Streaming Media - October/November 2007 - (Page 26) Skyward Mobile is a new company launching this fall that “builds applications which create rich, seamless experiences where a user can freely browse for essentially an infinite amount of information in a customized environment which is true to the underlying brand and runs across all devices, not just high-end smartphones,” says De Bonet. One example they’ve already created is making the Bible available on your handset. “The Bible itself is about 4MB of information; most handsets have less than a tenth of that. So how can you create an experience to allow you to browse from Genesis all the way to the end of Revelation?” says De Bonet. Skyward’s answer is to stream the data in real time from server to client as you flip through pages, which is enabled by a small client download. What this opens up is not only the possibility of limitless information—" (because it doesn't open up the possibility of the ability). De Bonet notes that you could just as easily be browsing through 30,000 videos rather than pages of the Bible—but also the ability to make changes on the server-side that impact the client-side without requiring additional downloads. While the text in this version of the Bible is formatted to fit the screen, Skyward has also developed a format for magazines that shows the original layout and then allows because there’s nothing other than the content itself to keep you coming back. There’s no way for content owners to emphasize their brand, so all of a sudden HBO disappears among all the other content that’s out there, as there’s no opportunity to create an HBO destination.” Key to the paradigm Skyward hopes to establish is the speed with which they can develop custom applications. “Typical mobile projects take large teams months to create. With our team of twenty folks, we’ve created more than forty applications in less than a year. That’s a massive difference,” says De Bonet. “It allows you to be flexible on the opportunities that come up, to try new things, to experiment and fail. You don’t have to have a hundred thousand users to be a success. If we spend four, five, ten days building an app and we only get a thousand users, it’s still a win. And every time you do that, there’s a possibility that it will be a hit.” Application discovery will be accomplished through multiple avenues, including carrier decks, shortcuts advertised in magazines, or on TV through things like 1-800 numbers, and, over time virally between users. Revenue models should span the gamut of pay-to-view, subscription, and, eventually advertising-supported. Skyward’s current goals include finding content partners interested in leveraging their application development expertise to co-develop applications. While they do work for hire, their preference is to establish revenue-sharing agreements. They’re also open to arrangements where they might license high-visibility content to develop applications on their own. video to go Transpera—Mobile Video Gets Social Two of the more important aspects of creating successful mobile media experiences are enabling widespread distribution and ensuring that content is properly monetized. Transpera aims to address both these needs in helping content owners create rich media mobile experiences. “We are bringing to mobile video that which Skyward Mobile delivers each page of the Bible on the fly, rather than forcing the user to previously hasn’t been there: deep inteTranspera aims to bring the functionality of social media— download the entire 4MB file—an application gration with online video properties, like sharing video ratings—to the mobile experience. that can be applied to browsing videos as well. delivered both on- and off-deck with carriers, and social interaction where users to zoom in on different sections they want to read. users have the ability to grab a video from a website, Additional capabilities they’ve enabled are things like send it down to their phone, and send it to other users’ live chat between multiple users during a live mobile phones in order to share it with a group of friends,” says video broadcast, and applications that provide branded Transpera CEO Frank Barbieri. experiences around video content. Railing against the broadcast model of mobile delivery, It’s their belief that video alone won’t win the day in the where users are expected to simply sit back and watch, mobile space. “One of the big lessons that I think you Transpera aims to get users engaged, and by doing so can learn from VCast is that content is not enough. You drive awareness around content. The way it enables need to wrap it in an entire experience,” says De Bonet. mobile video sharing is as follows: “The video lives on “Verizon’s spent tens of millions of dollars marketing our servers. When a user sends it to a friend, we send a VCast but the uptake did not live up, in my opinion, handset-optimized link to a carrier-optimized file on our 26 STREAMING MEDIA October/November 2007
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