Month: April 2006

I attended, and was a speaker at, iSummit 2006, March 29-31, 2006 in Toronto, Canada. This entry is the first of two featuring my notes from the sessions I attended.

iSummit is described as "an international entertainment and media event dedicated to the business of digital content on interactive platforms." This was a lively and intimate conference focused more on interactive content rather the underlying technology. It was also a really diverse and international crowd made up of folks from the television, interactive, technology, and marketing worlds (or unusual combinations of each). Kudos to the New Media Business Alliance and the sponsors for putting on such a stimulating event.

The 3G Experience: Signals From Around the World

• This session was devoted to the high-speed 3G mobile phone networks, coming soon (as early as this fall) to Canada but already quite popular in other parts of the world.
• In Japan, teenagers account for 70% of the 3G network revenue, most of which is pay-per-use and pay-per-view service and data offerings.
• One panelist suggested that Asia was ahead of the Australian market by 2 years, and that Australia was ahead of the US (and Canadian) market by 2 years.
• In England there are already 3-5 million 3G subscribers, depending on who you ask.
• In Italy, the most popular 3G content is ringtones (30%), ‘adult’ (25%), games (20%), TV clips (15%), music/songs (7%), sports info (3%), and ‘gossip’ content (2%).
• Speaking of TV, short video ‘digests’ are the way to go versus long-form video.
• Another interesting statistic: the typical mobile phone user changes their phone every 18 months.
• One obstacle to success with 3G phones was said to be the user interface; the easier they are made to use, the more easily the revenue will flow.
• We were shown a demonstration of Kemeleon, a very cool ‘animated messaging’ service that converts SMS messages into animated character video messages. Weird, yes, but also hugely popular with teenagers in Asia. (Apparently some of the most popular, and profitable, 3G services are completely ‘pointless’ from a rational or traditional point-of-view. Go figure.)