MediaFlo A Go

Joseph Laszlo | January 08, 2007, 02:09 PM

There's so much news coming out of the gigantic vortex that is CES this week that it's tough to figure out what to respond to. But as none of my Jupiter colleagues have written about the Verizon Wireless deal to offer Qualcomm's MediaFlo [RCR Wireless], I'll jump in there as my starting point.

I'm actually glad to see someone taking a chance on MediaFlo; while analysts can hypothesize, only the market really decides what's going to work or not, on a mobile device or anywhere else.

I have to say, though, that I hypothesize that MediaFlo's value proposition is problematic at best. Quoting from the RCR article:

"Verizon said the service will offer "the best of broadcast and cable television," including shows from CBS, Comedy Central, Fox, MTV, NBC News, NBC Entertainment and Nickelodeon. The programming will be presented in “time block” availability, consistent with cable and satellite TV models, in both Eastern and Pacific time zones."

My problem is this. Imagine the use case for mobile broadcast: I'm going through my day and I unexpectedly discover I have 20 minutes to kill, from 4:18 to 4:38. And I'm going to, what, flip channels on my mobile, and watch the second half of a game show or whatever happens to be "on" then? I have trouble imagining it, especially if I have any other choice of ways to fill that time.

Mobile video might, might eventually find a large audience in the US. But we live in an increasingly on-demand world; it's a total throwback to think that a new broadcast paradigm is going to work on mobile phones, especially if you need to pay extra for it. At least, not until everyone has a mobile DVR.