24 Goes Mobile, Minute By Minute
There’s lots of press coverage over the fact that one of the offerings on Vodafone’s new 3G service is going to be one minute “mobisodes” related to the TV show 24 that will be sent to mobile phones. While it certainly beats streaming live TV to phones, it’s hard to see how this really generates that much excitement. First, it’s entirely tied to the TV show — so you’ve narrowed your audience just to those who watch 24. Second, it assumes that people on the go want to regularly sit around and catch up on these mobisodes. Mobile video, for it to be successful, needs to fit into what people are doing, since they’re on the go. None of these mobile TV shows is really designed to do that. They’re just taking the broadcast concept and moving it to a tinier screen, while shrinking the amount of time. It’s a nice to have for a few people in certain circumstances, but it’s not particularly compelling. It’s certainly not any kind of breakthrough.
