Are Personal Media Devices the Next Frontier for Internet Marketers?
For nearly as long as media has been produced, producers have been looking for better ways to distribute their valuable content. Authors want more of their books printed. Musicians want their music played on more radio stations. Actors want their television show to play on the most popular network, or their film to be produced by the most capable studio. In this internet age, media distribution has definitely risen to an incredible new height… now media producers have the ability to reach millions of people over the internet, effectively bypassing traditional channels of distribution.
Even today, though, using the internet as a channel of distribution is considered traditional to a lot of marketers who rode the crest of the internet distribution wave when the web became easily accessible and widely used in most homes across America.
Today, the new standard for media accessibility is being set by a personal media device called the iPod Touch. Inspired by the popularity of Steve Job’s iPhone, the iPod Touch broadened Job’s market by allowing consumers to enjoy the best features of the iPhone without subjecting them to a wireless contract with AT&T. The iPod Touch accesses the internet through any wi-fi connection, as well as storing your favorite music, videos, podcasts, and pictures.
Next generation features
Here are the things about the iPod Touch that stand out and mark personal media devices as the next frontier… within the iPod’s Safari internet browser, you can:
- access embedded MP3 links, listening to the embedded files through the headset.
- read embedded PDF’s.
- watch embedded YouTube videos on the proprietary YouTube video player (can flash videos be very far behind?).
- surf the web as you listen to podcasts or other audios.
In a normal laptop browser, the ability to do these things is far from revolutionary. However, what we’re talking about here is the ability to do all of this on a wi-fi enabled personal media device that fits in your pocket.
Application for Marketers
What does a personal media device that has this kind of access to the internet mean for marketers? Honestly, the iPod Touch hasn’t reached enough of the market to be able to tell… yet. Let’s take a look at how information and internet marketers will be able to potentially take advantage of some of the features that the iPod Touch offers.
- Podcasters will be able to train their audiences to listen more actively. Podcast audios are often played “in the background” by listeners “on the go”… riding a bus or driving to work. With this device, now podcasters can reference specific web sites or examples as they speak, giving listeners the option to participate more actively if they wish to follow along.
- Owners of membership-style e-courses and websites will be able to advertise that their courses can be read, watched, or listened to on personal media devices, adding to accessibility for students.
- Information marketers can sell devices “preloaded” with applications, videos, bookmarks, or audios. You could sell an entire course or subject that’s been loaded on the device, and take advantage of the inclination to buy the device that customers may already have, based on the strength of that device’s brand.
From a marketing standpoint, personal media devices that make the internet so portable and accessible could mean big bucks for internet marketers… already, email-enabled wireless devices like the T-Mobile Sidekick or the Blackberry practically put email marketers right in the pockets of their prospects. Can you imagine your next video, podcast audio, ebook, or curriculum being that close?
Is now the time?
At the time of this writing, Apple has not created the ultimate personal media device. The iPod Touch still has several limitations… you can’t play embedded videos in the Safari browser unless they’re loaded on YouTube, for example. The availability of an unsecured wireless network is another factor, and the device is so new that it hasn’t penetrated enough of the market to determine how valuable this new accessibility can be.
What Apple has done is get people to reconsider the value of the personal media device. IPod Touch is certainly the benchmark for the industry to meet, at this time. The question is, how long will it take before marketers can start to assume that the audience they want to reach has adopted this technology?
At best guess, it could be another three to four years… possibly at least a year before a new device is released that trumps the iPod Touch, and then another couple of years to allow for penetration. At that point in time, I believe there will be a lot of money on the table for marketers who understand the incredible power of reaching an internet-savvy, on-the-go audience that has access to the marketing message directly in their pockets.
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Hi, I'm Chris! I'm a freelance internet developer and video engineer in the Seattle area, close to the University of Washington.
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