Idea Lab

An Olympic Moment for Mobile Media?

by Paul Lamb
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

There has been a lot of hype in mobile media circles about how the Summer Olympics are signaling a watershed moments in broadcasting and media access on the fly. According to Nielson, 23 per cent US and 17 per cent of UK mobile internet users will be tracking the games through their phone browser, and 45 of US mobile video users will watch the Olympics on their handsets. Are those significant statistics and if so HOW significant? Depends on who you talk to. Based on the fact that only 3 of US cell phone users regularly watched video via...

• August 19, 2008
• 2 comments

Will 3G iPhone Help Push Geo-Based News?

by Paul Lamb
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Apple's announcement yesterday of a GPS-enabled iPhone is further fanning the flames of excitement around location based services and mobile social networking. Being able to connect with friends (and strangers), and to interact with your immediate environment via your smartphone is the new new thing. But we still have a ways to go with all of this mobile-enabled location activity... The economic opportunity is a big one, which is precisely why so many services are coming on line, and why so much attention is being paid to open mobile platforms (i.e., Android and LiMo) that will fertilize the space. In...

• June 10, 2008
• No comments

Why the Slow Uptake on the Mobile Web?

by Paul Lamb
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

According to a just released report by Jupiter Research, only 16% of U.S. subcribers are browsing the mobile web. According to the report, the low uptake is due primarily to lack of interest (73%) and the high cost (47%). Messaging remains the major non-voice mobile activity, with about about one-third of subscribers surveyed having used either text or picture messaging once in the last six months. The report also indicates that mobile video had only a 1% adoption rate in the mobile market. Jupiter recommends that content providers need to offer easier access to things like news and video through...

• December 8, 2007
• 3 comments

Apple and Google Agree: It's All About Mobile, It's All About Location

by Leslie Rule
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Can't have missed the news of Android, an open source, Linux-based operating system for mobile devices. Android is the flagship product and raison d'etre for the Open Handset Alliance. Many major players, including telcomms, handset makers, and chip folks. Respectable group and a full service offering...everything you need to make the gphone, without having to make it. One of the major problems with using, and certainly developing, robust apps for mobile devices is the lack of a consistent operating system or basic standards of any sort. Nothing moves forward without standardization, and with such a nascent technology, it's like the...

• November 8, 2007
• No comments