Samsung has announced today that they will be bundling VoiceIndigo’s advertising supported Podcasting service with their phones. The first model to be shipped with the service will be the dual Samsung’s faced mp3 player/phone, UpStage.
VoiceIndigo service is a mobile application that downloads podcasts to your phone so you can listen to the whole thing, whether offline or online. The service can also automatically sync a channel of related content to your mobile phone. The application is currently supported on the Symbian platform with a WAP web client as well.
When a phone call comes in while VoiceIndigo Mobile is playing back your podcasts, you will see the Caller ID on your phone’s screen. If you choose to take the call, audio playback stops automatically. Depending on your phone, the podcast can resume after you hang up as well. VoiceIndigo can also be used as a desktop service, where you can download podcasts by URL or off iTunes.
There are a considerable amount of mobile podcasting services out there right now. Podcasting over a mobile phone seems like an attractive idea because of the number of mobile phones out there compared to mp3 players, but distribution and complicated mobile platforms make distribution a challenge.
VoiceIndigo’s distribution deal with Samsung puts it in a stronger position than most. Mobilecast is a similar service who also has several relationships with carriers such as Alltel and 3. However, they charge $3.99 per month for the service. VoiceIndigo is ad supported.
Two other services, Podlinez and Fonopods circumvent distribution and compatibility issues by delivering podcasts right over the phone.
Very funky. Suprised that this didn’t come sooner to be honest. Even from a third party.
David
http://www.MobileMarketingWatch.com
Comment by David — April 3, 2007 @ 12:46 am
Fonpods died in the qwest CLEC debacle.
http://foneshow.blogspot.com/2007/02/rip-fonpods.html
Comment by Erik Schwartz — April 3, 2007 @ 6:45 am
Good point, Eric.
Comment by Nick Gonzalez — April 4, 2007 @ 12:49 am
Way to go guys, you forgot about Nokia’s own podcasting application.
http://europe.nokia.com/A4160376
It works on any S60 3rd device (N73, N75, N76, N80, N91, N93, N95, E62, E70) and comes preinstalled on the N80i among others.
Forget being locked into a particular distribution channel, this app is based on standard OPML feeds listing podcasts. Don’t like their feeds, no problem, just add your own RSS feed or OPML list. It also supports AAC, 3GP and H.264 in addition to MP3. (only useful if your phone can play them).
Free, no ads, open standards…sounds like the kind of thing MobileCrunch would be quick to mention as competition for these business ventures.
Comment by notpeter — April 4, 2007 @ 7:46 am
Hi notpeter,
MobileCrunch wrote about Nokia’s solution last June. Has it evolved much since then?
Nokia’s solution works only on Symbian S60 3rd edition devices and is limited. I have doubts that their OTA capabilities work on anything slower than a decent wi-fi network. A small range of devices and limited network usability does not sound like a great way to serve the mainstream user at this time.
I have not seen Nokia’s app in a while, and I have enormous respect for them based on their company history during the last 15 years, but I suspect their solution is little more than a device centric RSS reader optimized for podcasts, with *no transcoding*, and no social networking capabilities built in.
Samsung Mobile Podcasts (powered by VoiceIndigo) is based on Open Standards and can run on a pretty wide range of devices.
Users are not locked into any distribution channel. With Samsung Mobile Podcasts, you can add any RSS feeds that are not already in the directory.
We also take additional measures to ensure a higher level of usability, such as OTA synchronization and choice of transcoding levels and formats most suitable for the listener’s phone and network.
We further enhance the user experience by enabling users to share channels and programs, and even interact with the podcaster.
Lastly, nothing in life is free (especially when looking at the aggregate of application, bandwidth, storage, and usability). We’ve decided to be proactive about it, and provide a form of advertising that is relevant, gentle, and actionable for the end user (www.VoiceIndigo.com/ambient). Ads are selectively placed. The Ambient Advertising paradigm not only ultimately provides a service for the end user, but compensates content providers for their works (www.VoiceIndigo.com/podcasters). Samsung Mobile Podcasts is a solution that addresses the needs of the entire ecosystem.
John Mayerhofer, VoiceIndigo
Comment by John Mayerhofer — April 4, 2007 @ 8:51 am
I’ve been refraining from weighing in on the work done at MC since my termination but this isn’t the first time that the current team has either missed something major that was covered previously when I was the author of MC or covered something as new without bothering to see if I had already written it up months before.
The above post and Nokia’s podcast application (which, incidentally, updates just fine OTA, even here in the US) is one example (which I covered last year as John noted), the recent write up of Kajeet is another.
The sad thing is I even wrote a YubNub “nublet” that makes searching MC right from the browser bar a snap. Actually, I also did the same thing for Digg River even though I’m not a big fan of the way that information is presented in that format.
For those that have been missing my analysis, I’m doing some blogging at http://guidewireconnection.com/oliver-starr and have some big things in the works and a major announcement is on the near horizon.
I have to say I genuinely miss writing this blog and hope that folks also miss having me as the author…
Oliver Starr
http://guidewireconnection.com/oliver-starr
Comment by Oliver Starr — April 4, 2007 @ 8:12 pm