Saturday, June 26, 2010

Embracing Change

From a single page newspapers and silent movies to single screen theatre to television to cable TV invasion to internet content on one’s fingertips the media is undergoing a rapid evolution. We talk about the shrinking global village but the true potential of media and its reach is yet to be unleashed.

It has already begun with the fast changes on all fronts of digital media including improvement in handset features, network bandwidth and quality & variety of content. Mobile has fast evolved from just being a device to talk to a centerpiece of our lives. Smartphones with better operating systems, high-speed Internet networks, falling prices and a plethora of content will fuel the mobile boom.

As if all these were not enough, the zeal to make the device more user-friendly introduction of Wi-Fi enabled phones that can connect to the selected Wi-Fi hot spots. The Wi-Fi enabled phones are now the most happening thing seeking to grow with time.

Now with the advent of 3G, the mobile penetration level India is perfectly poised to leapfrog the internet revolution to land directly into the mobile broadband revolution.

e-mailing options have made man completely mobile and also the additional features like allowing the user to attach files and documents that they have worked upon in their Office and business applications, are also installed onto their mobile. Technologies like GPRS, EDGE, and Bluetooth have become more user friendly.

The biggest advantage of mobile marketing is that since the message is delivered on the mobile phone, a personal device, the target respondent ends up taking notice of the campaign and this can add to the campaign effectively.

The other sweeping changes happening in mobile world is that of Viral distribution as it is the key to growing online web services, moreover it provides a very low user-acquisition cost. Without viral distribution PC-based online services like facebook would never have been able to grow to the level that they have without huge investment in marketing.
Marketers are integrating Viral marketing mechanisms with social networking sites like Facebook mainly through developing facebook application which can be promoted within the news feeds or through mass invites

Advertisers are clamoring to reach teens in digital environments because that's where they're spending much of their time either online, with cell phones or playing video games, the biggest innovation being handsets are getting thinner by the day and in the next few years, cell phone networks will move data at several megabits per second, and will coexist with WiMax, and Wi-Fi. Geographic ads targeting to teens via the phone is expected to explode in the coming years.

Yahoo is banking on mobile devices for future growth particularly in Asia as consumers leapfrog cumbersome computers to access the Internet via feature packed handheld gadgets.

The analog-to-digital conversion will make it possible for teens to watch live TV on portable devices. The technology will help the television networks target programming to specific audiences, and that will buoy the cost of advertising,

Just as we learn ABC in Kindergarden the Value Added Service (VAS) business model in our country also has started by identifying the ABC genres i.e. Astrology, Bollywood and Cricket. The first wave of applications was focused on ABC since the consumers were exploring mobile as a medium and were getting used to it. In the first wave of mobile VAS, service providers could get away with sending the same content to the large and varied Indian population e.g. Bollywood content to every user whether he is in Kanyakumari or Kashmir. However users are now looking for varieties of content tailored to suit their individual tastes. All in all there is business in addressing the long tail of customers also.

In the age of convergence the prominent growth driver of VAS would be the consumer’s desire of getting more from their mobile phones. In our country where culture plays a very prominent role and each of the 28 states is as different as a country the regional content will give a big boost to VAS market. The bigger challenge will be to generate relevant content catering to both regional and language differences.
TV channels and FM Channels have already joined the bandwagon, all the big TV channels have started sending their contents through short codes and the success can already be gauged by the increasing reality shows in India.

Infact we have barely scratched the surface of the Mobile, it is perhaps the most important screens in our lives today.