Opinionated comments on mobile phone industry news
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Friday, November 03, 2006
Mobile blogging a fad?
ABI Research has issued a report about mobile blogging, that's kind of pessimistic about the outlook.
I'll stick my chin out and blatantly disagree.
The note mentions a number of reasons users are supposedly reluctant to mobile blogging:
* The generally poor quality of the pictures made by most camera phones: OK, so what level of quality is needed on a blog, when pictures are anyway scaled down? Pictures from a 2 Mpixel camera are roughly 1600*1200. You don't use that resolution in a blog. Rather 640*480 or less. Of course quality is not just about resolution, but even when considering other factors, what's the problem?
* Clumsy upload processes: So fix that then. Uploading pictures via email or MMS is very easy these days (see e.g. mojungle), and a downloaded application can potentially make it even simpler and also more powerful (see e.g. ShoZu), provided users can at all cope with installing and starting such applications.
* For most people there's simply not enough going on in their lives that they're going to be uploading pictures on a regular basis: So why is Flickr, YouTube and the gazillion other picture and video sharing services popular then?
Blogging as such might have lost its luster. I have to admit I've considered closing down my blog many times, especially when I don't get any feedback on entries, and those bloggers that just report on what boring things they've done during the day ("same ol', same ol'") are likely to give up pretty quick.
Let's stop thinking specific terms for a moment (like blogging for instance) and instead look at the phenomenon of uploading photos and videos to public sites as a way to brag, joke, report etc about things. That's pretty popular right, so in a sense media sharing is the new way of blogging.
Also, consider that professional news media increasingly ask for photos and videos from people that's been close to events.
Once usability is fixed, the main obstacle is the cost of transferring the media. Especially sending videos via the mobile network is pricey, and is a virtual showstopper as of now, but will change when/if flatrate subscriptions are economical.
Mobile Blogs To Remain a Niche
I'll stick my chin out and blatantly disagree.
The note mentions a number of reasons users are supposedly reluctant to mobile blogging:
* The generally poor quality of the pictures made by most camera phones: OK, so what level of quality is needed on a blog, when pictures are anyway scaled down? Pictures from a 2 Mpixel camera are roughly 1600*1200. You don't use that resolution in a blog. Rather 640*480 or less. Of course quality is not just about resolution, but even when considering other factors, what's the problem?
* Clumsy upload processes: So fix that then. Uploading pictures via email or MMS is very easy these days (see e.g. mojungle), and a downloaded application can potentially make it even simpler and also more powerful (see e.g. ShoZu), provided users can at all cope with installing and starting such applications.
* For most people there's simply not enough going on in their lives that they're going to be uploading pictures on a regular basis: So why is Flickr, YouTube and the gazillion other picture and video sharing services popular then?
Blogging as such might have lost its luster. I have to admit I've considered closing down my blog many times, especially when I don't get any feedback on entries, and those bloggers that just report on what boring things they've done during the day ("same ol', same ol'") are likely to give up pretty quick.
Let's stop thinking specific terms for a moment (like blogging for instance) and instead look at the phenomenon of uploading photos and videos to public sites as a way to brag, joke, report etc about things. That's pretty popular right, so in a sense media sharing is the new way of blogging.
Also, consider that professional news media increasingly ask for photos and videos from people that's been close to events.
Once usability is fixed, the main obstacle is the cost of transferring the media. Especially sending videos via the mobile network is pricey, and is a virtual showstopper as of now, but will change when/if flatrate subscriptions are economical.
Mobile Blogs To Remain a Niche
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I agree. Since the first camera phone, "experts" have proclaimed it would not work as "early adopters" (and developers) made it happen.
So called experts tend to be very lousy at predicting the future and extrapolating what technologies can and will be used for.
Unfortunately many rely on industry analysts to decide what to do.
Unfortunately many rely on industry analysts to decide what to do.
This "research" literally made me roll my eyes and pass by, since I knew that all the bloggers in the industry would be commenting on it. Perhaps this was the intent of the research?
Anybody who spends 5 minutes looking for a smart phone these days (and I'm thinking that there is a large cross-over with bloggers here) sees 2 and 3 megapixel camera phones available, some with higher quality optics, many with blogging software built in. With any luck, a camera phone with blogging software built in should have an easy time uploading pictures (one can hope).
Thus two of the three points are being addressed.
The third? People don't have enough to talk about? Go actually look at MySpace at a random member. In all likelihood, you'll find what I think of as "bar talk" ... the sort of time-filling remarks with little actual content that you find anywhere people try to pick each other up.
Anybody who spends 5 minutes looking for a smart phone these days (and I'm thinking that there is a large cross-over with bloggers here) sees 2 and 3 megapixel camera phones available, some with higher quality optics, many with blogging software built in. With any luck, a camera phone with blogging software built in should have an easy time uploading pictures (one can hope).
Thus two of the three points are being addressed.
The third? People don't have enough to talk about? Go actually look at MySpace at a random member. In all likelihood, you'll find what I think of as "bar talk" ... the sort of time-filling remarks with little actual content that you find anywhere people try to pick each other up.
"Perhaps this was the intent of the research?"
Actually I don't think so. I've seen even worse :). Ask any operator what users want and you'll be surprised by the answers. Actually such a survey would be very interesting to make. I wonder though if operators would reply.
You are right about blogging software, but as I mentioned, MMS does fine too, in most cases.
Paradoxically (or maybe logically) OMA has completely ignored blogging. Blogging is a phenomenon operators don't have any control over.
Actually I don't think so. I've seen even worse :). Ask any operator what users want and you'll be surprised by the answers. Actually such a survey would be very interesting to make. I wonder though if operators would reply.
You are right about blogging software, but as I mentioned, MMS does fine too, in most cases.
Paradoxically (or maybe logically) OMA has completely ignored blogging. Blogging is a phenomenon operators don't have any control over.
You make a good point about separating photo (and video) uploading from the "blogging" category. People upload photos to sites like Flickr for any number of reasons, not just as personal photo diaries or blogs. Flickr also seems to be a new source for stock photos for publication; many of the photos that are uploaded with Creative Commons licenses can be used for free.
I just posted some statistics about the popularity of photo uploading to Flickr: that site gets about 44 new cameraphone photos per hour. More details in the S60 Multimedia blog
I just posted some statistics about the popularity of photo uploading to Flickr: that site gets about 44 new cameraphone photos per hour. More details in the S60 Multimedia blog
"that site gets about 44 new cameraphone photos per hour"
Actually I thought it would be way more than that.
Actually I thought it would be way more than that.
Considering this very small volume of photo submissions to Flickr from phones, what value does e.g. ShoZu provide to its owners? Am I missing some secondary revenue stream? As they don't advertize they don't get any revenue on pure visitors, so where's the money?
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