With my new job role (at Yahoo!) focusing on the mobile industry, I have been spending my time trying to find out anything and everything about mobile.
I came across this interesting article in MarketingWeb, mentioning the following stats:-
With an estimated 240 million wireless subscribers in the US, mobile is already a US$350-billion sector. According to Nielsen Mobile:
- 32 million use their phones to go online
- 70% send or receive text messages
- 41% percent use their wireless devices to send photos
The article also wrote:-
…… The old media broadcast model is dying
The idea of a media-consuming public that sits passively in front of a TV set is fast being replaced by a vibrant, active community of shared upstream content providers.
With the mobile phones being very much integrated into our daily lifestyle, it is no wonder that Nokia, the mobile phone maker recently launched its first ever video podcast (titled 14Days to signify the frequency of each episode) for its Nseries phone devices to ensure they stay top of mind amongst the consumers.
Thanks to Brian (from Ogilvy, Singapore) who alerted me to the vodcast
Hosted by “Girl with the number 11 briefcase” in the TV game show, Deal or No Deal (Singapore), Claire Jedrek attempts to show viewers how to take your mobile device (to be more specific – your Nokia Nseries handset) to the next level in each episode of 14Days.
The 14Days vodcast was conceptualised by Ogilvy, created by The Creative Room and produced by Nokia. All viewers have to do is to watch it online, download it to your mobile device or subscribe to it with an RSS feed.
I’ve just downloaded the latest episode into my new video iPod and of course, you can put them into any Nseries devices which I am planning to get one – the N95!! (featured in the pilot episode of the vodcast series).
Bloggers such as DK and Su Yuen who had seen the first episode think that the tips and tricks for the N95 were too “far fetched” and not “particularly interesting” The latest episode titled “VPL” was a let-down for me. After watching the episode, I was wondering “uh, where are the promised nifty ideas to push technology to the next level?” Well, the key message for the N76 is clear though – it’s a chick phone!
I thought the second episode, titled “Heroes” was quite cool, with Claire and a local blogger, teaching viewers how to freeze time and teleport at will with the Nokia N93i.
Brian was sharing with me that one of the main draws about the Nseries phones is that they are multimedia convergent devices, hence having vodcasts such as 14Days pushed the envelope in terms of showcasing the mobile convergence, the connectivity of the phone as well as accessing high quality multimedia while on the go.
This move (the creation of the vodcast) attempts to show the power and potential of the Nseries range, and also hopes to increase adoption and promotion of podcast and vodcast technology.
I am keen to find out what is the pick-up/ download statistics of the vodcast at the end of its series. It will also be interesting (as Su Yuen mentioned in her post) to see some user generated content, spinning off from the vodcast series. As the article in MarketingWeb mentioned, the next big trend is to see how social networking works on mobile.
