2010-06-24

Making Video Work on Mobile



Most musicians are correctly focused on making their music and thinking about the many possibilities to share that music to fans. Music videos are becoming increasingly important as a way to get fans excited about your music, and YouTube is one of the most popular sites on the web because of that. In the mobile space, according to a recent survey, nearly a quarter of smartphone users watch video on their phone at least once per day. Here at Adva Mobile we know that presenting videos on your mobile websites is a very popular activity and we know that fans really use this feature and watch your videos. Unfortunately, not all phones are alike, and many do not support certain video formats or player types. Adva Mobile is working to solve that, so every member of your mobile fan base has the ability to experience your awesome videos right on their phone.

Delivering video to mobile phones is complex, and until now we have been limited to linking to YouTube videos. Many of you are creating higher-quality, professional grade videos than what's typical on YouTube, and new web services like VEVO, Vimeo, Metacafe and Brightcove offer professionally created video on your PC. You are probably aware that Adva Mobile renders your mobile website correctly for most of the world's 5,000 phone types, but this also needs to be done correctly for your video. Each model of phone has its own requirements for web site display and each has unique requirements for showing video, since not all phones use the same video player. Video needs to be sent correctly for each type of phone, otherwise they miss out on seeing it.

We recently solved this problem through a test with Nellymoser. Many of you know that, for audio, we require you to upload audio in m4a (iTunes) format, because we know it is the most widely-accepted format for phones. But the video world is different. Each phone has its own player, which means you have to send the video to each phone type in its particular format in order for it to play on that particular phone. Nellymoser does this. Nellymoser provides a single point of entry to easily reach the mobile marketplace across the multitude of mobile networks, devices and content formats. Especially interesting to Adva Mobile is their ability to provide video content, in whatever format it is provided to them, rendered correctly for whatever phone type that receives the content.
For established bands, this is important because you now know that your high-quality video can be displayed to your fans on their mobile phones in the high-quality you expect. For emerging bands, it's important that you know that, as you migrate from user generated content typical of YouTube to more professional quality video, your mobile website is competent to serve up video to your expectations.
If any of you have this need today, please contact us and we will facilitate getting your video onto the Nellymoser platform and creating links to it on your mobile web site.

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