Consider this : There are tens of millions of iPods and about 700 million PCs already capable of playing podcasts. These are small numbers compared with the 2 billion mobile phones now in use around the world. The cell phone will become the next podcast-listening device.
Mobile Broadcasting Network has some interesting casts - Business casts, Education casts, Food casts. For a marketer, it looks like a lovely set of niche audiences one can reach to. There is also an alliance with Nextel.
The key questions that come to my mind, for this phenomenon, to be widely adopted are:
- What is the cost of access of these casts? Wireless internet has to become affordable to catch-on.
- What about ubiquity of cellcasts? These services have restricted access to US customers but the net is a "country neutral" media. But, mobile carriers still have restrictions on country codes, tariffs etc. Today, I can listen to podcasts sitting anywhere in the world. I can't do that with Cellcasts. These barriers have to be broken. Mobile phone service have to understand that, if they want to monetize their user base.
thro' mopocket