MOBILE MUSIC: According to an article in BusinessWeek, Universal is planning a “Total Music” service that aims to knock the downloads out of Apple’s iTunes store. Universal plans to team up with other record companies (Sony BMG on board, Warner reportedly interested) and offer a subscription service to challenge Apple by going direct to consumer.

Although exact details and the intricacies of the offering are yet to be confirmed, this is a canny move by the music industry, particularly since it plans to build in wireless functionality to the service. Mobile music consumption is increasing all the time with the biggest barrier to uptake being price. This is about to change as Universal’s proposed business model is an all-you-can-eat music download service offered to consumers free of charge when buying (and for the life of) a music device, mobile phone included. This will leave a bit of negotiation to be done between device manufacturers and the record companies, but with the proposed trio controlling 75 percent of all music sold in the U.S. the mobile music market is set to hot up.

MORE MOBILE MUSIC: Digital radios will soon be able to offer music download and storage capabilities following an announcement this week from radio manufacturer Pure Digital at a conference in Melbourne, Australia. In a move that could potentially cut out expensive above-the-line music marketing campaigns, mobile digital radio broadcasts will offer users the ability to “buy now” songs that they are listening to on mobile digital radio stations. With a pricing structure similar to that of Apple’s iTunes, this offering will certainly be competitive. However, the ability to stream radio broadcasts with pictures will open the door to link their core services – live weather reports, traffic updates, music charts and news headlines – with targeted digital and mobile advertising. It seems there is still life in the original wireless.

SOCIAL NETWORKING: According to a report from independent research firm Datamonitor, social networking growth will plateau by 2012 and it predicts the market will undergo a period of consolidation. Although this report is not directly focused on the mobile market, we can get a feel from these numbers since Internet networks such as MySpace and Bebo are already well down the road of wireless enablement, following a slew of tie-ups with mobile operators. The report’s key figures are that the market will generate US$965 million from 230 million active social network memberships by the end of 2007 with a forecast of revenue growth up to US$2.4 billion by 2012.

Social networking is a phenomenon that is changing the way we communicate and consolidation will certainly bring with it scalability. But what exactly is it that draws users to these social networking sites? The sense of community that reflect users interests, no matter how niche, is the very essence of social networking and this point must not be missed by the market, particularly when the advertising industry finally works out the true value of small-scale, highly targeted mobile advertising. I somewhat question the conclusion that sustainability in this market can be achieved by a consolidated, one-size-fits-all approach.

USABILITY: The launch of the new Moto Z8 points to an awareness from Motorola that the user must be given the choice and opportunity to communicate on their own terms and personalise their mobile space. The extremely cool Z8 is packed with multimedia applications from partners such as Actimagine, CNN Mobile, DataViz, Podcast.com, ShoZu, weComm and Yahoo, and can capture and playback crystal clear video at 30 frames per second with 4GB external memory that can increase to a whopping 32GB once the larger capacity cards come to market. The device enables the user to access TV, video, podcasts and music on the move in one place, has browsing and search capabilities, Microsoft Office compatibility as well as social networking functionality and a wide range of widgets for the user to personalise to their hearts content. Looks like the Z8 will give Nokia some serious competition as Motorola bids to become a serious multimedia device provider.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 5:04 pm and is filed under Mobile Advertising, Mobile Music, Mobile Social Networking, Usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.