommendation technology—modeled on the approach of online bookseller Amazon—suggests content on the basis of what like-minded customers consume, connecting users with relevant content that their peers recommend. But the paradigm goes far beyond that to link consumers not only with content they like, but ultimately with users who share their interests and passions.
The proliferation of people-powered search engines and social media services, which effectively tap the wisdom of crowds to bubble up the good ideas and good content we care about most, are enabling a profound shift in how we locate, create, and share information.
Offering more content is not only better, it can also be a source of competitive advantage. Put simply, delighting the customer with choice can pay dividends.
Publishers may have been short-changed when they embraced the fixed internet only to see their brands and offerings diluted by major search-engine brands that called the shots and picked the content. Thus, they would be short-sighted not to explore the world of exciting and lucrative opportunities offered by the emerging mobile web.
Caught off guard by the explosive growth of online social networking sites like MySpace and Flickr, many companies are racing to replicate this success in the mobile space. However, building mobile social networks to meet the needs of diverse user communities requires business models and platforms that encourage user acceptance and participation. The technology exists. However, the current range of business models and strategies is limited by a lack of imagination and vision
As spatial boundaries and modes of communication converge, disruptive new technologies emerge to give people the experience of being connected with content from anywhere. But ubiquitous access is no longer just about seamless content portability; it's about empowering individuals to access content on their terms and across devices.
Users can’t buy content if they can’t find it, so an increasing number of mobile operators and content providers are scrambling to offer search capabilities, as well as an array of tools to encourage users to explore more of the content at their fingertips. The raft of recent announcements, involving market giants like Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and a growing number of white-label search providers including InfoSpace, Fast Search & Transfer, Medio Systems, and JumpTap shows that carriers and content companies are excited about mobile search.
Access to simple tools empowers us to mix and mash, blog, and mesh. We create content on our terms and share the results with social networks we have chosen to join based on common interests and expertise. What’s more, the proliferation of social networks means we benefit from an abundance of choice.
Empowered customers—demanding to access or create content tailored to their needs and delivered on their own terms—have turned up the heat on technology and content companies alike, pushing them to bring greater innovation to market. But there’s a catch.
Overwhelmed by the choice of web and mobile content—ranging from news services to video clips—users increasingly gravitate to services that are designed from the ground up to give them content before they ask for it.
With an avalanche of mobile content coming online this year, subscribers can’t say they don’t have choices. They can complain about the tedious navigation process and confusing hierarchical menus they must endure to find and buy content, however. Navigation on mobile devices is particularly cumbersome, and most usability research suggests that users give up after 12 clicks or 30 seconds. Little wonder the industry is so excited about mobile search—thought by many to be a silver-bullet solution that will allow companies to present content within an acceptable click-distance and make that all-important sale.
Mobile technologies are becoming embedded, ubiquitous, and networked—paving the way for an always-on and always-aware society. The enhanced capabilities mobile technologies offer for rich social interaction could totally transform how we work, learn, and live. Yet most content providers remain unimpressed. They focus on delivering a few wireless-enabled enterprise applications with a preponderance of predictable mainstream mobile content like ringtones, wallpapers, and logos, which by definition often appeals to the lowest common denominator. Mobile content can—and must be—much more
In essence, we can create, access, and share what we want, when and how we want it. Increasingly, we are taking charge of our content experiences. The content creation and distribution landscape will never be the same. While this newfound freedom of self-expression is both liberating and invigorating, we’re only beginning to understand what we can achieve when we use technology to create a network of ourselves.
The emergence of empowered consumers, the advance of so-called digital natives, and the abundance of applications designed to give consumers more control over how they create, access, and enjoy content have transformed publishing and content creation.
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