Mobile (Phone) Podcasting And MVPs

Posted by Paul Colligan on Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Like the good Podcaster I synced my Nano up with many more hours of Podcast Content than I could possibly consume on the way up to the MVP Summit. But, hey, maybe I’ll get entangled in some of that famous Seattle traffic. Actually looking forward to my 20+ hours on the plane between now and the return from the Corporate Podcasting Summit to do more of the same.

Never been much of a news via Podcast kinda guy because, well, I often listen to a Podcast sometimes a week or two after download. When I want to know what Paris Hilton is up to, I want to know now. That kinda thing.

Met up with Rob Greenlee from Mobilcast.com last night. I had been to their site a few times in the past but never paid much attention as my phone (Treo 700p) wasn’t on their list.

My problem with phone-based Podcast clients is the simple fact that every phone is so different that it’s really hard to plan a strategy from the whims of companies who believe customer service is all about making it easy for me to buy ringtones. The more “generic” options (I am using the Kinoma client on my 700p) just don’t seem to be worth the effort and the really cool stuff always seems to be on the network that I’m not on.

Mobilcast is a very impressive product (how could Rob not give me a demo?). The news issue I mentioned above is fixed because it brings you the latest episode (and checks hourly) when you ask for it. He showed me an NPR news update just 55 minutes old. Nice.

But the problem is this:

The phone is a crazy little platform. With our kazillion carriers over here (and almost as many handset makers) the chances of getting everyone on the same phone (and same feature set) is only likely in the corporate rollouts.

As discussed on Marketing Online Line #47, the price, lack of Exchange integration and Cingular-only nature of the iPhone is going to prevent mass corporate adoption of this thing. Sure, a percentage of my audience will be consuming on the iPhone, but a (probably larger) audience is also consuming on the Nano – and I’m not doing anything special for them.

Mobilcast is very impressive. Impressive enough to get me to jump to Cingular? No, not at this point. I can sync up casts with my Treo via EVDO and DUN and get what I need on my Nano.

So, what is the next step? Will phones ever be a platform for the Podcast?

Is the iPhone the answer?

I don’t think the iPhone is the answer – but I don’t have anything else I can offer at this point.

I’m curious about your thoughts on this one?

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  • http://www.roninmarketeer.com John Wall

    My big thing with this is I don’t see getting podcasts on phones as making anything easier for anyone (more features, more timely – yes). And making podcasting much easier for people that don’t get tech is the most important thing to making it viable.

    Plus, why drain the batteries on my phone when I already have my iPod? I’m not about to give up the 80GB of music and video for 2GB of space on a phone.

  • http://www.drsavi.com Dr Savi

    Your post is important in many ways.
    Firstly – The impact of impending convergence of voice, data (aka a podcast received via a mobile network).
    Secondly – Practicality.

    Working closely with my contacts at both http://www.phonecasting.com and http://www.phonecasting.co.uk they’ve a number of applications that appeal to different types of content providers.

    * B2C – where home content providers can get tools and have them more accessible – One issue has to be how long will you want to place a radiating device next to your phone/prob better to use a land line.

    * B2B – where an immediate application could be to combine the powere of sms (text messaging) with a group voicemail function, say the distribution of meeting minutes. In addition, once subscribed to an associated feed for, say a project, updates can be recieved.

    On the point about storage, if short (10min) broadcasts (podcasts) are kept specific and focused, then your music library will not need to be compromised!

    Maybe oneday we can have a playlist of the best CEO messages – OK, only kidding. More importantly, for project managers it may be important to keep your podcast recordings of important decisions and directions in case someone says ‘I never said that’ or incase of project U-Turns.

  • http://www.mobilcaster.com Rob Greenlee

    John, You thoughts on mobile phone listening are a reflection of a fundemental misunderstanding of the technology today with applications like Mobilcast. You really need to give it a try. Here is a video demo that I made of Mobilcast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1BHuQ5RbLU

    Downloading and storage are no longer barriers to getting content on the phone. Somehow as part of this mobile podcast listening discussion we need to focus less on downloading and storage as that is an iPod and mp3 player process and is not an always connected mobile phone experience for most mobile podcast listeners today.

    We should even consider dropping the use of the term “Podcast” to describe it unless you are only talking about a type of content only. We should call it “Mobilecasting” or “Mobilcasting”. The Mobilcast java client application has been around for over a year and a half now and we have significant usage data on the question of streaming content vs. downloading content on the mobile phone. We have offered both and streaming with winning by over 95%.

    The huge benefit to getting audio and soon video from RSS with media enclosure feeds on the phone is that you can always get the latest and most up to date content available in those feeds. So all of those hourly feeds become “Personalized Radio” with potential content sources from all over the world. You are basically creating your own personalized radio station on your phone with almost real time updated content. You only get what you want when you want it. I use the application everyday of the week and my consumption of audio has exploded compared to mp3 based listening like the iPod.

    Apple has too many podcasters and listeners in a form of mind control with this iPod and iTunes platform. It is not the future of podcasting, because the future of podcasting is “Mobilcasting”. Give it a try and you will see what I mean.

    Rob Greenlee
    http://www.mobilcaster.com
    http://www.mobilcast.com/npr
    WebTalk World Radio

  • http://www.drsavi.com drsavi

    Hey Rob, Good demo.
    I recently interviewed on my videopodcast a CEO on Phonecasting.
    This concept just differs by the way it focuses on content ‘push’ to any type of phone.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQq3DJKpqvU

    I’ve given a couple of examples but also managed to get a demo currently being deployed by National Geographic News.

    RSS readers on the move once understood is going to be nice driver for this market.