Verizon's New Strategy and its Effect on Mobile Media [1]

This last Tuesday Verizon outlined a new more open strategy to supporting "any application, any device" [5] that meets their minimum technology requirements on their network by 2008. This dramatic move also offers that "any application the customer chooses will be allowed on these devices. "

The Verizon Wireless President called this "a transformation point in the 20-year history of mass market wireless devices – one which we believe will set the table for the next level of innovation and growth.”

With this new strategy, Verizon seems to be seeing that the benefits from being more open with their platform outweigh those of trying to maintain a more rigid, more controlled "closed garden" model.

Some analysts believe that this move will broaden the number of "officially supported" devices on the Verizon network from what it is today (around 50 handsets) to somewhere more than 500 once developers have really begun taking advantage of this new offer. I'd suspect that this would include many new devices that are not primarily voice based based, but that are pure data devices.

These new more broad pool of officially supported devices would then have to compete on offering a better consumer experience, and new and innovative features.

And this speaks to an overall trend we've highlighted before on this blog about "smartphones" getting smarter... and continuing to grow into full fledged media devices.

The Verizon Case as an Example of Shifting from Old Politics to New [6]

Mobile Media [7] | Peter Leyden [8] | Tim Chambers [9]

The New York Times broke a front page story this morning about Verizon blocking the progressive group NARAL from sending “controversial” text messages. Within hours, Verizon has reversed its decision, calling it “an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy.” (The NYT online version [10] has the updated reversal on top of the bulk of the original story.)

The whole episode is a good example of how the new tools of politics, like texting through mobile phones, are challenging the old norms and “dusty” policies and regulations. We’re in that exciting but confusing period when the changeover is happening and many old patterns and habits have to be re-thought and adjusted.

This story has another interesting twist for the New Politics Institute. Just yesterday, we released a major new study [11] on mobile media and politics, authored by Jed Alpert, the CEO of Mobile Commons [12], which is the company hired by NARAL to get its text messages onto Verizon. Alpert is in the middle of this shifting story, and his NPI Memo on Mobile Media is now available on the NPI website, as well as video of a recent talk [13] he gave on the subject at an NPI event in Washington DC.

He also posted on our blog [14] about mobile media this week before this firestorm broke out. So I’m taking the opportunity to blog about this Verizon story since he now has his hands full.

The Alpert memo follows on a major report [15]about the coming power of mobile media released by NPI last year, by NPI fellow Tim Chambers, co-founder of Media 50 Group [16], a company helping people in politics use mobile media.

This mobile media space is one that NPI has been tracking closely and will continue to do as it gets increasingly important to politics over time. Stay tuned.

Peter Leyden

"The way I think about it is, if we can support our 'American Idol' contestants by texting, why not our presidential candidates?" said Tim Chambers, co-founder of Media 50 Group, a start-up that focuses on the mobile political space. He is the co-author of a study called "Mobile Media in 21st Century Politics" for the New Politics Institute, a progressive think tank, and until last year was a senior vice president for Sony Pictures Digital and Sony Corporation of America.

"Text-Friendly Hopefuls Vie for Hearts and Thumbs [17]," Washington Post, June 30, 2007

New Media News and Trends to Watch Part II [18]

Internet [19] | Mobile Media [20] | Tim Chambers [21] | Viral Video [22]

Steve Job's Apple Mac World keynote just ended. [23]

In a quick update from the last posting [24] on new media news this week...

In what may take the wind out of almost any other announcements from CES this week... Apple just made two major product announcements, both important, and both illustrating the trends I mentioned in the previous posting...

The first announcement was that after selling over a2 billion tracks of music, 50 million TV shows and over 1.3 million movies, that they were now selling a new product dubbed AppleTV [25] that promises to seemlessly link the iTunes content to your living room. It was an impressive demo and the Apple TV orders are open now for the product shipping in February.

Next came the hoped for announcement of a new Apple phone, named the iPhone. [26]

The expectations for this were sky high and Jobs seemed to delivery an amazing looking product.

All flat screen with only one physical button, this product was in development for over 2 years, and uses a new touch screen interface called "multi-touch" that Steve claims is as revolutionary for phones as the mouse was for desktop computing or click wheel was for the iPod.

It touts an extremely high res screen, is sthinner than any current Smartphone on the market (beating out the Motorolla Q or Samsung Blackjack) ... It is a full featured 8 GB iPod music player, including widescreen video playback... RSS Video Podcasts just found a new mobile home... In addition to supporting Cingular's standard phone networks, it also supports a full WiFI hot spot connectivity and Bluetooth...

And it what looks like the most advanced web and email functionality yet shipped on mobile devices, with email support as robust as the Blackberry, along with messaging from SMS messaging and internet enabled Widgets or small applications for things such as stocks, weather, etc... And it is a camera phone with a 2 Megapixel camera built in.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, it claims to be a superior phone as well, enabling one touch dialing, contact management, and simple conference call support. It support a wired phone headset and music earbuds, and an amazingly small looking bluetooth wireless earpiece. And it claims a much better and easier "visual voicemail."

It also has sensors that detect if you are viewing it in "portrait" or "landscape" mode and automatically redraw the screen appropriate to which direction you are holding the device.

A Flash animated tour of the iPhone is now up here [27]...

This will be available this summer from Cingular and Apple stores. The iPhone was announced this early as the FCC approval was about to start and Apple wanted to be the first to announce it rather than have details leak from the FCC website.

Jobs announce an early target was to sell 10 million iPhones.

Both products, but especially the iPhone look to be "game changing" devices for how media including political media -- is distributed and consumed...

New Media News and Trends to Watch [28]

Internet [29] | Mobile Media [30] | Tim Chambers [31] | Viral Video [32]

UPDATE More announcments:

Apple announces the final details on ITV, Renamed Apple TV, and looks like a great product. [33]

And, this is huge: the Apple iPHONE debut [34].

Both very likely "game changing" products. And both illustrate the trends below:

----

With this week being a convergence of both the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas and the latest MacWorld developers conference, there is a ton of news relating to new media this week.

Travis sent me on this article that is a good overview [35] of the mobile news and the rumors of both these shows in general. Check it out.

I'd like to highlight a few specific CES announcements that point to trends which I think are important for political practitioners trying to make sense of the evolving post-broadcast media space.

First is the trend of "Internet media continuing to advance to the living room." See Bill Gates announcement of Internet TV and Media Downloads [36] to the 10+ million Xbox 360's that are already in consumers hands -- and to all future Xboxes...

...and also see the details on the likely Apple announcements about their new ITV paltform [37] linking Itunes Music and Video services to the home living room...many companies - including Microsoft - have failed at the PC to TV link before. Expectations are high that as they did with the iPod, this could be the new product that Apple gets right where so many others almost did.

...and on a more minor key but still worth note: Sony announced [38] that their new Bravia TV's would allow users to directly browse internet video services, including user generated content from the video service Grouper [39], that they bought late last year...

Next is the trend of "Web Search morphing to the mobile space." See Yahoo's announcement about Yahoo Go! Service [40] and thier bundling deals with major phone manufacturers. NPI has highlighted the key value of using search effectively [41] for political use. As Search moves into the mobile space, that value gets amped up even further.

Lastly for today, there is the trend of "Mobile Media evolving and maturing." For this see the announcement that Qualcom, Verizon and MediaFlo will launch about 8 to 10 channels of live streaming TV [42] to mobile phones this quarter in the US, this should broaden to be about 20 channels by end of 2007. Launch parters are announced as CBS, Comedy Central, Fox, MTV, NBC, and Nikelodeon. I can personally vouch that the quality level of this service is amazing.

(And it's hard to miss the rumors of a likely upcoming Apple Phone [43])

Question on Making Mobile Media Effective [44]

Question on finding effective ways to use mobile media for politics. Tim Chambers responds.

Question on Ad Targeting [45]

Laura Quinn and Tim Chambers answer a question about ad targeting.

Tim Chambers on Mobile Media [46]

Tim Chambers talks about the impact of Mobile Media.

The Next Wave of Tools for Progressive Politics [47]

The technology and media worlds are in the midst of a transformation that is profoundly affecting politics. In the next few years we can expect to see the accelerating demise of the 30-second television commercial as the main form of political communication. Already, the 2006 election was marked by a spirit of experimentation in new tools and new media. Understanding the way forward in this new environment is critical to all the work we do as progressives.

[48]

The Next Wave of Tools for Progressive Politics [49]

The technology and media worlds are in the midst of a transformation that is profoundly affecting politics. Already, the 2006 election was marked by a spirit of experimentation in new tools and new media. Understanding the way forward in this new environment is critical to all the work we do as progressives.

Part: 1 [50] 2 [51] 3 [52] 4 [53] 5 [54] 6 [55] 7 [56] 8 [57] 9 [58] 10 [59] 11 [60]

[61]

[66]