Trends in Mobile Content Delivery

January 7, 2010

At OpenView, we started looking into the mobile content delivery space a few years ago. Even then, before the mass adoption of smart phones like the Iphone, it had the potential for a huge market, because of the large number of users and rapidly changing mobile usage patterns. People started to use their mobile phone for more than just simple texting and calling, and started to become more willing to pay money for additional bells and whistles to their phone.

There were already a very diverse set of software start ups that were trying to solve the problem. However, since that time, this industry has undergone a total transformation and have now reached a stage whereby a few winning approaches seem to be emerging from the masses and clearly pointing to a future where content is delivered and consumed very seamlessly across all data networks.

Here is a quick rundown of the different approaches I have seen, in chronological order:

– Content Delivery through device-specific proprietary application: In the early days of the PDAs and the smart phone predecessors, certain device makers would create a premium device with special content download applications to attract the top end of their target market. However, these were often hobbled with low download speeds and dearth of good content.

– Format-specific content delivery: This got its start with the ring tone download, picture downloads and games download providers that had their heyday in the early 2000s.

– Carrier-native format-specific content delivery applications, such as video streaming, audio streaming: This was a step up from the previous category, as wireless carriers realized the lucrative market for content download and delivery, and decided to stuff any new phones with applications that would allow users to subscribe to special content download plans, for a premium subscription fees.

– Content Delivery through WAP-enabled websites: Web content are made available by creating a standard-based clone that is optimized for the mobile phone. This is still the most prevalent mode of delivery for content for mobile phones.

– Content Delivery through Mobile Apps: With the millions of applications downloaded for the Iphone and the overwhelming amount of data the Iphone users consume, it is safe to say that mobile apps will be the prevalent mode of content delivery for the future. The advantage of mobile apps over WAP is that the content format is more optimized and easily consumed, as it is designed expressly for the application.

– Device-specific, network-independent content delivery: With the rise of mobile readers like the Kindle, the Sony Ebook reader, a new set of challengers are coming to the competitive landscape. These have the advantage of hardware optimization, availability of content, but suffer from high costs and lower flexibility.

I predict that in the future, the last 2 approaches will emerge as winners in mobile content delivery. Moreover, they have the potential to transcend what we now narrowly define as “mobile content”, as they can be used for any edge device, such as netbooks on one extreme, or a smart refrigerator, on the other extreme. Content can be truly delivered to any device, through any network and consumed in a variety of ways. We should see a lot of venture capital financing in this space in the coming years, as venture capital funds try to pick a winner from the competitors.

Chief Business Officer at UserTesting

Tien Anh joined UserTesting in 2015 after extensive financial and strategic experiences at OpenView, where he was an investor and advisor to a global portfolio of fast-growing enterprise SaaS companies. Until 2021, he led the Finance, IT, and Business Intelligence team as CFO of UserTesting. He currently leads initiatives for long term growth investments as Chief Business Officer at UserTesting.