Mobile Podcasting – Hype or Reality?

0
833

The mobile industry has repeatedly tried to port popular client services to the cell environment. The Internet has become the Mobile Internet. Television became Mobile TV. Despite the funding of billions of dollars in information networks, spectrum, gadgets, and advertising and marketing campaigns, very few offerings have ported efficaciously.

podcast-index-banner

Yet digital tracking and podcasting show that customers will go to wonderful lengths to mobilize entertainment, connecting a media tool to a PC and moving content downloaded from the net. But can podcasting grow to be a mobile service enjoyed on handsets? Podcasting has positive attributes that make it suitable for the cell environment. First, it’s miles an “on-the-go” experience. Second, enjoying audio content material isn’t always affected by the handset’s small show display. In fact, given the prevalence of mobile phones, coupled with the capacity to deliver content material at once to the handset without any personal motion required, the cell enterprise is probably difficult-pressed to explain a porting failure.

Indeed, one might also argue that such failure ought to venture into hyped ideas that include convergence. This article outlines the critical troubles to address if podcasting is to peer even minimal mass-market penetration. First, what are a number of the inherent “mobile-environment” constraints, and how will they impact and outline the carrier? Second, are consumers willing to pay for an operator’s choice to release such cellular podcast services?

How mobile users discover and acquire content will greatly impact the carrier’s character. There are two alternative models: network-based, totally answers, and purchaser-based, totally answers. Network-based explanations offer customers access to podcast menus on the Operator’s WAP Portal. Users discover the correct podcast and then initiate a download or movement of the podcast in actual time.

Network-oriented transport fashions have not attracted the mass-marketplace consumer. Then click on it and wait. The menu-severe benefit of mobile Internet has been verified as unappealing. It is doubtful whether posting podcast files on a portal will effectively increase consciousness and carrier usage. Furthermore, given the massive size of a podcast report, adding a prolonged download wait to a cumbersome Portal enjoy will kill the revel.

Podcasts can also be streamed off the Portal. However, further to the bulky Portal-Pull issues, the person’s personal experience depends on consistent and sufficient data transmission throughout the move. For motives past this article’s scope, providing the bandwidth for brief streams, not to mention prolonged podcasts, is technically hard. A person taking note of a podcast while commuting by teaching will regularly lose insurance. Securing bandwidth in height-hours or congested areas is very hard. Therefore, it is dubious whether or not streaming can deliver the mass market with an appropriate carrier level.

iphone-podcast-headphones

Whether downloaded or streamed, obtaining content through pull assumes that a person will frequently poll for the content material. Not only does the lively person idea run counter to the podcast version of computerized content material delivery, but a compelling cell enjoyment must be simple and automatic. One should not forget that the potential mass-marketplace cell consumer isn’t as “early-adopted” oriented as a present-day podcast user. Thus, the person-enjoy on mobile user needs to be a top, if no longer better than the iPod revel, for the mass market to accept it. Client solutions reduce the browsing associated with content discovery, shipping, and consumption and provide a greater instantaneous, consumer-pleasant enjoyment. The first kind of solution, presented with the aid of Pod2Mob, involves a client that shows a list of to-be-had podcasts. The user scrolls down the list and selects one, beginning a content material shipping consultation (download or streaming). Content discovery is less difficult than in Network-based solutions, as WAP browsing to the Portal is prevented. However, real-time delivery is required, resulting in consumption delays, streaming-associated issues, or an insurance loss. With this solution, an energetic person is assumed, as a consumption choice ought to be made daily.

The 2nd customer answer, including MobiPod (cooperation among Bamboo Mediacasting and Britcaster), entails historical past downloads. Huge files are brought to the person transparently, without any personal involvement required, as an instance in a single day. The fresh content material is to be had for fast consumption for the morning go back and forth with no community get right of entry to required. Background download normally requires a subscription. The transition from pull to push should be referred to as a conceptual shift among operators. Operators have invested heavily in WAP portals together with Vodafone Live. One key Operator goal is to drive customers to the Portal, which strengthens the operator emblem. However, from a consumer attitude, it is essential to reiterate the idea that the common Podcast person is more technically oriented than the average mobile consumer. Ease of use is critical if cell podcasting gains mass-marketplace traction inside the mobile globe. The second section of this text asks whether customers may be inclined to pay for cellular podcast offerings and whether or not the operator will want to release something, however, a barebones service for PR purposes.

spreaker

There may be a great rise in the variety of humans carrying MP3 gamers, media-enabled telephones, and different media gadgets from a person-angle. People are virtually taking their amusement with them. Working humans have genuinely definable home windows of lifeless time while commuting to and from paintings. During those instances, they’re a captive target market. Will the mass market, which holds mobile telephones in place of other media devices, be inclined to adopt and pay for services that deliver customized audio content material to them?

One barrier is probably the availability of unfastened podcasts on the PC and the preliminary notion that net facts are and ought to be free. Whether users are willing to pay for personalized audio content on their cell will rely on factors such as smoothness of use, content material, and price. However, given the developing prevalence of humans playing enjoyment at the move, one ought not to invent a state of affairs of commuters enjoying a fifteen-minute targeted audio program on the way to paintings. True, Podcasts are available unfastened online. However, humans likely pay a small premium to obtain exciting content on their cell phones instead of purchasing an iPod and having trouble moving content material from their PC to a tool every morning.

One aspect is certain: the operator is eager to look at the fulfillment of such operator-provided services. First, operators frequently subsidize the handsets from a revenue angle but see no sales while users transfer track to it from the PC. Second, the mass market adopted iPod-like devices as their preferred tool for media consumption; the cellular handset might be marginalized and viewed only as a tool for voice calls. As these competing gadgets expand Skype-like net smartphone functionality over WIFI, operators will see their customers gravitate to competing for cellphone carriers as properly. It is imperative for the operator that the cellular phone claim a firm stake as a media tool and that users load it with content material that generates sales for the operator.

Despite the operator’s hobby of setting up value and competing with encroaching gadgets, cell podcasting poses a few demanding situations. While PC-primarily based net customers experience inexpensive broadband, mobile networks are comparatively inefficient. Data transmission rates are slower, and there’s an awful lot, much less standard capacity. Thus, the inner cost to the operator of transmitting information is high. While the monthly charge for a high-paced residential net connection is probably 20 euros, the average mobile user is likely charged 1 Euro/MB for statistics usage. With the dimensions of a mean 30-40 minute PC-primarily based podcast of about 15 MB, the month-to-month amount of information traffic in keeping with the consumer per week-day service is 300MB!! The operator cannot justify charging some Euros monthly for a cellular podcast service, while an unmarried Pull-downloaded video clip can generate a Euro or two.

First, content material files can, without problems, be reduced in size by using easy content transcoding. A 30-minute podcast may be decreased to one.5MB without impacting sound fine. Furthermore, the delivery frequency of a podcast service may be reduced. Finally, delivering shorter, 15-minute podcasts can be suitable rather than completing 30-40-minute programs.

Second and extra critical, the podcast files must be introduced for off-height hours, ideally overnight. During peak hours and in congested areas, the fee for records delivery is at its highest. Delivery of large facts files to a mild variety of customers will chill operator enthusiasm at some point of high hours. Conversely, the community is empty for off-peak hours, minimizing the fee for records transmission. This requirement would seem to point to a subscription push service version, with scheduled off-height content material deliveries driven to the person.

One final issue is that of billing and sales. The operator is accustomed to pull-based charging fashions, in which the user is charged in line with the transaction. However, given the complexity of records billing and the considerable length of a podcast file, cellular customers will best undertake the podcast if the pricing shape is apparent and reasonable. A transparent subscription charge for the service, without any additional facts prices, is obligatory. Regarding other operators’ sales ability, one factor worth noting is marketing. Audio advertisements can easily be protected at the start and during the podcast, similarly growing sales sources.