Mobile content

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Mobile content is any type of web hypertext and information content and electronic media which is viewed or used on mobile phones, like text, sound, ringtones, graphics, flash, discount offers, mobile games, movies, and GPS navigation. As mobile phone use has grown since the mid-1990s, the usage and significance of the mobile devices in everyday technological life has grown accordingly. Owners of mobile phones can now use their devices to make photo snapshots for upload, twits, mobile calendar appointments, and mostly send and receive text messages (SMSes or instant messages), listen to music, watch videos, take mobile pictures and make videos, use websites to redeem coupons for purchases, view and edit office documents, get driving instructions on mobile maps and so on. The use of mobile content in various areas has grown accordingly.

Contents

Camera phones may not only present but also produce media, for example photographs and videos with a few million pixels, and can act as pocket video cameras. [1]

Mobile content can also refer to text and multimedia that is online on websites and hosted on mobile facilitated servers, which may either be standard desktop Internet pages, mobile webpages or specific mobile pages.

Transmission

Mobile text and image content via SMS is one of the main technologies in mobile phones for communication, and is used to send mobile users and consumers messages, especially simple content such as ringtones and wallpapers. Because SMS is the main messaging (non Internet) technology used by young people, it is still the most effective way to communicate and for providers of reaching this target market. SMS is also easy to use, ubiquitous, sometimes reaching a wider audience than any other technology available in the mobile space (MMS, bluetooth, mobile e-mail or WAP). What is important is that SMS is extremely easy to use, which makes its application for various uses increasingly eady day by day.

Although SMS is a technology that has long history since first cellular phones it maybe replaced in use by the likes of Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) or WAP, but SMS frequently gains new powers. One example is the introduction of applications whereby mobile tickets are sent to consumers via SMS, which contains a WAP-push that contains a link where a barcode is placed. This clearly substitutes MMS, which has a limited users reach and still has some applicability and interoperability problems.

It is important to keep enhancing the phone user and consumer confidence in using SMS for mobile content applications. This means, if user and consumer has in order some new wallpaper or ringtone, this as the user expects has to work somehow almost properly, and in a speedy and very reliable way. Therefore, it is of importance to choose the right SMS gateway available or as provider as to ensure the quality-of-service along the whole path of the content SMS until it reaches the consumer's mobile.

Modern phones come with Bluetooth and Near field communication. This allows video to be sent from phone to phone over Bluetooth, which has the advantages that there is no data charge. [2]

Content types

Apps

Mobile application development, also known as mobile apps, has become a significant mobile content market since the release of the first iPhone from Apple in 2007. Prior to the release of Apple's phone product, the market for mobile applications (outside of games) had been quite limited. The bundling of the iPhone with an app store, as well as the iPhone's unique design and user interface, helped bring a large surge in mobile application use. It also enabled additional competition from other players. For example, Google's Android platform for mobile content has further increased the amount of app content available to mobile phone subscribers.

Some examples of mobile apps would be applications to manage travel schedules, buy movie tickets, preview video content, manage RSS news feeds, read digital version of popular newspapers, identify music, look at star constellations, view Wikipedia, and much more. Many television networks have their own app to promote and present their content. iTyphoon is an example of a mobile application used to provide information about typhoons in the Philippines. [3]

Games

Mobile games are applications that allow people to play a game on a mobile handset. The main categories of mobile games include Puzzle/Strategy, Retro/Arcade, Action/Adventure, Card/Casino, Trivia/Word, Sports/Racing, given in approximate order of their popularity. [4]

Several studies have shown that the majority of mobile games are bought and played by women. Sixty-five percent of mobile game revenue is driven by female wireless subscribers. They are the biggest driver of revenue for the Puzzle/Strategy category; comprising 72 percent of the total share of revenue, while men made up 28 percent (see Table 2). Women dominate revenue generation for all mobile game categories, with the exception of Action/Adventure mobile games, in which men drive 60 percent of the revenue for that category. [5] It's also said that teens are three times as likely as those over twenty to play cell phone games. [6]

Images

Mobile images are used as the wallpaper to a mobile phone, and are also available as screensavers. On some handsets, images can also be set to display when a particular person calls the users. Sites like adg.ms allow users to download free content, however service operators such as Telus Mobility blocks non Telus website downloads.

Music

Mobile music is any audio file that is played on a mobile phone. Mobile music is normally formatted as an AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) file or an MP3, and comes in several different formats. Monophonic ringtones were the earliest form of ringtone, and played one tone at a time. This was improved upon with polyphonic ringtones, which played several tones at the same time so a more convincing melody could be created. The next step was to play clips of actual songs, which were dubbed Realtones. These are preferred by record labels as this evolution of the ringtone has allowed them to gain a cut of lucrative ringtone market. In short Realtones generate royalties for record labels (the master recording owners) as well as publishers (the writers), however, when Monophonic or Polyphonic ringtones are sold only publishing or "mechanical" royalties are incurred as no master recording has been exploited. [7] Some companies promote covertones, which are ringtones that are recorded by cover bands to sound like a famous song. Recently Ringback tones have become available, which are played to the person calling the owner of the ringback tone. Voicetones are ringtones that play someone talking or shouting rather than music, and there are various of ringtones of natural and everyday sounds. Realtones are the most popular form of ringtones. As an example, they captures 76.4% of the US ringtone market in the second quarter of 2006, followed by monophonic and polyphonic ringtones at 12% and ringback tones and 11.5% – but monophonic and polyphonic ringtones are falling in popularity while ringback tones are growing. [8] This trend is common around the globe. A recent innovation is the singtone, whereby "the user’s voice is recorded singing to a popular music track and then “tuned-up” automatically to sound good. This can then be downloaded as a ringtone or sent to another user's mobile phone" said the director of Synchro Arts, the developers.

As well as mobile music there are full track downloads, which are an entire song encoded to play on a mobile phone. These can be purchased and bought over the mobile network, but data charges can make this prohibitive. [9] The other way to get a song onto a mobile phone is by "side loading" it, which normally involves downloading the song onto a computer and then transferring it to the mobile phone via Bluetooth, infra-red or cable connections. It is possible to use a full track as a ringtone. In recent years, websites have sprung that allow users to upload audio files and customize them into ringtones using specialized applications, including Myxer, MobilesRingtones, Bongotones, Ringtoneslab and Zedge.

Mobile music is becoming an integral part of the music industry as a whole. In 2005, the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) said it expects mobile music to generate more revenues that online music before the end of that year. [10] In the first half of 2005, the digital music market grew enough to offset the fall in the traditional music market – without including the sale of ringtones, which still makes up the majority of mobile music sales around the globe. [11]

Video

Mobile video comes in several forms including 3GPP, MPEG-4, RTSP, and Flash Lite.[ citation needed ]

Mobishows and cellsodes

A Mobishow or a cellsode are terms to describe a broadcast quality programme / series which has been produced, directed, edited and encoded for the mobile phone. Mobishows and Cellsodes can range from short video clips such as betting advice or the latest celebrity gossip, through to half-hour drama serials. Examples include The Ashes and Mr Paparazzi Show which both were created for mobile viewing.

Streaming

Radio

Mobile streaming radio is an application that streams on-demand audio channels or live radio stations to the mobile phone. In the U.S., mSpot was the first company to develop and commercialize streaming radio which went live in March 2005 on Sprint.[ citation needed ] Today, all major carriers offer some sort streaming radio service featuring programmed stations based on popular genres and live stations which included both music and talk. [12]

TV

Mobile video also comes in the form of streaming TV over the mobile network, which must be a 2.5G or 3G network. This mimics a television station in that the user cannot elect to see what they wish but must watch whatever is on the channel at the time.

There is also mobile broadcast TV, which operates like a traditional television station and broadcasts the content over a different spectrum. This frees up the mobile network to handle calls and other data usage, and because of the "one-to-many" nature of mobile broadcast TV the video quality is a lot better than that streamed over the mobile networks, which is a "one-to-one" system.

The problem is that broadcast technologies don't have a natural up link, so for users to interact with the TV stream the service has to be closely integrated to the carriers mobile network. The main technologies for broadcast TV are DVB-H, Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB), and MediaFLO.

Live video

Live video can also be streamed and shared from a cell phone through applications like Qik and InstaLively. The uploaded video can be shared to friends through emails or social networking sites. Most Live video streaming application works over the cell network or through Wi-Fi. They also require most users to have a dataplan from their cell phone carriers.

Since the late 1990s, mobile content has become an increasingly important market worldwide. The South Koreans are the world leaders[ citation needed ] in Mobile Content and 3-G mobile networks, then the Japanese, followed closely by the Europeans, are heavy users of their mobile phones and have been attaining custom mobile content for their devices for years. In fact, mobile phone use has begun to exceed the use of PCs in some countries. In the United States and Canada, mobile phone use and the accompanying use of mobile content has been slower to gain traction because of political issues and because open networks do not exist in America.

On current trends, mobile phone content will play an increasing role in the lives of millions across the globe in the years ahead, as users will depend on their mobile phones to keep in touch not only with their friends but with world news, sports scores, the latest movies and music, and more.

Mobile content is usually downloaded through WAP sites, but new methods are on the rise. In Italy, 800,000 people are registered users to Passa Parola, an application that allows users to browse a big database for mobile content and directly download it to their handsets. This tool can also be used to recommend content to others, or send content as a gift. [13]

An increasing number of people are also beginning to use applications like Qik to upload and share their videos from their cell phone to the internet.[ citation needed ] Mobile phone software like Qik allows user to share their videos to their friends through emails, SMS, and even social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

A 2016 Pew Research report "The Modem News Consumer" said 70 percent of those ages 18–29 preferred getting news from mobile devices rather than desktops, while the number was 53 percent for persons 30 to 49. [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ringtone</span> Sound made by a telephone to indicate an incoming call or text message

A ringtone, ring tone or ring is the sound made by a telephone to indicate an incoming call. Originally referring to and made by the electromechanical striking of bells, the term now refers to any sound on any device alerting of a new incoming call—up to and including recordings of original telephone bells.

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from a mobile phone over a cellular network. Users and providers may refer to such a message as a PXT, a picture message, or a multimedia message. The MMS standard extends the core SMS capability, allowing the exchange of text messages greater than 160 characters in length. Unlike text-only SMS, MMS can deliver a variety of media, including up to forty seconds of video, one image, a slideshow of multiple images, or audio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siemens SL45</span>

The Siemens SL45 was the first mobile phone with memory expansion and an MP3 player, which debuted in 2001. An improved version, the SL45i, was also the first phone to have a Java virtual machine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile phone feature</span>

A mobile phone feature is a capability, service, or application that a mobile phone offers to its users. Mobile phones are often referred to as feature phones, and offer basic telephony. Handsets with more advanced computing ability through the use of native code try to differentiate their own products by implementing additional functions to make them more attractive to consumers. This has led to great innovation in mobile phone development over the past 20 years.

A value-added service (VAS) is a popular telecommunications industry term for non-core services, or, in short, all services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions. However, it can be used in any service industry, for services available at little or no cost, to promote their primary business. In the telecommunications industry, on a conceptual level, value-added services add value to the standard service offering, spurring subscribers to use their phone more and allowing the operator to drive up their average revenue per user. For mobile phones, technologies like SMS, MMS and data access were historically usually considered value-added services, but in recent years SMS, MMS and data access have more and more become core services, and VAS therefore has begun to exclude those services.

Mobile music is music which is downloaded or streamed to mobile phones and played by mobile phones. Although many phones play music as ringtones, true "music phones" generally allow users to stream music or download music files over the internet via a WiFi connection or 3G cell phone connection. Music phones are also able to import audio files from their PCs. The case of mobile music being stored within the memory of the mobile phone is the case similar to traditional business models in the music industry. It supports two variants: the user can either purchase the music for outright ownership or access entire libraries of music via a subscription model. In this case the music files are available as long as the subscription is active.

Mobile marketing is a multi-channel online marketing technique focused at reaching a specific audience on their smartphones, feature phones, tablets, or any other related devices through websites, e-mail, SMS and MMS, social media, or mobile applications. Mobile marketing can provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services, appointment reminders and ideas. In a more theoretical manner, academic Andreas Kaplan defines mobile marketing as "any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device".

Mobile banking is a service provided by a bank or other financial institution that allows its customers to conduct financial transactions remotely using a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet. Unlike the related internet banking it uses software, usually called an app, provided by the financial institution for the purpose. Mobile banking is usually available on a 24-hour basis. Some financial institutions have restrictions on which accounts may be accessed through mobile banking, as well as a limit on the amount that can be transacted. Mobile banking is dependent on the availability of an internet or data connection to the mobile device.

The term mobile commerce was originally coined in 1997 by Kevin Duffey at the launch of the Global Mobile Commerce Forum, to mean "the delivery of electronic commerce capabilities directly into the consumer’s hand, anywhere, via wireless technology." Many choose to think of Mobile Commerce as meaning "a retail outlet in your customer’s pocket."

Mobile porn, also known as mobile adult content, mobile erotica or cellphone adult content, is pornography transmitted over mobile telecommunications networks for consumption on mobile devices.

Mobile advertising is a form of advertising via mobile (wireless) phones or other mobile devices. It is a subset of mobile marketing, mobile advertising can take place as text ads via SMS, or banner advertisements that appear embedded in a mobile web site.

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network. A WAP browser is a web browser for mobile devices such as mobile phones that use the protocol. Introduced in 1999, WAP achieved some popularity in the early 2000s, but by the 2010s it had been largely superseded by more modern standards. Almost all modern handset internet browsers now fully support HTML, so they do not need to use WAP markup for web page compatibility, and therefore, most are no longer able to render and display pages written in WML, WAP's markup language.

Mobile entertainment comprises a range of activities associated with mobile electronics. The definition is both somewhat subjective and in continual development, but can include purely leisure activities, communications, and activities which could also be defined as commerce (shopping).

On-Device Portals (ODPs) allow mobile phone users to easily browse, purchase and use mobile content and services. An ODP platform enables operators to provide a consistent and branded on-device experience across their broadening portfolio of services and typically provides on-device catalogs of content for purchase, deep links to WAP portals, customer care functionality and rich media services such as full track music, TV and video.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windows Phone</span> Family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft

Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design language. Unlike Windows Mobile, it was primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nokia 2600 classic</span> 2008 cell phone model

The Nokia 2600 classic is a Nokia Dual-band GSM phone E900/1800 or E850/1900 that includes a VGA camera, FM radio, Bluetooth, E-mail and mobile Internet access via a WAP browser. Additionally, the Nokia 2600 supports MMS and Nokia Xpress Audio Messaging, for recording and editing messages on the go. It also had a similar sliding variant called Nokia 2680 slide.

WAP billing is a mechanism for consumers to buy content from Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) sites that is charged directly to their mobile phone bill. It is an alternative payment mechanism to debit or credit cards and premium SMS for billing. Using WAP billing, consumers can buy mobile content without registering for a service or entering a username or password. The user clicks on a link and agrees to make a purchase, after which they can download content.

Microsoft mobile services are a set of proprietary mobile services created specifically for mobile devices, they are typically offered through mobile applications and mobile browser for Windows Phone, | platforms, BREW, and Java. Microsoft's mobile services are typically connected with a Microsoft account and often come preinstalled on Microsoft's own mobile operating systems while they are offered via various means for other platforms. Microsoft started to develop for mobile computing platforms with the launch of Windows CE in 1996 and later added Microsoft's Pocket Office suite to their Handheld PC line of PDAs in April 2000. From December 2014 to June 2015, Microsoft made a number of corporate acquisitions, buying several of the top applications listed in Google Play and the App Store including Acompli, Sunrise Calendar, Datazen, Wunderlist, Echo Notification Lockscreen, and MileIQ.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nokia Asha 310</span>

The Nokia Asha 310, also known as the Nokia Asha 3010 or the Nokia ASHA 310 RM-911, was released in March 2013. It is the first in the line of the Asha range of phones to have dual subscriber identity module (SIM) slots and Wi-Fi connectivity. It was a reinvention of the Asha range to remain competitive with new Android devices. It cost $102.00 at its launch date. It has a touchscreen, comes with either a 2 or 4 GB micro SD card, and has 64 MB of RAM, a 2 MP camera and a battery that can last up to 600 hours in standby mode. The phone can play music for up to 54 hours or video for up to 9.5 hours, and has a maximum of 17 hours talk time (2G).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Club Nokia</span>

Club Nokia was a mobile internet digital distribution portal, similar to an App Store, operated by Nokia to provide special offers, paid-for ringtones, picture messages and game content directly to members. Following resistance from its mobile operator customers, Nokia partially closed the service and the brand became solely a consumer service and loyalty portal.

References

  1. ↑ Nokia N93 datasheet www.nokia.com, 2006, retrieved 15 August 2006
  2. ↑ Bluetooth video www.esato.com 5 August 2004, retrieved 15 August 2006
  3. ↑ Escandor Jr., Juan; Barrameda, Shiena (December 22, 2011). "Locally developed app forewarned 'Sendong' fury". Philippine Daily Inquirer . Retrieved January 22, 2012.
  4. ↑ "Puzzle/Strategy and Retro/Arcade Mobile Games Are the Most Popular Among U.K. 3G Subscribers, According to Telephia" Telephia, July 12, 2006, retrieved August 15, 2006
  5. ↑ "Telephia January 2006 Report". Archived from the original on 2006-11-10. Retrieved 2006-11-13.
  6. ↑ "Five Interesting Facts About Mobile Games, Youpark". Archived from the original on 2007-12-05. Retrieved 2007-12-05.
  7. ↑ "Mobile Music Royalty Explained" MocoNews, June 22nd, 2005, retrieved August 15, 2006
  8. ↑ "Realtones Account for More Than 76 Percent of Mobile Consumer Spending on Music Personalization, According to Telephia" Telephia, August 7, 2006, retrieved August 15, 2006
  9. ↑ "Mobile Data Charges A Key Enabler of D2C Mobile Music" Research and Markets, July 2006, retrieved August 15, 2006
  10. ↑ "Mobile downloads to overtake the net" by Cosima Marriner, Guardian Unlimited, August 3rd 2005, retrieved August 15th 2006
  11. ↑ "Digital sales triple to 6% of industry retail revenues as global music market falls 1.9%" Archived 2006-07-20 at the Wayback Machine IFPI, October 3rd, 2005, retrieved August 15th, 2006
  12. ↑ "Radio Redux". CBS News. April 11, 2005.
  13. ↑ Mobile Entertainment news article Archived 2007-10-18 at the Wayback Machine www.mobile-ent.biz, 2007, retrieved 19 September 2007
  14. ↑ Roberts, Johnnie L. (10 April 2017). "The Sky's the Limit". Broadcasting & Cable . pp. 12–16.

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