From Podcasts to Mobcasts: Broadcasters Take Big Leap

It is doubtful that Socrates could have visualized visual radio, podcasts, mobcasts, mobile phones or even the rise and decline of the hula hoop. But he did say, “The true creator is necessity…is the mother of our invention.” For those who doubt the lasting insight of the ages – the digital age never blind or deaf to necessity– muse on these possibilities.

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Regulators Work Together For Digital Solutions
Nine European media regulators are beginning an ambitious project to coordinate digital strategies.

With Global Sales of Mobile Phones Set to Reach 1 Billion This Year, and 3G Carriers Fighting It Out To Launch Their TV Services First With World Cup Coverage, Is This The Year We Really Use the Phone for More Than Just to Say Hello?
Deals are beginning to be signed In Europe for mobile phone operators to enter the TV business in a big way. In the UK, Virgin Mobile has signed up for BT’s Movio system with the hope one of the five terrestrial TV stations on offer will have World Cup coverage.

Will We Use Our Mobile Phones To Watch Enough Television To Make It A Viable Financial Proposition? Various UK trials and Tests Indicates the Answer is Yes, No, and Maybe
Since November Sky Television has provided more than 5 million live-TV streams in its Vodaphone 3G service, so there certainly is an interest in using mobile phones to watch some television.

Now On a Mobile Phone Near You: Visual Radio
If you’re in Finland Nokia’s new killer application puts pictures together with FM radio in a cellphone.

The Spodradio software turns a Nokia 3G cellphone into a radio player. New mobcasts are received through an RSS feed, enabling listeners to choose and hear their favorite programs turned into podcasts whenever they like, where ever they like. Screen visuals display the usual artist and titles, album covers and other visual effects. Of course, ring tones can be ordered automatically.

Stuttgart-based Liquid Air Labs, like Apple Computers, found that success breeds a trip to the courthouse as Apple Computers asked a Hamburg court in January to enjoin Liquid Air from using the terms ‘spodradio’ and ‘spod.’ Apple says the names tread on its’ ‘iPod’ trademark. Liquid Air says its’ product threatens Apple’s iTunes. The court gave something for each side to think about while awaiting a full hearing: Liquid Air cannot use ‘spod’ in its marketing – point Apple – but it can continue to use ‘spodradio’ – point Liquid Air.

The French National Assembly decided recently that the lack of interoperability between Apple’s iPod and iTunes and the products and services of other providers threatened French society, if not the world.

On the vanguard of multimedia messaging (MMS) applications - another “next big thing” - Liquid Air Labs is rolling out an MMS chat application designed to “charge users for multimedia messages delivered to their handsets via reversed billed SMS.”

From Podcasts to Mobcasts: Broadcasters Take Big Leap

Munich radio station 95.5 Charivari joins other German stations and UK broadcaster Virgin Radio in the rush to entice cellphone radio listeners with the clever software – Spodradio – produced by Liquid Air Lab, powered by Nokia’s 3G handset line.