A single mobile phone can access the entire World Wide Web and, at the same time, video continues to proliferate on the Internet. Do you see a connection here? After conquering cyberspace, video as entertainment and advertising continues its media march towards mobile technology. Faster broadband, larger and more colorful mobile phone displays, and an increase in wireless web, video, and texting are contributing factors to a surge in mobile video. With 25 mobile phones created per second and 2 billion mobile phones currently in use around the world, the opportunities for mobile video, and thus the artistic and career opportunities for video / audio content creators, are staggering. the mind. The money says it all: Advertisers spent $ 45 million on mobile advertising in 2005, $ 871 million in 2006, and they are projected to spend $ 1.3 billion by 2010. Advertisers plan to spend this “mobile money” on, you guessed it, advertisements, and in particular video advertisements. Mobile video ads are an area of ​​growing interest and the smallest fraction of this ad money redirected into the pockets of video / audio producers and publishers would risk being mundane, quite nice, right?

Who plays and pays?

A plethora of companies including cell phone carriers like Verizon and Sprint, Internet portals like Google and Yahoo, television networks like MTV Networks and Comedy Central, and startups like AdMob and Third Screen Media are scrambling to develop and deliver mobile video. for entertainment and advertising. Specific examples include; Verizon’s mobile pact with YouTube to offer mobile video, MTVN’s formation of MTV Mobile Media, a new unit dedicated to growing the company’s mobile entertainment business, Fox Entertainment’s launch last summer of “mobidsodes” derived from two minutes of their popular show “24,” Anheuser-Busch and American Express of their standard television commercials on cell phone video services, and the recent announcement by Comedy Central to begin airing episodes of “Lil ‘Bush: Resident of the United States, “an animated parody series and the first show originally produced for mobile phones. phones from a US television network

Types of mobile programming that is taking place:

Both original shows made for mobile devices and extensions to existing television shows are being produced for mobile video. Programs made for mobile devices include MTV’s popular “Sway’s Hip Hop Owner’s Manual,” CMT’s “Road Hammers,” Comedy Central’s “ClipJoint,” and VH1’s “Celebhead.” Extensions of television programming, such as short clips for mobile use, include Emmy and Peabody Award-winning Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”; MTV’s “Laguna Beach”; Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants”; VH1’s “Best Week Ever”, “The Sopranos” and “Tonight’s Show with Jay Leno.” MTVN also offers original animation, music video premieres and content that highlights socially important topics such as AIDS / HIV awareness (MTV Networks 12/18/06 The list of video content available for mobile phones grows exponentially and daily .

Opportunities in video / audio production for mobile devices:

The opportunities for video / audio content production for mobile technology are very real. Contacting any production company that now produces mobile content could produce gigs for video / audio producers and publishers as the demand for mobile content increases. Startup GoTV Networks Inc., for example, now produces 303 shows and more than 60 hours of programming each month for Sprint Nextel Corp, Verizon Wireless, and Cingular, and 300,000 cell phone users pay $ 6 a month for their music, sports. and comedy programming. (Source: NY Times 12/26/06) Another example is GoTV Mobile Television in which it offers different “stations” that feed subscribers with a daily summary of hip-hop culture, college sports, weather or soap operas. For a very real opportunity, visit iThentic on the web, a mobile distribution company actively searching for content. While its content money supply may be considered a bit low, one can still get a feel for the ins and outs of mobile content production and distribution. A thorough search and list of mobile content buyers and distributors should be conducted as soon as possible for video / audio producers or production companies looking to expand their clientele. Please contact me if you would like to participate or if you have such a list.

Tips for Mobile Video Production

There are several tips to keep in mind when producing and editing content for mobile video. Clips should be short, generally less than three minutes, to accommodate “on the fly” viewing. Cell phone shows also contain more close-ups, tight shots, and limited movement to provide a smaller screen and slower frame rate available. The audio should be clearer than “normal” due to the lack of bass in mobile phones. Text and captions should be kept to a minimum due to difficulty reading on the smaller screen of the cell phone. A suggestion to take photos on a video phone before filming to check if the scene is really a viable option for mobile use. Delivery formats to mobile content providers generally include the following: File sizes 15MB or less such as Windows Media (.wmv); Interlaced audio and video (.avi); QuickTime (.mov); MPEG 1/2/4 (.mpg, .mpeg); Third Generation Partnership Project (.3GPP); Flash; DVD; Digital video All formats must be encoded in 320 x 240 (Source: Wall Street Journal 04/12/06)

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