The Death of Mobile Content?

The mobile content business (as we know it) is stumbling & is going to die. We (mobile content suppliers) used to be happy to supply operators and get our 50% of 50% of 50% of £1 from a clip that did 10,000 downloads. Now we are seeing more sophisticated consumers sideloading, creating there own content or just getting pissed off with the whole "10 click to get some OK content" experience (we all know that a 30 sec clip only has so much value).
Also recent changes by Tier 1 operators mean that content companies are either having to pay for promotional space or are looking to advertisers to fund their content. Right now its way to early for advertisers to be supporting content sales. This will only happen when the big web players Google / Yahoo / MSN move into mobile ad sales with a easy to use consistent platform like we see on the web. I believe this is 18-24 mths away ...and I'm an optimist.

This is the beginning of build it and they will come. Give content away for free and figure out how to monetize it later type business. Take Vodafone and YouTube. Why does Vodafone do a deal with YouTube and then YouTube a few months later launches their own free to mobile service. Simply because while Vodafone might not say it publicly they realise that they are going to be an ISP not a content player. They will continue to sell brilliant voice/data packages and leave the content side to the companies who speciliase in this. Unfortunatley for those of us who have built pay / view mobile content companies this business is going to have serious heart failure over the next year.

While I'm down on the prospects of that part of my business now, I am damn excited about it in the future. What this process will do is make data cheap, help consumers feel secure in surfing the mobile web, increase innovation by breaking down the walled gardens and build by a factor of x the global audience. This will all add upto an attractive platform for advertisers to get involved with and spend their much needed cash to subsidize mobile content. Free content to the consmer is the key.

Paid for content as always will remain the preserve of major sports, exclusives & the adult business. No changes there then.