In 2005, Verizon was one of the first companies in the U.S. to get involved in mobile video. This was the year they launched V CAST. As a premium add-on, Verizon customers with three phone models could pay an additional $15 a month on top of their regular service to watch one-minute video clips, movie trailers and other short-form video content. Early reports for the service, and indeed for the future of online video, weren’t very promising. BusinessWeek summed up the experience, not just for V CAST, but for most mobile video services that launched recently afterward:
“Most of the appeal is in the novelty. Verizon will need to speed up the slow load times, get even more TV content, and make some decent shows for cell phones before it’s really worth paying for.”
The mobile video experience wouldn’t move beyond novelty because there were some serious challenges it faced at that time:
Quality and Selection
The quality of mobile video, downloaded or streamed, was not a viable alternative to the online video of the time. In addition to quality issues, there wasn’t much content to view.
Device and Carrier Limitations
The small screens and slower connection speeds of phones at the time didn’t make the quality of the content very desirable.
Pricing
With all the quality and device limitations, few were willing to pay for mobile video, or even spend much time with it.
If you were one of the few to experience early mobile video efforts, you probably wrote it off. It would be a while before you reconsidered the mobile video proposition.
Now is the time to reconsider. Here’s why.
Mobile Video Viewing Is on the Rise
More specifically, mobile video viewing has been on the rise in the last year. According to research firm Morpace, 9 percent of U.S. Internet users now report viewing video on their mobile device. That’s around 20 million U.S. users watching video via mobile. In context, it’s much more than the 3 million registered Foursquare users that were announced in August.
Mobile Bandwidth Has Increased
The quality issue for mobile video isn’t over yet, but bandwidth has increased dramatically. More importantly, phones can now connect via Wi-Fi. This was something that wasn’t possible in 2005, and for many phones wasn’t seen as required until the iPhone set the standard.
Phones Have Become Screens
The iPhone certainly transformed phone design to better accommodate mobile video. Phones are now essentially screens. In fact, screen size has increased dramatically.
Rapid Growth of Applications
Finally, one of the biggest reasons to reconsider mobile video is the apps. No one imagined in 2005 that apps would be as dominant as they are today, with recent speculation that app downloads are poised to take over music downloads.
There are a few recent examples of great applications that are driving mobile video forward. First and foremost is the recently released Netflix application for iPhone. The popularity of the app is a nod toward how important on-demand entertainment is becoming and how important the mobile phone will be in that future.
In addition, consider that there are many other mobile video apps being released and gaining momentum. Justin.TV and Ustream now both have mobile apps.
Growth of the Mobile Web
As bandwidth increases and mobile web usage increases, it won’t just be apps that are contributing to mobile video viewing. In fact, earlier this year YouTube announced that YouTube mobile now receives 100 million mobile video playbacks a day.
For marketers, the mobile video comeback means there are a few key questions to ask as we move into this new frontier of mobile video.
Are there new opportunities for mobile advertising?
Mobile video ad opportunities will grow. Begin asking your media partners what opportunities exist and if there are custom sponsorship opportunities in addition to standard kinds of video ad placements.
Are there any opportunities to create mobile video content?
In addition to media opportunities, brands that are producing video should think about how that video can be distributed in mobile channels or how they can create content specifically for mobile video.
More importantly, we must keep an open mind about mobile. There are certainly opportunities that will be here five years from now that we can’t imagine today.
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