I got the pleasure to see Alice Kim (Senior Vice President of Digital Distribution & Partner Relations with MTV Networks), Rama Sadasivan (Wall Street Journal Online Director), and Brian Colbert (Director of Mobile Advertising Sales at ESPN) at the Interactive Media Conference and Tradeshow. The topic was amazing: When will we take mobile seriously? A question I had never thought about. And do you know why so many of us Don’t think about this question: Because we’re not aware of our mobile capabilities and possibilities.
Alice Kim Says only 40 percent of people who purchase mobile browsers actually use them. That’s les than half and at one time I was a part of that 40 percent. Kim made it very clear that MTV takes mobile very seriously and is plunging in to this amazing investment. MTV networks are more interactive than ever with mobile, using videos and music as a tool to reach out to customers. That seems to be a smart move for MTV to reach out to consumers at a young and tech-savy age. But MTV isn’t the network trying to move forward with mobile.
ESPN plans on making a sports center online in a condensed version of ten minutes for mobile. Thats just one of the tricks they have up their sleeve to cater to the mobile world. Brian Colbert says that mobile for ESPN is a lot trickier because they have to cooperate the live factor into their plans for hardcore fans. Colbert thinks the expectation for mobile technology and growth is too high in a short period of time but in the long run will explode like the internet did. Networks are working harder to make websites mobile-ready and easy but Colbert thinks TV networks are not being as interactive with mobile customers as they could be. American Idol for example is a great channel to interact with mobile.
The speakers predict that by 2009 AT&T will increase bandwidth by five times. Lets hope we can see this change flow throughout networks and companies and embrace the new wave of technology. With a little bit of time and investment we can hopefully start to see the budget and awareness for mobile increase.
