What Makes Mobile Video Different?

If you were looking for one defining characteristic of mobile video, compared to all other formats, "sharing" would be a logical candidate for that unique feature.


In a recent survey by the Interactive Advertising Bureau of 200 mobile video viewers, 92 percent of respondents said that they share mobile video content with others, eMarketer reports. 

The most popular method of sharing listed by respondents was through posts on Facebook or similar social sites (56 percent). 

But 44 percent said they share videos simply by passing their mobile device off to a friend. In other words, formal sharing by instant message, text message, email or a social network post actually understates the amount of video sharing. 

54% of U.S. Homes Will Use Internet Access From "Non-Traditional" Devices by 2017

Some 66 million U.S. households, about 54 percent of all households, will use video set-tops, media players, e-readers, digital photo frames or cameras to connect to the Internet by 2017, Forrester Research estimates.

Such uses will largely be ancillary to primary broadband access connections, rather than full substitutes,  Forrester Research predicts. 

None of that should be surprising. Pundits have predicted for years that, over time, we would move towards ubiquitous Internet access, with computing embedded into the background. 

The extension of computing into automobiles, microwave ovens and refrigerators, payment mechanisms and other appliances is just part of the trend. 

Why 2013 Won't be "Year of Mobile Payments"

Without in any way implying that mobile payments will fail, 2013 will not be, as pundits often are fond of proclaiming, be the "year of mobile payments." The reason is simply that mobile payments requires changing significant business processes throughout a complicate ecosystem, and those changes always take time. 

Consumer demand is not so much the problem. It's all the other changes that have to happen, ranging from replacing store terminals and software to creating a critical mass of end user devices and awareness, as well as providing a clear value proposition.  

At the same time, expectations have been "dampened" by the continuing slow uptake of near field communications. But none of that should be surprising,  in a historical sense. 

Juniper Research has revised its forecasts for the global near field communications market, significantly scaling back its growth estimates for the North American and Western European markets. In some ways, that might be considered a "good" thing, to the extent that it follows a common pattern of technology adoption.

The most significant change to the Juniper Research forecast is the amount of transaction activity NFC devices will drive, as the new forecast reduced the number of NFC devices in use only slightly.

By 2017, global NFC retail transaction values are now expected to reach $110 billion in 2017, significantly below the $180 billion previously forecast. 


Such revisions are not unusual in the predictions business, especially not for a brand new market that depends on many changes in the ecosystem. That tends to mean excessive enthusiasm early on, with an under-appreciation of what is going to change later.

What is "good" about deflated hopes is that such periods seem "always" to happen, and are just a milestone on the way to eventual adoption on a fairly wide scale. So the argument is that dashed initial hopes mean the market is moving in the way one should expect: high hopes, disillusionment, and finally adoption.

Such hype cycles might be viewed as a typical part of the technology adoption cycle for any important new technology.

New technologies historically take some time to reach 10 percent, then 50 percent, then virtually ubiquitous adoption. To be sure, there has been a tendency for new technologies based on digital and electronic technology to be adopted faster. But a decade period to reach perhaps 10 to 20 percent adoption is hardly unusual.

That is not much of an issue for point solutions like computers that can be used without lots of additional change in infrastructure. That is not true for highly-complex ecosystems such as payments, though.

ATM card adoption provides one example, where "decades" is a reasonable way of describing adoption of some new technologies, even those that arguably are quite useful. 

Debit cards provide another example. It can take two decades for adoption to reach half of U.S. households, for example. 

Smart Phones Displacing Several "Dedicated" Devices

It will come as no surprise to long-term observers of technology, but multi-purpose consumer devices are cannibalizing use of single-purpose or dedicated purpose devices such as cameras, watches and music or game players, according to the Accenture Consumer Media Survey 2013.

Purists will continue to note that such decisions typically involve a trade off. Few would argue that a multi-purpose device such as a smart phone always performs as well as a dedicated device for one specific application.

The point seems to be that "good enough" performance is key. Consumers would rather use a device that does many things, and means fewer devices to carry or purchase, compared to many discrete devices. 


From 2011 to 2012, ownership of tablets doubled, while ownership of digital cameras, DVD players, DVRs, portable music devices, portable game devices, and health and fitness devices
remained flat or declined. 

One might argue that another statistic--:"owned but rarely used"--might show even sharper contrasts. 

Devices with decreasing ownership are single-use products, including portable music players,
DVD players and digital photo cameras.

On the other hand, smart phone ownership increased from 26 percent in 2009 to 58 percent in 2012 while ownership of digital photo cameras decreased from 77 percent in 2009 to 68
percent in 2012, Accenture notes. 

UK Companies Not "Mobile First"

Two thirds of companies in the FTSE 100 have websites that are difficult to use on smartphones, a study conducted for the Financial Times shows. 

Whether that is a big problem or not is a matter of opinion. If such reliance on PC-formatted websites were really hitting sales, the firms would already have moved.

Granted, that will change. Google predicts more than half of all web searches will be carried out via mobiles within three years, compared with about a quarter now. One suspects most enterprises will have moved by then. 

But "search" is not the only expected change. Simply creating "mobile" websites probably will not be sufficient. Many enterprises also will need to integrate e-commerce or mobile commerce capabilities at the same time. 

Worldwide 32 percent of smart phone users spend $1 to $20 per month on m-commerce, followed by 12 percent who spend $21 to $40 per month on m-commerce. 

M-commerce revenue was expected to hit $11.6 billion in 2012, up by 73.15 percent compare to 2011, according to dazeinfo. 

Smart Phones, PCs Support Different Lead Apps

Though digital appliances (smart phones, PCs, tablets) often can support the same apps, the use cases still remain somewhat distinct. 

When smart phone owners are asked which of a set of actions (common to both devices) they regularly perform on a smartphone or on a computer, there are distinctive "lead apps"  the two devices are used, according to Harris Interactive. 

Despite the fact that it is a specialized form of personal computer, smart phones remain "communicating" devices whose distinguishing characteristic is "communications on the go," even though it is a multi-purpose device. 

That navigation is among the top uses for smart phones is another example of the use case being skewed to the "mobile" capability, even if smart phones also are heavily used in stationary mode, much of the time. 

For example, the immediate communication of text or instant messages is the most common smart phone activity (87 percent) and the least common use for a computer (20 percent). In contrast, email is the top use for computers (90 percent for all email uses combined). 

Keep in mind that email also is used by people on smart phones (72 percent), but more in a "reading" mode. That is an analogy to the way tablets are used as well: more for content consumption than content creation. 

PCs remain much more a device useful for content creation and shopping, though. The study also confirms that  smart phones are less used for e-commerce or shopping research than PCs. 

The Harris survey asked users to indicate which activities they believed they regularly engaged in, on PCs and when using their smart phones. Social media activities seem about evenly distributed.

	Using a computer		Using a smartphone
	%		% 5
Email [NET]	90	Send or receive text or instant messages	87
Send personal emails	84	Mapping, navigation, etc.	73
Read personal emails	82	Email [NET]	72
Send work emails	60	Read personal emails	67
Read work emails	59	Send personal emails	56
Take surveys	86	Read work emails	38
Research goods or services	81	Send work emails	32
Purchase other products or services (e.g. clothes holiday gifts, etc.)	78	Download free applications, music or videos	66
Social Media [NET]	69	Social Media [NET]	64
Read social media posts on sites or apps such as Facebook or Twitter	62	Read social media posts on sites or apps such as Facebook or Twitter	56
Share social media posts (e.g. news, jokes, pictures, etc.)	51	Share social media posts (e.g. news, jokes, pictures, etc.)	44
Write social media posts	50	"Check in" via social media	43
"Check in" via social media	28	Write social media posts	43
Find or research restaurants	61	Play games	56
Mapping, navigation, etc.	56	Find or research restaurants	53
Play games	52	Research goods or services	45
Download free applications, music or videos	38	Purchase applications, music or videos	42
Purchase applications, music or videos	37	Take surveys	24
Video chat (e.g. FaceTime, Skype, etc.)	35	Video chat (FaceTime, Skype, etc.)	23
Send or receive text or instant messages	20	Purchase other products or services (e.g. clothes, holiday gifts, etc.)	23

Qualcomm StreamBoost and the Limitations of "Dumb Network"

From time to time, when network architects think about how to best design large IP networks, and what is the "best" way to do so, there can be a divergence of opinion about how much "intelligence" to build in, and where that intelligence should be located.

These days, there is some thinking intelligence should be at the edge, while others argue logically that it should be at the core of the network. 

Count Qualcomm as among those who believe lots can be done, and should be done, at the edge of the network. 

Qualcomm Atheros,"StreamBoost™" technology for Wi-Fi routers and gateways manages and shapes traffic, and giving each connected device and application the priority and bandwidth required for optimal performance.

Qualcomm also is introducing a companion cloud service that monitors application usage and can adapt the router based on actual usage, to prioritize any new apps as well. 

Service providers might once again find themselves frustrated by the new technology, in a sense, as once again within the Internet ecosystem, innovation and value are properties of devices or Internet apps, not the transport or access.