Mobile Media Execs Stress Simplicity, Ubiquity

StreamingMediaWhen it comes to mobile media, keep it simple and capitalize on cross-promotional opportunities to extend audience interaction to handheld devices.

Those were among key takeaways from a discussion of mobile media among executives from NBC Universal, The Wall Street Journal, Nielsen Mobile and wireless content distributor Kyte at the Mediabistro Circus conference in New York on Wednesday.

Oh, and hope that everyone soon has an iPhone to jumpstart mobile Web browsing. Short of that, it's critical for media companies to tailor mobile content to the cell phone screen and make accessing articles, video or music as painless as possible.

"Mobile interfaces are still so basic in most cases, you have to make it as drop-dead simple as possible for most users," said Richard Trumble, executive director, digital strategy and operations for The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, encompassing WSJ.com, MarketWatch.com Barrons.com and other properties.

In Trumble's case, that means requiring as few clicks as possible to get to a front page Journal story or a stock quote, for instance. Nicholas Covey, director of insights at Nielsen Mobile, confirmed that the more steps needed to retrieve mobile content, the less likely users are to find it.

Because mobile search is still in its infancy, media companies and marketers should be especially focused on reducing functional barriers to get to mobile sites or applications. About half of mobile users are seeking out new information or experiences via handheld devices, according to Nielsen research.

Expanding the mobile audience isn't just a matter of coming up with a cell phone-specific design, however. For big media players, promoting mobile offerings through TV and other media platforms is also key to increasing consumer awareness.

For NBC, that strategy includes sticking a 10-second "bumper" at the end of hit shows such as "The Office" and "30 Rock" pointing viewers to the programs' online and mobile extensions, which feature ancillary content such as contests, trivia and exclusive photos tied to the shows.

"We don't really believe there's such a thing as mobile content," said Chip Canter, vice president of wireless platform development for NBC Universal Digital Distribution. "There's great digital content you can consume and share on phones, but to say this only works on mobile--I'm not sure that make sense."

For that reason, he also expressed skepticism about the rise of the designated .mobi domain for mobile sites when the .com domain can be extended to the mobile Web. Adding .mobi to the end of mobile Web addresses would only further confuse most consumers, Canter said.

Nielsen's Covey agreed, saying media companies should be thinking about how to translate programming to the mobile phone in the context of broader digital distribution efforts. He noted that Nielsen Mobile recently released research for the first time showing how mobile sites can expand the audiences for Web properties.

Covey said Nielsen would soon come out with similar data in the next few months examining the relationship between TV and mobile audiences.

While the U.S. tends to lag Europe and Asia in uptake of mobile data services, mobile social networking is one area where Americans are taking the lead. Covey said 4 million mobile subscribers use their phones for social networking--less than 2% of the overall mobile population, but still ahead of many other countries.

"This whole social media aspect has become part of every single mobile service," said Daniel Graf, co-founder and CEO of mobile media provider Kyte. He added that MySpace and Facebook have both developed user-friendly mobile versions of their social networks that entertainers and brands can take advantage of to build mobile communities.

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