During the CTIA’s Wireless 2008 conference in Las Vegas I spoke to Michael Coad, vice president of product management at Qualcomm, about Qualcomm’s MediaFLO mobile television service. The most interesting aspect of the conversation was when Coad briefly discussed mobile TV interactivity.
He noted how advertisements on MediaFLO could include interactive elements, such as the ability to click on links to obtain more information about products or order them immediately. I asked whether the program being watched would pause or end when viewer wanted additional information, and Coad said viewers could have a choice.
One of the potential disadvantages for this type of interactivity via today’s MediaFLO programs is because the shows stream. They aren’t archived on demand, so if you pause the show to view commercial information and then return, you don’t begin watching where you left off. Perhaps information could be downloaded in the background into another file or browser window.
Where’s the interactivity innovation?
The concept of interactive advertising isn’t new, although it hasn’t been developed much for mobile TV. Interactive advertising could be an important component of mobile TV advertising, but interactivity in general could be a big deal for mobile TV.
I haven’t seen much, if any, innovation on MediaFLO, except for the relatively good technical quality. MediaFLO programs typically are technically superior to 3G transmissions, with much less stuttering and pixelation compared to 3G.
But from the standpoint of innovative programs or innovative television techniques, I haven’t seen any. MediaFLO offers the same junky programs as on traditional TV which, frankly, is sort of its idea: You may view the same programs on your phone as on your TV set, although the times are often different.
Streaming and on-demand needed
To be fair, MediaFLO is a distribution and advertising platform rather than a mobile TV production company. MediaFLO is part of the solution with good (technical) quality streaming programs, but it’s only one part.
The future of mobile TV will be broadcasting programs that are different than existing shows and aimed at specific audiences, with varying lengths of programs and on a wide variety of subjects. This niche-market programming is much more easily achieved via video on demand (VOD), which is one reason why VOD should continue to play significant role in mobile TV.
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