[me]
> > To me, however, a bigger question still looms. Is video
> > a mobile phone killer app?
From: "Graham Brown" <gbrown@wirelessworldforum.com>
> Killer applications don't exist. People don't buy technology but
> compelling services and content. Perhaps we should talk about
> "killer services" as being more relevant.
"Killer services"...I should have thought of that one. And maybe I
would've, if I still had my subscription to Soldier of Fortune :-(
> ....The evidence ....suggests that
> mobile video phones could well be an industry
> tell-sell where we....have pre-emptied the demand
[a good pun, even if unintentional -mt]
> of the consumer believing they will buy a great
> technology on the basis that it turns the likes of us gadget
> freaks on (not the other 99.999% of the population).
I'm not ruling it out; I'm just not betting on it, that's all.
It depends, to a degree, on imagination and personalization
possibilities. These have fad potential, at least, in Japan,
and maybe elsewhere, too.
Print-club ("puri-kura") wasn't just a coin-op instant-
photo booth. You could already find those on every
street corner here.
Puri-kura was also a choice of themes and motifs, and a
kind of peer-group micro-brand mini-factory, by virtue
of its printing stickers, not just photos. And all that made
up for the fact that the resolution was quite low.
What might be the mobile motion-picture equivalent of
puri-kura?
Last Monday, on the way back from a trip to Tsukuba,
a friend of mine with PHS plugged a little camera into
his mobile, and handed it to me, saying "take a picture of
yourself."
I didn't like what I first saw on his phone screen,
but by moving around and holding it out far enough I was
eventually able to get a distance, a framing, and an expression
that wasn't too goofy. I snapped it, and handed the
phone back.
Steve then dinked around briefly and said "now call
me on your keitai." This is dumb, I thought, me calling
his keitai, from my keitai, especially when we're already
a pair of loud, half-drunk gaijin in the same train car with
a bunch of tired commuters.
But I duly dialed, he duly cackled, and showed me....me,
on his phone. So now, when I call, he can show his ringing
phone to people and say "You think *I'm* a geek? Get
a load of my friend here...."
(Don't bother going out and registering "co-personalization",
I'm way ahead of you.)
Now, with video, I'd be able to throw in a little more
body language.
You could have me with a pollyanna-expectant expression on
the first ring, a certain set to my face on the second, a wry
grimace on the third, baring my teeth in the fourth....maybe I
could even flip you off and wheel away disgusted if you pushed
the hangup button without answering.....
OK, killer services, killer services, I'm stoked, I'm an
idea-Uzi now. Don't you wish you hadn't asked? What?
You actually hadn't asked? Well anyway, how about....
....Home videos of your kids. What family man
worth his salt doesn't carry a photo or two around
in his wallet already? What if he could actually show
various captive audiences some grainy *videos* of his
toddler splashing in the tub, just by whipping out his
symbol-of-an-erstwhile-virility mobile phone? So what
if he's boring his hapless co-workers? The kid's the
apple of *his* eye, *he's* paying for video stream....
I could go on, but--
Ideas are 10-yen-a-dozen. And these are more like
"pay someone to haul them away," I'll admit.
My point with the above ideas is that my "tiny-tinny-
talking-heads-are-boring" objection has its limits. It
doesn't apply nearly so strongly when you have real
heads of real people from your real life -- or a friend's
real life -- to associate them with.
To repeat:
Movie trailer-frames might cost $50/pixel to produce,
especially if you're Jerry Bruckheimer. But below a
certain size, all production values pale, willing suspension
of disbelief becomes untenable, and the question
presents itself: "Do I know anybody in these pictures, or
anybody who helped make these pictures?"
If the answer is no, that $50/pixel might as well
be 1 peso per frame. But for "productions"
where the answer is "yes," there may be nearly-
insatiable demand, even at the tinniest and tiniest
entry-level of mobile phone video technology.
If so, Japan might be the firstest-with-the-buggiest,
but the rest of the world will beat a path to its
door to get its hands on the technology, when it
ripens.
-michael turner
leap@gol.com
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Thu Jul 19 16:24:32 2001