I defected this afternoon: from iHollywood’s MES to Billboard’s MECCA. No specific reason, except that I wanted to see both of them myself, even though James is covering MECCA for us. I’ll be heading back to MES later in the day. Some fleeting impressions from both: way too much hype, way little substance. It is: “let’s throw everything against the wall, and see what sticks.” Right now, not much is, if you ask me. Among the only sane voices in the mix, believe it or not, are not the U.S. players, but the UK operator players, like Jeremy Flynn, head of commercial partnerships at Vodafone. He was on panels on both the conferences, and exhorted the U.S. operators to open up their networks.
MTV announced a “landmark groundbreaking deal” with Warner Music Group on mobile videos: developing original content around music videos. Groundbreaking? Give me a break..you guys were just the first ones to announce it.
Meanwhile, Lucy Hood at Fox keeps harping on Mobisodes? Original? Really, give me a break…we call it short videos. Peter Adderton, CEO of Amp’d is trashing everyone on the panel he is on: Verizon, Cingular and others…and he knows better than anyone that his service is based on one of these networks. They can pull the rug from under his feet anytime they want to. Of course, his point about full song downloads on mobiles need to come down in price is bang on. He says his company will sell full song downloads on mobile for 99 cents.
Anyway, I can go on and on, but I’ll stop here…I still have two more days to spend here.
Our CTIA/MES coverage is sponsored by Motricity: Booth 717.
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