@ VOD Summit: What About Mobile?

(by Dorian Benkoil) Mobile was flicked at a bit here and there, but no one really addressed it in any depth.
LightningCast, an in-stream ad insertion company that made its name in radio advertising for the Internet and has increasingly moved to video, tells me they’ve been doing a lot of talking to mobile companies. Here’s what LightningCast’s point man on mobile, Mark Westling, had to say: “Mobile’s just starting. We’ve signed NDAs with both U.S. and overseas carriers and are in the process of planning trials. We still expect the bulk of our revenue to be from broadband but mobile will be the fastest growing and we expect it to be a significant percentage next year.”

I have to wonder, though, how many in-stream ads we’ll tolerate as users, when viewing videos on our handhelds – especially if we’re already paying not just for the cellular service, but also a premium to get the mobile VOD. I know that in ’80s people used to make a similar argument about cable TV, but we cannot ignore how annoying it is to see anything but the shortest of ads online, and even more so on a small screen when you’re only going to be watching for a couple minutes, anyway.

Now, if I could get the service a lot cheaper because there were ads in it…in fact Kagan’s Baine suggested that as a possible general rule for VOD: more ads, pay less.

The Kagan VOD Summit coverage is sponsored by Maven Networks’ IP VOD Delivery Platform

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