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David A. Sloan is director of product marketing at Avot Media, where he leads the company’s product positioning strategy by formulating, directing and coordinating product marketing activities and policies. Sloan has more than 10 years of experience in marketing leadership, including the development and launch of a long line of successful consumer and enterprise products. Sloan’s experience includes the development of product roadmaps and the delivery of strategic product releases for mobile and Web-based tools and applications.

Prior to joining Avot Media, Sloan served in various product management positions at reputable brands including Palm Inc., where he led the development of key mobile and desktop software applications for all PalmOS and Windows Mobile devices. In addition, he served in a variety of marketing positions with notable companies such as T-Mobile USA, Microsoft Corporation and EMC Corporation.

Sloan can be reached at dave@avotmedia.com.

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Features

Mobile Video: Are U.S. Subscribers Ready?

Written on
September 15th 2008
Author
by David Sloan  |
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mobile_revolution_small.jpgADOTAS EXCLUSIVE — Mobile devices in the U.S. are not as advanced as they are in more cutting-edge regions such as Asia and Europe. In addition, 3G adoption is much lower as well. However, American users are getting used to SMS messages with 60% already sending and receiving text messages, with only 15% using the mobile Internet.
Advertisers who want to test the waters of mobile marketing would be smart to begin with simple SMS campaigns, but need to be careful to avoid spamming their users. It seems that the next logical step would be to build a simple WAP site where users can interact with a brand and click to purchase…or is it? It is tempting to take a desktop web experience and cram it into a tiny WAP site, but there is a risk in turning off curious users and hurting your brand.
A more simple approach to reaching mobile users is to allow them to watch your videos right from their most personal multimedia device: their mobile phone. Videos have taken off on the desktop and are ready to reach mobile. There are one billion more mobile devices worldwide than there are computers.
Are U.S. mobile users ready for mobile video? A recent study from my company shows that yes, they are. In a survey sent out to over 800 respondents, 50 percent had a data plan. Of those 50 percent, 75 percent were able to watch a video on their mobile phone. That is an amazing success rate considering these users own over one hundred models of devices across various 2G and 3G networks. Users were asked to rate their experience and 95 percent said the process of “send SMS for video” was easy, 89 percent said the startup time was fast, and 71 percent reported that the quality was clear or crystal clear.
This 75 percent success rate, in addition to high satisfaction scores, can be attributed to the mobile video delivery engine. A powerful mobile formatting and delivery engine must have the following attributes:
Speed
As each device requests a video, a different format of the video is required. It is a painful process to pre-ingest copies of the video in storage, where many of these files may never be requested. A better approach is to transcode the original file on-the-fly as it is requested. This process results in a much faster start-up time that users desire.
Reduce Buffering
Users have clearly voiced their opinion that constant buffering and freezing is not an acceptable user experience. Buffering results from a constant video stream that is essentially choking on variable network conditions. This stuttering and delay can be avoided with a mobile video delivery engine that detects the network conditions and adjusts the bit-rate instantly to ensure a smooth video playback.
3G to 2.5G hand-off
A reality of using a 3G handset is that 3G network coverage is still spotty. As users are watching video, the connection will often drop from a fast 3G network to a slower 2.5G data network. Standard streaming solutions cannot handle this transition and will choke the video stream. A good mobile video delivery solution will detect these handoffs and vary the bit stream flow instantly, ensuring a smooth video stream during network shifts.
Device support
Many of the devices out there in users’ hands do not support the latest Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). While standard open source streaming servers, like Darwin, may support the latest phones, they do not support the majority of phones on the market. In this case, the best approach is to use a proprietary streaming engine that accommodates for the fragmented handset market, delivering the video to up to 85% of the handsets in the market.
Furthermore, most BlackBerry devices cannot handle video streaming. With over 14 million subscribers, RIM leads in the corporate email market, but these millions of subscribers are carrying a substandard multimedia device. It’s no secret that the BlackBerry browser can be clunky and only a few newer models support streaming video. BlackBerry only recently started supporting 3G networks and the mobile web experience is limited compared to more multimedia-focused device manufacturers like Nokia, Samsung and Apple.
So, despite device limitations, user errors, limited SMS plans, and carrier constraints, a 75 percent delivery rate of mobile video is incredibly high. Although the U.S. has a highly fragmented install base, mobile video is ready to be delivered to the majority of American mobile users. And, more importantly, when using a good mobile video delivery service, users have expressed their satisfaction with the experience.



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