Can the independent Content Developer who is not large enough to ink a deal with one of the major wireless carriers still find a way to easily distribute on demand audio/video content to mobile devices?

I wasn’t sure of the answer to this myself so I’ve been visiting several of the wireless carriers’ retail outlets in the San Antonio area to try out an Open Source SMS Text Messaging Application as a vehicle for delivering audio video content to the current generation of mobile devices.

It’s worth mentioning again that this is a distribution method for the content owner that is not one of the major networks like ESPN Mobile, HBO Mobile on MediaNet etc… Those companies have the resources, scale and relationships in place to form agreements with the wireless carriers that give them placement on the mobile device deck (main menu). Once you get placement on the mobile phone’s deck, a lot of these problems get solved.

This research is more about what can the small to medium sized independent content developer, like a local traditional broadcaster for instance, do today to leverage their audio or video content onto this new distribution platform without one of those negotiated agreements from a wireless carrier in hand.

In short — can you go guerilla with audio video content distribution on the mobile platform? My research so far suggests that things aren’t perfect yet, but there appears to be enough of a critical mass in place to give a qualified yes.

You can deliver your content to their cellphone.

First, let’s go over the test itself. I visited retail outlets for T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon and Cingular. When I got there I told a rep or manager that I was doing some research on sending audio and video content to mobile devices and wanted to check out how some of their new devices handled it.

All the places I visited were extremely helpful and some of the reps really knew their product well. Some reps didn’t, but I was pleasantly surprised at how many more did know their stuff, so chalk one up for the wireless carriers’ training programs.

The test consisted of using a stripped down version of the Open Source SMS Text Messaging Application running on my old pre-Lenovo Thinkpad to SMS three links to a device. The first link was to a mobile coupon. The second link was to a MP3 file. The third link was to a 3GP video file.

Now, about the results. I’m writing this part not only for the Content Developer to help get a better sense of the current state of the mobile content market, but also for the content consumer looking for a device that will let them get the most out of the mobile content market.

And in the spirit of that, let me start off by talking about Verizon Wireless. I praised Verizon in a recent post, but am disappointed in the way their mobile phones handled third party audio and video content during these tests. Verizon was the only carrier during my tests that when I SMS’d one of their phones a simple URL or link, the device could not launch the link — to any kind of site let alone a video clip. During these tests, the URL’s were pretty much dead in the phone’s text messaging application. On most Verizon phone devices (excluding smartphones and pda’s) I couldn’t even copy the URL and then manually paste it into the phone’s wap browser. Apparently this is on purpose and by design.

Does this kind of quasi Walled Garden approach run counter to Verizon’s recent agreement with Adobe to build the Flash Lite Player into most new Verizon devices?

The Verizon reps I talked to explained their approach as a feature put in place to protect the mobile consumer from dangerous content. There’s an argument to be made there that I can appreciate, but some might think another reason could be the ability to restrict content to only those content providers where there is a shared revenue stream in place for.

You can decide for yourself what the real motive is. And for the sake of this discussion let’s give them the benefit of the doubt that their customer experience is the driving force in the design decision. It’s a reasonable argument. Still, I suggest that any mobile content consumer who wants the most freedom in choosing and accessing the most audio and video mobile content carefully evaluate all their options before choosing their wireless provider.

Back to the results, starting with a quick word about mobile coupons. This area was primarily just a side test since mobile coupons is an area I’m also following. Still, I did get the chance to test a lot of devices and found that using SMS text messaging to deliver mobile coupons worked on just about every device. There’s a debate brewing whether mobile coupons are the next killer app or spam but the debate should be about done over whether there are enough devices in place now to make mobile coupons an app that is ready to go.

Now, for the MP3 and 3GP test results on some of the more popular devices:

The 2125 from Cingular handled the audio and video like a charm. The 2125 is one of my favorite Windows Smartphones that I tested.

The Treo 650 and Treo 700p on Sprint are probably my favorite of all the Smartphones. No matter what I threw at these devices, no matter how raw or unstructured the content, the Treo seemed to know what to do with it. Nice job Palm.

Blackberry 8700 on Cingular — for some reason the link was not hot when sent from the SMS App but links were hot when sent from other apps. Am researching what went on here. It likely could have been some kind of brain freeze on my part.

I found the Samsung t809 on T-Mobile to be a great phone and it handled all the multimedia files well. You have to click “save” from the SMS message to get the browser to open (many of the devices tested handled links in SMS messages this way), but it was intuitive enough and worked well.

Motorola SLVR on Cingular is another stellar performer and handled all the multimedia content well. Only downside is that the device I tested was still on the EDGE network at the time of the test and not UMTS. This is probably my favorite non clamshell new phone.

Motorola Q on Verizon was smart enough to climb over Verizon’s walled garden.

Samsung MM-A900 on Sprint successfully opened and played the audio and video files.

Samsung MM-A920 on Sprint may be my favorite of all the phones I tested. Ever since the Star Tac I’ve been a sucker for the clamshell design and this phone has a nice mix of features in that form factor. You can also tether it (along with the Treo’s and a few other Sprint devices) to use as a broadband modem with your laptop which is a nice option to have, but it will cost you extra each month.

Sanyo MM-7500 on Sprint handled the 3GP video file without a problem but did not know what to do with the MP3.

There were none in the store yet so I didn’t get a chance to do a hands on test of the new Sidekick 3 from T-Mobile but have seen reports in several blogs that the new Sidekick will play back NO video. If accurate, that is a disappointment. How can a device reportedly that sick, that sweet, not play video? Wow.

One note regarding my tests on the Sprint devices. I initially tried wrapping the MP3 and 3GP files into a GCD file, a traditional way for delivering wallpaper etc… to a Sprint device, but that process would break down after the device opened the GCD file correctly. When I sent the device simply a raw link to the MP3 or 3GP file, it worked well. Haven’t confirmed why that is, but having devices that know what to do with raw files without having to wrap them in GCD’s or other wrappers is kind of nice.

Of course this research is by no means exhaustive. My goal was simply to get a current assessment of the ability of independent third party content developers to distribute multimedia content to mobile devices. Overall, I like what I saw. If you’re thinking about distributing your audio or video content to mobile devices, I encourage you to go for it.

Thanks again to the carriers and their reps for all their friendly cooperation. Special thanks also to Murray, Jeremy, and Lee Ann for helping me with this research and to Scott and his team for your help and inspiration for the research.

tags; disruptive broadcasting; mobile devices;