ON Networks today released the first episode of Amy Poehler’s digital TV series “Smart Girls at the Party,” with Mattel’s Barbie as the sponsor. The “official” release of the series is scheduled for next week, at which time the plans for further digital distribution, including mobile, will be announced, says an ON Networks’ spokesperson. As reported here, the initial October launch of “Smart Girls” was delayed by Poehler’s pregnancy.

Smart Girls

Jon, Ashley and Charlie are real interns at Playboy in New York City. They’re also the “stars” of Playboy’s first made-for-mobile series, “Interns,” which has a lot more in common with “Real World” than the steamy fare you might expect from the Hefner empire. (Well, there is that scene in a tanning salon with an intern and a Playboy bunny, but indecent body parts are covered by the Playboy logo. Oh, and there’s that bit about recruiting the next Playboy Cyber Girl.)

It’s all about the demographic. Playboy rightly assesses that it’s the 18 to 24 year old group that’s watching content on the mobile platform (and, to a large extent, online as well). That coincides quite nicely with the media empire’s goal in general. “One of the missions of the digital media group is to expand the brand,” says Playboy’s Don McGuire. “Things like this are building blocks to building the brand. We’re looking at the 18 to 24 target audience with a male/female split, and we think “Interns” hits that sweet spot well.”

I attended a “test screening” for students at USC, who watched Episodes 1 to 3. (An earlier screening targeted students at NYU). The students then filled out a form asking them for their opinions of the episodes. Those opinions will be grist for the editing mill at Swan Haus Media, the company that has produced and directed “Interns.” Company co-founder Tripp Swanhaus said that Swan Haus would deliver 90-second versions of each of the episodes we saw, which were approximately 4 minutes in length each. Season 1 is made up of six episodes.

Swanhaus said the focus for mobile was to keep the content light and entertaining. “From a technical standpoint, you don’t want to do a lot of pans, not too much cutting, because sometimes the delivery system is slower,” he said. Each episode is self-contained, which means you can jump around the episodes nonlinearly without losing the story thread.

The series was shot in the Playboy offices in NYC, where the need for additional lighting was minimal. One episode shot in Central Park and episodes 4 to 6 (which I didn’t see) also apparently leave the Playboy building. The show was shot in Standard Definition with two Sony DVX-100 camera. “HD was discussed but we decided that it wasn’t necessary,” said Swanhaus.

As an unscripted show, Swansea said they set up situations every day, let the camera roll and then created the script in the edit room, as reality TV is produced.”That’s why we’re constantly re-working it in editing,” he said.

McGuire pointed out that the series is a “unique opportunity for advertisers,” with plenty of opportunities for product placement and cross-promotions. In one episode, the characters wore Playboy-branded clothing. Episodes 4 and 5 are sponsored by a hair gel company, and involves a storyline in which the interns had to hand out the product on the street.

Playboy is still sitting on certain bits of information: who the mobile carriers are that will handle “Interns” and the comprehensive marketing campaign they plan to roll out in support of the series, which will debut on November 18. (MobilizedTV will provide an update at that point.)

For up-to-date information on the series, text “Interns” to 75629.

MobilizedTV spoke with Anne Schelle, Executive Director of the Open Mobile Video Coalition about the work the coalition is doing to enable its 800 broadcast TV members to go mobile.

What’s new since NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) in April?

AS: Since NAB, we filed our trial results with the FCC. We tested three systems: LG/Harris’ MPH system, Samsung/Roeder/Schwarz’s AVS-B; and Thomson’s Micronis’ system. We announced that the baseline system we recommended was MPH but that we felt that there were aspects of AVS-B we felt would be beneficial to the standard. Then LG and Samsung announced a partnership on the two standards the day before we filed. How the ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Commitee) process works is, once the documentation is written for a standard, there’s a candidate phase where manufacturers build chips to the standard to make sure the standard works. On Sept. 25, ATSC considered the documentation to move it forward to a candidate draft standard.

Once approved to a candidate standard, it’s a four-to-six week validating process. You will see an announcement that a candidate standard has been adopted. At that point, it goes through a testing phase. We proposed that we’d assist with the funding and implementation of the testing. What happens during the testing phase is you set up model systems and enable streams to go out. Device manufacturers can pull them down and test them. We’ll also do interoperability testing to make sure all the layers work together.

When will we see real devices?

AS: The proposed date for the standard to be approved is end of May. Modifications and improvements may be made to documentation. LG and Samsung will have real devices at CES and NAB. Harris has already announced they’ll be able to have product by end of October. This is moving very rapidly. The other thing that’s interesting and different about this standard is that it’s allowing for versioning. So this is Version 1.0 with base features and capabilities. Then you’ll see a future versions come out that enable additional features. That means broadcasters will be able to react to consumers’ feedback and the ever-changing landscape of technology. The standard is very flexible so it’ll enable multiple business models.

Can you describe the beta tests?

AS: We’ll be doing consumer trials, which are a proxy for a consumer service where we can test out various device types and forms of programming. What’s great about the ATSC is that any video-enabled device can implement the technology: handsets, MP3 players, PC dongles. If you have a video-enabled phone, you do need to buy a new handset. But for a PC, you don’t. You could take your laptop with you, your dongle and plug it in and watch TV wherever you are.

How will this impact the mobile TV/video eco-system?

AS: I do see this as a big game changer. I was on an interesting panel called “Ask a Video Expert” with people from ESPN, NBC Universal, Ad Infuse and QuickPlay. The three points that were made by the panel were their frustration with having to go through the carriers today where they’re serving up content but the carrier systems are legacy so they have no clue who is being sold what. They get no reports back. Carriers aren’t really pushing entertainment. It’s all about ARPU for them. Their data plans were dismal five years ago, and they’ve turned down interoperability for texting five times. On the content side, similarly, the carrier decks have poor user interfaces. Sometimes you have to go six pages deep for discoverability. It’s very poor search because they block Google .

The user experience, in a nutshell, is poor and it’s not unified. Nothing is unified in fact. The content distributors have to deal differently with each carrier and sometimes they deal with different silos. It’s very complicated and from an end user’s perspective, it’s not the same experience to purchase a music video on AT&T as it is on Verizon. We just did a big literature review in US and Europe and found that users want what they get at home: ease of access, ease of use, commonality, the number of channels and experience they have at home, and none of that is being offered on the carrier’s deck.

Do broadcasters have any advantage in this environment?

We’ve got content, local and national. We have the ability to put together a fairly large national network that could offer up a unified experience, and in terms of awareness, who better to advertise for mobile TV but the broadcasters themselves? Their ability to self-advertise is tremendous. They can have TV talk shows about it, news shows about it, they can run spot ads. They can promote the heck out of it.

The alternative to the carrier solution is needed. At the same time, we see the carriers as partners. The user is going to be side-loading, purchasing clips and other types of content as they are today on the computer.It’s a multi-pronged experience. What’s missing-what drives all video-is live local television. TV built IPTV and the cable system. And live local content in terms of sports, news and scandals are some of the most watched programming out there. Those are all the benefits.

Many skeptics believe mobile TV won’t take off for a long time. What’s your response?

Free over-the-air broadcast will drive premium video service uptake. It’s early days if you think about it. The market is very early so there is a lot of opportunity and mobile TV really has a strong growth opportunity. The fact that it can be on almost any device that’s video enabled is really intriguing.

Take a look at the timeline of the standard. In 2009 you’ll see broadcasters building up. By Christmas 2010, manufacturers will come out with a lot of devices. My belief is that it’ll really take off in 2010 to 2011.

Santa Monica, CA—Last night I attended an opening event at Digital Hollywood, namely the party celebrating nominees for the upcoming Mobile Excellence Awards. At the Loew’s Hotel on the beach, guests were treated to a spectacular sunset, a view of the neon-lit Ferris Wheel on the Santa Monica pier and, of course, drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Enthusiasm is high for the actual Mobile Excellence Awards, coming up on December 8th.

Today, I attended a panel on Mobile Commerce & Content, moderated by Steve Bradbury, GoTV vp of content strategy and business affairs and featuring panelists Cheng Wu, Azuki co-founder/chair; Brian K. Johnson, senior vp, Americas and Asia Pacific for mBlox; Larry Berkin, vp of ecosystem and corporate business development for ACCESS Systems Americas; Virgin Mobile USA director of brand development & partnerships Ron Faris and AirPlay Network chair/CEO Morgan Guenther.

GoTVs Steve Bradbury

At Loew's Hotel

Sorry to say I missed the first part of the panel but came in at a perfect moment: when the discussion turned to advertising. Moderator Bradbury asked panelists what advertising model will work in the next 6 to 18 months. “Now it’s the original model of TV: we’ll give you content to get you from one set of ads to the next,” he said.

Guenther agreed with the “TV model” assessment and pointed out that his company’s model was focused on the live event. “When there’s a pause in the action, you look at the mobile phone and match it up with what’s happening in movie theatre or TV screen,” he said. “It’s all abut pacing and what the customer is anticipating.”

Virgin Mobile USA’s Faris admitted that his company doesn’t have the scale, but instead has a niche focused on youth. “Reach and frequency are tenets of advertising, but to bring relevance we’ve had to bring depth of experience,” he said. “We’ve looked at different ways of advertising. When we launched Sugar Mama, a model where you watch content in exchange for free minutes, we didn’t thave the scale to be able to compete. We were up against Google, AOL and so on. We tried to bring in WAP banners and text blasts to bring up the numbers. They were great for reach, but for depth of engagement, which is what we’re using, we were reincarnating things that annoyed us on the web. The WAP banner is nothing more than a banner ad. Text blasts are nothing more than spam. Geo-targeting is great but why do I care? If I get a text blast for Nyquil and don’t have a cold, why should I care? From our perspective, you have to understand what’s relevant and create a deep engagement. I don’t want to keep going in this direction – we have to move into a sponsorship model.”

Berkin pointed out that everyone is in the early stages of mobile advertising. “I come from the download pay- for-application model. It’s a scale business.” He also revealed that ACCESS Systems Americas has created a widget platform that’s ad supported that will roll out on smart phones across the world.

Johnson noted that the text message ad-supported model has taken off. “We’re watching that carefully,” he said. “We see a big increase in free-mium, where you get something for free but maybe you’ll pay something more if you like it. Micro-payments are our biggest growing segment, for example to pay 99 cents to send someone virtual flowers. A mixture of micro payment and ads will pay for content.”

Azuki’s Cheng said that “the mobile ad ecosystem is completely fragmented and totally isolated from advertising.” “Mobile is different from desktop,” he said. “You can’t put 30-second ad for 30-seconds of content. Advertisers have an inventory of 30-second spots, so their resources aren’t fitting the mobile ecosystem.”

One panelist noted that “before we see a truly ad-funded content model, I’d like to see a flourishing one online. “We’re closer to having that scale in the online context, for music in particular,” he said. “There have been attempts for fully ad-funded models but the numbers don’t work. Content costs are steep, and we’re a ways off until we see truly ad-funded mobile content.”

The last word came from Bradbury who spoke about metrics. “Metrics in the online world stink. The numbers are inconcistent. Metrics have to be much more standardized and effective. The same thing in the mobile space, so you can go to a media buyer used to seeing things in a certain way and give them numbers they understand in order to justify putting money into a mobile buy. Then youi’ve got a viable campaign. But, for now, metrics are still a big issue.”

A few weeks ago, ON Networks announced that they were launching Smart Girls at the Party, a new digital series actor/comedian Amy Poehler created with friends Meredith Walker, former senior producer for Nickelodeon’s Nick News, head of talent for Saturday Night Live, and Amy Miles, recording artist and performer, host of PBS children’s show LOMAX: Hound of Music. The original release date–sometime in October–has now been pushed forward to mid-November due to the fact that Poehler is about to give birth.

Serendipitous for a show that celebrates young girls, with the aim of helping them find confidence in their aspirations and talents. In each episode, Amy interviews a girl with a unique talent, community interest or point of view. In their interviews, girls offer witty truths and demonstrate ways that girls can make a difference in the world.

MobilizedTV sat down with Meredith Walker and On Networks’ co-founder/chief content officer Jen Grogono to talk about the series.

[All episodes will be available to watch or download exclusively through ON’s AllScreen syndication partners, including iTunes, Adobe Media Player, and a set of targeted Website, digital TV and mobile partners.]

MOBILIZEDTV: How did you and Amy come up with the idea for this series?

MEREDITH: Amy and I are best friends and one of the things we bond about is talking about our younger years. We found with our friends how hard those ages are between 9 and 13, when you’re starting to morph to fit in or not. Those are such important years to feel heard and sometimes that’s not around. We thought, wouldn’t it be great to offer up anything we learned from that and help anyone we could? Wait, that could be a show! We read studies about that age group, and we talked about what helped us the most, which was when older girls cared about what we thought and asked us questions about ourselves. We knew then that’s what we wanted to do: to converse without talking down. to have a real conversations with real girls.

MOBILIZEDTV: What’s the format of the show?

MEREDITH: The show is various lengths between 5 and 10 minutes. It’s like a Charlie Rose show but not as serious. We talk to interesting girls so there’s a level of fun. I’m the producer so I’m off-camera, but occasionally I’m on.

MOBILIZEDTV: How did you “cast” this show?

MEREDITH: Once we put the word out, people came to us. The first season was shot in New York, and we’re producing this in various cities.

MOBILIZEDTV: Jen, what’s the distribution model?

JEN: We intend to put the show across the three-screen network, the AllScreen syndication network on TV, computer and mobile. The reason is quite simply that there is significant audience on new digital platforms, particularly with the younger audiences and even the parents.

MOBILIZEDTV: How did you produce for three very different screens?

JEN: We shoot it all in HD. That’s important. You want to make sure that it looks just as good on a 52-inch plasma as a 3-inch cell phone. We also made sure the pacing and tempo is reflective of the audience’s viewing habits. You want that common denominator: the person who doesn’t have a whole lot of time to sit and watch but will make time for what they’re passionate about. If you have the right pace and tempo and the program is compelling, they’ll be interested in a 2-minute piece up to 30-minutes or longer. We probably will create longer versions of this. Meredith has great ideas for season 2 to experiment with the platform, genre and format.

MOBILIZEDTV: Who are your mobile partners for the series?

JEN: We’re talking to a number of mobile providers now. Apple iPhones obviously, BuzzWire, Verizon, AT&T, and iTunes are our biggest. We have a number of other mobile companies we’re in discussion with, both on deck and off deck.

MEREDITH- I think mobile is very important. It’s so new and I feel that’s where our audience will be watching it. It’s the device they have with them all the time. -They’re always texting. So that’s where they’re going to be. That and the PC of course.

With regard to TV, right now the series is on Apple TV, Tivo, Time Warner (the San Antonio market for VOD), Verizon FiOS, and AT&T U-Verse. We’re still in a number of discussions.

MOBILIZEDTV: What’s the business model? How will you monetize it?

JEN: It is a sponsorship model. We’re talking to select brands, not dissimilar from 1950s TV. We’re holding out for the right sponsor. It’s unlikely you’ll see a diet pill.

Reality TV fans just got news that may have them rushing out to buy an iPhone. Fox Reality Channel, the all-reality, all-the-time cable/satellite network within the News Corp. with 50 million subs and climbing” just launched a WAP site for the first Apple iPhone mobile video service to feature reality-only content. “It was important for us to have video on the iPhone, which makes it easy to build community,” says Fox Reality Channel vp, business & operations, Ed Skolarus.

Fox Reality Channel is all about the video: Skolarus reports the channel does “over 170 hours of VOD on a lot of different platforms” including its exclusive partnership with Hulu and, for mobile users, a MediaFLO channel. “The iPhone is great for video,” he adds. “You can watch it and share it easily. Being in the video business, we’re about video advertising.”

That’s where Transpera, a platform for monetizing web videos on the mobile platform, comes in. “We power Fox Reality Mobile Video soup-to-nuts,” says Transpera founder/CEO Frank Barbieri. “They give us the videos and then we format them and deliver them to the iPhone along with targeted display and in-screen rich media ads like pre-rolls and overlays.” Current Transpera customers include MTV Networks, Discovery Networks, the Travel Channel, CBS News, Associated Press, and Accuweather.

Much of the content on the mobile Fox Reality Channel will be original, says Skolarus, who notes that they produce five original series a year as well as acquire content from Fox, CBS and NBC. Reality fans will get real-time updated information and original “bonus” content for original series “Battle of the Bods,” “2008 Fox Reality Channel Really Awards,” “Solitary,” “The Academy,” “Gimme My Reality Show!,” “Reality Binge,” and “Night Club Confessions.” A Send-to-Friend feature allows users to share their favorite video content mobile-to-mobile.

“Within the application, there are nine different categories, with 10 to 15 videos in each category, so it’s quite a lot of video,” says Skolarus. “My boss David Lyle, former president of Fremantle, understands that from the initial kick-off meeting you have to have the other platforms. involved. It’s not just repurposing what you have. It’s about having content shot for a lot of digital avenues.” Since its launch three years ago, Fox Reality Channel now has 2,500 digital episodes in the can.

For its original series, Fox Reality Channel has another crew working side-by-side the main crew, shooting content specifically for broadband, mobile and Hulu among other platforms. “It’s a big commitment,” he notes. “We’re lucky enough that reality is a good lean-forward experience with high engagement and it also skews well for iPhone.”

At time of launch, Skolarus and Barbieri declined to talk about specific advertisers, noting that many still play a wait-and-see game when it comes to new media. But Barbieri points out that mobile “gets higher engagement across the board.” “The mobile phone is such a personal device and commands so much attention of high-consuming audiences,” he says. “We see great recall numbers, great brand attribution numbers, much higher than on the web.”

From the Mobile Content & Marketing Expo

San Jose, CA–Skyfire CEO/co-founder Nitin Bhandari gave the conference’s last keynote address, on the future of mobile browsing. From his position at the head of Skyfire, a free, downloadable mobile web browser designed to make the mobile Internet experience identical to that on the PC, Bhandari identified what he called “mobile web megatrends.”

Nitin Bhandari

Is good mobile web browsing an oxymoron (with the exception of iPhone)? That’s the issue that got Bhandari motivated to create Skyfire. If you look at what has happened in the industry in the last few years, things have changed, he said. Three years ago, 45 seconds into a page load, your browser would crash. Two years ago, Nokia brought the webkit-based Minimap to market, highlighting the potential of full web on mobile. It was a phenomenon and a great credit to Nokia,” he said. One year ago, iPhone delivered on the promise of the mobile browser. Eighty percent of iPhone owners browse the web on a regular basis, he reported, and that’s an amazing statistic. “For the first time, the web browser is front and center,” he said.

Now, there’s a great deal of innovation in mobile browsers and the ease of mobile browsing has become a decisionmaking factor for consumers shopping for a mobile phone. Going back to the evolution, Bhandari pointed to WAP sites, with extremely limited experiences, no CSS or Javascript support, and proprietary markup languages. “Pages link to other pages on the Internet, and you didn’t get that here,” he said.

The mobile web was more, with HTML, and the user could accomplish transactions, such as getting scores on the ESPN site. The full web provides PC websites with HTML and Javascript, but no plug-in support. The concept of the PC web gives full PC website support with full plug-in support, including Flash, Quicktime, Real, WMF and Silverlight. “That’s the cusp we’re on now, moving to the PC web,” said Bhandari. He showed a chart of what products look like with PC web browsing.

Chart of content on devices

“Better browsing is a disruptive force,” he said. “If you look at the entire lifecycle of creating, distributing, measuring and profiting. It has a profound impact on all of those” First, creating an app can be done two ways: looking for reach to many devices with limited engagement, or lots of engagement but to a limited range of devices. “This is no secret that the mobile world is highly fragmented,” he said. “Very quickly, you’re talking about millions of dollars.” The second way is to write a web app. “Flash is coming to all these mobile devices,” he said. “We have our way to bring it, and Adobe is working on their way. Then what you’ve created is leveraged across the PC and the mobile device. We believe everything is going to writing for the web. Write it once and run it everywhere.”

Discovery is better on the web, which levels the playing field, said Bhandari. The traditional model would focus on a biz dev team and staying on the deck, whereas open web search provides an effective marketing tool and advertising to acquire users is efficient. “It’s not mobile web, it’s mobile access to the web and there’s only one web,” he continued. “Yes, the screen is small and you might have to do something to optimize for the screen, but it’s still just one web.”

Do users prefer the mobile web or the full PC web? The jury is out, said Bhandari, although he admitted that he’s prejudiced. “Skyfire data says the full web,” he noted. “They can zoom, scroll and interact with the content. How many people will justify a mobile web budget? Very few people, so the concept of one web is great from the point of view of budget. Mobile web won’t just go away. The 90/10 rule applies: the massive amount of engagement will come from the top 10 percent of the devices, which are definitely becoming very capable.”

Widgets are another disruption. They moved to the web, but people began to question that. “If you add one more layer of fragmentation, it’s too much,” he said, “People are saying, why build a custom widget If I super-impose something else and it only reaches 4 percent of the market, why do it? Why not just build widgets as you do on the PC, with iGoogle, Netvibes or Facebook, which are all based on web standards?” Widget + Web = the best of push-pull experience, added Bhandari.

Bhandari stated that the definitions of content licensing will change. Once you’ve created a killer application, you need analytics, he added, and analytics are going to change. “Server-side analytics was a stop-gap, but now we support Javascript and AJAX,” he said. “We still need to know the device and carrier mapping, and we need to track new things like zooming and hotspots.”

Finally, advertising will change, into the model Bhandari called “OneAd.” “It will all start to converge, there’s no reason in the future for them to be silo-ed,” he said. “Mobile inventory isn’t unique because of LBS (location-based services). No, it also happens on the PC. That’s a myth that location makes mobile advertising different. There’s a myth that there are different ad units that work on a mobile screen. True, but it doesn’t have to be that way. There will be a convergence in terms of creativity and technology. Is mobile inventory unique because of downloads? Perhaps, because of different download files, but maybe not, because download files are different between Mac and PC, and no reason why it couldn’t be extended to mobile.”

He stressed that he doesn’t mean that the same ad will work on mobile and the PC, and talked about some of the things that don’t make sense on both platforms. “Rich advertising - if all units are treated as one, they can have interactive banners, pre-rolls, post-rolls,” he said. “It’s in everybody’s best interest to converge these. If people are going to access web content through the phone, we need a new “zoom unit,” vector graphics or what have you, so the ad is legible is you zoom in or out. But there’s no reason why we as an industry can merge into one ad inventory system.”

The formula for profit: profit is in direct proportional to clicking intensity. Click intensity is related to page load speed and directly proportional to content support, including plug-ins. The user experience is nebulous but very important. “There’s a reason why people would rather use iPhone than…fill in the blank,” he said.

“Better mobile browsers are here and we can all profit from it,” he said. “The key is too much fragmentation makes it too expensive to do anything and no one makes any money. The more we bridge the gap between the PC and mobile world, the more we have the chance to make money.”

From Mobile Content & Marketing Expo

San Jose, CA–Moderated by Skyfire’s Ray Singh, QuickPlay’s Mark Hyland, thePlatform (Comcast subsidiary) Chris Drake, GoldSpot Media’s William Ganon and MobiTV’s Kevin Grant discussed the state of mobile TV.

Mark Hyland (L), Chris Drake (C), William Ganon (R)

Singh suggested that there are numerous definitions for mobile TV, and asked Hyland what is definition is. Hyland broke it down into true broadcast and IP. “We see activity in all those things,” he said. “There has to be a sensible user experience. There’s an essence of content we’re all working for: it has more to do with communication. VOD, getting what you want when you want it, recommended by friends, is probably a pretty good way to work with mobile video today.”

Kytetv and mywaves are two ways that people are using to publish their own video, said Skyfire’s Singh. Why hasn’t that been [more] successful? Drake said that “we’ve limited mobile to just mobile.” “We’re seeing trends that content providers and media companies are thinking more holistically,” he said. “Yes, there are a lot of technology limitations, but it has to do with consumer awareness and accessibility. We’re starting to see more cross-promotion about what’s unique. It’s complementary to the website,”

If you look at the video space today, there’s content that people pay for, subscribe to and get for free. Is mobile advertising working? “I think mobile video advertising is starting to make its way into the mind of the consumer,” said Ganon. “It’ll probably be linked to whether the user thinks they’re getting value. There’s really not any one player that can do it all, but if operators can be flexible with their pricing scheme. If technologists can deliver a high quality experience, yeah, mobile has a really good future.”

How do you track engagement and what is a click through, asked Singh. Hyland said it was initially all downloads of premium video. “It took you two minutes to download and the operator would charge you $2, but early adopters did it,” he said. “As prices got cheaper and content got better…that’s an acid test. Then we moved into a subscription or streaming model, often bundled with a data plan. Essentially, instead of a nickel and dime model, it’s all you can eat. And we saw service explode with that. We see anywhere from one-quarter to one-half on any service engaging with us, and that’s an important metric. If they go south, that means they’re not getting value.”

Drake addressed the earlier question of what mobile video is. “We’ve seen a shift in the definition,” he said. “It was mainly streaming and occasionally downloading. But a lot of those variables have changed and so have the mobile phones. It could be a phone, an iPod Touch, etc. Content delivery has also changed and addresses some of the clogged network issues. This is still so early now and a lot of these issues and limitations are based on today’s levels, which will hopefully go away. We saw the same issues with broadband in the 1980s.”

Returning to the topic of advertising, he addressed GoldSpot Media’s Ganon. “There is no greater difference in a business than between zero and a penny,” he said. “The fact that people can look for content in an untethered environment - then we’ll see how much hours people watch, what shows they watch. The minute they know they have a $20/month pre-charge, it’s not a great landscape for television, The more free content we can get out, the more we inculcate people with the notion of watching video on the mobile.”

If you look at your TV at home, very few cable providers are offering it for free, pointed out MobiTV’s Grant. That business has been around for a long time. “I don’t think the ad budgets will triple,” he said. “These guys will still have a limited amount to spend, and we all have to cut into it.” Does MobiTV become an HBO? “What MobiTV does is we definitely use what we can out of the advertising space to subsidize the technology to make it work,” said Grant. “You don’t forkload mobile video on a mobile network without spending a big piece of cash. There’s a happy medium: you make free content available so people know it’s there, and you subsidize it with advertising. And you make premium content available for more. Advertisers can’t pay it all. From an ad perspective, it’s a miracle, because you know they’re watching the video when they’re watching video on the phone. We know they’re turning it off on their own. It’s compelling eyeballs. So we maximize the advertising spend to help the content providers and companies like us. But I don’t think it’ll be free, everywhere.”

Long-tail content hasn’t been a big player in the mobile space, noted Hyland. “We’ve been working with producers of Hispanic content, religious content–avid audiences but not big enough to make it on a carrier’s deck,” he said. “You have to blur the lines between on-deck and off-deck, so you can find it. But now it’s naturally skewed towards higher-end content.”

Mobisodes was a stage in the development of mobile content, observed Drake, on the way to developing made-for-mobile content. “We learned you can’t make programming from the footage left on the cutting room floor,” he said. “You have to take into consideration the consumer, where he is, what his user profile is. We’re seeing interesting things with our customers. CBSNews is doing a lot with consumer journalism, for example. The paradigm shift is changing from one-to-many to many-to-many, with users sharing content, tagging it.”

Talking about mobile ads, Ganon noted the general consensus that 30-seconds is a little too long. “If we don’t bring an interesting solution to this game, we can just forget about it,” he said. “If you make targeted TV, that’s an interesting discussion. The mobile audience has no tolerance for the ad-roll.”

MobiTV’s Grant noted that he’s seeing the minutes that customers are watching grow at a much greater rate than the number of new customers, especially election and financial news. “They’re aware of the fact that they have this on their phone,” he said. “The fact that the minutes are growing is good across the board. News has been amazing lately. You don’t see a debate double our minutes. The size of the minutes is so large it would take a pretty big feed to double the minutes. The Olympics is the Holy Grail of content, but that was a unique channel and it did really really well, but it didn’t necessarily double our minutes. All boats are rising. The long-tail is so important. You need the big brands, and long-form like “Ugly Betty” does very well. A lot of people in our base are religiously watching these things. We haven’t opened up the YouTube library or mywaves, because we work with carriers and their restrictions. But big brands bring them in and long-tail reduces churn and keeps them there.”

Hyland reported that we’ll see numerous different models for introducing and paying for video; handset manufacturers will subsidize some of it. “Awareness and pricing are two big barriers to mobile adoption, but there’s a lot of opportunities to package it up differently,” he said. “If you can package video with the phone, it’ll make much higher usage. The day pass or the “free previews and sign up for 20 clips” will be two of those models. Lots of experimentation and no answers formed yet.”

Singh asked panelists to describe what people are watching. Ganon said he worked at MediaFLO and “if it’s live, breaking now” it’s big; sports seems to be a big draw, if you can get the access/rights. “We had experiments where people were watching movie,” he said. With the iPhone, we hear that people are sitting and browsing for an hour, said Singh, who asked if people are really watching movies on the mobile phone. “It’s difficult for me to comment but anecdotally we see different levels and types of usage depending on how the user is discovering and accessing that content,” said Drake. “We’re seeing content that’s being side-loaded which gives a better user experience. We’re seeing long-tail video like a Homer Simpson video. Then there’s the discovery around genre-based content. The ability to set content alerts is also at work.”

The iPhone has done a lot to let people know that they can go on the Internet. “We’re seeing an awareness factor,” said Grant. “We’ll start to see some big numbers.” Singh finally asked: what’s your favorite mobile TV show and what do you see in the future?

Chris Drake said he loves Sony Pictures Television International’s minisodes, which creates 5-minute versions of classic TV shows. Hyland likes “Entourage” on mobile. Ganon, who watches YouTube, thinks the DTV transition will be a game-changer. Grant says his favorite show is “The Office” and CNBC on mobile.

“If you look at access to the Internet, alot of it will be wireless in a little while,” he said. “And that’s where we see huge opportunities for growth, with all kinds of mobile devices. We’re very keen on this market but it’s a long term battle.”

From the Mobile Content & Marketing Expo

San Jose, CA–Moderated by Frank Bernhard of OMNI Consulting Group, the panel included Andrew Shikiar of the LiMo Foundation, Sagar Golla of AppVoyage, Faraz Syed of DeviceAnywhere and Michael Kurtzman of Sybase 365.

Shikiar (left), Golla (center), Syed (right)

The LiMo Foundation was launched in February 2007 by six leaders in the mobile industry; three key goals are centered around creating a mobile platform centered around Linux. “There are three key areas we’ve had our eye on,” he said. “The first is to engage with the mobile industry, and our organization now has 50 active members. Secondly, the platform itself has been developed, with the first version finished and second version ready by end of this year. The third goal has been to distribute devices into the marketplace. We’ve quietly introduced 23 LiMo handsets to different markets, now in the hands of tens of millions of consumers. We’ve been expanding the LiMo ecosystem, and now see interest from mobile content providers and many others.”

Golla described AppVoyage as a mobile web application gateway to simplify and personalize complex
web applications for mobile use, providing an ecosystem with personalization so that people can engage in mobile applications. DeviceAnywhere, said Syed, enables remote testing of mobile content on 1,500 devices. “We see an increasing surge of interest in the mobile Internet,” he added. “It started with the iPhone and now with all the other similar phones coming out. It’s encouraging people to browse, whereas in the past it was mainly downloadable media.”

Sybase 365, the mobile subsidiary of Sybase, has a primary focus on a couple of areas: one of them is inter-carrier messaging, mobile banking and connecting content providers to carriers. Kurtzman related that he works in the mobile marketing group.

Bernhard made a pitch for OMNI’s publication, slated for release in January 2009. Mobility and Factors Driving the Broadband Economy will show how consumers are using the devices. “The work we do is based around econometrics,” he explained. “It’s important to get the historical perspective as well as looking forward. We look at subscriber profiles, service provider scales and where voice, data and mobile content is going.”

Convergence of platforms was the first topic addressed. “What we’re seeing is that while handset manufacturers are still trying to differentiate themselves, there’s also convergence,” said Syed. “More developers are focusing on limited sets of platforms or operating systems. At the same time, we’re also seeing increasing fragmentation. When Apple comes out with iPhone and Android and LiMo…all these smart phone platforms are gaining ground. The other proprietary platforms are still there and growing. From what I can tell, I don’t see the market collapsing into a few standard platforms, but more developers are focusing on the smart platforms.”

Shikiar noted that Linux phones have been in the market for years but that the LiMo foundation is designed to standardize the operating system for all Linux-based phones. “In addition this is creating greater efficiencies inside companies,” he said. “We’re seeing a move towards consolidation here.” Sybase 365 Kurtzman asked how we get the rest of the handset market to follow. “The demand and opportunity is to find a forum where all the parties can communicate in a fair and open way,” Shikiar said. “Governance doesn’t sound exciting but it’s the key to collaboration and to the model itself. It’s imperative that the OS reflects a number of companies and interested parties in the mobile ecosystem.”

The smart phone evolution creates a new user paradigm of mobility, said Bernhard, who asked how the device itself can come to fruition. Syed said the biggest promise of the smart phone is to enable a better mobile Internet experience. “People will start shifting away from downloadable stuff,” he said. “These smarter platforms are powerful enough to deliver a rich experience over a web platform. On the other side, how do you leverage their capabilities? Creating awareness in the consumer space about what’s available is also needed. Most people aren’t aware of what’s available. Apple’s app store brought awareness to all these great apps that could be downloading. Marketing channels and discovery mechanisms that are more cutting edge is needed for smart phones.”

Content rights and digital rights management was another topic that the panelists addressed. The discussion quickly turned to privacy rights. Kurtzman noted that there are two schools of thought. “That if a user wants to make their information made public, their actions can be tracked to a certain degree, as long as it’s relevant,” he added. “There’s a good case for being able to share that information.” Security is an important aspect of his company’s work, said Golla, who pointed out the other “case” to be made for privacy issues. “If you don’t respect consumer privacy, no one will come to you,” he said.

Bernhard asked what strategic role the industry plays in determining the future of application and device standards. “Very honestly, handset manufacturers wants to participate in standards bodies, but the fundamental thing they’re also trying to do is differentiate themselves from one another,” said Syed. “My feeling is that any kind of standardization in the hardware is far from reality. I don’t see standardization taking over the industry quite yet.” [As Kurtzman noted, DeviceAnywhere is predicated on that lack of standardization.]

“We tend to not see that reverse flow of information coming from subscribers telling us what they need and want,” said Kurtzman. “It’s from the top to the bottom.” With Google Android being launched, Bernhard asked Shikiar what will happen with competition. “Android is an example of how Linux is relevant,” he said. “We think openness is a profound trend that the industry is moving towards. I believe people will begin to understand the importance of a truly collaborative, equal forum where all companies can collaborate for a common code layer to be implemented across devices.”

How change is impacting the relationship of carriers to application providers was addressed by Kurtzman. “The carriers want the garden walls to fall,” he said. “They see the future. We think they’re resistant to change, but it’s just hard to change. The direct relationship between the app provider to the consumer is a chicken-and-egg scenario and I don’t know how you fix it so it’s more like a PC experience. No one calls their Internet provider if the application doesn’t work. But it’s a different environment. Maybe we need a consortium to help educate the consumer that he or she can get to these applications directly.”

From the Mobile Content & Marketing Expo

San Jose, CA–Kevin Davis, president/CEO of Hollywood.com, Russ Lujan, president/COO of New Media Broadcasting Company and Nitin Bhandari, CEO/co-founder of Skyfire, moderated by Mark Jacobstein, CEO of iSkoot, talked about one of MobilizedTV.com’s favorite topics: how to mobilize existing content.

Russ Lujan and Kevin Davis

The panel discussed the best examples of mobilized content. Davis lauded a competitor, Flixster on the iPhone. “What they do effectively is give context around a transactional decision,” he said. Bhandari, a self-described sports nut, praised ESPN’s mobile offerings on his phone. “It doesn’t just give you scores but engages me with other information,” he said. Lujan liked the Twitter mobile solution, which incorporates the community aspect of dynamic media.

With regard to revenue models, Hollywood.com is advertiser-supported. Davis pointed out that iPhone applications are hot for sister company MovieTickets.com. “A graphic ad gets lots of click-throughs because it’s the only graphic thing on the ad, but that will change,” he said. “If it’s the one graphic thing on the page, people will click.” Bhandari said that long-term, advertising has a lot of potential. “I think there is no reason why CPMs and CPAs can be as good as those online,” he said. “There’s intense personalization and you can do click-to-call. As I see it, there is so much inventory, people are experimenting. It’s not a line-item budget. Everybody is aggressively optimistic that that model will work.” Lujan noted the shift to IP-based communication. “The business model is monthly re-occurring revenue and revenue sharing which could be ad-supported or subscription based for premium content,” he said. “There’s a whole new set of opportunities for the IP-based content, where you by-pass the telco structure.”

Technical and business changes in the next 12 months that will impact mobile content include all-you-can-eat data plans, pointed out Jacobstein. “You take advertising, and add context and already your CPMs are higher,” said Davis. “Technologies that know where you are and can give you something based on that have tremendous potential. The more accurate and behavioral we can get, the better.” Lujan noted that content collaboration, with mash-up capabilities for users to co-create with professional content and pass it a long, is a game changer. “In addition to that, how do you manage all your content?” he said. “You can synch your data, but how to you access it, store it, collaborate with it. This goes to key areas.” The open handset is focusing every other manufacturer to open up. “When the Sony Ericssons and Nokias sell those, it’ll be interesting to see what they open up to,” said Jacobstein, who noted that these manufacturers’ handset sales dwarf Apple’s.

Is the mobile phone a PC in your pocket? Jacobstein asked the panelists if they agreed. “This is a fundamental question,” said Davis. “We went through a major re-design, and even on this most amazing device that changed my life [the iPhone], it doesn’t work. We have to decide where this fits into our business model.” Bhandari joked he should try it on Skyfire, to laughter. Lujan said the PC and mobile phone are converging in some ways but not all ways. “We’re nearing earlier generation PC platforms on the handset,” he said. “It does have the mobility factor. If you’re a professional content producer, you still have to tune the content for the different devices, and there has to be a content management system to get it out to all those different devices. We’re probably a generation or two out from the mobile phone being what the PC can provide.”

“The technical answer is that the mobile phone is absolutely a PC,” said Bhandari. “It’s not as good as the PC of today that we’re all used to. But then part of me thinks that thinking of it as a PC is a failure of imagination. It’s so much more. It’s always on, always with you, nobody else uses it. It’s way more than a PC.”

In a discussion about creativity and the mobile phone, Davis said he foresees something scary in the future: mobile stalking. “It’s not unforeseeable,” he said. “The paparazzi culture is already out of control.” The possibility of instant communication has been used to great and positive good in places like Southeast Asia. “But instantaneous can be a problem too,” agreed Jacobstein, noting the panic on Wall Street.

Education, training and other potential uses of the mobile phone were also touched on. “Why give the child a laptop when you can give them a mobile phone?” noted Davis. “Information services where time-to-market is important is another area of content for the mobile phone,” added Lujan.

“The big picture is, are there ways that we can help facilitate the community aspect?” said Davis, with regard to strategies to monetize Hollywood.com. “We see devices much differently than younger people. Long-term we need to think about more ways that content can be used. My job is to look at the ways that people are using phones that I don’t myself.”

For Skyfire, it comes down to feasible tests, said Bhandari. “You can get anything on the web onto this mobile device, but we want to do more,” he said. “Killer apps are entertainment, communication through social networks and email, and transactions. Those are the three things we focus on. We’re content agnostic. YouTube is a big site for us, but so is NFL.com.”

With regard to the NFL, Bhandari noted that NFL.com made a big deal with Sprint, making the games only available to Sprint subscribers. “We think that’s wrong,” he said. “Information wants to be free.” The moderator said that discovery was a big driver for him. “Finding content is key,” he said. “There’s a lot of great content and applications and a lot of people don’t know how to get to it.”

One audience member asked Bhandari why we need a proxy-based browser in the mobile world. “I feel over the last two years, browsers have come a long way,” he said. “What’s happening is that it lowers the cost of development. The 90/10 rule applies here: 90 percent of your engagement comes from the top 10 percent of devices. I feel like everything moves into the browser because it makes discovery easy, development less expensive. It’s expectations. We talk about mobile as a PC, and then you expect it to behave like a PC, and it’s not. That’s why we think that at least for now, the proxy browser.”

Jacobstein disagreed with Bhandari, noting that he didn’t think the browser would be ubiquitous on mobile for some time. There are intrinsic limitations to what browsers have access to, even on the PC, he added. “I would argue that the most interesting services that people will build will be completely integrated. The coolest thing on iPhone is that level of integration, and that takes more than a browser.”