Nielsen Media Research monitored a panel of 400 iPod users and found that: "Less than 1% of content items played by iPod users on either iTunes or the device itself were videos. Among video iPod users, that percentage barely improves, up to 2.2%." From this they gather: "Worst-case scenario: The panel is an early indication that TV and movies have limited appeal on iPods. Best-case scenario: While adoption of video may be proceeding more slowly than the hype suggests, there is tremendous upside ahead." Here is my response:- People are ready for mobile video but the iPod isn't. That screen size alone is a huge drawback.
- In general, music is friendlier to mobile users but not necessarily to this extent. This does not mean, however, that video has no mobile potential. It is just not as potent as music.
- iTunes/iPod is still seen as a music box. (1.5 billion songs versus 45 million videos sold on iTunes)
- People aren't aware of how to get what they watch online (like Youtube) to their computers.
- If they do, people don't know how to incorporate video into their iPods. As matter of fact, just today, someone asked me how.
- People are willing to play music over and over again. So it is good to carry it with you. While with video, most people play it once. Not much of need to carry it or even store it on their computers.
- So it is more important that video is available on demand (wireless downloads) than say downloading to computer, then device.
- I say all this because I am confident that someone will surely make this mobile video thing work. Like the study says: "Walt Disney Co. noted that about 500,000 movies have been sold in the two months." People are ready.
1. Imagine waiting in an airport on a 2 hour stop-over. You have your Ipod and can watch streaming video news from anywhere in the world: news from home, news from your destination, news from your current location. Imagine you can watch YouTube videos on demand and music videos, all streamed to your Ipod via wireless. It's the only way that video will truly become a viable mobile option. It will be amazing. But as you say, unlike music, we don't watch videos over and over, and I don't want to hassle with downloading and converting video content to my Ipod just so I can watch it once. When streaming video is available everywhere all the time an Ipod will become a seemingly indispensible part of life. How many years will that take?
Posted at 12:50PM on Nov 21st 2006 by Sean