Who are the Media Gatekeepers These Days?

Media business models nearly always are a mix of end-user revenues and advertising or promotion. That likely won't be different as mobile media start to develop (click on image for larger view).

And though much attention always is directed at the role of "access providers" as key gatekeepers, that probably is not an issue in the mobile marketing and mobile media business.

Instead, it is device providers and application providers that are emerging as the key gatekeepers. Consider platforms such as the iPhone, with its App Store, or Facebook.

These days, the App Store and Facebook are emerging as distinct business ecosystems for application sales, gaming and advertising.

That is going to prove something of a shock for "service" providers, but that's just what seems to be happening.

Internet Isn't What it Used to Be

Some time ago, the Internet was "controlled" by standards groups.

These days, some think it is controlled by ISPs.

Increasingly, it is controlled and shaped by ecosystems formed about devices or key applications (Click on image to see larger view).

That means our old notions about the "open" or "neutral" Internet have changed.

To some extent, the Internet still is about the ability of any one user to reach other user. To an increasing extent, it is about domains accessible only to members, users and subscribers.

For content owners, advertising and marketing specialists, users and enablers, that means development and business models are based on discrete ecosystems, not the "Internet" in general. And while much attention is paid to the role of ISPs as "gatekeepers," there are all sorts of gatekeepers these days, and application providers or device manufacturers might be more important gatekeepers than ISPs.

YouTube "Feather" Beta Seeks Lowest-Latency Connections

YouTube, or any video content for that matter, is tough to watch on a  low-bandwidth Internet access connection or even a computer with insufficient processing power, such as some netbooks.

So YouTube is in beta testing of "Feather," a way of optmizing latency performance on limited hardware or low-bandwidth connections.  Feather is said to work by “severely limiting the features" and "making use of advanced Web techniques for reducing the total amount of bytes downloaded by the browser."

The video playback page of Youtube Feather is fully transferred after downloading 52 Kilobytes of data compared to 391 Kilobytes that the standard pages require, some note.

Youtube Feather achieves the better performance by partially by removing standard YouTube features such as posting of comments, rating videos, or viewing all comments or customizing the embedded player.

The Feather beta suggests why strict versions of "network neutrality" might hinder innovation or end user experience. Feather works by blocking some bits and features. It is an opt-in feature, and that also is part of the danger over-zealous network neutrality rules represent. Users might want to selectively tune their use of some applications, blocking some features and bits, to optimize the experience.

Earned Media to Grow Most in 2010, Survey Finds

Earned media spending will see the biggest increases in spending in 2010, a new survey of brand marketing professionals by the Society of Digital Agencies finds. "Earned media" refers to refers to favorable publicity gained through promotional efforts other than advertising, as opposed to paid media, which refers to publicity gained through advertising. Increasing use of social media accounts for much of the change.

About 81 percent of the brand executives expect an increase in digital projects in 2010, and half will be moving dollars from traditional to digital budgets. Further, more than 75 percent think the current economy will push more allocations to digital formats.

Senior marketers reported that social networks and applications were their biggest priority for 2010, for example.

“Unpaid, earned, proprietary” media spending has seen the sharpest rise, with nearly 20 percent of respondents reporting increases of more than 30 percent.

Apple iPad Will Use AT&T 3G Network

Apple's new iPad will use Wi-Fi and also AT&T's 3G wireless network. Users can opt for using Wi-Fi only, as iTouch users do, or can buy 3G service. AT&T offers a 250-megabyte plan for $15 a month, and an unlimited plan for $30, neither requiring a contract.

Those pricing levels more closely resemble an iPhone data plan than a data card subscription, which costs $60 a month, and typically requires a contract.

Some observers might say the iPad subscriptions represent a "higher-quality" or higher-margin revenue source than is typical for iPhone subscriptions, which also represent $30 a month in fees, because AT&T gets the traffic without having to factor in a subsidy for the devices.

One issue is how much data iPad users will consume. Users of the iPhone typically consume about 400 megabytes a month, where mobile PC card users tend to consumer about 2 gigabytes a month. A reasonable estimate is that iPad usage will fall somewhere between those levels.

Apple Launches iPad: What Don't We Know?

So this is the day we found out, for sure, that Apple is launching a tablet device called the iPad.

Nobody knows how big a market it might create. And that's probably the key: Apple likely intends to create a new market, not simply be " a better Kindle" or a "larger-screen iPod." 

There's no way of telling, yet, what will happen. Apple has launched products before that did not gain mass acceptance, though its iPod and iPhone launches have been revolutionary. The difference this time might be that the iPod basically took a huge existing human behavior ("listen to music" or "voice" and "using the Web") and changed the distribution or the experience. 

It is less clear which major human activity the new tablet will reshape. "TV" is one possibility. "Reading" is another. Down the road, the biggest potential innovation is a way to blend text, full-motion video, music and search in new ways. But that would take some time. Longer term, there may be a new "mobile media player" opportunity. 

Near term, a tablet does not seem to offer as clear a path to reshaping a major human activity as the iPod did for music or the iPhone did for mobile phones and mobile Internet. That might simply be my own lack of imagination. But so far, "mobile TV" hasn't proven as popular as "cheaper consumable media." To a large extent, e-book readers are popular because they offer cheaper ways to buy text content. Mobility plays some part, but it likely is "cheaper ways to read books" that supplies the greatest value.

If that turns out to be true for the tablet, it won't so much be "mobile" consumption as "cheaper prices" for content that prove compelling. Right now, it isn't clear that will be the case. 

The emergence of new multimedia formats is the likely long-term innovation, but that will take some time. At the outset, we'll have to see whether the tablet is able to reshape one or more existing applications and activities, in one or more settings. 

It isn't so clear that people will suddenly change their media consumption patterns because a new mobile display is available. PCs already can provide much of that capability, while the iPod itself and devices such as the Kindle allow mobile or cheaper reading. 

The true revolution lies in the new medium the tablet might enable. But new media requires assembling a complex ecosystem, with lots of stakeholders with much to lose. That suggests the business relationships will take some time. In the early days, the tablet likely will have to succeed based on its ability to do a superior job of satisfying some existing behavior and need. 

Is There a Need for iPad? If So, Is it a Big Need, and Big Market?

"All of us use laptops and smartphones now," says Steve Jobs, Apple CEO. "The question has arisen lately: is there room for a third category of device in the middle, something between the laptop and the smartphone?"


And that's the question users, application developers, content providers and marketers will have to answer. Is there some clear need for a third device? And if so, what is that need?


Suppliers have been trying to get the features and value right for as much as 20 years, depending on how one wants to characterize the "tablet" market. So far, nobody has proven there is a large consumer market for devices halfway between a smartphone and a notebook computer. 


We do know there is a major mass market for personal music players, personal music players with Wi-Fi access and smartphones with touchscreens that handle native Web applications very nicely. 


What Apple hopes to prove is that there are similar needs for a "device in the middle" that is an Internet-connected media player, easier to carry than a netbook or notebook, but with a relatively-large display for media consumption. 


The relative lack of apparent demand when consumer surveys are taken is not the big stumbling block. Consumer surveys would not have predicted the success of most recent Apple products. The bigger issue is simply that the device must uncover some existing, large and unsatisfied need.


We don't yet know yet whether the iPad will uncover such needs or not. But that is what Apple expects to discover.