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The next wave mobile content boom - Managing Mobile Content
October 07, 2004;
Article written by Matt Hooper from elata about managing mobile content and how mobile content systems need to adapt to deal with the next wave mobile content boom.

Matt Hooper, Vice-President of Marketing & Strategic Alliances at mobile content delivery software pioneer, elata, thinks that a new breed of mobile content management system will be needed to handle the next wave mobile content boom

Mobile content is a growth area in more ways than one. Not only are revenue streams set to mature - downloadable games are expected to grow to 82 percent of an expected $8 billion mobile gaming market, according to Strategy Analytics - mobile content types are already diversifying and becoming richer and more complex. In short, the revenue opportunities may be increasing, but so is the challenge of managing a variety of different content types from an ever increasing number of providers and aggregators.

Traditionally, content management systems have been designed to deal with the collection and organisation of web content; its storage, retrieval, versioning, history and workflow management. These systems have naturally evolved in tandem with the technological requirements of enterprise businesses. Initial solutions were designed to deal with simple object types such as pdfs, jpegs and other common formats. As the web became an essential business tool, management systems progressed to deal with simple mark-up languages and basic web content.

However, the majority of these existing management solutions are not yet designed to deal with what we might term ‘content objects’ – rich media such as video clips, ringtones, MP3s and downloadable games that are driving the mobile content space. This presents a significant barrier for mobile operators, who have an increasing need to handle multiple content types from multiple providers and to deliver them within the same solution workflow.

These new, rich content types present new management challenges. Digital content - often in high volumes - needs to be ingested from multiple providers operating under different business models and then securely tested. This rich content usually has a limited lifecycle which needs to be managed, from the introduction to retirement of an item. Managing rich content types requires the tracking and registration of significant amounts of metadata.

However, the majority of currently deployed content delivery platforms were developed and rolled out before the market and revenue potential for mobile content was fully understood. Many operators rushed to create delivery and management solutions and are now limited by compartmentalised, ‘silo’ systems that offer limited scalability for adopting new content types, management models or handsets standards, new billing structures or high volumes of content from multiple providers.

Alternatively, some operators have found themselves bogged down in ambitious, long term delivery platform infrastructure projects that combine elements of the operations support system (OSS) and the business support system (BSS). Unless a phased approach has been undertaken, these operators will find their ability to exploit short and medium term content revenue opportunities severely hampered. Make no mistake, that will be a big loss. The 2.5G revenue goldmine of ringtones and java games looks set to expand even further with rich content like video and music on the cusp of launching a second ‘content boom’. The market has proven itself as a growing source of revenue; the key requirement is to develop a mobile content management system that will aggregate existing proprietary delivery systems and is flexible enough to support 3G functionality – and beyond.

In short, it is no longer appropriate to think of content management as a passive function. Mobile content management and mobile content delivery systems are converging – flexibility and intelligence in the way the content is ingested should be fundamentally linked to marketing processes

For example, a standard requirement for a content management solution should be to ingest and manage a wide variety of content types and objects from a selection of different providers. However, it may be the case that these content types will be sold under different revenue models to different segments of the subscriber base. Furthermore, the central database may need to serve several different markets – requiring the objects to be priced in different currencies and models as appropriate.

It is increasingly the case that the way in which content is managed and administered directly influences the effectiveness of the marketing function. Take, for example, an operator wanting to promote a new football game to coincide with the start of the Premiership season. The chances are that within that network providers’ subscriber database is information showing which users have an interest in football, which users have downloaded sports games before and which users have compatible handsets. By identifying and marketing to this user base, the operator can focus its campaign on subscribers who are much more likely to purchase the game and therefore increase revenues from their existing subscriber base.

However, this will only be possible if the content management architecture and the delivery solution is appropriately integrated. It is for this reason that elata and Vignette - leading players in the mobile content delivery and content management spaces respectively have partnered to provide a tailored solution for the delivery of mobile content.

Having management and delivery functions integrated is absolutely critical for operators looking to meet the challenges – and revenue opportunities – offered by next generation content. Being able to handle increasingly rich content types in a dynamic environment – and deliver them appropriately based on stored metadata – is arguably the key criteria on which an operator’s content revenue strategy hangs.

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