“The Twentieth Century Fox studio, a veteran of the big screen and the TV screen, is about to break into an entirely new realm: the really little screen, the kind that comes on a cell phone. In what appeared to be the first arrangement of its kind, Twentieth Century Fox said Wednesday it would create a unique series of one-minute dramas based on its hit show ’24’ exclusively for a new high-speed wireless service being offered by Vodafone PLC, the world’s biggest cell phone company,” Seth Sutel reports for The Associated Press.
“Vodafone will begin offering the one-minute episodes in January in the United Kingdom, coinciding with the start of the fourth season of the show on a satellite TV service,” Sutel reports. The ‘mobisodes,’ as they’re being called, will be introduced later in 2005 in up to 23 more countries where Vodafone operates, mainly in Europe, as well as in the United States through the company’s Verizon Wireless joint venture.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: One would hope that this news will not escape Steve Jobs and the iPod team at Apple. If compelling multimedia content becomes available, Apple’s iPod should be there in a leading capacity.
Weird. Doubt it will catch on.
“MacDailyNews Take: One would hope that this news will not escape Steve Jobs and the iPod team at Apple. If compelling multimedia content becomes available, Apple’s iPod should be there in a leading capacity.”
Well that would kinda mean adding mobile phone capabilities to the iPod. Who’s going to bother spending a few minutes to download a one minute program and sync it to their iPod to view it when they can just view it on their computer? It’s only a minute after all…
I don’t think this will go very far, but then again, what do I know.
Fox will be providing this “service” ??…
I can see it now… complete with “fair and balanced” commercials….
uhh no thanx.. I’ll pass
Ye gods! Are people going to be totally incapable of tolerating a moment of silence now and again that they must be amused every second of their waking lives with some audio-video blather blasting in their ears?
President
CPAQ (Curmudgeons for Peace and Quiet)
Vodafone is so concerned with staying on the edge that they will try anything — even stupid things like this. In fact, in my neck of the woods, they don’t even send me a bill; just an SMS to say it’s overdue. Weird. As far as I’m concerned, they can introduce anything they want so long as they don’t try to ram it down my throat.
Since it’s 3G based, I wonder if QuickTime is powering the back end of this. If you watched the Frank Casanova CTIA keynote, this is the sort of thing he was talking about. Anyone know the scoop on the back end?
If it is 3G-based, you can be assured that it’s powered by QT on some level.
“If compelling multimedia content becomes available, Apple’s iPod should be there in a leading capacity.”
We don’t have to wait for subscription services. There are plenty of free legal QuickTime downloads on the internet. And these big media companies seem to forget that people with camcorders can create their own video clips.
If what we’re waiting for is “compelling multimedia content”: personally, guess I’ll just have to keep on waiting, as I don’t find “a unique series of one-minute dramas based on its hit show ’24’ ” exactly “compelling.”
Someone at Fox read William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition. Or go back further to “Max Headroom”
BMW did a an online episodic series a couple of years ago, featuring, surprise, BMW cars, and an James Bond-esque action plot line. Pretty cool at the time, but huge download. Don’t know if this idea will work though.
They may start off by offering a real story or two but it will quickly morph into thinly veiled promos for Fox’s real content.
To borrow shamelessly from Charles de Gaulle
“I’m often wrong in what I do but rarely in what I predict” I can see one minute news flash and advertorials as a new wave in population control. Imagine going to vote on any issue and as you stand in line to the voting machine you receive in your phone a one minute news flash that challenges your beliefs and influences your bias. Remember the media IS the message
Instant Flop – interest will last as long as the show, ie 24 hours
After that, DaddySteve said it first…