Nicole Manktelow

Tonight I met up with a filmmaking friend and found myself, once again, explaining why it is important for Australian content producers to embrace mobile technology now – how we must learn about the technical and business factors involved in getting quality, original material on pocket devices.

After a couple of glasses of wine, I suspect my conversation came perilously close to being a rant (my poor buddy!). However, I’d like to offer these few reasons/ bullet points on why Aussie filmmakers need to come to grips with pocket media and why the mobile market and consumers would benefit:

• Mobile phones have guaranteed revenue path, unlike online where there remains an ingrained expectation for free downloads. This means content creators have a better chance to make a buck by pursuing a mobile deal. Importantly, however, much of the mobile revenue is currently snaffled by the network operator and very little goes back to the content originator. Still, it’s better than nothing.
• Mobile and pocket devices will become a mainstream global content delivery channel. In Australia now, we may prefer even the most woeful wired broadband connection, but in vast emerging markets of China and India, it won’t be wired infrastructure bringing online content to the masses - more likely, it will be wireless networks. Mobiles may never rule the world, but globally there will be a shift.
• Mobile operators have a large amount of international content on their networks, gleaned from global deals, which are cost effective for the individual countries such as Australia. Unfortunately, there are no formal requirements for Aussie content on our phones, so the battle for local culture continues.
• The average quality of mobile content is, so far, quite poor. I’m not talking about pixels and compression, but scripts, actors and original content. There’s very little created especially for the mobile viewer. More often, it is content re-purposed from TV shows or spun-off mainly for promotional purposes. This is a problem for network operators. A clip from a TV show may gain a customer’s initial curiosity, but is it compelling enough to prompt serious on-going interest?