Bill Sanders moderates mobile TV panel

digital distribution, MTV Networks; John Lawson, evp, ION Media Networks;Steve Bradbury, vp, business affairs, GoTV Networks; and Jonathan Barzilay, svp, programming and advertising, MediaFLO USA.

Sanders started off by polling the audience on how many watched video on their mobile phone–streaming or downloading–or a weekly basis. As is typical for these casual polls, the answer was…almost no one. But Sanders wasn’t discouraged. “We need to move beyond it being a ‘gee whiz’ thing to where it’s a business,” he said. He asked every panelist to describe some development they’ve seen in the last year that has changed the game…or will change the game in the next 6 to 12 months.

Steve Bradbury, GoTV: I think when you go beyond the iPhone and start talking about the Android that’s come out of the box strong and will have a proliferation, that’s interesting. LG will do a store, Blackberry and Palm will have a store. The whole idea of carriers no longer being that central focus [is a game changer]. Handset mfrs trying to take back control of content is a coming trend.

Kraig Baker, David Wright Tremaine LLP: The two things that I think are really interesting is the way mobile is morphing and creating rights issues. The first is that everyone thinks mobile is a carrier-based platform. But look at iTouch, Nintendo and so on…There are huge numbers of mobile entertainment devices that don’t have a carrier tied to them. People can get bandwidth without being tied to a carrier. Secondly, people are using mobile devices also for mobile storage devices. I take my iPod and listen to it while I’m on the bus but then stick in my player at work and at home to play music. It’s become a portable device.

Jim Eadie, MTV Networks: In the next 6 to 12 months, I would say that a third element we’ve noticed is really a shift in expectations around the ad market. We were pretty bullish on mobile video market. If you look at E-Marketer expectations from a year ago and [compare that with] today, you’ll see annual estimates down two to three times. That’s a pretty incredible statistic. But we’re bullish on the market coming back. That stat has to do with the macro-economic environment.

Barzilay & Eadie

Jonathan Barzilay, FloTV: If I look at things over the last 6 to 12 months, Barack Obama and the NCAA are the most significant things. There were tremendous spikes around the presidential inauguration and debates. Similarly last weekend, with our partner AT&T, we carried four dedicated channels of NCAA basketball – you could watch every [March Madness] tournament. If you look to watershed moments [in mobile television], political and sports driven by immediate live events will be formative.

John Lawnson, ION Media Networks: Broadcast TV goes all-digital on June 12, but broadcasting won’t go away. Wireless is a massive wireless distribution platform [for broadcasters]. LG and Samsung learned how to provide a robust video programming service. We think that this represents the biggest upside to the broadcasting industry in decades. The last few months has seen the adoption of an open standard by the ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee). At NAB, we’ll be announcing a partners-development group that will include programmers. At CES, we announced we’d be launching a free-to-air advertiser-supported mobile network. It is an open standard so it enables a wide range of business models – pay-per-use, subscriber and advertiser-supported. The key is not just the mobility but in the 60 year history of TV broadcasting, this will be the first time we won’t be sending out content to a dumb devices. We’ll be able to get data back in terms of what the consumer is watching, how much, what their transactions are, where they are. With permissions, of course, it enables a new generation of broadcasting and transactions. The consumer will have a lot of control; we’ll have a DVR capability. People want real television and they’ll use these devices to watch it. We think the return channel enables commerce and measurement. But there’s an opportunity with providers – carriers and others – to continue to provide one-on-one on-demand content. Our ability to push out massive amounts of video creates opportunities for partnerships with those taking advantage of the spectrum.

Tim Connolly, Disney/ABC, ESPN: Formative for the market overall in the last 12 months is the fact that we now have more than 10 million people subscribing to video services. Across our properties, we’ll see more than 100 million views over a 12 month period. That’s still fairly small when you think of the numbers of mobile phones in the US, but it’s a strong number. We can say there’s really a market.

The conversation then turned to the business model that would make mobile television take off. Connolly noted that his company is not a big believer in the advertiser-only model.”In order for us to spend the money necessary to acquire and create great experiences for users, we’re convinced the only way to make that work is a dual revenue from subscription, with advertising as the complement,” he said. ” I don’t think you’ll find many people who think $50 a month is a bad deal to get 200 cable channels at home. I think we can create a similarly good deal on the mobile phone.”

Barzilay pointed out that in today’s hyper-linked world, the TV, computer and phone “are all part of the same eco-system.” “We have to make it simple, recognizable and familiar, particularly on mobile,” he said. Bradbury seconded the concept that familiarity was “the shortest distance for consuming media,” but noted that mobile devices’ short battery life still stood in the way of consuming long-form content. “Ultimately there’s room for long-form content, for content on a particular schedule and short-form on-demand content,” he said. “We made our name in short-form on-demand but we acknowledge long-form opportunities.”

Barzilay agreed that there’s room for both short and long-form content. “The mobile primetime is wider and deeper than traditional primetime on TV,” he said. “It’s much more consistent from late morning through early evening. There’s room for a lot of time-shifting within that model. We have live programs, like The Today Show when you’d expect it to be on But if you miss Late Night with Conan, that’s made available to you throughout the day.”

“At the end of the day it’s about user experience,” said Bradbury. “Whether it’s long form or short form, you’ll be drawn to a better experience. The mobile phone is still early in its evolution of consuming video, which started in 2005, commercially. We’re only a few years into this experience. As the carriers in general improve that hype, we’ll all benefit from it. That will lift all boats. The mobile phone still isn’t as compelling an experience as your TV or you computer monitor – but it’s getting better.”

Sanders noted that, with PlayStation and portable DVD players, there is no shortage of small video devices. He asked if the mobile video industry is asking viewers to “go back to regular, linear TV on the phone.” “Or will it be as interactive and social as online?” he asked. Panelists agreed that “we’re not going backwards.” “I think we’ll start to see mobile morph into just another platform where people are consuming in five or six different ways,” said Baker.

“If nothing else, the iPhone has made us take a step back and take a look at what is mobile, what is online,” said Eadie. “We have a number of distribution partners that have created iPhone apps, and, in each case, there’s a different philosophy. It’s driving more of a convergence experience.” Connolly added that the iPhone NCAA app gives the user a great capability to look at stats and move seamlessly between video capabilities, as the live game is going on. “We’re in the early days of mobile video,” he stressed. “For the most part, we’re taking our traditional franchises to this new platform. But we try to create something unique for each platform it’s residing on, and have those unique capabilities have a mutually reinforcing capabilities back to the other platforms. That make you want to watch Lost on TV, but go online to do other things related to the program.”

The discussion turned to brand, and whether it belonged to the program or the network. Connolly noted that “Disney Channel as a brand and as a channel has a unique brand attribute that resides within each of the programs within Disney Channel – Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Hannah Montana.” “Whereas with our broadcast network ABC, there isn’t as much of a consistent theme between Ugly Betty, Lost and Desperate Housewives,” he said. “There it’s more about the franchise than the ABC brand.” Just as cable operators license Disney (or ABC) content, said Connolly, so wireless operators have an opportunity to create a bundle. “You can get TV cable, broadband and home phone from the same provider,” he said. “Both cable operators and telcos can then say, Now you can get mobile from us.”

Sanders pointed out that “there are more and more different avenues to get video that don’t come through the carriers deck.” “Discoverability will become really really important,” he said. GoTV’s Bradbury noted that discoverability is an on-going challenge. “We don’t have the resources of some of my colleagues on the panel have. We don’t have an established media base. We are doing more and more partnerships with Fortune 500 companies: Lexus, Wrigleys.” But the challenge is on-going. “You hope the cream rises to the top and to some extent that happens,” he said. “Does that get you to the gross number of viewers you want or do you remain a niche player? We’re peddling as fast as we can.”

Television broadcasters have enormous clout in getting the word out about their mobile TV capabilities, says Lawson, who pointed to the very high public awareness of broadcast television’s transition to digital. “Broadcasters still have enormous power to reach people across the country and we will dedicate some of those resources to make sure the public understands that broadcaster will offer free-over -the-air broadcast to a wide range of mobile devices,” he said. “And with regard to branding and discoverability, we’ve learned with consumer trials is that people really want local. They want news, weather, sports, restaurant reviews, information about retail. The broadcasters have always played that role. We feel it gives us a tremendous opportunity as we roll out mobile to maintain that. “

How to keep consumer interest is incumbent on broadcasters as well as anyone else in the mobile television business. One way to keep that interest, said Sanders, is through talent. “That’s how we look at it,” said Connolly. “And the same holds true for sports, news and other information services. The information is a commodity but you develop a brand through personalities.” MTV’s Eadie reported that they’ve started rolling out free ad-supported video on their mobile websites. “We look at that discoverability element as very important,” he said. “We want to provide a good content experience.”

Tell me about The Visionaire Group – what is it?

The Visionaire Group is a creative solutions agency for digital projects. The bulk of the work is done direct-to-client and mainly directly to the motion picture studios. One division does websites, another does display ads, and the third is emerging media group, which includes Facebook apps, widgets,and mobile capabilities.

For Fast & Furious, we worked directly with Universal. Our web group created the official website and we did a really cool desktop widget the user could download. It looks like a GPS, with lots of interactivity.

What about the mobile application?

We did the iPhone web destination. The reason Universal wanted to do something for mobile is that everything we did on the web is supported by Flash, which is supported on most mobile phones. So they wanted to do something specific to the iPhone [which doesn't support Flash]. Another company had done some basic mobile web destinations for them. They came to us to take advantage of the iPhone. Our goal was to create something that had never been done before as a web-destination and use the features specific to the iPhone.Hollywood is about what’s cool. That’s what drives the marketing. We were trying to create a really cool experience.

What were some of the iPhone capabilties you wanted to exploit?

The movie is all about cars, so we wanted to figure out how we apply motion and cars to the phone. We wanted to use the iPhone’s built-in hardware accelerator which allowed us to use advanced Java script techniques, and we used that to build this idea of motion into the site. We’d done an iPhone destination for Jaguar a while back, for a specific model and we’d done something with Java script, where the website was a large canvas on the phone that the user could navigate through. But that was basic. How do we make it more explosive?

So we decided to do things with 3-dimensional objects–not stereoscopic 3D. It’s not even true 3D in terms of making flat images feel three-dimensional. The aim was to provide another navigational experience the user hadn’t experienced before.

In the beginning, we didn’t have an idea of how to make it. The creative group thinks outside the box. Then the developer come sin and says it’s not quite possible, but this is what we can do. So in this case, the designer for this project wanted this idea of flipping the objects over so you could see what was on the back. The developer said he could do that. While the developer was working with the designer on it, they came up with the idea of when they flip the object back around, there’s new content there on the other side. So it was a collaborative development. The good thing about Universal is that they trusted us to create something that they didn’t know what the final outcome was going to be.

How do you flip the object?

We pioneered that as we went through the design. We’d never seen that done before, so we worked with the developer who created it as he went. So, in that design, we questioned if we allow the viewer to control the movement or whether we do that for them, based on certain interaction points. We decided to do that for them, to show them how cool it is. So when the user clicks to go to another content screen, the existing screen will rotate out and then you’ll see the back of the images. It’ll say “loading” and then the new content rotates back in.

What kind of content will we find on the iPhone app?

We did standard content for most of the film sites we do. Video content is a big portion with trailers and clips available for the user to view. We also have a photo section and an “about the film” synopsis, and we had a couple of links to external promotions that Universal is doing. Most of the web and mobile destinations end up having the same kind of content. Unless you come up with a cool way to display that content, they become stale. That’s why this was unique. It was a really interesting way to show content that you see at all other film destinations.

And now that it’s out, what does Universal think?

They’re in love with it. They couldn’t believe that something like this could be created.

The premiere Mobile Excellence Awards event last year was a killer event. MobilizedTV encourages its readers to submit and join the fun at the event.

The 2009 Mobile Excellence Award Categories are as follows:

Industry Star Award
Chosen for exemplary achievement and overall impact on the mobile entertainment industry, by either, product, service, or executive team’s effort in making a difference

People’s Choice Award
Special Recognition for Industry Achievement chosen by the Mobile community itself

Mobile Ambassador Award
Recognizes the company or individual which/who has most effectively supported the goals of Mobile Monday LA, its programs, and the mobile community at large

MOBILE BUSINESS

Best Start-up – Honors the mobile entertainment oriented company less than 3 years in business which has achieved the most success
Best Mobile Innovator – Honors a company which has proved to be the most progressive or launched the most groundbreaking product/service/model
Best Mobile International – Honors mobile companies which have proved to be the most progressive or launched the most groundbreaking product/service/model from outside the U.S

MOBILE TECHNOLOGY

Best Mobile Advertising – Honors the best mobile advertising platform, service, function or package serving the advertising community or that is consumer friendly in integrating the advertising experience
Best Mobile Social Network – Honors the best social mobile network platform, service, function or environment as part of overall offering, or that integrates a consumer friendly social network into the overall experience
Best Mobile Product or Service - Honors the best mobile applications, to include, search, navigation tools, LBS services, etc. in at least one or more markets, with products or services that have helped corporate or mobile users to work smarter and “do business better”
Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough – Honors the contribution that Mobile Operators, manufacturers, and suppliers make to increase mobile usage, ARPU, expand the user experience, and helps expand business opportunities
Best Mobile Delivery Platform - Honors companies that have developed or contributed a mobile application to deliver mobile content, entertainment or Value Added service that enhanced content delivery platforms and attracted new mobile users

MOBILE MARKETING

Best Advertiser - Honors the brand whose campaigns have made the best use of mobile platforms, technology and apps such as banners, click-to-call, advergames, targeting and international reach to build and promote itself
Best Mobile Brand/Marketing Campaign – Honors the mobile marketing campaign that was either created for a brand or on behalf of an entertainment property, which makes the best use of viral marketing to enhance a brands consumer awareness through mobile adoption
Best Mobile Viral Campaign – Honors the campaign that utilizes new industry sectors, include advertising supported mobile content models, video clips, or promotional campaigns using MMS, SMS, video, mobile couponing etc. and successfully used call-to-action or other transactions to collect data and/or drive sales or activity related to sales

MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT

Best Mobile Video Programming - Honors the company whose overall programming offers the consumer the best video entertainment experience
Best Mobile Game - Honors the best out of all game content categories combined, including casual, multiplayer or original
Best Mobile Music Application - Honors best out of all music content categories combined, including ring tones, library, radio, or other music experiences
Best Original Content for Mobile Television – Honors the best content developed for mobile as an extension to a traditional TV show or series, fiction or non-fiction
Best Mobile Original Program For Film – Honors Short Films/Documentaries, feature programming/ show(s) fiction, non-fiction or other narrative video/graphics content created specifically for mobile devices
Best Community/Fan Content – honors integrated content, activities and/or interactive experience created to serve specific interest groups or fan base of particular entertainment artist or program
Best Mobile Content Development – Honors the company that has developed the most innovative User Generated or professionally produced content that engages the mobile user and enhances the traditional mobile content experience

Mobile marketing seems to have as many meanings as the people using the term. What’s the confusion here?

That’s true. If you type “mobile marketing” into Google, what will come up is everything from an ad agency that doesn’t have any technology all the way to Verizon and everyone in between. It’s helpful to draw ‘coarse grain segmentation’ of the marketplace. One is mobile ad networks. That’s basically doing advertising; people will sell inventory and space to take it into mobile. A second is building mobile websites, which helps people to take online properties and bring them into the mobile world. The third is around online direct marketing, or the mobile equivalent of direct marketing. That’s the category that Mozes is in. Some people call it CRM, or customer relationship management, but that means a lot of different things so I try to stay away from that term. It is about a customer community and having an engagement with them, and we do that for sure. There’s also a fourth category, which is mobile commerce or m-commerce. That’s taking your electronic storefront and bringing it into the mobile realm.

Can you describe what Mozes does?

We’re about being a platform for marketers to be able to send their message out to a community. We would further segment that in three ways. Usually most of our customers will do one of these three things: They do marketing when they don’t have a mobile list. The whole thing about mobile is it’s all about giving permission. Some people will run a mobile campaign or promotion or contest, to get people to interact with them, but not to build a list and build on-going engagement.

The second category is the one most of our customers fall into: people wanting to build a “mob” or mobile list. For me, that’s where a lot of the magic happens. Someone says, yes please market to me. It’s okay for you to send me messages and I want to interact with you. That’s pretty golden from a marketer’s point-of-view. That’s the perfect case with our entertainment customers, such as SonyBMG, which has a variety of labels and artists from Britney Spears to newcomers. If you’re a fan of Britney Spears, you can opt into her “mob” and they’ll send you offers, ask your opinion, give you free stuff. One thing they won’t do is continually hammer you to buy things. The magic is that they’re providing value back, whether it’s inside information on a new single coming out or an alert that Britney will be on TV tonight. Or it could be a mobile coupon for 20 percent off the new album. This is the core of what we do.

The third category is live events, which we are often involved in. At SXSW this year, in addition to the C3 bash, we powered Affliction Clothing’s mobile ticketing and mob building campaign. A lot of bands use us for that. The band Rascall Flatts is a big user of ours. In a live event, they’ll build their mob in conjunction with live promotions. For example, we’ll say that if people text in the Mozes shortcode, we’ll pick four of you and take you back stage. We’ll get hit with 10,000 text messages in 30 seconds.

Privacy has become a big issue with targeted advertising. Are you avoiding privacy issues with the opt-in aspect?

Everything you’re providing to the mob, they’re getting from you. Nobody else gets that info in any way, shape or form If you’re in the Pink Floyd mob, Nike can’t send you a message. S

What should people who create content for the mobile platform know about marketing? What should their concerns be?

I think if I were a content producer, what I would be doing is trying to figure out how I’m going to get people who might be interested in my kind of content who have never heard of me. You’ve made some film, maybe it’s a great short film, but nobody has ever heard of me because I’m an up-and-coming filmmaker. The same exact ideas [about marketing] apply to the music industry as the video industry. For me, the #1 thing is to take advantage of all the possible channels you have in terms of building a following and a community. Take a page and learn from what has worked well from the music side. And what they’ve done that’s been effective: have a website and MySpace page. With Mozes, we can create a widget you can put on your MySpace page, where people can opt into your mob, post texts, leave messages. That way, you’re using every weapon in your arsenal to draw together people interested in your property. If you put a poster out at SXSW advertising your mobile film, give them a code to text to. Then they’re opted in. They don’t have to remember your name or your movie. You will automatically be able to send them something, and tell them, we have this new movie coming out. Now you’ve captured someone interested enough to follow you, and you can capture them at the moment of inspiration while they’re out and about.

Where is Mozes going? How does that jibe with where mobile content is going?

We’ve got this really great presence in the music industry. That was our initial focus. The next thing for us is to expand out from that into sports and brands. Brands are figuring out they want to create conversations with consumers and be able to get to them at the “point of inspiration,” when they’re mobile. And we’d like to tie that in to our musical artists–a musician and a brand.

What does that mean for the mobile content creators?

I think there will absolutely be more need for content. We’d like to work with content creators to bring in brand sponsors and make it so they can promote their products and build a community around that. That kind of thing will start to get the interest of brands. Every content creator needs to create relationships with people, consumers – and that’s what we do.

Interested content creators can email Greg at greg@mozes-inc.com.

Beginning this April, voting members of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) will enjoy the exclusive ability to view full seasons of Showtime’s original series on their iPhones and iPodTouch devices. This is an industry first; the application developed and implemented by Transpera, a mobile video delivery and advertising network that has worked with Showtime on other projects. The password-protected application will allow voters to stream full episodes directly to their handheld devices.Showtime also launched its password-protected website, developed with online video platform Brightcove, allowing voters to mark their ballots online.

Original Showtime series includes United States of Tara, Weeds, Dexter, The Tudors, Californication, Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union, Brotherhood, This American Life, Penn & Teller: BULLSHIT! and The L Word.

“This year, by providing viewing access via iPhones and iPodTouch devices, Showtime continues to offer TV Academy members even more convenient opportunities to enjoy and consider SHOWTIME original programming,” said Richard Licata, Executive Vice President, Corporate Communications for SHOWTIME

Msnbc.com mobile now features video destinations for Today, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, Meet the Press, Dateline, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and The Rachel Maddow Show. In the near future, Msnbc.com will also feature video from MSNBC TV’s Morning Joe and Hardball with Chris Matthews.

“We’re excited to launch such an easy-to-use and visually stunning product that makes both consumers and advertisers happy,” said msnbc.com product manager Jeff Maurone. “Mobile users now have their favorite shows in the palm of their hand, and can easily watch msnbc.com’s news video anytime, anywhere. And marketers can tap into our fast growing mobile audience with innovative ads that are suited for mobile users.”

The integration of new advertising capabilities offered through Transpera’s ad platform introduces new revenue opportunities. Among the mobile ad avails are targeted 5-15 second Peek™ pre-roll video coupled with display advertising, that are aimed at the mobile user.

“Video is a vital part of storytelling whatever the content–news, weather, sports, entertainment,” said Transpera CEO/founder Frank Barbieri. “Publishers benefit from mobile video because their audience receives the brand experience consistent with what they find online. This not only extends their presence in a seamless way, it also keeps their audience connected through multiple media. For advertisers, video can be leveraged to generate strong brand engagement.”

According to Nielsen Online, msnbc.com was named the number one Current Events and Global News site for the eighth consecutive month, with more than 41 million unique visitors in February, 2009. Additionally, as reported in Nielsen Mobile’s January 2009 report “Tuned into the Phone: Mobile Video Use in the U.S. and Abroad,” news remains among the among the top 5 most popular categories for video viewing on the mobile phone.

For the first MOFILM Film Festival, participants submitted films of five minutes or less. A panel of leading experts selected the short list of five films, and the audience then voted for the winner with their cell phones. Winners were: Best Comedy (Frank Chindamo for English as a Second Language), Best Drama (Tor Kristoffersen for Enough), Best Documentary (The Science of Attraction by Claveski), Best Science Fiction (Star Chicks by Jay & Angela Lee) and Best Animation (Pushkin by Trevor Hardy). The overall winner was a close contest but in the end Frank Chindamo won the Chevrolet Cruse. [MobilizedTV will have an interview/story with Frank Chindamo early next week, so stay tuned.]

MobilizedTV had a chance to interview the MOFILM co-founder Ralph Cochrane, a pioneer of content for mobile and online services.

When was MOFILM founded and how has its mission evolved?

It started two years ago in 2007, the result of a dinner conversation in Chicago between the Sundance Institute and the GSM Association. The conversation went along the lines that the Sundance Institute is tasked with showcasing emerging filmmakers, they have a huge catalog and a number of submissions every year in the short film category. Two years ago, we had a huge issue of needing short, punchy clips for mobile. We asked the question, would it work on mobile? So we created a test at Barcelona. We took five leading filmmakers that Sundance recommended including Dayton & Ferris, Justin Lin (who directed Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift); Corey McAbee (the actor in American Astronaut); and the writer/director Jody Hill, now working with Seth Rogen and Maria Maggenti. That’s how we started. I was brought in because I was the ‘expert’ who knew how to deliver film to the phone. For us, it was a marketing project: trying something out in the Sundance lab style. The reaction was so positive we thought, maybe something is here.

What changes/evolution have you seen in mobile content over the years?

There are lots of changes. The biggest one is that compared to two years ago when people asked, Is this a good idea? We don’t even get asked that question now, because of the iPhone, as well as other phones from LG and others. The device size is no longer a problem, no longer an issue. The networks are much better, so you now can transmit content in that way.

There are ways of monetizing it. Look at the iPhone. You can actually make money off of content. It’s still developing; iPhone is the tip of the iceberg. People are much more aware of mobile also: there are 4 billion mobile phones in the world. It’s not just about content-either. If you can do something people want to share virally, like games or content, people are actually using it. So a lot has changed in two years.

Initially everyone thought mobile content had to be snack-sized in terms of length. Is that still true? Or do you see long-form gaining traction?

I think if you look at what Corey McAbee is doing with Stingray Sam, you can see he’s created content of 10 minutes in length, episodes, and that’s a format that’s becoming more popular. There has been some research done by Nokia to show the average viewing length for mobile TV, which is basically broadcast TV, is about 22 minutes. That’s the length of a 30-minute TV serial. You also have to bear in mind how it’s being paid for. It’s very similar to broadcast TV. There are advertisements, brought-to-you-by sponsorship preroll. It’s different than buying content on iTunes. But the technology and viewing shows that people will watch a reasonable length. People also side-load movies, but that’s probably a step too far for the market around the world.

What was it about English as a Second Language that made it a winner in the comedy category?

We had a review panel made up of the community, the people who create from around the world, so it wasn’t just English- speaking. We had people from Brazil and China. I think a couple of things about this entry really worked: it’s shot very well for mobile, it’s close-up, and it’s a topic–men and women interacting–that you can relate to . Oh, and it’s funny. I was slightly surprised, because I thought animation might win since it has less spoken dialog, and we had animation with no dialog at all. Overall, English as a Second Language won pretty narrowly over the animation genre because it wa a funny, well written script.

Why did you pick the mobile phone as a platform for distribution?

We’re fascinated by digital publishing. Lori and I, having spent decades in publishing, know that e-books will be the new mass-market publishing. It made sense to publish it digitally: less waste, instant gratification and the authors make more money. So we publish both online and on mobile. If you go to our site, it’ll tell you which format to download for which device from the Blackberry or iPhone to Kindle or the Sony reader. We’re trying to give people as many options as possible.

We didn’t start this business with the intention of just targeting the cell phone market. People are reading Ravenous Romance stories and novels mainly on digital readers or the computer, and we also offer audio books. Mobile is in its early stages and people are getting comfortable with it, whereas e-books have been around for 15 years.

The conventional wisdom [with e-books] was that the most popular books would be business and history and men would be reading. It surprised the publishing business that it was women buying e-books. Fifty percent of the fiction sold on Fictionwise, an online retailer of e-books, are romance.

Is there something about the mobile platform that made a good fit for erotica aimed at women?

I think it’s portable and discreet. The fact the reader can be sitting on the train and reading a dirty story and nobody knows it has an appeal. You can stand in the line at the grocery store and read it. You’ll get commuters and business travelers. We offer short stories that you can read in 15 minutes that you can read stuck in traffic. And everyone always has their phone with them,

A number of companies have achieved significant success in selling romantic erotica in the digital space, because it’s discreet. Whether you’re reading on your PC or iPod Touch, it’s not like carrying around a paperback book. That’s why this is the biggest category in e-books.

How did you recruit writers? I understand you’ve had numerous well known writers contribute stories.

We do. Through our connections, having been in publishing for a long time, we knew a lot of writers who had followings and a good track record in print and were willing to take a leap on this new technology. We’ve been in business since August and we have 200 writers already. We get writers from Romance Writers of America–and also those in traditional print publishing who are ready to make a leap into digital publishing. What we found is we’re getting writers from other genres: a well known horror writer wrote his first erotica for us. And non-fiction writers who have always written fiction but never gotten it published. Everybody has an erotic trunk novel, as Lori likes to say. You’d be surprised how many of these writers write erotica in their spare time. We are also taking unsolicited work and we’ve found good writers that way. We’re getting submissions from agents, without agents–we’re very open there.

How do you bill? Do you have arrangements with the carriers?

People are buying directly from our site. We don’t have a deal with carriers, although we’re talking to Global Reader about getting our books up on that. Stanza is the application for the iPhone, and you can buy our books through stanza, All Romance e-books has a deal with us, and they’re on the Stanza store.

Were any of the logistics in selling content over the mobile phone daunting? Has it been worth the effort?

So far it’s been pretty easy because it hasn’t been our primary market. Our primary market is people buying on the computer or their reading devices. But we’re hearing from customers that they’re reading on their iPhone, and people are downloading to iPod. In two years, everyone will be reading on their cell phones.

How do you keep track of metrics – who’s buying what from where?

It’s tough. We know what formats they’re downloading but beyond that we don’t know anything else. You can download a PDF and read on the Blackbery, so it’s difficult to track. We’ll track it better as we go forward. The scientific way would be to make it part of the check-out proces, or we could also do a customer survey. Our customers are vocal and we hear a lot for them. The majority of them now are downloading PDFs, which leads me to believe they are reading on their computers.

How do you market Ravenous Romance?

We’ve done a number of things. We do pay-per-click, through Google and Yahoo. We do PR. We do social networking, which is really where we’re going to put more emphasis in the coming year because (a) it’s free and (b) it is the best way to build a following of people who care about our brands and products. I’m on twitter as are many of my authors. Banner ads don’t seem to do all that much. There’s so much noise on the internet, people become immune to the banner ads, so I don’t think that’s a great investment. We’re trying to do more grassroots investment. And our readers are building their own tribes and writers groups; they build their own followings that adds up. We have a Ravenous Romance Facebook group and we’re on twitter and there’s a group on Yahoo where they can talk to our authors.

How much do Ravenous Romance stories and novels cost? And what kind of revenue arrangement do you have with these writers?

Every Ravenous Rendezvous short story is $1.99, every novel is $4.99, and every audiobook is $12.99. Authors get 38 percent of each sale.

So, is it possible then to make money on mobile with the written word?

It depends how you define money. Our authors make a higher percentage than in print. [Online and mobile publishing] takes more time to build, but in a year, two years, our writers will be making serious money. There’s no shelf space limitation. Barnes & Noble can only stock so many books. As we grow the site will evolve as well.

Any thoughts of expanding into rich media?

No, I think when we expand, we’ll expand into other literary genres such as scifi, horror, young adults–other genres that lend themselves to this model. When I think of this business model, I think of pulp fiction: things you want to read but don’t necessarily want to want to line your bookshelves with. These women read a book a day, and that’s a lot of shelf space. We need to target genres similar to that. We started with romance because it’s biggest, with the most voracious readership. With young adult, we might aggressively go after the mobile market–and that genre is next.

The topic is Monetizing Stock Footage. I’m flogging it in part because I am moderating the webinar, but also because I think a subset of MobilizedTV readers will find this useful. Participants include Paula Lumbard and Carol Martin of The Footage Bank, an all-HD footage house, and footagehead, that lower cost company for mobile creators. Also on board is BBC Motion Gallery’s Jan Ross. Cinematographers who are making at least a partial living off of licensing stock footage are Gil Hubbs, ASC and Randall Dark, an HD pioneer.

It should be an interesting 90 minute conversation, and there will be plenty of time to ask questions. To sweeten the deal, all webinar attendees will receive 50 percent off any Class On Demand product sold in the Studio Daily store, anything from training on Adobe CS4, Final Cut and Avid to Sony XDCAM and Shooting HDV.

You probably have less chance getting handcuffed for foul mobile behavior while driving a car than if you’re a schoolgirl in Wisconsin. Thanks to reader Mark Brill who alerted me to this article in The Smoking Gun about a 14 year old girl who was arrested for texting in class.

Is this a Wisconsin thing? Or does cell phone rudeness just send people over the edge?