Mobile musings and wireless wanderings

Whether we use colloquial terms like cell phone, handy, mobile or more general concepts – a personal communication device, a mobile remote control, a connected mobile media player, a secure identity manager – naming conventions are on the verge of a crisis in the emerging mobile data ecosystem. To state the obvious, these descriptive, albeit narrowly conceived names evade our ability to capture the true potential and evolution of networked mobile media. Certainly, a cell phone is and will be all of these and more.

Not only are the names for the device itself in flux (e.g., Motorola’s convention of calling it the device formerly known as a phone OR Nokia calling their phones portable computers), the traditional names for the types of media and programming are proving to be increasingly less relevant. The cell phone is not a mobile television. The cell phone is not a mobile radio. The cell phone is not a gaming console. The cell phone is not a portable computer. With respect to its capabilities, it is all of these and more. But, from the consumers perspective, these terms and concepts that been co-opted from traditional media – mobile television, mobile radio and mobile magazines – constrain consumer expectations and associations, e.g., exemplified by characterizations such as “like TV but smaller, poorer quality” or “like the Internet but static and slower”.

Such consumer dissatisfaction, partially driven by the use of older media categories and their connotations within a new medium, has triggered a self-fulfilling and constraining feedback process in which service providers attempt to make the mobile version of each respective traditional media closely match their non-mobile counterpart. We have also seen this with the fleeting attempts for mobile service providers to replicate the whole iTunes experience. To be sure, the idea of mobile television or a mobile iPod has captured the media’s imagination and attention over the past year, which has rapidly increased the overall consumer awareness of the idea that you can use your phone for more than voice. But, unfortunately the wholesale adoption of such analogies and mindsets may end up slowing and inhibiting the adoption of emerging mobile media content and services. The good news is that the structural underpinnings are in place for a major disruption to occur: a majority of phones are data-enabled (i.e., akin to personal computers shipping with modems), flat-rate pricing is in place for connectivity – a key driver for the initial Internet expansion in the U.S., and digital licensing models have been catalyzed by the success of the iPod in particular and on-demand capabilities in general. New rich media services will be rapidly emerging and we should take care to consider how they are packaged, presented and marketed to the consumer.

A case in point relates to the use of the term “IPTV” in the context of mobile and when does it make sense to use terminology from Internet services and apply them to mobile. The label “mobile television” does not come close to capturing such richness. For example, watch one of the mobile operators linear broadcast TV lineups and then take a look at one of the online broadband Internet television such as Heavy.com or Maniatv.com or MTV’s Overdrive). While the term “IPTV” is associated with a much richer experience than “mobile television”, it fails to capture the consumer’s imagination due to limited exposure and adoption of such service offerings.

Before we simply move from adopting media-centric terminology (mobile television, mobile radio) to Internet-centric hybrid terminology (Mobile Web 2.0, mVoIP, wIPTV), we should quickly take a look at the reality of today’s consumer and their digital universe:

The mobile ecosystem – devices, networks, consumers – is going through a disruptive change akin to what happened in the larger digital ecosystem when the personal computer became connected (and subsequently untethered) and transformed from being a novelty item (word processing, spreadsheets) to an indispensable, connected media and communication portal. As has been stated many times, the cell phone is no longer a voice-centric utility; it is rapidly migrating to an always-on, connected mobile personal media & communication device.

This rapidly evolving mobile ecosystem – connected multipurpose mobile devices and broadband data networks – is on a crash course with the raft of Web 2.0 services (communities, user created / categorized / controlled / influenced content, blogs and Wikis). Both traditional media and even the relatively recent Internet services – VoIP, Internet Radio and IPTV – were for the most part developed prior to the onslaught of Web 2.0.

So, before new terminology becomes adopted and reified, we need to stop and take pause. As with any emerging media, the naming conventions for content, applications and programming are out of date even before they are introduced. Merely applying old media terms and corresponding associations are causing the content and service offerings to congeal and become fixed – thereby decreasing the room for the type of personal, connected, on-demand experiences consumers have become to expect. We must reduce mental friction and drag introduced into the system by unimaginative terms and service offerings that ultimately do a disservice to the both the consumer and the potential richness promised by truly personal mobile networked media and services.

The idea of simply taking an existing media practices (i.e., existing content, programming and descriptions) and “dropping it” into a new medium (e.g., early television often involved simply broadcasting a visual feed from the radio production studio), hearkens back to when my father asked me why composers don’t just write more music like Beethoven. Being an amateur composer and new music enthusiast, it was clear to me that after being exposed to Schoenberg, Weber and Berg, you can not write music like or listen to Beethoven and Brahms in the same way … similarly, listening to The Who in the same way after listening to Deerhoof. Along the same vein, as is often observed, you cannot watch broadcast television after owning a TiVO / DVR … be restricted to email after becoming an instant messenger … listen to terrestrial radio after digital satellite … cannot simply download music ala carte after having access to an “all you can eat” music subscription service … browse the Internet on a Blackberry after you’ve experienced browsing on the iPhone, etc. After experiencing such a wide range of new services (IPTV, VOD, Satellite Radio) and new devices (PSP, TiVO, iPOD), how can we be expected to willingly participate in a “sit back” experience such as linear broadcast mobile television.

Consumers are looking for better ways to discover, enjoy and share mobile media on their mobile phones. There is a demand for new, fast, intuitive and easy-to-use methods for creating, publishing, discovering and sharing media via mobile.

So, what do you call these personal, connected, rich interactive services containing both professionally developed and delivered (i.e., structured) media coupled with user created / influenced / controlled (unstructured) mobile media experiences that consumers will increasingly come to expect?