I was recently contacted by a writer working on a piece for Black Enterprise that wanted some short statements about business opportunities in the mobile scene, possibly because of the mobile hip hop channel on which I’m working. Unfortunately, my comments aren’t going to be included for various reasons, which happens periodically with such interviews. The reality is that writers start out with a plan and have to adjust to circumstances, which I fully understand.

Nevertheless, I think I got into some interesting territory before we had to cut things off. So here are some initial thoughts I developed about mobile business opportunities with an emphasis on small business folks, including why I’m trying to get in at this point:

For the moment, people really are just looking for what will work beyond voice, text messaging and ringtones and dealing with the fact that the phones and services are constantly improving.  So that means things like mobile video, which I’m getting into, are just starting to take off and have a long ways to go.  One of the big things I got out of attending the recent CTIA Wireless conference in San Francisco is that prices for video enabled mobile phones only recently dropped below a hundred bucks and that’s when the big players started seeing a substantial rise in subscriptions.

That said, I think we’re very much in the early stages and folks who are getting in now may not see a return on their investment anytime soon. But I think mobile content is going to be big and if you have content, finding a way to start getting it onto a mobile platform or at least preparing for that time is important.

I think there will be opportunities at all levels but I’m really fascinated right now by all the services emerging to get content online without going through the carriers because that’s what will allow lots of little guys to make their content available at this stage.  Actually there are announcements almost every week of new developments in that respect but it’s hard to sort out and keep up with, especially for content creators and people who haven’t been following developments. I try to post relevant press releases at Hip Hop Press, even when they aren’t specifically hip hop related, because I feel that hip hop business people will find that of use.

The big thing right now is to get in and figure out what’s happening, whether just keeping up with the news and checking out mobile apps or getting involved with a mobile project.

I got started providing a simple news feed for Mobile Lingo’s Hip Hoptionary app.  That gave me the opportunity to see what some of the limits are and to work with a company that could get their apps on the carriers’ platforms, which is a really big deal right now.  Working on that project, which is only now going public though we started back in the summer, allowed me to initiate a process of thinking through what kind of content I could provide.  So now I’m reaching out to folks and seeing if there’s sufficient interest among independent and small label hip hop artists for me to aggregate video clips for a mobile hip hop channel that would be available by subscription.  And I’m keeping up with developments and thinking everyday about what else might work.

In addition to things like getting one’s own content online and aggregating other people’s content, I think there’s a role for people who can help artists get their work on mobile platforms.  For example, someone could offer a service where they take an artist’s content and help them make the transition to a mobile platform.  So a musical group might have a cd and video that could then be repurposed for mobile tracks, ringtones, videos and so forth.  But not all content ports well to mobile phones, video being a great example of something that’s really different on a tiny screen.  So their role might be to facilitate that process with an awareness of not only what works on cell phones but also which outlets would be most appropriate for that content.

I think there will be a lot of opportunities for folks who can help small businesses look at what’s possible on mobile platforms and make that transition in a way that makes sense for that business.

I also think it’s important for people to establish a strong presence on the Internet and to understand the best way to present content online. Not only is that basic at this point, it also opens up the possibility of creating a WAP site and getting onto people’s phones from that angle. Though it’s always a pain to repurpose content, creating a free WAP site means that you can be an option for people with Internet enabled phones. Since a lot of people are getting their email on mobile devices, providing an email newsletter that’s short would be another way to have a mobile presence.

Of course, that opens up all sorts of possiblities for offering services that help folks with an online presence create related sites or newsletters for mobile users.  Since many online sites are ad supported via ad networks, as are my sites, the possiblity of developing ad networks for free mobile content also seems like an interesting possibility.

Right now it all seems kind of clunky and awkward and early which makes it exciting and a good time to establish a base for future growth.  In my own case, starting this mobile hip hop video channel is going to take a huge amount of work without any guaranteed payoff and I have more than enough of that happening already.  But I just can’t resist the opportunity to get in on the groundfloor.

If you’re interested in having your hip hop music video on the mobile hip hop channel that’s under development, check out the info and write me at:
mobile(at)prohiphop(dot)com

I’ll be sending out updated information in the next couple of weeks about where that’s going.