Making Music

OK, you will not see me disputing that music has a lot of potential on mobile devices. But I think its success will greatly hinge on how it is to be delivered. To me, a subscription service makes the most sense while continuing with a pay-per-download setup is not the way to go.

US carrier Sprint this week began to offer a streaming audio service featuring channels provided by Music Choice, which delivers digital audio channels to cable and satellite TV customers. For $6 a month, users can listen to the genre-based channels on their handset — a price that might prove a little high for a service that doesn’t take advantage of the interactive potential of the mobile medium, as well as one they’re used to getting for free in FM radio.

While mobile music represents one content opportunity for carriers, mobile porn was supposed to be a much safer bet. But many operators are now finding that servicing the adult market can be difficult, as they try to strike a balance between making porn available to their users while not being viewed as pornographers. A new law in Australia says that anybody that wants to surf mobile porn will have to show ID along with a written request to be able to access it — a move that’s sure to kill off much, if not all, of the demand for the services.

China’s top two handset vendors, TCL and Ningbo Bird, gave sales and profit warnings this week, revealing the extent to which Western vendors have clawed their way back in the Chinese market. As consumer tastes have matured, foreign manufacturers’ lead in offering feature-packed deviceshave allowed them to pass local makers, who are now looking overseas for growth.

A South Korean government agency reported this week that mobile spam there has overtaken the desktop variety, at least according to the number of reports it saw through the first nine months of the year. During the timeframe, the Korean Information Security Agency received four times the number of complaints about mobile spam as on the desktop.

A British trade group said this week that half the mobile phones in the country now feature GPRS access, and a third are capable of using MMS. But while the numbers might sound impressive, MMS usage remains low, and GPRS ability isn’t necessarily turning into mobile Internet usage.