Ready to watch live TV on your Nokia phone?

Monsoon Multimedia, a California based company, has come up with HAVA Mobile Player, digital video service, which has made quite an entry into the market. The video service is interestingly called the ‘sling box killer’, as it is considered a direct competitor to the famous Sling Media.

Monsoon Multimedia’s HAVA Mobile Player allows you to watch live TV from your mobile phone. Not just that, you will be able to pause, skip, rewind, and schedule your DVR recordings right from your phone. Monsoon Multimedia is confident that people will find it very easy to use this service on their high-end Nokia phones. They also believe that they can outdo Sling Media with this service. However, this service is meant only for S60 Symbian phones as of now whereas Sling Media’s TV service is available on Symbian, Palm, Windows Live Mobile, and it’s rumored that it will be soon available in Blackberry. With this being the case, I don’t think the HAVA Mobile Player is much of a competition for Sling Media, at least as of now.

This mobile TV service will be made available to the public for free next quarter. However, Monsoon is also planning to run a beta program in between.

The way I see it, mobile TV industry is headed for a unique battle. On one hand, you have devices like HAVA Mobile Player which make live TV available in your mobile phone. On the other hand, you have carriers coming up with separate mobile TV service.

Now, as a mobile user, what would you choose? A mobile TV service from a carrier which lets you choose a certain number of channels for a fixed sum every month, or a device like this one which lets you watch live TV right on your mobile phone without any restrictions?

Categories: All things mobile phones, Mobile TV, Nokia.

0 comments.

Verizon brings live TV to mobile phones

If you are a San Diegan, you can watch live TV right on your mobile phone from now on. How does that sound?

Verizon Wireless has come up with this service which helps you watch TV shows in real time in your mobile phone. Verizon uses Qualcomm’s MediaFlo technology to bring this service to your mobile phone. Incidentally, San Diego happens to be the 58th market to get Verizon’s V Cast Mobile TV service.

Verizon thinks it can attract a lot of subscribers to its live TV service as it offers a variety of networks like NBC, CBS, MTV, FOX, ESPN, and Nickelodeon for users to choose from. The service will cost you anywhere from $13 to $25 and it gives you the choice to watch live TV shows from all the aforementioned networks.

In my opinion, Verizon’s mobile TV service is good enough to attract some subscribers. I think it is way better than watching downloaded video clips on your mobile phone. It’s live TV and people can watch their favorite news channels, sports channels, finance news channels, and other channels on the move which could be really convenient. However, only four of Verizon’s phone models support this live TV service, which I think is a definite downside. You can’t expect everyone to own an LG Voyager, can you? On a side note, I think this move could actually revive the stock price of Qualcomm which has remained stagnant for quite some time now!

Most importantly, if you happen to live in San Diego, check out this service and let me know your thoughts.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Mobile TV.

0 comments.

Mobile TV to rake in the moolah

A recent report from Juniper Research says that mobile TV will be the biggest revenue generator in the mobile advertising industry in 2010. I’ve already blogged about the importance of mobile TV and the kind of impact it can have. Now, this report from Juniper Research reaffirms it.

The total spending on mobile TV in 2008 is just around $335 million. However, it will reach a whopping $2.5 billion in 2013, says the report. The personal nature of the mobile phone, the availability of popular mobile video content, and the ability to target certain key demographics are considered the plus points of mobile TV.

However, the most important point that caught my attention was this statement from the report.

‘People are accustomed to advertisements in video and are thus less irritated by it than other forms of advertising, especially compared to SMS.’

For your information, this has been my stand on mobile TV for quite some time now and I’ve already blogged about the advantage of mobile TV over other forms of mobile advertising.

On one hand, we have people who are getting ready to watch Olympics in mobile TV and on the other hand, we have advertisers who are gearing up to adapt themselves to the phenomenon that is mobile TV. However, they need to remember one thing. Mobile TV is not just about replicating the TV service with simulcast. The content, the package, and the ad format should be interactive enough to keep the viewer engaged or else the whole idea might backfire big time.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Mobile TV.

1 comment.