Fox Starts TV Production For Cell Phones

prostoalex writes "Broadcasting television to the cell phones, which few people were actually interested in, is becoming a reality pretty fast, as Fox started making mopisodes (one-minute episodes targeted specifically for the mobile phone screen) to be broadcast on Vodafone and Verizon networks. The Fox announcement timed perfectly with Vodafone launching a broad variety of 3G services in Europe."

Comments

1minute episodes ? commericals

[sPaKr]

I thought the correct term for a one minute episode was commercial. I cant belive people are going to pay for that.

Why is it Different in the US?

[Oyume]

I wonder why Vodafones in the US aren't like the ones here in Japan -- The newer phones receive regular broadcast TV, no fees or special equipment required. On your Vodafone you can watch anything that's not on cable TV. Pretty nice. But I just don't get the whole "download and pay" gambit in the WEST...

*shrug*

Re:Why is it Different in the US?

[cgenman]

Roll-out of cellular products in the US is terribly, terribly slow. For one, uptake in the US is slow, with many people holding on to their phones until they break. For another, the US market is quite large but needs to be supported as a cohesive whole... As such if Verizon wants to try something out, they will wait until success is reasonably assured then do a full nationwide roll out. Japan is a smaller, less-risky market which has traditionally used cell phones in roles that in the west would have been filled by computers... as computer uptake was somewhat slower over there and internet access was more spotty.

Plus the carriers out here get to say what their customers use as phones, not vice-versa. Up until recently phones had to be flashed to a specific network provider and a specific user... the idea of buying a general purpose cell phone and finding a provider later is laughable here, despite being a perfectly functional model in Europe.

We expect the carrier to subsidise the cost of the phones, and then are shocked that we can't get any phone that has features they don't want us to have. Sigh. I'd say vote with your dollars, but we really don't have any choice here.

Re:Why is it Different in the US?

[BlastM]

_Not a troll_ just an observation.

I have never been to Japan, but from what I gather Japanese society is generally tech-profficient and consumers make educated decisions when buying electronics.

Apart from us geeks who are skeptical of big business at the best of times and paranoid at other times, western society will consume what the television tells it to, and is short-sighted enough not to realise that micro-payments add up quickly.

I'm an Australian, and I can see this happening right now. SMS and MMS has become a huge fad, as have mobile phones in general. Many young people now face debt problems after running up phone bills in the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars.

Broadband internet service is well below basic for a developed nation, but that's mostly attributed to the reelection of the conservative federal government that has sold half of the telecommunications utility that owns all the copper phone infrastructure and DSLAMs and most of the outgoing internet pipes.

The population just isn't tech-savvy enough to force the market to be competitive, and as a result we are all fucked over, although only the geeks (and the farmers in the outback who can barely make phone calls) can see it.

Before they do that...

[infernalC]

By gosh, I want Verizon to get rid of those fast-busy signals around rush hour and all those dead spots on my way to work. Cell service just plain sucks for a lot of us out here.

Re:WTF

[erick99]

People are nuts. They want the tiniest cell phone possible, and then they want full motion/realtime video on it as well as a huge amount of memory for an MP3 player, add some circuitry for GPS, and whatever else. Do people really want to watch tv on their phone? Maybe this trend has more to do with people never being home because they have to or choose to work insane hours and also run kids back and forth and try to do other things as well. We are a Type A society I suppose. If it's gotten so bad that watching tv on a cell phone seems like a good idea, well, then, it's gotten pretty bad.

Re:Mobile hazard

[Craig Ringer]

You'd be a tad more credible if you felt like putting your name to your post.

As it happens, I agree with you. Cyclists and major roads/highways/freeways do not mix. The difference is that instead of saying "so cyclists should get off the road" I say "I'm paying for this, and can expect decent transport infrastructure too." When roads are upgraded, it's not hard to add a bike path or a cycle lane or two, nor does it take much space. In general, I strongly prefer to stick to cycleways anyway, and in Perth (Western Australia) that's usually a viable option.

On minor roads, however - a cyclist has as much right to use the road as anybody else. It is entirely reasonable to expect not to be wiped out by morons just because they can't be bothered looking where they're going. Paying attention isn't hard. When it comes to the speed issue, at worst people have to slow down for 30s until there's a decent place to pass, and only because that bit of road is too stupidly cramped. Deal with it. Seriously.

As for the insults and generalisations, my thoughts about giant-truck driving redneck hicks are similar - but I'm not making the assumption that you are one like you've made unreasonable assumptions about me (despite the strong temptation to do so).

I must note, also, that I've met more than a few winy idiots myself. Some have been cyclists - and really, painfully bitchy about it. The sort of people who will tell someone who lives 30km from their work in a country that hits 40C in summer that they don't need a car. The temptation to beat them to death is strong. A similar temptation exists for intolerant morons who assume all cyclists are like that and who think they're the only ones whose needs matter.