Studios STILL trying to figure it out

So, apparently Paramount Studios is the latest to get into the "made for mobile" content game.

It cracks me up to see this being made as a serious play in the United States market. The equation of population who can watch stuff on mobile devices is tiny not because of technology limitations, but think about WHERE are we when we watch stuff.

Then think about where we are with our phones or mobile devices. We're in our CARS.

And we can't watch and drive at the same time.

America has a tiny, tiny fraction of it's population that uses mass transit, and those are not the high-use, high-revenue users that are going to adopt and pay for content while riding the bus.

The only mass transit really in use today in the US that has the demographics we'd be shooting for are on airplanes, and that's the one place that, oh yeah, you can't use your cell phone to make a phone call, much less a 3g or EVDO connection.

Asia, and parts of Europe are excellent markets for mobile content, and for companies who make plays towards those markets, they better have A) low production costs, and B) SOME kind of understanding of the cultural values of stuff those audiences want to see.

We have to understand that *watching* content on a mobile device has to compete with some high level tasks (like driving, walking, etc.) that are only set aside during times on mass transit.

So, mass transit = mass eyeballs.
Individual transit = no eyeballs.

There ya go.