Give me a big screen

COMMUNICATION

When was the last time you saw anyone you know or otherwise watched a movie or some animated clip on their mobile phone?

I don't know about you but I cannot for the life of me recall even one such occasion. Yes, there was me once trying to download some movie trailer clip from my service provider and finding the whole process and product extremely unsatisfying. I think I waited 3 minutes to download a 15 second clip.

Think about it, you see people using mobile phones to play games, listen to music, listen to the radio, take pictures and yes, make phone calls but rarely do you see folks watching video. I know there could be a demographic disparity between what I perceive but I'm pretty sure it's not much.

Mobile TV has often been touted as a holy grail of sorts in personalised entertainment. With you, anywhere, allowing self-immersion at will and what not. Yet, it's not quite there. I asked around a little bit. The consensus response was that they would watch movies on personal DVD players maybe, but surely not mobiles. "What if the phone rings?" was one response.

What would they watch? I asked. Maybe news clips, maybe cricket and sports, maybe songs but nothing long for sure. Okay, it also depends where in the world you are. The US is seeing a big content push by the likes of Warner Brothers, Sony, 20th Century Fox, Viacom and Fox. Warner for instance created a six-episode short video series based on a popular Superman television show called Smallville. 20th Century created a Borat series for mobile phones.

That's Hollywood mostly trying to promote films. In India, it began predictably with Bollywood film song clips or trailers. And as I can see, thats where it stayed. Technology is one hurdle to the growth of this medium inasmuch as download speeds on Indian mobile phones have not changed much in, lets say, three or four years. The good news is that real broadband speeds made their debut only in recent months. So, progress in wireline may spread to wireless too, don't ask me how though.

The content is and will get created. I mean non live streaming content obviously - news TV has and will have some takers, though limited I would suspect.The bigger problem as I see it as greedy mobile phone companies, who will want to charge more than typically most of us can afford ! Advertising linked display is not yet there.

A New York Times piece speaks of how Hollywood likes small screens but advertisers don't. As I see it, except maybe ringtones which stay embedded as long as want it, most users may not want to pay for `transitory' content. A little like the internet where I am used to getting a helluva lot for free.

This means an interesting face-off between content creator, mobile phone company, user and a technology provider like Qualcomm who is trying to create powerful user experiences. The battle has just begun as I see it. Meanwhile, give me a big screen anyday, for anything.

(govindraj@business-standard.com)