mTrends - mobile media lifestyle trends - m-trends.org

Reading back some posts on this and last years important strategic moves in mobile land, I have been thinking a bit more on the big moves from the telecom operators to get a share into the mobile music distribution market. Let’s have a closer look at what’s happening…

Some of the most important operator deals:
Vodafone-Musiwave, Telefonica-Warner Music, Virgin Mobile-Universal…

But what about the manufacturer deals below?

Motorola-Apple/iTunes? Yep, we heard all about that now.
Ericsson-Napster deal? Where are the operators here?
Nokia-Apple deal? Open-source mobile browser development? Web 2.0 with an iTunes enabled extension soon?

But let us get back to the essence of “mobile music”. According Wikipedia: “Mobile music is music, which is downloaded to mobile phones and played by mobile phones”, a pretty straightforward but clear explanation.

From the user perspective, I would like to add a bit of social context to that: apart from the communication and organizing functions, the mobile phone nowadays is used to express oneself (ringtones), play (games), listen (to music) and share things (talk/sms/pictures/videos).

So, something is missing here… The part that’s lacking is the possibility to SHARE music. I don’t mean share in the sense of filesharing but in the sense, as we have always known it: to share the music we like with our friends. I have some nice tunes with me and I can play them at my friends’ place (and vice versa), the stuff we do all the time among friends with iPods.

Mobile culture and its future is all about context instead of content.

What about the business perspective? Where do we need the operators to do the things we love with music?

Ringtones are controlled by operators and content providers and (still) a good business because people just want to express themselves and the operators (and content providers) have created a model that’s’ easy to use (download, click and listen) and has a good revenue return for all players involved.

But what about all the ‘mobile music’ hassle from latest months?

Do I need an operator to download mp3’s over a 3G network? Yes I do but not to get them on my phone, and that’s where the tricky part is…I don’t need an operator to do this right now. As long as I can move mp3 files from my computer to my phone through bluetooth, usb, wifi (soon) I don’t see people pay for that (more expensive) over-the-air tune, adding my 3G connection cost to the cost of my tune.

Browsing a mobile web user interface is far too underestimated and still pretty difficult: scroll services on a mobile portal and search a tune on the phone, something that is easy with the iTunes interface on the PC… I haven’t seen it yet that easy on the phone.

Record labels still work with country licenses and iTunes has been obliged to follow that reality by localise the user and link him to his local shop. What’s the point of being mobile and not being able to buy a tune in a different country in a different iTunes local shop? Or shall I pay 3G roaming connection for my music downloads?

Add to that the DRM complications and you’ll understand there are still some barriers on the way to glory for the operators in the mobile music space.

But before to get there it might be just too late for the operators if the wifi enabled phones would become popular…

Technorati tags: Mobile Music mobile mobile content mobile devices mobile music mobile youth wireless online music