Blog

• Markus Bäckström
• 4 March 2010

[News] Mobile Video is a Winner at the Olympics

According to a press release from NBC on Wednesday, mobile video from the Vancouver Olympics has been a huge hit.

In 17 days, more than 2 million mobile video streams were served from NBC's Olympics mobile web site. This is more than 6 times the number of mobile video streams served during the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Total pageviews for the Olympics mobile site was 87 million.

Source: NBC Press Release

• Markus Bäckström
• 24 February 2010

[News] The Olympics NBC mobile website is very popular

54 Million page views, 1.3 million mobile video streams in just 10 days

The Olympic mobile website and iPhone app gives quick access to scores, medal count, top stories, athlete profiles , video, polls & trivia, live results, schedules, TV  listings and photos. To view the Vancouver Olympics on your cell phone Text OLYMPICS to 51515 or go to http://wap.nbcolympics.com/.

NBC’s Olympics Mobile platforms (WAP site and iTunes App), through just 10 days have amassed more than 54.3 million page views already surpassing the total number of page views for the entire 17-day Beijing Games (34.7 million) by 56 percent.

There have been 1.3 million mobile video streams in just 10 days, more than four times the total number for the entire 17-day Beijing Games (301k).

By the time the Opening Ceremony broadcast started at 7:30 p.m. on Feb 12, NBCs Olympics Mobile had already generated more page views than the entire 2006 Winter Games (1.07 million).

Source: Wireless and Mobile News

• Markus Bäckström
• 24 February 2010

[News] Mobile viewers watching favourite TV shows in prime time

BBC iPlayer figures provide revealing snapshot

The technology may have changed, but tech-savvy consumers still watch their favourite TV shows on mobile phones at the same times as they used to watch TV, with a healthy dose taking the BBC iPlayer to bed at weekends.

The BBC, which has provided a revealing snapshot into how consumers are using BBC iPlayer on their mobiles to watch TV, found that peak time viewing is about 9.30pm.

The prime time period for evening mobile viewing runs from about 7.30pm to 11pm across the week, a similar pattern to the viewing habits of people watching on a television. The BBC is keen to learn more about the trend and is contemplating research into the pattern. The corporation also found that mobile TV watching is lower on Friday and Saturday evenings when the younger people are likely to be out socialising.

Weekend mornings, when users are having a lie-in, have also proved to be a hit for the iPlayer on mobiles with a significant bump in viewing between 7am and 10am. The BBC said that, overall, Sunday is the most popular day for watching catch-up TV on mobiles.

The BBC did not provide any figures on how many shows are being viewed by mobile. Numbers are thought to be relatively small, but growth is expected to be high as the iPlayer has jumped from being available on four to 22 devices in a year.

Source: Guardian

• ThirdPresence
• 15 February 2010

[News] The Online Video Landscape in 2010

Rather interesting – long tail sites are delivering more minutes than top 25 sites in US.

"Liz Gannes had an interesting post yesterday, in the wake of the Veoh bankruptcy announcement, with a great chart outlining the huge volume of funding that has flowed to video sites over the years and how that has panned out. As a document, the chart is an excellent indictment of the irrational exuberance — and folly — that attended the monies plowed into a handful of video sites.

• ThirdPresence
• 9 February 2010

[News] Streaming video is fastest growing mobile app

Doesn't surprise us a single bit :) HTTP streaming can be (mainly) attributed to iPhone usage as it doesn't support any "pure" streaming protocol.

"Streaming mobile video has become a mainstream medium and is the single most influential factor driving the need for increased network capacity, according to the latest survey from IP firm Allot.

The report found that global mobile data bandwidth usage increased by 72% between the second quarter and fourth quarter of 2009, and that YouTube was responsible for 10% of global mobile data bandwidth."

• ThirdPresence
• 8 February 2010

[News] Mobile TV is dead – long live mobile video

The operators' early aspirations to dominate on the mobile content distribution and services have not been very successful. Apple's iPhone, Google's Android, Nokia's Ovi and the "m dot" sites have captured the momentum for good. For example, mobile video was for a long time offered more or less exclusively through operators' portals, but now that has changed and the brands, video sites, advertisers and media companies are directly offering their content to customers. Off-deck content seems to be the way to go.

• ThirdPresence
• 5 February 2010

[News] Little progress with French mobile TV

Before we started working on ThirdPresence and streaming video in general, we used to do DVB-H stuff, mainly server-side software. France is definitely not an exception, more like one more country that is facing the same woes. For broadcast mobile TV to really take off, a whole lot more handsets with pre-integrated DVB-H chips would be needed alongside client APIs (even with just a simple support for JSR-272) to create some cool user interfaces and services..

• ThirdPresence
• 4 February 2010

[News] ADMC to show EPL football online

Nice to see that premium content is made available piece-by-piece to broadband customers, especially given the fact that Premiership Leagure is one of the best known sports leagues in the world!

• Markus Bäckström
• 16 December 2009

Do we need a mobile web?

Every now and then I talk to people in the mobile industry who seem to be enchanted by the 'full web browsing experience' or 'full Flash support' offered by some of the new smartphones that have appeared on the market. The argument usually goes something like this: As soon as we can have a full web browser and Flash support on most mobile phones, all these specialized mobile technology companies (including ThirdPresence) will become irrelevant.

• Markus Bäckström
• 2 November 2009

Big Brother Live on the iPhone

Finnish Broadcaster MTV MEDIA Launches Big Brother Mobile Video Pilot Service Using ThirdPresence’s Mobile Video Platform.

HELSINKI, Finland, October 28, 2009 – ThirdPresence Ltd., the leading mobile video platform, has worked together with Finnish broadcaster MTV3 to pilot a mobile service with which viewers can watch the Big Brother reality show live 24/7 using their iPhones or iPod touch.