Rafat Ali, editor of PaidContent.org, sits down with Alex Bloom (Motricity), Craig Shapiro (Helio), and George Linardos (Nokia) to talk about opportunities for handset players, operators and tech players.
Nokia
Nokia has a global user base of 850 million people, many of which have smart phones. Nokia sees the opportunity to connect these phones and participate as a service provider, which will put it in conflict with the operators it partners with. Nokia recently launched MOSH , an open distribution platform for all kinds of content. MOSH will be ad-supported. 75% of the content uploaded to MOSH is images. 80% of the content downloaded is applications and games.
Helio
The market in the US is very different than in South Korea – usage patterns and consumer behavior. Consumer behavior does not translate from one country to another.
Helio is an extension of SK Telecom. All handsets are manufactured in Korea, the platform is proprietary, and has functionality that local carriers don’t. In Korea, you can consistently get good, high-speed signals, which you can’t get in the US. The panel explored the role that broadband and speed plays and how this might contribute to adoption.
While Helio is still a closed ecosystem, it is opening up, such as working with Youtube. The iPhone will level the playing field in terms of distribution of content. With the iPhone, a user can access broadband content through the browser much more easily. They can also move content from their PC to their phone and bypass the carrier network. As the browser becomes the platform, it will cut costs for content providers. Content doesn’t have to be produced specifically to each platform (Web, TV, phone). If you tell a good story, people will consume it, no matter what the device.
So why are the carrier networks, Helio included, so closed? Why do they charge (and how do they get away with) a few dollars to download a crappy ringtone? The carriers believe that since they spent the money to build out their networks that it is their right to decide what content flows across their pipes and airwaves, and what they should (and can) charge for access to that content. If the FCC didn’t charge anything for the spectrum, the carriers would be a lot more open and take more risk. So what advice do the panelists have for the carriers? Reduce fragmentation of devices so content providers don’t have to produce for a variety of devices.
Rafat asked the panel whether social networking (connecting people, user generated content) the glue for handsets. There were some interesting answers.
Panelists
Alex Bloom – General Manager, Direct to Consumer Properties, Motricity
Craig Shapiro – Head of Content Strategy & Acquisition, Helio
George Linardos – Director of Experience, mosh.Nokia.com
