Off For The Holidays...

Back in January!

Dial 007...

WARNING: Movie spoilers to follow.

Yesterday I mentioned Happy Feet's opening scene as an interesting parallel to the ringtone market. You have all these penguins who select a tune early on which identifies them, and they use it not only to mate but to express who and what they truly are-- sort of an analog default ringtone.

But the movie that really got my moco brain cookin' was Casino Royale. I didn't even particularly like James Bond movies till I saw this one, and it seems to have won the hearts of many traditionalists as well. It's a twisty, kicky adventure that flexes its brain as it bruises its knuckles, and it actually features love interests who are respectable and believable rather than just one or the other or neither.

Messaging is at the heart of a good spy story, and it's all over this movie. Three times (near the beginning, at the middle and in the final minute), it is critical to the plot that a character visibly answers his cell. MI6 uses an RFID tag on Bond and a biofeedback interface to monitor his condition remotely. Other plot points include a one-word cell phone message and the ID of a rather unfortunate caller.

James Bond is an ideal many of us guys project upon ourselves... "Women want to be with him, and men want to be him." But he's not a character that lends himself to developed role-playing games, because role-players would fall short: we can't come up with the ideal lines to seduce a million women, can't think fast enough to make fools of an international spy ring. We can, however, decode simple messages. We can solve puzzles. And in performing these simple tasks alongside Bond, we can get the thrill of being him without the impossible challenge of it.

An interactive game at the simple level currently associated with mobile messaging might be just about right. It could certainly exude more lasting Bond appeal than a branded phone he'll probably drop between pictures.

Speedlink 12/19/06

Announcing the first moco marketplace! Except this one! And probably others! Why SHARE with your friends when you can SELL to your friends? You probably spent too much on their Christmas gifts ANYWAY!

Napster announces "awards" ceremony, confuses "download figures" with "votes."

MTV develops new division/wakes up and hears the ringtone.

Konami Digital Entertainment believes that moco customers might actually like to try before they buy. Okay, I'm sorry, but the fact that this is a REMARKABLE strategy is a huge, huge, HUGE problem. Hobbling the industry's development with all these DRMish restrictions has led it to a place where they have to sell based on what SOUNDS LIKE IT MIGHT BE COOL, not what people KNOW from their own EXPERIENCE is cool. You want to know why mobile content keeps performing below expectations? That's it in a nutshell. Kudos to Konami for their foresight.

Hey, doesn't a set of endangered species ringtones sound like it might be cool?

How about a football-fan ringtone showdown? I'm still holding out for tones for "less filling" and "tastes great."

Cell phone CEO predicts rapid growth of mobile, treated as unbiased authority. *grmbl*

I'm obviously feeling especially grumpy about the corporate world today, so let's end on an upbeat, DIY note. How to make your own ringtones using freeware. I use this same program to podcast, so I can vouch for it. Or for an intermediate solution, check this out.

Speedlink 12/18/06

Mobile photo and video startup PixSense just got a major cash infusion and playa status. One to watch.

Cingular and MySpace friend each other. You'll probably hear about this again.

The BluOnyx "mobile content server" takes one small step closer to a universal mobile media player. Ars Technica celebrates it as such, then suggests steps two and three. Leap higher, Neil Armstrongs of the world!

Kicking off that "year in review" thing, PC Mag has some alliterative musings and mullings on the multiplication of mobile music mapplications. Mmm!

Christian Mobile USA launches. Get the full Bible on your mobile in English, Spanish or Portugese. What, no Latin?

(Also, I dunno about their claim to be the world's first moco subscription service, in August 2005-- I can find two earlier claimants and suspect there are others. Anyone want to help clear this up, e-mail me.)

Finally, we got to see Happy Feet this weekend. I really thought the opening sequence might have special relevance to the ringtone market. What do you think?

"...Oh."

Yesterday, I wondered aloud about the possibilities of taking music search further than mere music-translated-into-text search. I've been informed that an awful lot of answers to my questions are here.

I'm still assimilating what this kind of thing could mean. The potential is enormous, far greater than the convenience of searching for your favorite ringtones. If Google isn't watching this very closely, I'll eat my laptop.

That's it for today. I'll be keeping in practice with this blog 5 days a week till the "real" one starts up, but posting will be lighter till then.

Speedlink 12/14/06

Do mobile games need age-based ratings? Yeah, probably. How else will the kids know which games are fun, I mean bad for them?

Social networking goes mobile; Americans and Western Europeans lag behind Italians. DANG! We knew about the Asians, but Italians, we never saw coming! How can America compete with... Wait, is this good or bad?

Today, Sprint announced "must-have" mobile accessories, including the official headset of the NFL and a pink quilted pouch. GENDER-CONFUSED CONSUMERS, YOU MUST OWN BOTH OF THESE.

See now, this is the kind of thing I was talking about: This genuinely revolutionary company makes your crap voice sound great.

The trouble with the youth market. These kids and their sharing things! Where do they learn that garbage, kindergarten?

We're naughty, apparently, because the Wordpress Codex lists ringtones as a "spam word," along with with gambling, paxil, viagra, penis and incest. Like I needed another reason never to use Wordpress again.

Brand-hating Digital Chocolate begins developing branded Sopranos game. Moconews has the scoop.

Finally, although I remain fundamentally skeptical, I admit the SEO Blog makes a compelling case for why you need to get on the mobile Web nownownownownownowNOW.

Music Search: Will Tomorrow Ever Come?

Last week, Rediff announced its revolutionary new ringtone search interface, and my ears pricked up. (You can try it out for yourself by going here, filling out their questionnaire about your phone and using the resulting interface.)

Results? Not bad. They've put some thought into this. 60,000 tunes is reasonable, and they've got you covered if you don't remember the title or singer but remember what movie it was in.

Not bad. But far from revolutionary. Since most of the tracks are Bollywood, I wouldn't know too many lyrics, but lyric search is just a good idea on general principle. Don't tell me it can't be done: the idea of a lyrics database is almost ten years old, and the music industry is a touch more enlightened about how searchability helps sales than it was back in 1999.

Lyrics aren't music, of course, and the lyrics of Beethoven's Fifth, the Superman movie theme and many ringtones are exactly the same. Which begs the question: why hasn't anyone tried, even in a very primitive interface, to make music searchable as music? Google, so far, contents itself with providing some info on musicians. Yahoo at least offers an audio search, but like Rediff, the Apple Store and everyone else, all it does is apply the principles of text-searching to the parts of music that can be rendered as words.

What about when you know your tastes, but don't necessarily know what you want? If it's you're searching Amazon for a book, you're likely to discover what you're looking for, but if you're searching for a song like the Superman theme, you might mistakenly pick up Eminem's "Superman" or that song from "Scrubs."

What about "search for similar tunes?"

"Search for a minor key?"

"Search for tempo?"

"Hum a few bars into your microphone and we can pick it up for you?"

How about cross-referencing that with the more traditional text-searches?

And at the very least can we see some more genre search?

I'm a search idealist, and I know it. But these kinds of questions are worth asking. High standards are what gave us Google in the first place.

(CORRECTION: Apparently I'm not the only one asking these questions, after all. More on Sun's ideas and the potential they represent, tomorrow.)

Humbug!

Every once in a while I go back to yesterday's post and decide I've been too unkind. And every once in a while I go back and discover I haven't been unkind enough.

Yesterday, I elbowed this release for suggesting that Sony could lay legitimate claim to the title "Best-Selling Holiday Ringtone Ever." (Or is that EVAR?) Here were the reasons for my doubts:

1. The RIAA only tracks musical commerce from companies that apply for a certification, which largely excludes the significant Chinese market.

2. These figures only apply to mastertones, which may be dominating the market now but weren't two years ago.

3. Since Mariah's "All I Want for Christmas" is the first mastertone to even receive a certification, you have to wonder if some of the makers of mastertones even bothered to apply at all.

But I completely overlooked the most important hole in Sony's claim. Sony thinks of a "ringtone" as one recorded data file. Here's the thing, Sony: no one outside the music industry thinks this way. This conversation never happens:

"Is that a Silent Night ringtone?"
"Yes, it's the 2Thumbz poly version!"
"I prefer the Ringtonesgalore.co.uk poly, myself. More stately, slower tempo."

Any reasonable tally of "holiday ringtones" would have to represent the aggregate sales of holiday tunes-- and whether those tunes are copyrighted or not, they've inspired a whole lot of cellphone music that the RIAA has no interest in tracking.

A headline which leads people to believe that "All I Want For Christmas" has outperformed "Silent Night" in the cell phone market is, at best, a charitable reading of misleading and incomplete data. Or we could just call it a "lie."

Bah.

Speedlink 12/13/06!

Mobifusion is revving up to release the mobile version of the Iraq Study Group Report. Just in time for the holidays!

SafeNet launches DRM Fusion Toolkit4TV, "the first product available for mobile TV licensing and protection that supports all major, open broadcast Digital Rights Management (DRM) standards."

Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas" is the best-selling holiday ringtone ever, at least according to the RIAA's auditors, who know everything about ringtone sales. Oh, hell, who am I kidding? You already know whether or not you want it.

Kotaku has some snark for execs who overhype the mobile platform in relation to console. I'm with K. on this one; hype like this makes it harder to take the rest of us seriously.

Missed it earlier: Napster Mobile launches in Europe, with two or possibly three million available tracks.

Snowed In 5 is free for the holidays! If you haven't heard of this before now... well, then we have something in common. Despite its Google hits, I suspect that Clickgamer has not made as big a splash in the popular culture as its self-appointed title, "leading D2C mobile games portal," implies, but anyone who can stand to give a fifth-generation game away in the holiday season has got to be doing something right.

Ester Goldberg, "International Glamour Puss of All Media," self-proclaimed "Yenta of All Media" (and, ahem, not a real lady), teams with Zannel in a mobile-content deal somewhat reminiscent of Howard Stern's deal with SIRIUS. How far can this joke go? We'll never find out until we push it ONE STEP FARTHER!

Finally, you would think that SWAT Force, winner of the 2006 Spike TV Award for Best Wireless Game, would have a kickin' webpage of its own from its publisher, wouldn't you?

Chinese Wall.

Unsurprising to anyone who's dealt with China before: the nation is tightening its control over online music and game industries.

From here on out:

1. Online and mobile music distributors must obtain government approval and license for their companies to operate in China.

2. Online and mobile game distributors must obtain approval for all imported titles and file monthly reports that they have not added forbidden content.

The "China problem" is one every media industry has to face sooner or later. 443 million+ mobile subscribers make too juicy a prize to ignore, but Beijing's culture clashes vigorously with most cultures from the West. A simple "Made in Taiwan" joke or a reference to the mere existence of Islam could get you banned in the P.R.C.

Being banned doesn't always mean content can't reach an audience-- the Chinese piracy "market" is booming. But through official business channels? As Google and the makers of handsets can tell you, one does business with China on China's terms.

This hurts. It hurts those of us who are in media to share ideas to be told that the ideas we can share will be regulated. But it is one of the cold, hard facts of making art in a global marketplace. I know native Chinese, and I would not deny them the pleasure of games or music just because I don't agree with their government. We creatives can only create what beauty we can in this world, and hope that the act helps bring people closer, spreads understanding and helps to wear walls away.

"Unfair Evaluations of a Moving Target."

One of the first and most important things a new blogger should do is decide positions. Let's simplify pronouns and say he's male. If he's blogging about oh, hmmmm, let's say hypothetically mobile content, he needs to decide whether he's an enthusiastic booster of the medium and the "tsunami of opportunities" it represents, or a quickly bored cynic.

But the problem is, my brain has both those guys in there somewhere.

Naturally, I'm a bit skeptical of press releases promising to "DRMize the m-commercial BREWfuture."

But I'm excited by the possibilities. Some of the new ideas in this space burn with gemlike flames, and I'd never want to discourage the belief in the future of media.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to take a position in the lonely, barren middle, between the kingdoms of Starry-Eyed Futurism and Mocking of Easy Targets.

This is a hopeful industry. It is yet in its infancy. Trying to judge the success or failure of its ventures is trying to predict the future. It's trying to evaluate a moving target, and such an evaluation may be worth the attempt, but it must by definition be unfair.

Hence, this blog's new subtitle.

What do you think?

Weird and Wireless: A Roundup

Blackjack=Lackjack: Moconews and Wired nail Samsung/Cingular for selling a smartphone music player without a standard earphone jack.

Business Looks Forward to Crime Wave: According to Juniper Research, mobile security is a $5B industry waiting to happen, because mobile theft is set to skyrocket.

"D-D-Dear Shareholders:" Penthouse has inked an exclusive distro deal with Nomad NetworX for New Zealand and notoriously porn-unfriendly Australia. CEO Dan Rosen describes NN as "very excited" by the deal. To be fair, I don’t know what he could have said that wouldn't sound like a double entendre.

The Best of the Blessed. The Webbies (the Web's best answer to the Oscars) are making their final call for entries this week, and this year they’re throwing the gates open to mobile content providers. Entry fee is $245 to keep out the riffraff. The winners will be expected to text their thanks to their mothers, spouses and all the little people.

Models Now More Artificial Than Ever: CBS is launching a mobile game based on the CW reality hit America's Next Top Model. Players select "avatars" based on the show's contestants and either help foster their careers or... I swear this is true... play tricks on them. They can also send their avatars to friends for further nurturing or humiliation. Modeling: it's not just for humans any more. It may not be for humans at all!

Welcome to Mobile Discontent! Apparently The U.S. Mobile Industry Is Doomed.

Just in time for this blog’s practice-launch comes the big news item of the day: IDC's report that "Mobile Entertainment Services [are] Not Particularly Popular Among American Consumers." Money quote:

"The survey also revealed a small group of U.S. consumers that believes data services are a bad idea, or worse, degrade the calling experience. Education may help this issue, but it's clear from the survey results that many people just want to use their mobile phone to make calls."

Key numbers:

72.5% of total respondents (mean age 36.2) used no data services besides messaging in the third quarter of 2006.

47% of 18-to-24 year-olds complained that mobile data services are "too expensive."

By contrast, 47% of survey respondents (some percentage of them presumably 18-to-24-year-olds) have sent SMS messages.

Cost to read full survey yourself instead of being spoon-fed pieces of it by bloggers and/or journalists: $4,500.

Of course, people once just wanted their music players to play music, and before that, just wanted their computers to compute. TechCrunch has some perspective on the matter: its forecast is less bearish, at least for the long term, than its totally awesome post title, "Study: You Hate Mobile Content," implies. Such a post title. Clearly I have much to learn from the masters.