Online and Mobile Media – More and More People Watching – Business Are Converging

Implications: This survey and your own empirical studies should tell you that people are going online and going wireless. This survey confirms what everyone has believed.

Analysis: In 2004, when the mobile media and online entertainment movement was really shaking and moving, investment banks were not touting this new media age.  In fact many investment banking institutions were not willing to get out in front of any online or mobile media company.  However, the venture capitalists were willing to fund these startups.

It is astounding and satisfying to see that about 38 percent of U.S. consumers are watching TV shows online, 36 percent use their cell phones as entertainment devices and 45 percent are creating online content like Web sites, music, videos and blogs for others.

What is even better is to see these findings of Deloitte and Touche’s online survey of 2,081 Americans (conducted October 25-31, 2007) were reported in The Hollywood Reporter.

The release to the Hollywood Reporter means that the real kings and queens of this new media age, the filmmakers, video makers, singers, actors, directors, producers, and all other show business folks are taking this new age seriously.

The telecom companies are nothing more than theaters or arenas to be filled.  The entertainers and those who create entertainment need to be the lead component of this new age.

The Hollywood Reporter is read by people in the business of content creation.  The original article is directed at those people who know how to make money off of entertainment.  The article is almost a confirmation of what the people in Hollywood have been intuiting since 2004 when Sprint launched the first mobile media service and even earlier in the 2000s when online professionally produced entertainment content hit the Internet.

The traditional telecom business has become a content business.  This content business is now a convergence of technologies and industries; bringing together wireline telecom, data mining, wireless telecom, advertising, and consumer products together in a way that traditional television, cable TV, radio, billboards, and printed news media have only been able to scratch the surface of in the last 8 decades.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas 2007, an online wine retailer gave 15 percent discounts to anyone who sent in a photo of its newspaper ad snapped with a camera cell phone.  This company is called SnapTell Inc.  SnapTell was helping a company called Wine Enthusiast and other merchants offer such services, uses image-recognition software to determine what offer, video clip or other content to return to the cell phone.

Many in the film and advertising industries believe that in the coming months, the same technology could deliver movie reviews and discounts to anyone snapping a picture of a movie poster or billboard.

Yes, this is sounds primitive but think about what is being done with the data.  This is one of a number of emerging approaches to mobile advertising, an industry still in its infancy but showing promise.  According to Jupiter Research analyst Neil Strother, more than 80 percent of Americans now own cell phones.  According to Strother, this can be likened to "carrying a potential advertising channel in their pocket."  Absolutely true.

Fast-food chains, carmakers and TV reality shows have run contests and other promotions in which consumers participate by sending text messages.

Wireless carriers have finally caught on and have begun letting companies run banner ads - mini-versions of what you might see on a PC.

As time goes by the CTIA Annual Convention is probably going to look more and more like a NATPE Convention.  NATPE stands for National Association of Television Program Executives.

Think convergence; not technology convergence but business convergence.