29 March 2010

MEF Executive Questionnaire #7: Jiella Esmat, Sony Pictures

MEF continues to seek new ways to profile its members and promote the thought-leadership of the senior executives within these companies. We are pleased to launch the MEF Executive Questionnaire to reveal the real people behind the industry in an informal and entertaining manner.

This will be a regular feature of the MEF blog, so make sure you subscribe via email or RSS. If you are a senior executive from one of our member companies and would like to be featured then please contact MEF Marketing Director, Stephen Jenkins.

The seventh in the series is from Jiella Esmat, Director Digital Expansion at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
1. Please describe briefly your main company activities and your role within that organisation
I look after cross platform digital distribution across all International markets. This is anything fro traditional licensing to preloads and new format deals for Sony Pictures film and TV content.

2. Without necessarily revealing any confidential information, please outline the principal business models your company uses.
We cover all digital distribution models including DTO, VOD, SVOD and FVOD.

3. What has been your company’s greatest achievement to-date?
I'm not in a position to say, there are many across the various divisions.

4. What is your company currently working on that is going to move the industry forward?
Mobile and cross platform digital initiatives including content licensing and partnerships. DECE, led by Sony, is also a big focus with an effort to standardise entertainment ecosystems and bring vast benefits to the consumer experience.

5. What is exciting you most in 2010 (either personally or professionally)?
The vast array of new mobile devices hitting the market with all incredible new audiovisual functionalities and Connected TVs, enabling consumers to stream content direct to their TV sets. I am also incredibly excited about Android and the vast opportunities it will hold for the industry.

6. What is the most important piece of technology in your life?
My iPhone, Mac and DAB Radio.

7. What mobile device(s) do you use?
iPhone and Blackberry.

8. What’s your favourite application?
Shazam.

9. What’s your ringtone?
Silent.

10. Which mobile industry blogs do you regularly read and why?
I read TechCrunch, PaidContent, Mobile News, and other general technology guides.

11. What is the biggest mobile content issue that is likely to affect the industry within the next 12 months?
DRM & cross functionality with other in-home CE devices.

12. Which other MEF member organisation do you most admire?
Qtel, RIM, Orange.

Sustaining the future growth of mobile data traffic


Last week, Ericsson revealed that mobile data traffic surpassed mobile voice calls on networks worldwide for the first time last December. Here, Rimma Perelmuter gives her views on the explosion of mobile data and the challenges the industry may face in sustaining future growth:

“The fact that mobile data has now overtaken voice calls worldwide shows how the entire mobile media value chain has worked together to offer consumers rich mobile services that they want to use. The kind of services really driving this growth today include applications, social networking and increasingly, rich multimedia content such as video and music.

MEF identified that growing consumer demand for data-heavy services will put greater pressure on networks, with flat rate data tariffs increasingly subjected to stringent download limits as part of MEF’s Top Ten Media Trends for 2010. To meet the continuing increase in consumer demand for data heavy mobile media services, the industry has already started to look at new and alternative business models as part of the MEF Enablers Initiative. Enabling services will be of fundamental importance to the mobile media industry, because they determine the quality of the user experience the industry can offer its consumers. With this in mind, MEF’s Enablers Initiative is creating an industry-wide framework of enabling services, which may include handset capabilities, credit status and location look up, which network operators can offer to third parties to enhance their content.

In addition, the Enablers initiative explores new business models that will need to be put into place in order to sustain and increase mobile data consumption. Once such model currently being trialed in the UK is sender pays data, which enables content providers to provide their content, whether it be video, an application or music, to the consumer without the consumer having to pay a data charge for it. It helps the operators cover the costs of the growing data traffic and to increase revenues in line with network loading. It also increases transparency and fosters consumer trust in mobile services and the brands who promote them.”

MEF Builds Long-term Collaboration with Leading Italian Institution

MEF has signed a 3-year Strategic Partnership agreement with the prestigious “Osservatori ICT & Management of the Politecnico di Milano School of Management”. The Politecnico School of Management is known for its expertise in the area of ICT research including mobile media.

The agreement will cover mutual support for the two organisations’ key annual events (including MeM, Meffys awards and the Milan Mobile Content & Internet convention) as well as cross-promotion of each other’s products and services. The Politecnico School of Management has established a reputation as an authoritative source of industry statistics, producing reports on the mobile media sector in Italy, Turkey and Brazil amongst others. The Politecnico School of Management has selected MEF as the official International Partner for its Mobile Content & Internet annual event in Milan for the past three years.

Over the last 12 months MEF has been involved in discussions with its Italian members on the introduction of an Italian self-regulatory code, CASP, and is continuing to monitor the impact of this as well as other regulatory changes on the Italian mobile media sector.

MEF will be liaising closely with the Politecnico School of Management on regional activities and recently published a report on Ad-funded Mobile Entertainment for the Italian market, with input from its Italian membership and contribution from the Politecnico School of Management.

Alberto Ciarniello, Vice Chairman MEF EMEA (2009-2010) with Telecom Italia VAS Marketing, says: “We’re delighted to announce this long-term strategic partnership with the Politecnico School of Management. The agreement follows several years of successful co-operation and formalises our ongoing collaboration for the benefit of MEF’s membership, the Politecnico School of Management and the mobile media industry.”

Andrea Rangone, Scientific Advisor for the Osservatori ICT & Management of Politecnico di Milano School of Management comments: “We are honoured that MEF – the most important association in the mobile media sector – has chosen our organization as the first university to become its strategic partner. We are also pleased to concretize through a long-term strategic agreement, our already consolidated and successful relationship. We believe that this collaboration will strengthen and further benefit both the organizations and the Industry as a whole; as well as enhance the diffusion of culture and knowledge on the mobile media sector."

22 March 2010

MEF Executive Questionnaire #6: Javier Lorente, Telefonica

MEF continues to seek new ways to profile its members and promote the thought-leadership of the senior executives within these companies. We are pleased to launch the MEF Executive Questionnaire to reveal the real people behind the industry in an informal and entertaining manner.

This will be a regular feature of the MEF blog, so make sure you subscribe via email or RSS. If you are a senior executive from one of our member companies and would like to be featured then please contact MEF Marketing Director, Stephen Jenkins.

The sixth in the series is from Javier Lorente, Global Project Manager - Mobile Data Group at Telefónica.

1. Please describe briefly your main company activities and your role within that organisation
Well, Telefónica is a well known Tier 1 operator, present in 25 countries, with 260 million customers. It is the 1st International integrated Telco operator by customer base, but also is among the 40 largest companies in the world by market capitalization – all markets.

My role in Telefónica is to deliver worldwide solutions for the Group, in the field of Mobile Data and Contents. I define, set up, and deploy services across all regions.

2. Without necessarily revealing any confidential information, please outline the principal business models your company uses
Telefónica’s main way to monetize its assets is by charging its customers in ‘the phone bill’, but has also other business models in the B2B space and even Venture Capital investments.

3. What has been your company’s greatest achievement to-date?
I think that Telefónica market and financial position is one of the best among the incumbent operators. Telefónica has spread a lot in the last 10 years with very smart strategic investments.

If I have to talk about the market I know better, the Spanish one, I would name the Corporate and prepay mobile services that were quite ahead the market and have allow Spain OB to keep an enviable position.

4. What is your company currently working on that is going to move the industry forward?
Convergence, convergence, convergence. Triple and quadruple play, 3-4 screens…

5. What is exciting you most in 2010 (either personally or professionally)?
This Global role that has brought me to the UK from the sunny Spain and all the movements around applications, where I’m involved are really two interesting challenges for this year!

6. What is the most important piece of technology in your life?
Mobile Phone for sure and the mobile broadband; I’m also fan of digital cameras, and hope to have some day a proper domotic system at home.

7. What mobile device(s) do you use?
Difficult to say, due to my work I used to change twice a month! Now I’m relying on a Touch Screen Samsung and a vintage Pocket PC from HP.

8. What’s your favourite application?
Maps and games

9. What’s your ringtone?
Coldplay or a very freak Spanish band I won’t mention.

10. Which mobile industry blogs do you regularly read and why?
Total Telecom and Telecompaper, they are not only mobile, but sometimes act for me as a one stop shop.

11. What is the biggest mobile content issue that is likely to affect the industry within the next 12 months?
We will see a lot of movement around the Applications, possibly changing the scenario with new announcements. This will be the year for Mobile Store Wars. I’m anxious to know who are the Jedis of this story, who are the Empire and the Rebels… and among all, who is Chewbacca? :)

12. Which other MEF member organisation do you most admire?
I have a deep respect for all organizations participating. All are good in what they do!

18 March 2010

MEF Responds to GetJar Study

Yesterday, a study from GetJar and Chetan Sharma Consulting predicted that mobile apps downloads will increase from more than 7bn downloads in 2009 to 50bn in 2012. It also projected that the global mobile application economy will be worth $17.5bn in 2012, more than CD sales, which it predicts will reach $13.83bn. What’s more, Google announced that the number of mobile apps on Android Marketplace have doubled to 30,000 in the past three months.

Here, Rimma Perelmuter, Executive Director of the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF), the global association of the mobile media industry, comments:

“The accelerating growth of the Android Marketplace and numerous apps stores confirms the rise of applications as a whole new medium for media content which is engaging and entertaining mobile consumers. The recent forecasts on the rise of the apps economy are supported by investment patterns and industry sentiment revealed in MEF’s Annual Business Confidence Index, which found that 21% of mobile entertainment revenues streams are predicted to come from mobile apps in the next quarter.

At the same time, numerous issues must be addressed including sustainable business models, fragmentation and variance amongst handsets and app stores, and transparency around in-app billing. MEF is working with the industry to address these opportunities and challenges in order for the mobile apps economy to fulfill its full potential. ”

Mobile Entertainment & Media Industry’s Global Awards 2010 ‘Meffys’ open for entries

The 7th Mobile Entertainment Awards, known as the ‘Meffys’, are now open for entries. The Meffys span the entire mobile entertainment & media industry, from apps to social media.

As the industry’s recognised global benchmark for measuring success and rewarding innovation, the Meffys honour the most influential players from around the world. Entries will be judged by leading journalists, analysts and VCs. The winners will be announced at a Gala dinner attended by the industry's most influential players on the evening before MeM on 21st June at The Grand Connaught Rooms in the famous Covent Garden.

Companies wishing to enter should visit www.meffys.com and submit their entries by 16th April 2009.

For highlights from the 2009 awards ceremony and a list of 2009 winners, please visit: www.meffys.com/about/2009-highlights

Reflecting the latest advancements in the rapidly evolving $36 billion global mobile media industry, this year’s Meffys will introduce six new categories including Content Discovery & Personalisation, Cross-Platform, App Store Blockbuster, M-Commerce and Mobile Connected Device. They not only reflect the growth in the number of apps and apps stores, such as the App Store Blockbuster Award that will recognise the best app on an individual app store, but also reflect current and future trends. Two such awards are the M-Commerce award and the Cross-Platform award, which reflect the 2010 trends identified by MEF at the beginning of the year.

In addition, the MEF board will once again present the Outstanding Contribution Award to a talented individual whose work has had a critical impact on the growth of the mobile entertainment industry.

Entering the Meffys 2010

MEF will be accepting entries for the 2010 Meffys awards from today. Companies interested in entering the awards or nominating a candidate for the Outstanding Contribution Award should go to the new Meffys website at www.meffys.com for full details. Entry costs have been frozen from last year and are as follows: £100 per entry for MEF members and £300 for non-members.

Meffys 2010 Categories:

  • Games Award
  • Music Service Award
  • TV & Video Service Award
  • Video Content Award
  • Content Discovery & Personalization Award
  • Cross-Platform Award
  • Social Media Award
  • Ad Campaign Award
  • App Store Blockbuster Award
  • Innovative App Award
  • Consumer Experience Award
  • Technology Innovation Award
  • Innovative Business Model Award
  • Mobile First Innovation Award
  • M-Commerce Award
  • Business Intelligence Award
  • Mobile Connected Device Award
  • Outstanding Contribution Award

15 March 2010

MEF Executive Questionnaire #5: Dominic Pride, The Sound Horizon

MEF continues to seek new ways to profile its members and promote the thought-leadership of the senior executives within these companies. We are pleased to launch the MEF Executive Questionnaire to reveal the real people behind the industry in an informal and entertaining manner.

This will be a regular feature of the MEF blog, so make sure you subscribe via email or RSS. If you are a senior executive from one of our member companies and would like to be featured then please contact MEF Marketing Director, Stephen Jenkins.

The fifth in the series is from Dominic Pride, CEO of The Sound Horizon.


1. Please describe briefly your main company activities and your role within that organisation
I’m the founder and CEO of The Sound Horizon, a consultancy which helps our customers create product strategies, manage innovation and come up with new services. When our customers need extra knowledge, brainpower and execution at the same time we’re there for them.

2. Without necessarily revealing any confidential information, please outline the principal business models your company uses.
We’re extremely flexible – as external consultants we have standard day rates - but we also like to have incentives for success, so we’ll also share the risk and upside in concepts we believe in. Our philosophy is to remain nimble, networked and neutral, bringing teams together for specific projects.

3. What has been your company’s greatest achievement to-date?
Going from a blank sheet of paper to getting the product in the hands of the customer in four weeks.

4. What is your company currently working on that is going to move the industry forward?
We’re bringing Agile techniques to the whole of the innovation process – strategy, business modelling, definition and marketing - and not just the build.

5. What is exciting you most in 2010 (either personally or professionally)?
Two things – the idea of the magazine and books industries suddenly “getting” mobile
-location-based services working properly and creating a whole slew of new services

6. What is the most important piece of technology in your life?
I love Douglas Adams’s definition of Technology as “a word that describes something that doesn't work yet." I can’t put my MacBook Pro in that category, but I’m very attached to it.

My favourite service is Dropbox- your documents anywhere. It’s what the cloud was invented for.

Anyone who had one of the first cassette Walkmans will marvel at wearing an iPod shuffle when running or in the gym.

7. What mobile device(s) do you use?
I have a Nokia N97 and an 8GB ipod touch. With a Vodafone 3G dongle I’m also as connected as I need to be when onsite with clients.

8. What’s your favourite application?
Tweetie on the iPhone and Gravity on the N97 are both very clever and robust Twitter clients which keep me on top of my inbound and outbound (@thesoundhorizon) tweets

9. What’s your ringtone?
“Born Slippy” by Underworld. Those first chords take me right back.

10. Which mobile industry blogs do you regularly read and why?
I get quite a few. Tomi Ahonen www.tomiahonen.com always has something insightful to say. Ewan McLeod’s Mobile Industry Review is always trenchant. Strategy Eye and Fierce Mobile Content are great for their take on the daily news.

11. What is the biggest mobile content issue that is likely to affect the industry within the next 12 months?
There’s the high-level issue of fragmentation of OS and platform. We can’t address this soon enough. Innovation and development talent and time are limited and will go where the usage and numbers are greatest.

Then there’s billing. Quite frankly we can’t monetise as a business unless we have painless and cost-effective cross-platform micro-billing.

Oh, and battery life.

12. Which other MEF member organisation do you most admire?
Shazam has had a great ride over the past couple of years and continues to thrive. It’s the app that defined a category and others are now following.

I also met the guys from Layar at the MEF party in Barcelona and glad they’re members. I think they’re on to something great with augmented reality.

08 March 2010

MEF Executive Questionnaire #4: Mark Kortekaas, BBC

MEF continues to seek new ways to profile its members and promote the thought-leadership of the senior executives within these companies. We are pleased to launch the MEF Executive Questionnaire to reveal the real people behind the industry in an informal and entertaining manner.

This will be a regular feature of the MEF blog, so make sure you subscribe via email or RSS. If you are a senior executive from one of our member companies and would like to be featured then please contact MEF Marketing Director, Stephen Jenkins.

The fourth in the series is from Mark Kortekaas, Controller Audio & Music & Mobile at the BBC.



1. Please describe briefly your main company activities and your role within that organisation
The BBC exists to enrich people’s lives with great programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain. It provides a wide range of distinctive programmes and services for everyone, free of commercial interests and political bias. They include television, radio, national, local, children’s, educational, language and other services for key interest groups.

My role is to coordinate Mobile and Audio/Music audience facing technology and trends.

2. Without necessarily revealing any confidential information, please outline the principal business models your company uses
We are a public service broadcaster in the UK entirely funded by the UK TV License fee.

3. What has been your company’s greatest achievement to-date?
We have been on mobile for a long time now, what continues to impress us is the increasing monthly usage from our audiences. Some content like sports we all ‘knew’ was going to work well in the space, but the continued usage of long form video via our iPlayer service is something to watch.

4. What is your company currently working on that is going to move the industry forward?
Examining how content moves between mobile, desktop and television in a seamless fashion

5. What is exciting you most in 2010 (either personally or professionally)?
Continued growth of location-aware services

6. What is the most important piece of technology in your life?
Blackberry

7. What mobile device(s) do you use?
N95, Blackberry and iPhone

8. What’s your favourite application?
Mapping, but I’m very impressed with the new google voice search – no more tapping out what you are looking for.

9. What’s your ringtone?
I tend to use what ever the default tone on the device is so I know which unit is ringing

10. Which mobile industry blogs do you regularly read and why?
I am still a bit of a die-hard techy – still watch Slashdot daily as I’ve done for years and hope something there flags me to everything I need to know.

11. What is the biggest mobile content issue that is likely to affect the industry within the next 12 months?
Network capacity issues

12. Which other MEF member organisation do you most admire?
Shazam for helping me figure out what is playing on the radio

01 March 2010

MEF Executive Questionnaire #3: Jonathan "JJ" Jowitt, Dolby.

MEF continues to seek new ways to profile its members and promote the thought-leadership of the senior executives within these companies. We are pleased to launch the MEF Executive Questionnaire to reveal the real people behind the industry in an informal and entertaining manner.


This will be a regular feature of the MEF blog, so make sure you subscribe via email or RSS. If you are a senior executive from one of our member companies and would like to be featured then please contact MEF Marketing Director, Stephen Jenkins.

The third in the series is from Jonathan "JJ" Jowitt, Senior Technical Marketing Manager at Dolby Mobile Content Solutions.


1. Please describe briefly your main company activities and your role within that organisation
Dolby is omnipresent in entertainment – in more than just audio. Dolby is: at the heart of all entertainment ; a trusted global brand; an inventor of world-class technologies; delivering end-to-end solutions; committed to listening to our customers and delivering on our promises.

Dolby at a glance:
  • 1,168 employees in 13 countries
  • Established over 45 years ago
  • Dolby technology in over 4.1 billion products
  • $720M in revenue FY 2009
  • 21.7% CAGR for the past 5 years
  • More than 1,600 patents and 640 trademark registrations worldwide
  • Nine Academy Awards® and eight Emmys®
My role is to be responsible for driving the penetration and stickiness of Dolby Mobile technologies from a content ecosystem angle. Dolby Mobile is a long-term strategy comprising of handset post-processing technologies for entertainment surround sound playback, codecs, and content preparation tools.

2. Without necessarily revealing any confidential information, please outline the principal business models your company uses:
Technology licensing is Dolby’s primary revenue generator

3. What has been your company’s greatest achievement to-date?
5.1 surround sound – although some might argue it was cassette tape noise reduction!

4. What is your company currently working on that is going to move the industry forward?
  • 3D technologies for Cinema, TV and beyond into devices.
  • Dolby voice technologies for clearer calls
  • And (of course) Mobile HD Surround Sound

5. What is exciting you most in 2010 (either personally or professionally)?
(Of course I have to say) Mobile HD Surround Sound, it’s amazing how immersive sound can compensate for the small screen on devices

6. What is the most important piece of technology in your life?
Mobile phones, Laptop

7. What mobile device(s) do you use?
Nokia N95, Nokia N73, LG Arena, iPhone 3GS

8. What’s your favourite application?
GPS enabled mapping

9. What’s your ringtone?
I was a partner in a small ringtone company, so I have a wide choice. But I tend to assign different tones to different contacts – it helps to know who’s calling when the device is in your pocket. Most favourites are Kill Bill 1 theme and TV them from Terry and June – it makes everybody smile.

10. Which mobile industry blogs do you regularly read and why?
Quite into
StrategyEye at the moment. Very personalisable and configurable

11. What is the biggest mobile content issue that is likely to affect the industry within the next 12 months?
The coming of the HD experience in 5.1 sound and pictures. It has the ability to make many lacklustre video/movie related channels achieve mass appeal and become quite addictive

12. Which other MEF member organisation do you most admire?
I still have a warm spot for Orange. I was lucky to have freedom to create products that achieved accolade, whilst not being burdened with too much bureaucracy.