I spend a lot of time every day thinking about what will be ‘the next big thing.’  Often my friends and I will throw out ideas over beers about what might just be the next iPod, the next digital camera, the next notebook computer, the next must-have game-changing device.  I always start by identifying a problem, then search for solutions.

Right now, a problem is creeping up in the mobile media world:  screen size.  How can we cram high quality content onto tiny little mobile screens?  We can’t really repurpose content from TV or the movies, it just doesn’t work.  Not only are the shots framed much, much too far away to see clearly on a little itty-bitty screen, but the format of the shows are all wrong.  People aren’t likely to sit through a 30 minute show on their mobile device.  If they watch a movie on their iPhone, it’s likely to be only during a flight or a long car trip.  How do we make content that works for  a small screen during the day-to-day, 5-10 minute segments during which people use their mobile devices for entertainment?

A few weeks ago I completed a project with the New Media Institute at UGA that addressed the mobile content creation connundrum directly.  The University of Georgia recently purchased bandwidth from a local TV station, WNEG.  Part of that bandwidth will go to simulcasting the current UGA station, but a small portion of it has been sectioned off for mobile television broadcasting.  The New Media Institute took hold of this opportunity and spent the last 6 months producing content to be aired on the mobile tv airwaves.  The capstone class in the NMI was able to produce 6 or 7 one-episode shows, but since I already took the capstone I chose to work through an Independent Study.  My two favorite NMI friends and I created a group called the MobileDawgs, and we produced two three-episode shows made specifically for the mobile tv platform.

We wanted to use the interactive components of mobile phones to show off how mobile tv can be used to work with consumers.  In direct contrast to traditional television, the mobile tv station at UGA has a special channel that is dedicated to transmitting data two ways.  With our station, advertisers can get specific metrics related to who is watching their ads, for how long, and more–with traditional tv, producers and advertisers dump their content out into the airwaves and just sit back with their fingers crossed.  The best consumer data they can receive involves market research studies and extrapolation–with mobile tv the data is not only generally statistically superior, but every number is connected to a real person who made a real decision (to watch or to flip the channel).  I can just see the ad people jumping up and down now…

So how did our shows utilize the interactive features of cell phones?  Well, there ended up being a slight disconnect between what we dreamed up and what we were actually able to make happen.  But what’s new, eh?  One of our shows is called CitySmart, and each of the three episodes focuses on a different category of restaurant in Athens.  We filmed all of the episodes using only a Nokia N95, a decision that caused some headaches but also helped in a few ways–but I’ll save my take on filming with mobile devices for a future post.  Table for Two highlights three excellent date locations,  Exotic Eats showcases three of our favorite foreign food restaurants, and Insomnisnack points viewers to great late-night hotspots.  Every episode prompts viewers to press one of their softkeys on their phone at any time during the show to receive a text with directions to the restaurants.  The viewer simply hits a key and within seconds they get a text with a live URL that links to a Google Map with every restaurant in the episode already pinned.  The phone numbers, reviews, and directions from their current location are only a few clicks away.

Try doing that with a TV and a remote control.

When we showed off our projects to executives from various mobile media companies (incredibly intelligent crowd, from Nokia to AT&T to ad agencies like Moxie Interactive), we were overjoyed to see the excitement in their faces.  We had a guy come up to our station who worked with mobile tv in Helsinki, and he threw out some excellent ideas like attaching a way to make reservations for the currently highlighted restaurant within the show’s framework–a concept that sounds incredibly useful and wouldn’t be all that hard to accomplish.  In short, the people who will be heading this new mobile media initiative in the near future loved our stuff.  It was a huge relief and a major win for the NMI!

So what’s next?  Well the NMI is working on creating even more content for this mobile tv station and beyond.  We have produced a detailed guide that explains “How to Produce Content for Mobile Television” that even includes a proposed framework for how the station would run its programming.  Will mobile tv be the next big thing?  Who knows, but if it is the New Media Institute and the MobileDawgs will be right there at the front of the pack, cell phones in hand!