05/11  The real game is mobile phones

Category: Mobile Content    By editor at 22:31
Big labels are f*cked, and DRM is dead - Peter Jenner
And mobile?
The real game in town is not online. It's a skirmish. The real game is mobile phones. If your mobile phone is a portable computer, which has got all the facilities of an iPod and a radio, and a TV, with some limits on their memory but as time goes it'll have huge memory. But you need access to everything.

Update about and worthwhile criticism of the Jenner interview on Techcrunch:
I agree with Jenner that the music labels have “raped their own business model” and are in a very difficult situation. The projections that CD sales will decline by 50% over the next few years sound about right to me, given the alternatives that people have online.

But I do not think that the government should step in and help these people. I do not think that we should legislate a tax on broadband Internet access and mobile phones that gives the music industry guaranteed revenue, and guaranteed profits, while simultaneously removing their incentive to innovate and serve niche markets.

Asking the government to prop up a dying industry is always (always) a bad idea. In this case, it is a monumentally stupid, dangerous, and bad idea.



05/11  A talismanic connection with the phone

Category: Mobile Life    By editor at 21:21
In a Tech-Savvy World, the Word of God Goes Mobile
These palm-size gadgets "can take on a mystical significance," said James Katz, who studies the cultural and social impact of cellphones at Rutgers University, where he is the director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies.

In focus groups and interviews around the world, Katz has noted evidence of what he calls a "talismanic" connection many people have with their phones: screens adorned with spiritual scenes, Catholics who text-message their atoning Hail Mary prayers, Muslims who carry "Islamic phones" loaded with a Global Positioning System function that points them to Mecca.

See also:
Rutgers University Mobile Links