3GSM World Congress: What Happened To The Hype?
The 3GSM World Congress wrapped today in Barcelona, and now the teeming mass of 60,000 mobile industry players recedes from Catalunya. It’s been a slightly odd event, full of people and companies but largely devoid of the ridiculous hype that’s plagued events of years past. Is the mobile industry finally realizing it just sets itself up to fail by hyping technologies to stupid levels, then failing to deliver on them? Somehow that seems optimistic. Still, a few trends have been clear, chief among them the continued interest in mobile TV and video. What’s interesting, though, is to see non-broadcast video getting a growing amount of attention as smart companies cotton on to the idea that non-linear, channel-organized video isn’t the be-all and end-all of mobile video, and that consumers are going to want mobile access to the sort of internet video content they enjoy on their PC. This is set against the backdrop of a bigger trend: that companies, including handset vendors and operators, are realizing people want internet content on their mobile phones, not some whacked-down mobile-specific content. The two biggest stories of the show, though, were Vodafone’s big Indian acquisition, and the launch of Motorola’s hot MOTORIZR Z8, which despite the silly name, is the kind of device Motorola’s been needing to follow the RAZR.
