Content - access versus ownership [from TheFeature]

Douglas Rushkoff churns out thought provoking essays like no other journalist in the mobile media sphere that I know of. In this TheFeature article he extends his 'contact not content' theory with an examination of the trend, among younger people in particular, away from the desire to own and hoard media towards merely

Central to his hypothesis is the idea that the more we accumulate and store digital goods the more of a chore it is for us to organize and access them. As long as we have ubiquitous access we shouldn't need to hoard.

So what does this mean for the wireless industry? A lot. It means that the next shift in content delivery and marketing may be as extreme as Steve Jobs' recent innovations in music distribution for Apple's iTunes (now imitated or soon-to-be imitated by the entire music industry).

It's a gamble, for sure, but the best place to invest in the future of content may be to focus on temporary delivery and always-on libraries. Kids are coming to believe that the person who takes responsibility for storing and maintaining the data is the one who deserves to be paid. And they're smart enough, at any rate, to realize that it's a job they don't necessarily want to be charged with, themselves.

"Attention is moving from commercially produced content to dynamic or contextual content. An example of this is the shift of Japanese youth spending from CD purchasing to karaoke to cell phone messaging. CDs let you passively consume content produced by companies. Karaoke is more interactive - you are part of the content. With Cell phone messaging, the customer creates the content."

Puca announce MMS marketing platform

Puca, a mobile marketing and mobile entertainment services company, has announced the launch of its new MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) platform, which enables clients to send multimedia messages to subscribers of all Irish mobile networks. Puca hosts this service on its own platform and says its technology allows companies to reach all participating customers, regardless of which mobile network they subscribe to.

Mobile shipment boom continues in Europe [via ElectricNews.net]

"Mobile handset shipments are still booming in Western Europe, rising significantly in the third quarter of this year, according to new market research. Analyst firm Strategy Analytics is reporting a 23 percent rise in shipments compared to the third quarter of 2002. Shipments were up 7 percent on the second quarter of this year. The firm reported that a healthy demand for colour-screen phones and cameraphones was mixed with a continuing strong demand for low-end handsets."

1. Finnish manufacturer Nokia remains top of the pile in Europe, with shipments growing from 13.5 million units in the third quarter of last year to 13.7 million units in the third quarter of this year.


2. Siemens performed very well, with shipments standing at 5.5 million, up from 2.5 million units in Q3 of last year.


3. Samsung, meanwhile, enjoyed a period of steady growth, coming in at number three in the table.


4. Sony Ericsson climbed into fourth position, doubling shipments from 1.1 million to 2.2 million.


5. The report brought bad news for Motorola, however, which was down to fifth position from third a year ago, having been overtaken by Samsung and Sony Ericsson.

The new Sony Ericsson P900 [from MobileBurn]

MobileBurn don't seem particularly impressed with the all new Sony Ericsson P900 but I think it's a nice evolutionary improvement on the P800. Enhancements such as video recorder, 65,000 colours and 48MB of RAM move it well up there in my fantasy wishlist.

FG Microtec claims to reduce MMS transmission times

"FG Microtec has announced a predictive flow control (PFC) software solution which it claims can reduce picture message transmission times by as much as 35 percent. The system works by analysing the flow of data over the air interface and optimising the data transmission to minimise the amount of information which needs to be resent.

In addition to reducing the time taken to send a MMS, it also reduces power consumption. FG Microtec is licensing the software for integration into mobile handsets at the chipset level. "

All About Symbian :: View topic - New version of ActiveViewer (VNC Viewer for MIDP) released

Gizmodo : Samsung's A600 cameraphone finally out

"It's taken freaking long enough, but Samsung's SPH-A600 cameraphone, the one with a rotating 65,000 color screen and a swiveling camera with 4x digital zoom, has finally, finally come out."

ETI camcorder, correction

Thanks to the All About Symbian Nokia 3650 forum I was able to get feedback on the new version of ETI camera, directly from the developer. And it turns out that Handango were at fault for attaching the wrong version of the app to the 'Trial' button. So I've downloaded the real trial version and now I can record with it. What do I think? It bloody brilliant! This app is going to be huge. And as soon as it supports 3GPP (which they promise it will), I'm going to buy it :)

Price premiums under threat for handset vendors

This is a very good article from cellular-news questioning the sustainability of price premiums on the new advanced camera phones.

Recent uptake in advanced handsets, including those with color screens, cameras, Bluetooth, and high-speed application processors, are considered key to the future of the handset industry. While these features will drive revenue at the device- and chip-level, success still remains with mass-market adoption of these devices. The challenge lies in developing advanced devices that meet or exceed consumers' needs at sustainable price levels.

"The pitfall is if mass market adoption is achieved only through rapid price declines," warns ABI's Rerisi. He points to Verizon's new camera phone, the LG VX6000, which already carries a retail price of about US$150 after rebates, less than a month after its introduction; and Nokia's 3650, available for T-Mobile at zero cost through online retailers. "If these prices continue to erode in order to attract new consumers, it will undo all the benefits of upgrades," he concludes.

Fuji PhoneCam printer is shipping [via Boing Boing]

"Fuji is shipping a small color printer that communicates with phonecams via infrared to output mobile snaps. The Battery will hold for 100 prints. The small printer takes 15 seconds for one print. The NP-1 uses standard photo printer film: Fuji film instant color film instax mini (sizes: 86x54mm, 62x46mm). The Printer has a resolution of 10.0 dots/mm(254dpi) and 256 colors."