Background: Delivering Content to Audiences on their Mobile Phones
What does this section cover?
This section is all about delivering news (and news-like content) to audiences that are using mobile phones. This can involve directly sending content to users' mobile phones or making content accessible on mobile phones. We cover mediums ranging from short messages to web sites and mobile apps, and content ranging from text to audio to photos and videos. Examples will showcase organizations making news content accessible to mobile audiences, and tools and techniques will be primarily meant for content publishers that are publishing traditional and new media.
Who is this section for?
This section is for anyone who produces or publishes content and wants to make it accessible to audiences on mobile phones. This could mean citizen journalists who publish the content that they create. This could also mean more traditional news organizations who publish content created by journalists. The mobile phone, for the purposes of this section, is in the hands of the audience. This section aims to get publishers up to speed on getting the audience to read, view, or listen to mobile content.
Why should you be interested in delivering content to audiences on their mobile phones?
There are many reasons to disseminate content to mobile phones.
Description: Delivering Content to Audiences on their Mobile Phones
Making content (text, audio, video, and more) accessible to a mobile audience is done in various ways, including text message alerts, audio channels like phone calls and radio, mobile web, mobile apps, and location-based services.
How to Deliver Content to Audiences on their Mobile Phones
Mobile phones mean different things to different people. Some people use mobiles only for making calls, some use mobiles primarily for sending short texts, and some use mobiles to download applications and large amounts of data. It is important to figure out what kind of an audience you want to address on mobile phones. iPhone apps will not make sense if a very small percentage of your audience has iPhones, whereas SMS alerts may not make sense if your entire audience already browses many web sites. There are also strategic considerations to take into account: urgent news is better served by SMS alerts, whereas magazine or long-form articles may be better served by apps or mobile websites.
Delivering Mobile Content using Short Messages (SMS, MMS, etc.) One way to disseminate content to mobile phones is to send short messages to your audience. This type of dissemination typically will have broad reach (using SMS, for example) but is limited in the amount of information the message can carry. SMS may be a good way to send alerts and point users to more mobile-accessible content.
Delivering Audio Content to Mobile Audiences Another way of disseminating content is to use audio. Users can call in to receive news, podcasts or other audio-based content through an individual data plan. This type of dissemination is best for publishers that already produce audio content. Audio dissemination typically involves more technical involvement than other techniques, but can be a great boon when audio is the right medium for access.
Delivering Content on Mobile Websites Offering a mobile-accessible website is another way of disseminating content to mobile phone users. This type of dissemination is especially important for publishers already producing content on the web. There are many easy ways to publish mobile websites and the medium is appropriate for distributing much of the content that is typically distributed on the web.
Delivering Content on Mobile Apps Apps for native phones enable flexible dissemination of information. For publishers whose audiences own smartphones in large numbers, building apps can be an easy, flexible, and valuable way to disseminate content.
Delivering Video Content to Mobile Audiences Online video has enjoyed a huge success in the recent past, and there are already a significant number of mobile video consumers. Mobile video dissemination, at least for now, is appropriate for video producers whose audiences own newer phones and are early adopters of technologies.
Disseminating Location Information to Mobile Phones Disseminating content on mobiles should not be limited to extensions of old technologies; new technologies such as location-based dissemination should come into play. Mobile phone users are often looking for content relevant to their location, and sharing location-based information can help to reach such audiences. Publications with a strong local context will especially want to explore some of these dissemination options.
Limitations of Delivering Content to Audiences on their Mobile Phones
Mobile content dissemination has limitations and strengths, including the following examples.
- Mobile content consumption is rising, but it is new. As such, the tools for disseminating content for mobile phones are often harder to access and use than for an online audience.
- Mobile content is subject to more constraints than web content. For example, the screen is smaller and the data may cost more. As such, it is harder to produce mobile content well.
- Measuring the mobile audience can be difficult. Publishers and publications need to know how their audiences use mobile phones before deciding how to disseminate content, and this often takes much effort and time.
We have shared existing resources in this toolkit, but organizations may have to opt for their own user surveys. Resources for doing such surveys can be found in this discussion at the MobileActive.org discussion list.
MobileActive.org