Was last year the year for mobile content? Will it be this year? Or what about next year? At eTel, Benjamin Keighran from BluePulse offered up an explanation for why mobile content hasn't taken off:
It's overly complex for producers to publish mobile content, and there's no one-stop-shop for services. On the other side, consumers want everything on their PC to be accessible on their phone. (Well, do they really? I'm not too sure.)
BluePulse claims that what's needed is a clean consumer interface to this content from their cell phones, and an easy, one-stop shop for producer services. They direct consumers to set up an account at the BluePulse web site, and then select the widgets that they want to use. (It wasn't clear from the talk, but I would expect that widgets could download to both your PC and your cell phone...or at least I hope they do, since the idea is to share content between these devices.)
In the last month, the BluePulse community has grown by 15% per day. The company offers free widget downloads, and consumers are checking them out. The company's SDK is coming soon, which will add appeal for producers - in theory, you could write your own widgets and people can download them, all without any carrier intervention.
Keighran is clearly earnest and excited about the impact BluePulse could create. I'm looking forward to the SDK to see how much they really could break carrier control on mobile content distribution.
Tags: christine herron christine.net spacejockeys space jockeys bluepulse technology widgets telephony o'reilly etel
