Portable content not connecting with consumers [Reuters]
Despite all the dramatic advancements that the mobile entertainment industry has made, there is a still one important ingredient it has not obtained: customers.
Mobile tracking firm M:Metrics has determined from data collected in the three-month period that ended in July that ringtones — by far the most popular form of mobile content — are bought by only about 10 percent of the total user base. In addition, 2 percent have bought games, 3.5 percent subscribed to a ringtone service or downloaded a wallpaper image, 0.4 percent watched paid video and 0.2 percent downloaded a full song. Overall, about 28 million, or 15 percent, of the 190 million U.S. wireless subscribers, have downloaded some type of multimedia content.
“People are throwing a lot of things at the wall to see what will stick as opposed to taking a step back and asking themselves what’s the best way to consume content from an end-user perspective,” says DP Venkatesh, CEO of mPortal, a mobile services application provider. “There seems to be an overemphasis on making more content available rather than relevant content.”
